[Footnote 42:  Snelgrave, Guinea and the Slave Trade, p. 159.]

[Footnote 43:  H.C.  Carey, The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign (Philadelphia, 1853), chap. 3.]

In selling the slave cargoes in colonial ports the traders of course wanted minimum delay and maximum prices.  But as a rule quickness and high returns were not mutually compatible.  The Royal African Company tended to lay chief stress upon promptness of sale.  Thus at the end of 1672 it announced that if persons would contract to receive whole cargoes upon their arrival and to accept all slaves between twelve and forty years of age who were able to go over the ship’s side unaided they would be supplied at the rate of L15 per head in Barbados, L16 in Nevis, L17 in Jamaica, and L18 in Virginia.[44] The colonists were for a time disposed to accept this arrangement where they could.  For example Charles Calvert, governor of Maryland, had already written Lord Baltimore in 1664:  “I have endeavored to see if I could find as many responsible men that would engage to take 100 or 200 neigros every year from the Royall Company at that rate mentioned in your lordship’s letter; but I find that we are nott men of estates good enough to undertake such a buisnesse, but could wish we were for we are naturally inclined to love neigros if our purses could endure it."[45] But soon complaints arose that the slaves delivered on contract were of the poorest quality, while the better grades were withheld for other means of sale at higher prices.  Quarrels also developed between the company on the one hand and the colonists and their legislatures on the other over the rating of colonial moneys and the obstructions placed by law about the collection of debts; and the colonists proceeded to give all possible encouragement to the separate traders, legal or illegal as their traffic might be.[46]

[Footnote 44:  E.D.  Collins, “Studies in the Colonial Policy of England, 1672-1680,” in the American Historical Association Report for 1901, I, 158.]

[Footnote 45:  Maryland Historical Society Fund Publications no. 28, p. 249.]

[Footnote 46:  G.L.  Beer, The Old Colonial System (New York, 1912), part I, vol.  I, chap. 5.]

Most of the sales, in the later period at least, were without previous contract.  A practice often followed in the British West Indian ports was to advertise that the cargo of a vessel just arrived would be sold on board at an hour scheduled and at a uniform price announced in the notice.  At the time set there would occur a great scramble of planters and dealers to grab the choicest slaves.  A variant from this method was reported in 1670 from Guadeloupe, where a cargo brought in by the French African company was first sorted into grades of prime men, (pieces d’Inde), prime women, boys and girls rated at two-thirds of prime, and children rated at one-half.  To each slave was attached a ticket bearing a number, while a corresponding ticket was deposited in one of four boxes according to the grade.  At prices then announced for the several grades, the planters bought the privilege of drawing tickets from the appropriate boxes and acquiring thereby title to the slaves to which the numbers they drew were attached.[47]