THE CONFERENCE. 
225 
Commissioners , — If your people contract debts with 
the English, they must be made to pay them. 
Obi . — They shall be punished if they do not. 
Commissioners . — The Queen may send an agent? 
Obi . — If any Englishman comes to reside, I will 
shew him the best place to build a house, and render 
him every assistance. 
Commissioners . — Would you like to send one of 
your sons to England ? 
Obi . — I sent two persons* in the * Quorra,’ but 
* Mr. M^GrefTor Laird, December IStli, ]841, in reply to an 
official communication from the Foreign Office on this subject, states, 
that on the 10th of July, 1833, being then at anchor in the River 
Niger, about sixty miles above the town of Eboe, I received on board 
four native boys from the late Mr. Richard Lander, (who had borrowed 
them from King Obi to assist the crew of the row-boat in which he 
was ascending the river), for a passage to Eboe. On my arrival at 
Eboe on the 10th of August, two of the boys expressed a great desire 
to remain on board ; and on my visiting King Obi, I asked for them. 
They were readily given, and accompanied me to Fernando Po ; one 
of them I left there, the other I brought to this country, taught him 
to read, and kept him for two years or more as iny servant. His 
health not agreeing with the climate, I paid his passage to Fer- 
nando Po in the ' Golden Spring,* Captain Irving. As he proved 
useful on board that vessel, he was kept, and made one or t-wo 
voyages as steward ; he then entered the service of Mr. Oldfield, and 
I believe is now with that gentleman at Sierra Leone, and is known 
by the name of * Snowball.* Mr. Oldfield, who resided some years at 
Fernando Po, informed me that the other lad was comfortably settled, 
I forget under what name.** He, however, sent a fine lad with Cap- 
tain Trotter to learn English. He was a native of Bornu, and had 
been sold when a boy by the Nufi traders to the King of Iddah, and 
by him to Obi, who again sold him to the Nufi people. He was then 
VOL, I. 
Q 
