6550. Do you believe that a material check to the trade, or an extirpation of the trade for two or three years, in any one place, makes it difficult to resume it afterwards, if the interference of the cruizers is suspended?—It turns the trade into another course. When once the trade is interrupted at any place, people are not in the habit of sending traders up the country for slaves, and traders from the interior cease to bring slaves down to them there, and there is great difficulty felt in resuming it; and in almost every instance legitimate commerce comes in, and the wants of the natives are supplied by those means; but I would not in such cases suspend the interference of the cruizers altogether, until the slave trade should be entirely eradicated.
6551. You believe that when the slave trade is checked for a period, legitimate commerce grows up in its place, and the desire to resume it is diminished?—I think the desire to resume it is diminished, in the first place, principally on account of the difficulty of resuming it. I believe that all over Africa the natives prefer the slave trade to any other trade.
6552. But you conceive that the lawful trade co-operates with the efforts of the cruizers?—In speaking of lawful trade I think it is necessary to state, that in my opinion the only legitimate trade of Africa, in the strict sense of the term, is that wherein goods are paid for in produce; all other trade, more or less, is connected with the slave trade.
6553. You mean that the money by which goods are paid for can only have been acquired by the slave trade?—Universally by the slave trade; dollars are brought upon the coast by no other means.
6554. Mr. Forster.] Those dollars and doubloons being diffused over the coast, in what way would you propose to stop the circulation of them?—I do not propose to stop the circulation of them.
6555. Chairman.] When you say “lawful trade,” you mean trade which you would consider as free from any connexion with the slave trade?—Trade which is altogether unconnected with the slave trade.
6556. Where it is a mere exchange of goods for produce, you see no connexion with the slave trade?—No connexion whatever.
6557. But where you see an exchange of goods for money, there you conceive there is at least a suspicion of the slave trade?—I do not think that an individual receiving dollars or money upon the coast should of necessity be suspected or accused of engaging in or conniving at the slave trade in any way; I merely say that such transactions do indirectly partake and mingle with slave-trading transactions.
6558. Because the money is brought upon the coast originally only by the slave trade?—Yes.
6559. But the parties receiving the money may be totally exempt from any connexion themselves with the slave trade?—They may be certainly unconnected with the slave trade altogether.