130 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



toil, amid the wilds and barbarism of his native Africa. The 

 productive power of a labor directed by the civilized is en- 

 hanced in a wonderful proportion. 



I conclude with recommending that the trade in free negroes 

 be alone checked ; by causing a due investigation to be made 

 at the slave-factories on the coast of Africa of the methods em- 

 ployed to collect passengers. ' If some trusty negroes, who have 

 been attached for twenty years to plantations in the West In- 

 dies, were sent over to Africa to enlist voluntary recruits only, 

 they would, I doubt not, be followed back by whole nations of 

 their own accord. The slave-trade, properly so called, the 

 trade which redeems slaves to exalt them into vassals, is a benefit 

 to be encouraged by public premiums. Its continuance is of 

 value to the whole negro race, and is essential to the further 

 progress of agriculture, in the fertile but unpeopled tropical 

 portions of America. 



