I procured also an account of the exports and imports for the year 1786, by means of which I was enabled to judge of the comparative value of this and the other trades.

In pursuing another object, which was that of going on board the slave-ships, and learning their construction and dimensions, I was greatly struck, and indeed affected, by the appearance of two little sloops, which were fitting out for Africa, the one of only twenty-five tons, which was said to be destined to carry seventy and the other of only eleven, which was said to be destined to carry thirty slaves.  I was told also that which was more affecting, namely, that these were not to act as tenders on the coast, by going up and down the rivers, and receiving three or four slaves at a time, and then carrying them to a large ship, which was to take them to the West Indies; but that it was actually intended, that they should transport their own slaves themselves; that one if not both of them were, on their arrival in the West Indies, to be sold as pleasure-vessels, and that the seamen belonging to them were to be permitted to come home by what is usually called the run.

This account of the destination of these little vessels, though it was distressing at first, appeared to me afterwards, on cool reasoning, to be incredible.  I thought that my informants wished to impose upon me, in order that I might make statements which would carry their own refutation with them, and that thus I might injure the great cause which I had undertaken.  And I was much inclined to be of this opinion, when I looked again at the least of the two; for any person, who was tall, standing upon dry ground by the side of her, might have overlooked every thing upon her deck.  I knew also that she had been built as a pleasure-boat for the accommodation of only six persons upon the Severn.  I determined, therefore, to suspend my belief till I could take the admeasurement of each vessel.  This I did; but lest, in the agitation of my mind on this occasion, I should have made any mistake, I desired my friend George Fisher to apply to the builder for his admeasurement also.  With this he kindly complied.  When he obtained it he brought it me.  This account, which nearly corresponded with my own, was as follows:—­In the vessel of twenty-five tons, the length of the upper part of the hold, or roof of the room, where the seventy slaves were to be stowed, was but little better than ten yards, or thirty-one feet.  The greatest breadth of the bottom, or floor, was ten feet four inches; and the least five.  Hence, a grown person must sit down all the voyage, and contract his limbs within the narrow limits of three square feet.  In the vessel of eleven tons, the length of the room for the thirty slaves was twenty-two feet.  The greatest breadth of the floor was eight, and the least four.  The whole height from the keel to the beam was but five feet eight inches, three feet of which were occupied by ballast, cargo, and provisions, so that two feet eight inches remained only as the height between the decks.  Hence, each slave would have only four square feet to sit in, and, when in this posture, his head, if he were a full-grown person, would touch the ceiling, or upper deck.