312 The Slaver and the Missionary 
warfare. The anti-slavers and the abolitionists, of 
course, represent this to be the effect of the Euro¬ 
pean trade in man’s flesh and blood ; but it prevails, 
and has ever prevailed, and long will prevail, even 
amongst peoples which have never sent a head of 
negro to the coast. And there is a large class of 
men captured in battle, and a host of those con¬ 
demned to death by savage superstition, whose 
lives can be saved only by their exportation, which, 
indeed, is the African form of transportation. 
“We believe,” says the Abbe Proyart (1776), “that 
the father sells his son and the prince his subjects; 
he only who has lived among them can know that 
it is not even lawful for a man to sell his slave, if 
he be born in the country, unless he have incurred 
that penalty by certain crimes specified by law.” 
It will be objected that any scheme of the kind 
must be so involved in complicated difficulties that 
it cannot fail to degenerate into the old export 
slave-trade. This I deny. Admitting that such 
must at first be its tendency, I am persuaded that 
the details can so be controlled as to secure the 
use without the abuse. Women and children, 
for instance, should never be allowed on board 
ship, unless accompanying husbands and parents. 
Those who speak some words of a foreign 
tongue, English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese, 
and on the eastern coast Hindostani, might 
lead the way, to be followed in due time by 
