Biographical Memoir of Barwi de Beauvois. 13 



gave him ; and soon after, fifteen sacrificed by the king him- 

 self. Filled with' horror at such sights, it was natural that he 

 should regard the slaves which were sold to the Christians, as 

 more fortunate than those that remained in the country ; and 

 if he had known that in Africa there is no free man who is not 

 liable to become a slave, either through the fate of war, or the 

 so frequently unjust judgments of the great; if he had read 

 the account lately given by Mr Bowdich, and seen those wretch- 

 ed creatures, who, before being sacrificed, have their cheeks and 

 shoulders cut with knives, and who are thus dragged, all cover- 

 ed with blood, amid the crowds of a populace filled with joy at 

 the sight ; if he had known, that, at a certain day, and at a given 

 signal, the King of the Ashantees, in order to procure the fa- 

 vour of the gods for his enterprises, causes to be suddenly 

 slaughtered not only all the slaves, but all the free men that are 

 met with in the streets, he would undoubtedly have extended 

 his opinion to all the inhabitants. 



He even thought that the slave trade, by giving value to men, 

 would engage the Negro princes to spare them, and that with- 

 out it these horrible cruelties would be multiplied to infinity ; 

 an opinion which seems confirmed by the discourse which the 

 king of the Ashantees himself held with the last embassy which 

 the English sent to him. •>". 



Thus, in his ideas, before the slave trade could be abolished, 

 without doing more harm than good to the African Negroes, it 

 would be necessary to begin with civilizing them, with giving 

 employment to the overplus of their population. It would be 

 necessary to destroy entirely among them the superstitions, 

 which would assume a more extended empire the moment* they 

 were no longer opposed by interest. On this point, therefore, 

 M. de Beauvois will not be taxed with inhumanity, and those 

 who may think his humanity ill directed, will respect his inten- 

 tions ; but, perhaps, the same indulgence will not be shewn for 

 the obstinacy with which he strove to withhold political right in 

 the colonies from the free Negroes, and even from the free men 

 of mixed colour. 



We cannot deny that he participated in the haughty preju- 

 dices of the whites against them, and that he acted and wrote 

 to support these prejudices. It was because, from what he had 



