of humanity; the exercife of which virtue they seem more earnest to recommend to the inhabitants of the Eaft and Weft Indies, than to practise it themfelves.

They have already, about the time of the decifion above-mentioned, tried the effects of emancipating the negroes at home, and they found it would not do. From that to the present time the number of flaves, who have attended their mafters and their families from NorthAmerica and the islands to Great Britain and Ireland, cannot bave been much less than 40,000; particularly, taking into the account, the many families who have been forced from the Southern colonies of the American continent by the late unhappy conteft. Notwithstanding the planters had every right to fuppofe they were authorised by the laws of Great Britain, as well as those of the colonies, to confider thofe people as their property; and that they had a right to their fervices in Europe, or to fend, or accompany them back to the colonies, as they judged proper, they found themfelves mistaken; and that it was permitted to debauch their flaves, to encourage or entice them to run away, with impunity. The ideas of liberty, the charms of novelty, and an ignorance of the country they had got to, where they found themselves upon a perfect equality, at leaft, with the inferior white people, could not fail of having pernicious effects upon their minds, and greet

b 2

great numbers ran away from their mafters. They in general plunged into vice and debauchery, and many of them who were defirous of returning to their mafters and miftreffes, were refused to be received. The whole of those thus loft to their owners, and as to every ufeful purpofe to the community, cannot have been lefs in number than from 15,000 to 20,000.-As moft of them were prime, young, feafoned, or Creole flaves, the lofs to their owners, the planters, has not been lefs than from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000l. fterling a large fum to be facrificed to the mere names of liberty and humanity! What has been the refult of thus extending the bleffings of liberty to fo many wretched flaves? Let any body fhew fcarce a single instance of any one of thefe people being in fo happy a fituation as they were before. The greater part, it is known, died miserably in a very fhort time. No parish was willing to receive them, fo that the furvivors, after begging about the streets of London, and fuffering all thofe evils and inconveniencies confequent on idleness and poverty, famine, difeafe, and the inclemency of the weather, attracted the attention of the public, and Government was prevailed upon to undertake the tranfportation of them to the country from whence they, or their ancestors, had been ravifhed by the wicked traders of London, Liverpool, and Briftol. They. were there to be made perfectly happy they were there to poffefs" land and beeves;" inftruments of husbandry

husbandry, tools, and other neceffaries for building. Grain, and the feeds of all forts of vegetables, proper to the climate, were furnished them; and all that was neceffary for their future happiness was, that they fhould work But fo far, it leems, were these ungrateful people from thankfully profiting by the kind difpofition of the public towards them, that we are told Mr. Glanville Sharp, the great promoter of all thefe mistaken acts of humanity, found it neceffary to diftribute hand-bills about the town, to request gentlemen not to relieve their diftreffes, in order to force them to go to Portsmouth, where the fhips were to take them in to carry them to Africa. It is confidently faid here, that very few hundreds were prevailed on to proceed to that place, great part of whom ran away when they got there; of those who embarked many died of disease or chagrin, before they arrived, and many more afterwards; and of the few who remained alive, there was fcarce one who did not express his with to quit his new abode, his eftate and his liberty, eyen although it fhould be to return to his pristine flavery, in the fugar colonies. This is, however, the account given us by the mafter of one of the transport fhips, who came from Sierra Leon, to feek a freight to London, after having landed fome of thefe people at their place of destination.

Equal

Equal unhappiness, would be the lot of the flaves in the islands, if they were fet free:-what could they do to obtain a livelihood? To fuppofe they would hire themselves out to work, can only enter into the imagination of those who do not know the people, or the country. What has fo lately paffed in England, is furely fufficient to fhew, that there can be no idea, they will, any of them, wish to return to their own country. Thousands of negroes have been made free by their mafters in the colonies; and it may, with truth, be afferted, that, notwithstanding many of them were very capable of paying for a paffage to any part of Africa they thought proper, fcarce a fingle inftance can be produced of any one of them defiring to return to the place of his nativity.*

The

* A negro woman was imported amongst a cargo of flaves from Anamaboa about the year 1772. In the latter end of the year 1773, her brother, named Quafhy, who is well known to all the mafters of fhips in the Gold Coast trade, as a kind of broker or interpreter, and who has, more than once, failed in a fhip from the coaft to the islands, and home by the way of London, hearing his fifter was in Jamaica, took his paffage in a fhip bound from the coaft to this island, for the fole purpose of endeavouring to discover her, obtain her freedom, and carry her back to her own country: he brought money with him for that purpofe; and was lucky enough to find her out, fhe having been fold to a Mifs Tindal, of Kingston. He purchased her from Mifs Tindal; and he was prevailed upon, though with

great

The prefent attempt to cram liberty down the throats of people who are incapable of digesting it, can, with propriety,

great reluctance, to embark with him for England, in the Nancy, Capt. Brown, the latter end of 1773. Early in 1774, they took their paffage from London to Anamaboa, in a fnow belonging to John Shoolbred, Efq. called the Peggy, Robert Martin, master, who landed them fafe at that port. During Capt. Martin's stay there, he had frequent opportunities of seeing this woman, who, after having been home a fhort time, grew perfectly tired and disgusted with the place, and repeatedly requested Capt. Martin to carry her back to Jamaica, and would even have returned as a flave, rather than stay where she was; but Capt. Martin dared not comply with her defire, as the laws of the country do not permit the carrying away a free woman, or another's flave, without the mafter's permiffion.

This anecdote was communicated to the author by Robert Hibbert, Efq. of this town, who was perfonally acquainted with the former part of this history, from a fervant of his being husband to the woman while she was in Jamaica; and the other part of it he had from Capt. Martin, on his return frnm Anamaboa to Jamaica, who told it, at his table, in the presence of the negro, the husband, without having any previous knowledge of the connection between the parties.

The atteftation of a man of Mr. Hibbert's reputation to fuch a fact, is furely of more authority than the journals, or pretended journals, of twenty fuch furgeons of Guinea fhips, as are faid to have failed from New York fixty or seventy years ago.

What

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