of the slave-merchants, had expressed, in a moment of reason, a due sense of his own crime, and had reproached his Christian seducers.  Abundant also were the instances of private rapine.  Individuals were kidnapped, whilst in their fields and gardens.  There was an universal feeling of distrust and apprehension there.  The natives never went any distance from home without arms; and when Captain Wilson asked them the reason of it, they pointed to a slave-ship then lying within sight.

On the windward coast, it appeared from Lieutenant Story and Mr. Bowman, that the evils just mentioned existed, if possible, in a still higher degree.  They had seen the remains of villages, which had been burnt, whilst the fields of corn were still standing beside them, and every other trace of recent desolation.  Here an agent was sent to establish a settlement in the country, and to send to the ships such slaves as he might obtain.  The orders he received from his captain were, that “he was to encourage the chieftains by brandy and gunpowder to go to war, to make slaves.”  This he did.  The chieftains performed their part in return.  The neighbouring villages were surrounded and set on fire in the night.  The inhabitants were seized when making their escape; and, being brought to the agent, were by him forwarded to his principal on the coast.  Mr. How, a botanist in the service of Government, stated, that on the arrival of an order for slaves, from Cape Coast Castle, while he was there, a native chief immediately sent forth armed parties, who brought in a supply of all descriptions in the night.

But he would now mention one or two instances of another sort, and these merely on account of the conclusion, which was to be drawn from them.  When Captain Hills was in the river Gambia, he mentioned accidentally to a Black pilot, who was in the boat with him, that he wanted a cabin-boy.  It so happened that some youths were then on the shore with vegetables to sell.  The pilot beckoned to them to come on board; at the same time giving Captain Hills to understand, that he might take his choice of them; and when Captain Hills rejected the proposal with indignation, the pilot seemed perfectly at a loss to account for his warmth; and drily observed, that the slave-captains would not have been so scrupulous.  Again, when General Rooke commanded at Goree, a number of the natives, men, women, and children, came to pay him a friendly visit.  All was gaiety and merriment.  It was a scene to gladden the saddest, and to soften the hardest heart.  But a slave-captain was not so soon thrown off his guard.  Three English barbarians of this description had the audacity jointly to request the general, to seize the whole unsuspicious multitude and sell them.  For this they alleged the precedent of a former governor.  Was not this request a proof of the frequency of such acts of rapine? for how familiar must such have been to slave-captains, when three of them dared to carry to a British officer of rank such a flagitious proposal!  This would stand in the place of a thousand instances.  It would give credibility to every other act of violence stated in the evidence, however enormous it might appear.