Considerations on the present peace, as far as it is relative to the colonies, and the African trade

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Magna est veritas & prævalebit.
LONDON: Printed for W. Bristow, at the West End of St. Paul’s Church-yard. MDCCLXIII.

Gentlemen,
AN uninterested desire of rendering service to the public, and not an idle whim, or vanity to appear in print, has induced the editors of the following facts to publish them. Author is a title they lay no claim to.
By their unornamented energy alone is meant to gain the reader’s attention, and to enforce the facts advanced; therefore, without further apology, they are presented to you in a plain dress, to point out some measures that were taken to mislead the legislature, whereby the African trade, in the year 1750, was put upon such a plan, as, by the event, has proved extreamly detrimental to the British colonies. On that account, the following sheets can be addressed to none so properly as to you.
We flatter ourselves it will evidently appear by the contents of the following pamphlet, that the forts on the coast of Africa, are by no means upon a proper establishment; likewise that the present method of carrying on the African trade to those parts where the forts are situated, by the very high price given for Negroes there, which occasions the profit arising to be divided between the European merchants and the African traders, but must become extreamly burthensome and disadvantageous to you, we believe every real planter will allow.
We cannot admit certain individuals to be esteemed real planters , notwithstanding they may have one or more plantations , when at the same time they are concerned as merchants in the colonies, who procure the ships from the coast of Africa to be consigned to them; of which it is conjectured (and not without foundation) many of them are part owners; for these apparent reasons, it being their interest to keep up the price of Negroes so consigned to them, as all such advance encreases their commissions. Therefore, in our humble opinion, no attention ought to be paid to any remonstrance from people so much interested, or from those merchants who reside in Europe, that are connected with them, against any proposals that may be offered for the general utility of the colonies, which has been the case; and in consequence, very detrimental measures have been pursued through the misrepresentation of such opponents.