instance of this appears in Astley’s collection, vol. 2. p. 73, where the author, speaking of the Mandingos settled at Galem, which is situated 900 miles up the Senegal, after saying that they carry on a commerce to all the neighbouring kingdoms, and amass riches, adds, “That excepting the vices peculiar to the Blacks, they are a good sort of people, honest, hospitable, just to their word, laborious, industrious, and very ready to learn arts and sciences.”  Here it is difficult to imagine what vices can be peculiarly attendant on a people so well disposed as the author describes these to be.  With respect to the charge some authors have brought against them, as being void of all natural affection, it is frequently contradicted by others.  In vol. 2. of the Collection, p. 275, and 629, the Negroes of North Guinea, and the Gold Coast, are said to be fond of their children, whom they love with tenderness.  And Bosman says, p. 340, “Not a few in his country (viz.  Holland) fondly imagine, that parents here sell their children, men their wives, and one brother the other:  but those who think so deceive themselves; for this never happens on any other account but that of necessity, or some great crime.”  The same is repeated by J. Barbot, page 326, and also confirmed by Sir Hans Sloane, in the introduction to his natural history of Jamaica; where speaking of the Negroes, he says, “They are usually thought to be haters of their own children, and therefore it is believed that they sell and dispose of them to strangers for money:  but this is not true; for the Negroes of Guinea being divided into several captainships, as well as the Indians of America, have wars; and besides those slain in battle, many prisoners are taken, who are sold as slaves, and brought thither:  but the parents here, although their children are slaves for ever, yet have so great love for them, that no master dares sell, or give away, one of their little ones, unless they care not whether their parents hang themselves or no.”  J. Barbot, speaking of the occasion of the natives of Guinea being represented as a treacherous people, ascribes it to the Hollanders (and doubtless other Europeans) usurping authority, and fomenting divisions between the Negroes.  At page 110, he says, “It is well known that many of the European nations trading amongst these people, have very unjustly and inhumanly, without any provocation, stolen away, from time to time, abundance of the people, not only on this coast, but almost every where in Guinea, who have come on board their ships in a harmless and confiding manner:  these they have in great numbers carried away, and sold in the plantations, with other slaves which they had purchased.”  And although some of the Negroes may be justly charged with indolence and supineness, yet many others are frequently mentioned by authors as a careful, industrious, and even laborious people.  But nothing shews more clearly how unsafe it is to form a judgment of distant people