The town’s talk of Liverpool was much of the same nature as that at Bristol on the subject of this trade.  Horrible facts concerning it were in every body’s mouth.  But they were more numerous, as was likely to be the case, where eighty vessels were employed from one port, and only eighteen from the other.  The people too at Liverpool seemed to be more hardened, or they related them with more coldness or less feeling.  This may be, accounted for, from the greater number of those facts, as just related, the mention of which, as it was of course more frequent, occasioned them to lose their power of exciting surprise.  All this I thought in my favour, as I should more easily, or with less obnoxiousness, come to the knowledge of what I wanted to obtain.

My friend William Rathbone, who had been looking out to supply me with intelligence, but who was desirous that I should not be imposed upon, and that I should get it from the fountain-head, introduced me to Mr. Norris for this purpose.  Norris had been formerly a slave-captain, but had quitted the trade and settled as a merchant in a different line of business.  He was a man of quick penetration, and of good talents, which he had cultivated to advantage, and he had a pleasing address both as to speech and manners.  He received me with great politeness, and offered me all the information I desired.  I was with him five or six times at his own house for this purpose.  The substance of his communications on these occasions I shall now put down, and I beg the reader’s particular attention to it, as he will be referred to it in other parts of this work.

With respect to the produce of Africa, Mr. Norris enumerated many articles in which a new and valuable trade might be opened, of which he gave me one, namely, the black pepper from Whidah before mentioned.  This he gave me, to use his own expressions, as one argument among many others of the impolicy of the Slave-trade, which, by turning the attention of the inhabitants to the persons of one another for sale, hindered foreigners from discovering, and themselves from cultivating, many of the valuable productions of their own soil.

On the subject of procuring slaves he gave it as his decided opinion, that many of the inhabitants of Africa were kidnapped by each other, as they were travelling on the roads, or fishing in the creeks, or cultivating their little spots.  Having learnt their language, he had collected the fact from various quarters, but more particularly from the accounts of slaves, whom he had transported in his own vessels.  With respect however to Whidah, many came from thence, who were reduced to slavery in a different manner.  The king of Dahomey, whose life (with the wars and customs of the Dahomans) he said he was then writing, and who was a very despotic prince, made no scruple of seizing his own subjects, and of selling them, if he was in want of any of the articles which the slave-vessels would afford him.  The history of this prince’s