274 TlMEHRI. 
Prince of ORANGE. However, they write me that this 
very year navigation is to be made free. We shall see 
if it will be so. It has gone on so long, and they 
have promised so often, that I begin to doubt every 
thing. The negroes by this vessel have been sold at an 
exorbitant price, /400 and /450 w r as the common price, 
and many exceeded f6oo per head. A short time 
before, a vessel of the Commercial Company of Middle- 
burg was obliged to leave with her slaves without having 
sold any, because M. SPOORS would not take them at 
his own risk, and the Captain would not sell them 
otherwise. Would you believe it Sir ! Still there is 
nothing more true ; the vessel of DE BRUYN would have 
been obliged for the same reason to leave with her 
slaves for Curacoa, had I not done all in my power to 
oppose it, by assembling the Council and showing them, 
that if this vessel left without selling, we should likely 
remain ten years without another and the colony would 
be ruined in consequence. I prevailed so well by my 
speeches and persuasion that they resolved that the 
colony in general should take half the number at 
their own risk, and the other half at that of M. SPOORS, 
and so the sale was made. This is what these gentle- 
men the Directors, have permitted M. SPOORS to do as 
Sale-Master ; to take the sales at his own risk, or not, 
as he pleases, which is the true reason why we have 
been so many years without slaves, for Merchants will 
not risk their capital so lightly, and they are right. 
There is not a single Slave-Master in all our Republic 
and its Dependencies, who has this privilege, and I 
cannot think why it was granted, as by the sale he runs 
little or no risk seeing that he has according to our 
