6684. You consider then that the trade with Bissao is now thrown too much into the hands of one man, who becomes a monopolist of the trade, and who derives advantages from it in carrying on the slave trade, which would not be derived if we had an entrepôt of our own, to which the natives could resort for goods?—I do; instead of the trade passing all through his hands, I would endeavour, by the occupation of such places as Bulama, to create a rival trade between the English merchants and the natives, instead of goods going, as they now do, through the hands of Caetano and other slave dealers.

6685. You would not, by a legislative enactment, endeavour to prevent a communication by British merchants with slave dealers, but you would rather open other means of trade which were less likely to be objectionable in their results, and thus rival the slave dealers?—Where produce trade existed to any extent at all, I would trust to such measures for the separation of the two; but there are some places where there is no produce trade whatever, where, from one year’s end to another, not a single piece of ivory, or a single gallon of palm oil is exported. The Gallinas is a case in point; it is very true that British vessels can supply goods to the Gallinas, but there is, I think, a scandal in our ships supplying goods there, which does infinite harm to our claim on other nations to abolish and make an end of the slave trade.

6686. Mr. Forster.] How would you introduce British trade in produce at the Gallinas unless you encouraged British traders to go there?—The fact is, that wherever the slave trade exists people never turn to legitimate traffic at all, unless the slave trade is insufficient to supply their wants, or until the slave trade is stopped, or at least checked, by forcible means. When the slave trade no longer supplies what they want they are compelled to labour and raise produce, and they are then ready enough to engage in lawful trade; but the goods now brought are as much slave trade almost as the slaves that are exported.

6687. Are you not aware that in some places on the coast the slave trade has been in a great measure, if not entirely, suppressed by the force of commerce alone?—I do not know of any instance; in every case the first step has been the suppression or the check of the slave trade, and then, and not till then, do the natives labour to raise produce.

6688. Have you been to Popo lately?—I have been to Popo; the cruizers at Popo first checked the slave trade, and then the slave dealers preferred Whydah, which is in the neighbourhood, and they have since taken to legitimate trade at Popo.

6689. Are you aware that there was a considerable slave trade formerly from the Rio Nunez?—I am not particularly acquainted with the slave trade that has been carried on from thence; I know that in the year 1835 there was no great amount of slave trade from thence.

6690. You are not then aware that since the establishment of British factories there, the slave trade has entirely disappeared excepting in the way you have referred to, by the visits of Portuguese canoes picking up slaves in the neighbourhood?—I consider that simply produced by the fact of Bissao being a more convenient place; slavers lie there in perfect security under the walls of the Portuguese fort; they prefer bringing their slaves from the Nunez, which they do in great numbers, in canoes to Bissao, to shipping them direct from the Nunez, from whence the passage and the escape is much more difficult than from Bissao.

6691. Is it your opinion then that the slavers would have the same facility in procuring slaves at the place or near the place where a British factory was established, as in any other part of the coast where no such establishment existed?—I consider that the British factory would never, unassisted, put down the slave trade in any way; I can answer for the statement that I received from Mr. Benjamin Campbell, a merchant in the Nunez, and formerly in the Pongas, a man of great intelligence and great experience: his statement to me was, that directly a slave vessel came in, his factory was abandoned; that nobody would come near him when she was there; that the natives invariably preferred slave commerce to legitimate commerce.

6692. Are you not aware that the whole of the Gold Coast is at present dependent upon our settlements for the suppression of the slave trade, and that if those settlements were removed, the slave trade would be immediately resumed there?—I have no doubt whatever that the settlements on the Gold Coast have put down the slave trade, but that has been not by the unassisted force of commerce; it is because they have an establishment and force, and are able to govern the natives; it is not like a single merchant upon the banks of a river forming a factory. I have a letter from Mr. Campbell here, in which he states that when the natives hear of a slave vessel in the Pongas or Bissao, they accuse the British merchants of driving away their trade. That I believe to be an error on their part, especially as Mr. Campbell, in the same letter, states that Caetano has two white agents in the river purchasing slaves for him. I believe the reason that they go to the Bissao is because they are more secure; but the slave trade with the Nunez is by no means given up; dozens of canoes go every month with slaves.

6693. None are shipped there?—They are shipped in the canoes, and they are taken to Bissao, because Bissao is a more convenient place for sending them off.