116 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



trade in free negroes which alone they ought to aboHsh. The 

 slave-trade is a universal benefit. 



Piracies and kidnapping take place on the coast of Africa. 

 The grumetas, or free labourers there, and even persons of a 

 higher rank, are sometimes carried off by the force, or fraud, 

 of the negro crimps. I have by me a piece of Arabic writ- 

 ing, executed by a negro in the colony. I doubt not he was 

 a man of education and consequence in his native country. 

 He was a very clever, sensible man. In his own country he 

 was free, and said his father was a king. His owners, who 

 were planters in Berbice, elevated him to a confidential situ- 

 ation on their estate; and he never in the five years that he 

 had been with them when I left the colony, either betrayed 

 their confidence or forfeited their esteem. He was superior to 

 the general run of Africans, and more communicative. Al- 

 though in his own country he was high in rank, he avowedly 

 preferred his residence in Berbice. This fraudulent enth rai- 

 ment is a horrible injustice, best to be met by establishing a 

 strong police at the English factories in Africa ; and compel- 

 ling the slave-vessels to account for their passengers. The 

 seizing of free blacks, and reducing them to slavery is detest- 

 able oppression. As well might the people of Hayti come 

 and kidnap the merchants of Stabroek ; and sell them for 

 labourers on the Ohio, where the back-settlers begin to buy 

 indentured whites. i • 



