I procured also an account of the exports and imports for the year 1786,
by means of which I was enabled to judge of the comparative value of
this and the other trades.
In pursuing another object, which was that of going on board the
slave-ships, and learning their construction and dimensions, I was
greatly struck, and indeed affected, by the appearance of two little
sloops, which were fitting out for Africa, the one of only twenty-five
tons, which was said to be destined to carry seventy and the other of
only eleven, which was said to be destined to carry thirty slaves. I was
told also that which was more affecting, namely, that these were not to
act as tenders on the coast, by going up and down the rivers, and
receiving three or four slaves at a time, and then carrying them to a
large ship, which was to take them to the West Indies; but that it was
actually intended, that they should transport their own slaves
themselves; that one if not both of them were, on their arrival in the
West Indies, to be sold as pleasure-vessels, and that the seamen
belonging to them were to be permitted to come home by what is usually
called the run.
This account of the destination of these little vessels, though it was
distressing at first, appeared to me afterwards, on cool reasoning, to
be incredible.
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