[Footnote 27:  Ibid., pp. 486-489.]

[Footnote 28:  W.B.  Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England (Boston [1890]), II, 465.]

[Footnote 29:  G.H.  Moore, Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts (New York, 1866), pp. 66, 67, citing J.O.  Felt, Annals of Salem, 2d ed., II, 289, 290.]

Ships were frequently delayed for many months on the pestilent coast, for after buying their licenses in one kingdom and finding trade slack there they could ill afford to sail for another on the uncertain chance of a more speedy supply.  Sometimes when weary of higgling the market, they tried persuasion by force of arms; but in some instances as at Bonny, in 1757,[30] this resulted in the victory of the natives and the destruction of the ships.  In general the captains and their owners appreciated the necessity of patience, expensive and even deadly as that might prove to be.

[Footnote 30:  Gomer Williams, pp. 481, 482.]

The chiefs were eager to foster trade and cultivate good will, for it brought them pompous trappings as well as useful goods.  “Grandy King George” of Old Calabar, for example, asked of his friend Captain Lace a mirror six feet square, an arm chair “for my salf to sat in,” a gold mounted cane, a red and a blue coat with gold lace, a case of razors, pewter plates, brass flagons, knives and forks, bullet and cannon-ball molds, and sailcloth for his canoes, along with many other things for use in trade.[31]

[Footnote 31:  Ibid., pp. 545-547.]

The typical New England ship for the slave trade was a sloop, schooner or barkentine of about fifty tons burthen, which when engaged in ordinary freighting would have but a single deck.  For a slaving voyage a second flooring was laid some three feet below the regular deck, the space between forming the slave quarters.  Such a vessel was handled by a captain, two mates, and from three to six men and boys.  It is curious that a vessel of this type, with capacity in the hold for from 100 to 120 hogsheads of rum was reckoned by the Rhode Islanders to be “full bigg for dispatch,"[32] while among the Liverpool slave traders such a ship when offered for sale could not find a purchaser.[33] The reason seems to have been that dry-goods and sundries required much more cargo space for the same value than did rum.

[Footnote 32:  Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, LXIX, 524.]

[Footnote 33:  Ibid., 500.]

The English vessels were generally twice as great of burthen and with twice the height in their ’tween decks.  But this did not mean that the slaves could stand erect in their quarters except along the center line; for when full cargoes were expected platforms of six or eight feet in width were laid on each side, halving the ’tween deck height and nearly doubling the floor space on which the slaves were to be stowed.  Whatever the size of the ship, it loaded slaves if it could get them to the limit of its capacity.  Bosnian tersely said, “they lie as close together as it is possible to be crowded."[34] The women’s room was divided from the men’s by a bulkhead, and in time of need the captain’s cabin might be converted into a hospital.