chap, iv.] WEST INDIES. 319 
high or low, it can hardly be doubted, that wars 
will be as frequent as ever, and that the same acts 
of oppression, violence and fraud, which are said to 
be committed by princes on their subjects, and by 
individuals on each other, for the purpose of pro¬ 
curing slaves for sale, will exist as usual, without 
regulation or restraint. 
Behold then an excess of 38,000 of these misera¬ 
ble people (the present annual export in British 
shipping) thrown upon the market, and it is surely 
more than probable that, one or the other of these 
consequences will follow; either the French, the 
Dutch and the other maritime nations of Europe, 
by seizing on what we surrender, will increase 
their trade in proportion to the increased supply,* 
or, having the choice and refusal of 38,000 more than 
they have at present, will become more difficult to 
please; confining their purchases to such only as 
are called prime slaves. Thus the old, and the very 
young, the sickly and the feeble, will be scorn¬ 
fully rejected; and perhaps twenty poor wretches 
be considered as unsaleable then, and sacrificed ac¬ 
cordingly, to one that is so considered and sacri¬ 
ficed now. 
* Admiral Edwards being asked, Whether, if Great Britain were 
to relinquish the trade in slaves, the number sold to Europeans would, 
in his opinion, be much diminished ? replied, Most certainly it would 
not be diminished. The French and Dutch would immediately get 
possession of this trade. 
