When a Ship has gathered up all this Trade, she makes up the deficiency of her Freight at Anamaboo, three Leagues below Cape Corso, where they constantly stop, and are sometimes two or three Months in finishing. It is a place of very considerable Trade in itself; and besides, the Company have a House and Factor, keeping always a number of Slaves against those demands of the Interlopers, who, they are sensible, want dispatch, and therefore make them pay a higher Price for it than any where on the whole Coast; selling at six Ounces and a half a Slave (in exchange for Goods) tho’ the poor Creatures look as meagre and thin as their Writers.
If the Company should want rather to buy than sell, as is sometimes the case, and fits both; then such a difference is paid by the General, as shall make it worth the Ship’s time to go to Windward again.
Hence I make this deduction, that if the Adventurers Stock be small, only sufficient to employ one Vessel, to have her a Sloop; because less hazard is run in lengthning out time, which subjects to Sickness and Mortality among the Slaves; saves the aggregate Charge of supporting them and a Ship’s Company, and likewise such a Vessel will have less remains of Cargo, after her Slaving is compleated; what is left, usually going off to the trading Cabiceers and Factories at a low Price, or what is worse, kept on board and spoiled.
Contrarily, great Traders who can imploy many Ships, obviate in a great measure such Inconveniencies: They put the Trade of two or three Ships into one at Anamaboo, (the largest and most chargeable) and with the conjunction of their remains, go to Windward, and begin anew.
Fourthly, giving way to the ridiculous Humours and Gestures of the trading Negroes, is no small artifice for Success. If you look strange and are niggardly of your Drams, you frighten him; Sambo is gone, he never cares to treat with dry Lips, and as the Expence is in English Spirits of two Shillings a Gallon, brought partly for that purpose; the good Humour it brings them into, is found discounted in the Sale of Goods.
A fifth Article, is the wholesome Victualling, and Management of Slaves on board.
The common, cheapest, and most commodious Diet, is with Vegetables, Horse-Beans, Rice, Indian Corn, and Farine, the former, Ships bring with them out of England; Rice, they meet to Windward, about Sesthos; Indian Corn, at Momford, Anamaboo, &c. and further Supplies of them, or Farine, at the Islands of St. Thomas, and Prince’s; Masters governing themselves in purchasing, according to the Course they design to steer.
This Food is accounted more salutary to Slaves, and nearer to their accustomed way of Feeding than salt Flesh. One or other is boiled on board at constant times, twice a day, into a Dab-a-Dab[33] (sometimes with Meat in it) and have an Overseer with a Cat-of-nine-tails, to force it upon those that are sullen and refuse.
The further Management and Caution to be taken with Slaves on board, till their delivery in the West-Indies, I shall intermix with what I know of the method of Trade at Whydah, and Angola, because Cautions where a Cargo is of one Language, is so much the more requisite.
Whydah is the greatest trading Place on the Coast of Guinea, selling off as many Slaves, I believe, as all the rest together; 40 or 50 Sail (French, English, Portuguese, and Dutch) freighting thence every year. The King is absolute as a Boar; making sometimes fair Agreements with his Country Neighbours, it being often the Interest of Traders to be honest (perhaps the only reason that makes them so) but if he cannot obtain a sufficient number of Slaves that way, he marches an Army, and depopulates. He, and the King of Ardra adjoining, commit great Depredations inland.