nutes, and often before they come on board, they know, with certainty, whether she be from Bristol, Liverpool, or London.
Retaliation on their parts, furnishes a plea for reprizal on ours. Thus, in one place or another, trade is often suspended, all intercourse cut off, and things are in a state of war; till necessity, either on the ship's part, or on theirs, produces overtures of peace, and dictates the price, which the offending party must pay for it. But it is a warlike peace. We trade under arms; and they are furnished with long knives.
For, with a few exceptions, the English and the Africans, reciprocally, consider each other as consummate villains, who are always watching opportunities to do mischief. In short, we have, I fear too deservedly, a very unfavourable character upon the Coast. When I have charged a Black with unfairness and dishonesty, he has answered, if able to clear himself, with an air of disdain, "What! do you think I am a White Man?"
Such is the nature, such are the concomitants, of the Slave Trade; and such is the school in which many thousands of our Seamen
