near Lincoln’s Inn Fields
APPENDIX.
AFRICA.
EXTRACTS FROM THE OLDER AUTHORS.
From Travels of the Sieur d’ Elbée, sent by the French W. I. Company to Ardrah, in 1670.—Astley’s Voyages, vol. iii.
Depredatory Acts occasioned by the Slave Trade.
Though the king has a great number of wives, yet but one has the title of queen; who is she that bears him the first son. Her authority over the rest, whom she treats rather as her servants, than as her companions, is so great, that she sometimes sells them for slaves, without consulting the king, who is forced to wink at the matter. An affair of this kind happened while the Sieur d’ Elbée traded here. The queen, having been refused by the king some goods or jewels she had an inclination for, ordered them up privately, and in exchange sent eight of his wives to the factory, who were immediately stamped with the Company’s mark, and sent on board.
These poor princesses had sunk under so severe a stroke, if the Sieur d’ Elbée had not shewn them some distinction, by treating them in a kind manner; so he carried them in good health to Martinico.—(p. 72.)
Extract from a Voyage to Congo, and other countries, in 1682, from Astley’s Voyages, vol. iii. by Jerom Merolla, &c.
He, said he, was sure it was not the intention of the duke (the Duke of York) that christians should be bought and sold as slaves; nor that such as he (meaning the captain) should be allowed not only to trade, but to rob and infest the shores wherever they came, in the same manner as another English captain had done there the year before; who, as soon as he had taken in all his lading, fell to wasting the country, and forced away many of the natives into slavery, and killed many others whom he could not get away.—(p. 174.)