XI. ONA fairly with them, as friends and brothers. He has then opened a puncheon or two CHA P. of rum, and invited them to fit round and drink. At night, when he had got them thoroughly drunk, he has given the signal to his people in the craft, who have fecured SIERRA LE◄ all the party in fetters, and fold every one worth purchafing to fome flave-flip, all the while waiting at the river's mouth. (See 21.) This old proprietor did many fuch things. But the mulatto trader never used treachery, nor attacked a town without reafon; but the other plundered without diftinction.-Does the mulatto trader's fucceffor recover debts by the fame means that he used?—No, he is too eafy -Is it not unpleasant to carry on a trade fo full of enormities, as you describe the only to obtain flave-trade to be?—It is no doubt a bad trade, but it is very profitable. I hate it, and MÓNEY. would get out of it to-morrow, if I knew of one in which I could get the fame money*. 469. The following converfation occurred with a slavecaptain, who surpaffes most others in effrontery and hardness of difpofition. The exhibition of the moral effects of this traffic on the Europeans, in the opinion of the Directors, outweighs every objection to the recital of these dialogues. two towns. -A flave-veffel, which has waited fome time in the neighbouring river, ar- Panyaring rived here. The captain complains bitterly of this detention, obferving that, if he described. had been well manned, he would not have allowed the trader he dealt with to detain him thus; for that he would have carried off fome of the people from a large town near which his vessel lay.—I asked him if this was common.-O, not at all uncommon (said he) we do it every day on the Gold Coast. We call it "panyaring." If a native there does not pay fpeedily, you man your boat towards evening, and bid your failors go to any town, no matter whether your debtor's town or not, and catch as many people as they can. If your debt be large, it may be neceffary to "catch" After this, your debtor will foon compleat his number of flaves.-But what if he should not?-Why then we carry our prisoners away, to be fure.-But is this proper?-Neceffity has no law; befides panyaring is country law.-Did you ever recover debts, in this way?—Aye, many a time, and I hope to do so again. I wifh we had the fame law here that we have on the Gold Coast, or that the old mulatto trader was alive. He was a fine fellow for business: he never caufed any delay. But the prefent man is afraid to make a haul of the people: he wants a proper fpirit. How do you contrive to guard your flaves, with your flender crew?I put them all in leg-irons; and if these be not enough, why then I hand-cuff them; if hand-cuffs be too little, I put a collar round their neck, with a chain locked to a ring-bolt on the deck; if one chain won't do, I put two, and if two won't do, I put three; you may truft me for that.He afterwards very gravely affured me, that See Notes respecting S. Leona and Bulama, NOTE W. also § 142, Qu. VII. XII. XVI. XLVI. he CHA P. he never knew any cruelties committed.-But are not these things cruelties?-O ΟΝΑ, Slave-fhip cut off. Bloody infurre Єtions. 470. That the flave-trade fometimes brings fudden destruction on those immediately engaged in it, and that no severities can prevent these dreadful evils, the following accounts of the cutting off of flave-fhips, all in the neighbourhood of S. Leona, and most of them recent, will fufficiently testify. I have juft heard that an American brig, commanded by captain who I understand was outlawed in England, has been cut off by the flaves, 7 or 8 leagues, north of Cape S. Leona. A fingle flave began the attack, rushed into the cabin, laid open the captain's face and breaft with an axe, and feverely wounded a a passenger. As the feamen made no refiftance, they were permitted to go off, with the wounded, in the boat. The captain died. The ship was retaken by a Liverpool vessel, after an encounter in which some of the flaves were killed. 471. It is but candid to premise to the following account, (1.) that the extraordinary war here spoken of, appears not to have arisen out of the flave-trade.-The Directors cannot approve the pride and difdain of life which seem to have actuated the captive chief, who headed one of the infurrections, about to be mentioned. The impoffibility of preventing fuch bloody scenes, not the motives of the actors, is the point to be illuftrated. One or two other recent instances, fimilar to the following, have been mentioned to the Court; but the particulars have not been transmitted. (1.) I have got confiderable light into the hiflory of Mahady, the famous Mahometan prophet, who appeared in thefe parts, with an immenfe concourse of followers, about three years ago. When he was killed, his generals contended for the maftery, and one of them, being taken by his antagonist, was immediately fold to a French flave-fhip, lying off a factory near S. Leona. There he behaved with a fullen dignity, and, even in chains, addreffed his fellow flaves, in his wonted tone of authority. I heard this from a flave-trader, who had feen him both as a great chief or general, and as a prifoner on board a flave-fhip. The flave-trader, and the captive chief, mutually recognized each other. On the fame day, when the flavetrader was on board, it happened that the chief was permitted to walk on deck, with Out XI. ONA, out his fetters. No fooner had the captain and his friends fat down to dinner than CHA P. a fignal was given. The flaves rofe to a man, knocked off each other's fetters, and, headed by the chief, attacked the barricade. But they failed. The guns were SIERRA LE pointed at them, fome were killed, many leaped into the fea, and the infurrection was quelled. The captain enquiring for the ringleader, the chief came boldly forward and avowed that he was the man; that he wished to give liberty to all the flaves on board; that he regretted his defeat on their account; but that, as to himself, he was well fatisfied with the prospect of immediately obtaining, what he termed his own liberty. The captain hung him up instantly to the yard-arm. (2.) A veffel brought an account of the cutting off of a Bofton flave-fhip, by about 40 flaves. Being only fingle-ironed, they cut to pieces the second mate and a seaman on deck, while the captain and most of the crew were below. They then attacked the cabin; but, being unable to force the door, they pointed the guns at it. The captain and the crew then furrendered, on condition that their lives fhould be fpared, and the fhip given them, when they should have navigated her into fome place, whence the flaves might escape. The captain and the chief mate, however, were killed; but the men were spared to navigate the fhip. In fteering towards a neighbouring river, she ran aground. Three feamen were fent in the boat, to drop an anchor aftern; but,. pulling to the fhore, they brought a flave-trader, with as many hands as he could get, in an armed schooner. An obftinate engagement ensuing, the flave trader had 3 men killed and 4 wounded. The flaves having expended their ammunition, formed a raft, on which they got on fhore; and, on taking poffeffion of the ship, it was found that feveral of them had also fallen. Of the flaves who got on fhore, fome were immediately killed; the rest, being 18, were at length overpowered by the natives, whom the noise of the firing had collected, and were fold again for flaves. 472. The following is a sketch of the origin, progrefs and end of an European flave-trader, who lately died at an ifland near S. Leona, and who seems to have attained to a degree of ferocity and hardness of heart, proportionate to his fuccefs in that bloody traffic. As he appears to have neither friend nor connection left, the Directors need not conceal his name, which was Ormond. He went from England, about 35 years ago, as a cabin-boy to a slave-fhip, and was retained, as an affistant at a flave-factory on S. Leona river. There he acquired a knowledge, which qualified him for setting up a slave-factory afterwards for himfelf, in a neighbouring part towards the north, and, though unable to write or read, he became fo expert a fiave-trader, that he realized, as is fuppofed, about £80,000. His cruelties were almoft incredible. Two perfons who feem to have had good means Some ac- count of one murderous flave-factor of ONA. CHA P. of information, give the following account of them.-One of them, who lived for XI. fome time near Ormond, said he knew it to be a fact, that he used to tie ftones to SIERRALE the necks of his unfaleable flaves, and drown them in the river, during the night; and that his cruelty was not confined to blacks; for, being offended by a white agent, one Christmas day, when drinking freely with fome company, he made his flaves tie up the European, and gave him, with his own hands, 400 lashes, from which he died in a few days.--The other person allowed his general character for barbarity, and added that he was told by an eye-witness, that Ormond having caught a black wife of his in a criminal converfation with one of his flaves, he burnt them both to death with a tar-barrel. This favage had attained to the fame truft with the Africans, in witchcraft and grifgris, or charms, and was subject to filly, superstitious fears Providence having permitted this man to become an abandoned and fuccefsful slave trader, was pleased also to allow him to experience a reverse of fortune. A few years ago, having loft his health, he went to the Ifle de Los, for the fake of fea air and medical help, leaving his affairs under the care of a mulatto who was his fon. Happening to have recently destroyed one of the towns of the Bagos, who furround his factory, they took this opportunity to retaliate. Ormond's flaves, having been little attached to him, favoured the Bagos, and the place being taken, they shared the plunder. The buildings were all burnt, and the goods in them, amounting, it is faid, to the value of 12 or 1500 flaves (near £30,000 fler.) were either deftroyed or carried away. Young Ormond and all his adherents were put to death. "Old Ormond lived to hear the news; but died in about a month after.— Account of the difperfion of the first colony at S. Leona. The character of this man exhibits an inftance of the great influence of the flave-trade in depraving the human heart. It also fhows what crimes have been perpetrated with impunity, by British subjects, in Africa; and what inftruments Great Britain has used, in carrying on this detestable commerce.-The Directors, however, did not impute equal atrocities to the generality of flave-traders. Yet they think it right to add, that other instances might, if necessary, have been given, of very nearly the fame guilt and cruelty. 473. Of the direct hindrance of the flave-trade to the civilization of Africa, the dispersion of the first colony of free blacks, affords an interesting, and indeed rather a discouraging, inftance. (See § 335) The circumftances which led to that event are as follow: A chief XI. ONA. A chief living within half a mile of Freetown (which is on the fpot, where the CHAP free blacks from London originally fettled, § 382) had loft, as he affirms, two perfons of his town, by the depredations of an American flave-captain, and had been SIERRA LEwaiting for an opportunity of retaliating on fome vessel from that country. This opportunity occurring, he attacked the boat of an American fhip, paffing up the river, and plundered her, killing her crew, confifting of three or four men, except one, who escaped with the news to the flave-factory, whither the boat was going. The factor, confulting with the officers of a frigate then in the river," refolved to avenge the outrage. After two or three days, in which some vain attempts were made to induce the chief to come on board the frigate, the flave-factor, with a lieutenant and a body of British failors and marines, fet out to the chief's town, two free blacks from the new colony being their guides, a fervice to which, they say, they were compelled. On the approach of this armed body, the chief and his people fled, and the town was plundered and burnt. But the party, returning in the evening, were fired on, from among the bushes. A skirmish enfued, in which some natives are faid to have fallen on the one fide, and the lieutenant and a ferjeant of marines, were killed on the other, a few also being flightly wounded. The chief, after this, often vowed farther retaliation: but happily, the principal object of his rage, the flave-factor, foon after quitted the coaft. The factory, which is on an ifland at fome distance in the river, and well fortified, fuffered little from the confequences of these outrages; but they were fatal to the unprotected colony. A palaver of the chiefs was called, who, following the African mode of wild retaliation, determined to burn the town of the colonists, because two individuals belonging to it were among the hoftile party. This dreadful fentence was executed within three days. It is but just to say, that the flave-factory afforded feveral of the colonists a temporary protection and support, in the first preffure of their distress. threatens e very colony dangers. 474. This recital deserves notice, not only as an expla- slave-trade nation of the dispersion of the first Sierra Leona colony, but as a specimen of one of the kinds of danger to which with fimilar every new colony in Africa must be more or less exposed, while furrounded by the flave-trade. An outrage is, or is supposed to be, committed by a flave-captain; the natives blindly and bloodily retaliate; the slave-factory interferes; and the adjoining little colony is involved in the confequences. Such accidents are inherent in the flave-trade; they grow out of it's ordinary enormities; they accord with it's unjust and ferocious fpirit: for the indifcriminate |