Liberia ^ 



" ' I put them in leg-irons ; and if these be not enough, 

 why, I handcuff them ; if handcuffs be too Httle, I put a 

 collar round their neck, with a chain locked to a ringbolt on 

 the deck ; if one chain won't do, I put two, and if two won't 

 do, I put three — you may trust me for that.' 



" He afterwards very gravely assured me that he never knew 

 any cruelties committed. 



" * But are not these cruelties ? ' 



" * Oh no ! these are not cruelties ; they are matters of 

 course ; there's no carrying on the trade without them.' 



" The following is a sketch of the origin, progress, and 

 end of a European slave trader who lately died at an island 

 near Sierra Leone, and who seems to have attained to a degree 

 of 'ferocity and hardness of heart proportionate to his success 

 in that bloody traffic. As he appears to have neither friend 

 nor connection left, the Directors [of the Sierra Leone Company] 

 need not conceal his name, which was Ormond. 



" He went from England about thirty-five years ago (i.e. 

 about 1758) as a cabin boy to a slave ship, and was retained 

 as an assistant at a slave factory at Sierra Leone River. There 

 he acquired a knowledge which qualified him for setting up 

 a slave factory afterwards for himself in a neighbouring part 

 towards the north [Rio Pongo], and, though unable to write 

 or read, he became an expert slave trader, so much so that 

 he realised about ^30,000. His cruelties were almost incredible. 

 Two persons who seem to have had good means of information 

 give the following account of them. One of them, who lived 

 for some time near Ormond, said he knew it to be a fact that 

 he used to tie stones to the necks of his unsaleable slaves, and 

 drown them in the river during the night ; and that his cruelty 

 was not confined to blacks, for, being offended by a white 

 agent one Christmas day, when drinking freely with sorrje 



i?9 



