At this time, there were two mulattoes residing in the town, one of whom, by name Hooper, acted as interpreter to Adooley, and shared a good deal of his confidence.  He was born at Cape Coast Castle, in 1780, and was for many years a soldier in the African corps.  His father was an Englishman, and he boasted of being a British subject.  He was excessively vain of his origin, yet he was the most confirmed drunkard alive, always getting intoxicated before breakfast, and remaining in a soaking state all day long.  This did not, however, make him regardless of his own interest, to which, on the contrary, he was ever alive, and indeed sacrificed every other feeling.  The other mulatto could read and write English tolerably well, having received his education at Sierra Leone; he was a slave to Adooley, and was almost as great a drunkard as Hooper.  These drunken political advisers of the chief they had little difficulty in bribing over to their interests; they had likewise been tampering with several native chiefs, apparently with equal success.  Unfortunately every one here styled himself a great and powerful man, and Hooper himself calls a host of ragged scoundrels “noblemen and gentlemen,” each of whom he advised Lander to conciliate with presents, and especially spirituous liquors, in order to do away any evil impression they might secretly have received, and obtain their suffrages, though it should be at the expense of half the goods in their possession.  There is hardly any knowing who is monarch here, or even what form of government prevails; independently of the king of kings himself, the redoubtable Adooley, four fellows assume the title of royalty, namely, the kings of Spanish-town, of Portuguese-town, of English-town, and of French-town, Badagry being divided into four districts, bearing the names of the European nations just mentioned.

Toward the evening, they received an invitation from the former of these chieftains, who by all accounts was originally the sole governor of the country, until his authority was wrested from him by a more powerful hand.  He was then living in retirement, and subsisted by purchasing slaves, and selling them to Portuguese and Spanish traders.  They found in him a meek and venerable old man, of respectable appearance.  He was surrounded by a number of men and boys, his household slaves, who were all armed with pistols, daggers, muskets, cutlasses, swords, &c., the manufacture of various European countries.  In the first place, he assured them, that nothing could give him more pleasure than to welcome them to Badagry, and he very much wondered that they had not visited him before.  If they had a present to give him, he said, he would thank them; but if they had not, still he would thank them.  A table was then brought out into the court before the house, on which decanters and glasses, with a burning liquor obtained from the Portuguese, were placed.  In one corner of the yard was a little hut, not more than two feet in height, wherein had