To mark still more forcibly the scenes of misery, to which the Slave-trade gave birth, he would mention a case stated to him in a letter by King Naimbanna.  It had happened to this respectable person, in no less than three instances, to have some branches of his family kidnapped, and carried off to the West Indies.  At one time three young men, Corpro, Banna, and Marbrour, were decoyed on board a Danish slave-ship, under pretence of buying something, and were taken away.  At another time another relation piloted a vessel down the river.  He begged to be put on shore, when he came opposite to his own town; but he was pressed to pilot her to the river’s mouth.  The captain then pleaded the impracticability of putting him on shore; carried him to Jamaica; and sold him for a slave.  Fortunately, however, by means of a letter, which was conveyed there, the man, by the assistance of the governor, was sent back to Sierra Leone.  At another time another relation was also kidnapped.  But he had not the good fortune, like the former, to return.

He would mention one other instance.  A son had sold his own father, for whom he obtained a considerable price:  for, as the father was rich in domestic slaves, it was not doubted that he would offer largely for his ransom.  The old man accordingly gave twenty-two of these in exchange for himself.  The rest, however, being from that time filled with apprehensions of being on some ground or other sold to the slave-ships, fled to the mountains of Sierra Leone, where they now dragged on a miserable existence.  The son himself was sold, in his turn, soon after.  In short, the whole of that unhappy peninsula, as he learnt from eye-witnesses, had been desolated by the trade in slaves.  Towns were seen standing without inhabitants all over the coast; in several of which the agent of the Company had been.  There was nothing but distrust among the inhabitants.  Every one, if he stirred from home, felt himself obliged to be armed.

Such was the nature of the Slave-trade.  It had unfortunately obtained the name of a trade; and many had been deceived by the appellation.  But it was war, and not trade.  It was a mass of crimes, and not commerce.  It was that which prevented the introduction of a trade in Africa; for it was only by clearing and cultivating the lands, that the climate could be made healthy for settlements; but this wicked traffic, by dispersing the inhabitants, and causing the lands to remain uncultivated, made the coast unhealthy to Europeans.  He had found, in attempting to establish a colony there, that it was an obstacle, which opposed itself to him in innumerable ways; it created more embarrassments than all the natural impediments of the country; and it was more hard to contend with, than any difficulties of climate, soil, or natural disposition of the people.