BOOK iir. CHAP. II. 387 



decline or ruin of thofe petty kingdoms which had ufed to traffic 

 with them, the demand grew lels and lels, until the Ncgroe pro- 

 vinces had no communication left, except with their neighbours, 

 the Arabs and Moors. 



The want of more extenfive vent for their fuperfluous people, 

 occafioncd thofe horrid methods of diminiQiing them, of which we 

 read in hiftory, by facrificing them to their tettiflies and great men j 

 butchering their captives in war, and, in moft of the provinces, 

 devouring human flefli ; which perhaps fupplied them with a per- 

 manent kind of food, and made it lefs neceffary for them to break 

 through their natural abhorrence of labour, and take the pains 

 either of cultivating the earth, or laying up provifions againft un- 

 feafonable years. Man's fiefli was then in fuch cheap eftimation 

 among them, that they would give ten or twelve flaves for a horfe : 

 Labat cites an example of one being fold for forty flaves. 



"The Portuguefe, who were the earlieft Europeans of the modern 

 ages that had any intercourfe with thefe people, and firft came 

 among them about the year 1450, found flaves an eftablifl-sed article 

 of their inland commerce with one another, and hence conceived 

 the idea of turning this local medium of traffic to account, by pur- 

 chafing flaves to work their mines in South America. It is not 

 improbable too that they thought it a meritorious aft to refcue fo 

 many human vidims from fuffering death and torture, under fuch 

 idolatrous and favage cuftoms ; and thus make their private gain 

 compatible with the fuggeftions of humanity and religion. 



It was the South-wefl: part which the Portufruefe firfl: crew 

 acquainted with. iMany years pafled before the Englilh entered 

 into the flave trade j in 162 1, when captain Jobfon touched at the 

 river Gambia in the North-wefl part, the inhabitants offered him 

 feveral flaves in exchange for goods; but he refufed, alledging 

 " that the Engiifli did not trade in themj" for a long time after, 

 this traffic was regularly adopted by many of the different European 

 ftates, fo abundant were flaves, and io eager the natives to furnifli 

 themfelves with brandy, trinkets, and other novelties, that, even in 

 1730, Snelgrave tells us, he purchaftd a child for a bunch of beads, 

 worth no more than half a crown. But, to fpeak of the prefent 



D d d 2 flate 



