Was employed, from 1790 on, in the slave trade, by W. S., merchant of Bristol.  Must have made as many as a dozen passages before leaving him and shipping on the Mary Pynsent, Pink, Bristol-owned by a new company of adventurers.  She was an old boat, and known to me, but not the whole story of her.  I signed as mate.  We were bound for the W. Coast, about 50 leagues E. of Cape Corse Castle, with gunpowder and old firearms for the natives, that were most always at war with one another.  Ran coastwise and touched at three or four places on the way, and at each of them peddled powder and muskets, the muskets being most profitable, by reason the blacks have no notion of repairing a gun.  So we, carrying a gunsmith on board, bought up at one place the guns that wanted repairs, and sold them at the next for new pieces.  In this way we came to our destination, which was the mouth of a river full of slime and mosquitoes, and called the Popo River.  There a whole tribe of niggers put out to receive us.

They knew the Mary Pynsent, and worse luck.  Her last trip, when owned by Mr. W. S., aforesaid, she had sold them 1500 kegs of sifted sea-coal dust, passing it off for gunpowder, and had made off with 7000 pounds worth of gold dust, besides ivory, white and black, before they discovered the trick.  We being without knowledge of what had happened, and having real gunpowder to sell, let the niggers swarm on board, and welcome.  Whereupon, in revenge for past usage, they attacked us on the spot and clubbed all the crew but me, that was getting out the boat under the seaward quarter and baling her, but dived as soon as the murder began, and swam to the shore.  The shore was mudbanks and reeds and mangroves, and all sweating with heat and mosquitoes.  I spent that day in hiding.  Towards sunset the savages rafted a good third of the cargo ashore, and, having stacked the kegs and built a fire about them, started to dance, making a silly mock of the powder, till it blew up.  Which it did, and must have killed hundreds.

I heard the noise of it at about two miles’ distance, having crept out of my hiding when I saw them busy, and started to tramp it along shore to Cape Corse Castle.  I had no food, and must have died but that next morning I fell in with a tribe that seemed pleased to see me; which was lucky, me having no strength left to run.  They took me to their kraal, a mile inland, and to a hut where was a man lying in a fever.  He was a man covered with dirt and vermin, but at first sight of his face I knew him to be a white man and English.  Ever since my first voyage to these parts I carried a small box in my pocket, filled with bark of Peru, which is the best cure for coast fever.  I took out some of this bark and managed to make myself understood that I wanted a fire lit and some water fetched; boiled up the bark and made him drink it.  After that I nursed him for three days before he died.