♦ 
333 HISTORY OF THE [book m 
to terrify the poor ignorant Africans with the no¬ 
tion that they were seized on by a herd of canni¬ 
bals, and speedily to be devoured. The wisdom 
of the legislature of Jamaica has corrected this enor¬ 
mity in that island, by enacting that the sales shall 
be conducted on shore, and that care shall be taken 
not to separate different branches of the same fa¬ 
mily. I am afraid it hath been found difficult, in 
all cases, to enforce this latter regulation; but it is 
usual with most planters, I believe, to inquire of 
the negroes themselves, by means of an interpre¬ 
ter, whether they have relations on board, and to 
purchase families together; or by exchanging with 
other buyers, to prevent if possible, that cruel se¬ 
paration between parents and children, and bro¬ 
thers and sisters, which must sometimes I doubt, 
unavoidably take place. I never knew an instance 
where such purchase or accommodation was know¬ 
ingly declined or refused.* 
Although there is something extremely shocking 
to a humane and cultivated mind, in the idea of be¬ 
holding a numerous body of our unfortunate fellow- 
creatures, in captivity and exile, exposed naked to 
public view, and sold like a herd of cattle, yet I 
could never perceive, (except in the cases that have 
* Soon after this was written, the author of this work had the ho¬ 
nour of proposing to the assembly of Jamaica, of which he was a 
member, an act which was unanimously adopted, and is now an ex¬ 
isting law, by which the Guinea factors are compelled, under the so¬ 
lemnity of an oath, to do their utmost to enforce the regulation allu- 
ded to. 
* 
