800 PROFESSOR SMITH’S JOURNAL. 
put him to death; but every one most readily will lend his 
wife to his neighbour for a very trifling consideration. 
Some of our gentlemen had thoughts of hiring a house ;_ but 
the distance from the vessel was considered to be too great, 
and the Captain did not by any means approve of it. 
A long deliberation had taken place among the King’s 
advisers; after which we again assembled. ‘The Captain 
repeated what he had said before. One of the sons of the 
King was the person who showed most uneasiness, distrust, 
and coldness during the whole deliberation. At length, 
an old man, uncle of the King, who commonly communi- 
cates the resolutions of the assembly, and who had voted 
with Simons in our favour (Simons had been called upon 
by them to take the oath), broke leaf, which is the symbol 
of peace and amity, with the Captain; implying, that they 
believed that he had come on friendly purposes, &c. The 
most interesting personage was the father of Simons. He 
had given his son in charge to a trading slave captain, of 
Liverpool, in order to be educated in England ; but instead 
of this, the boy had been sold by this captain in the West 
Indies, where be had suffered many hardships: from 
which he escaped by getting on board a King’s ship, from 
which he was by mere accident sent on board the Congo. 
The father, after waiting for his return eleven years, during 
which time he had made many inquiries for him in vain, 
had now unexpectedly got intelligence of his being with 
us, and came on board the first evening of our arrival near 
Loomba. His excessive joy, the ardour with which he 
hugged his son in his arms, proved that even among this 
