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great meaſure, on circumſtances in a voyage I once made, our ſtock of merchandize was exhauſted in the purchaſe of about 380 negroes, which was expected to have procured 500. The number of Engliſh & French ſhips then at Bonny, had ſo far raiſed the price of negroes, as to occaſion this difference.
The reverſe was known during the late war. When I was laſt at Bonny, I frequently made enquiries on this head, of one of the black traders, whoſe intelligence I believe I can depend upon. He informed me that only one ſhip had been there for three years during that period; and that was the Moſeley-Hill, captain Ewing, from Liverpool, who made an extraordinary purchaſe, as he found negroes remarkably cheap from the dulneſs of trade. Upon enquiring into the conſequence of this decay of trade, he ſhrugged upon his ſhoulders and anſwered, "only making us traders poorer, and obliging us to work for our maintenance." One of theſe black merchants being informed, that a particular ſet of people, called Quakers, were for aboliſhing the trade, he ſaid, “it was a very bad thing as they ſhould then be reduced to the ſame ſtate they were in during the war, when, through poverty, they were obliged to dig the ground and plant yams."
