316 HISTORY OF THE [book m 
good mind may honestly derive some degree of 
consolation, in considering that all such of the 
wretched victims as were slaves in Africa, are, by 
being sold to the whites, removed to a situation in¬ 
finitely more desirable, even in its worst state, than 
that of the best and most favoured slaves in their 
native country. It is, on all hands, admitted that 
the condition of those poor people, under their own 
governments, is the most deplorable that we can 
conceive a human creature to be subject to. They 
have no security for property, nor protection for 
their persons 3 they exist at the will and caprice of 
village was attacked by a party of Fantees, who came in the nighg 
and set fire to the houses, and killed most of the inhabitants with guns 
and cutlasses—-particularly the old. The young people they took pri¬ 
soners, and afterwards sold him and two others, for a piece of gold 
called ska, to a black merchant who carried them to the Fantee coun¬ 
try.—He was afterwards sold or transferred over to six different black 
purchasers; the last of whom carried him down to the sea coast, and 
sold him on board a ship.—Was much frightened at the sight of 
white men, and thought he was to be eaten. 
Esther relates that she was born in the Ebo country, about one day’s 
journey from the sea coast, where her grandmother lived, to whom 
she was sent on a visit by her father. While there, the village was 
attacked by a body of negroes (she knows not of what country, nor 
on what account) on whose approach she and all the women were sent 
into the woods, where a party of the enemy found them, and carried 
away all such as were able to travel. The old, and those who were 
averse to remove, were put to death; her grandmother among the rest. 
The third day she was sold to the white people. She has many marks 
about the chest, which she appeals to as a proof of free birth, and as¬ 
serts that her father had a plantation of corn, yams, and tobacco, and 
possessed many slaves, 
