"Bozman, about 1700, writes that it was the early European settlers who first sowed dissensions among the natives of Africa, for the sake of purchasing their prisoners of war. Benezet quotes William Smith who was sent by the African Company in 1726, to visit their settlement, and who stated, from the testimony of a factor who had lived ten years in the country, that the discerning natives accounted it their greatest unhappiness ever to have been visited by Europeans."
Dupries, in a journey to Coomassie, in 1819, thus describes the country then recently laid waste by the king of Ashantee:[1] "From the Praa, southward, the progress of the sword down to the margin of the sea, may be traced by moldering ruins, desolate plantations, and osseous relics; such are the traits of negro ferocity. The inhabitants, whether Assins or Fantees, whose youth and beauty exempted them from slaughter on the spot, were only reserved to grace a triumph in the metropolis of their conquerors, where they were again subject to a scru-
- ↑ Quoted by Buxton, p. 228.
mon preached before the British House of Commons, one hundred and fifty-six years ago, used the following-remarkable language: " That Africa, which is not now more fruitful of monsters, than it was once for excellently wise and learned men, — that Africa, which formerly afforded us our Clemens our Origen, our Tertullian, our Cyprian, our Augustine, and many other extraordinary lights in the Church of God, — that famous Africa, in whose soil Christianity did thrive so prodigiously, and could boast of so many flourishing churches, — alas! is now a wilderness. 'The wild boars have broken into the vineyard, and ate it up, and it brings forth nothing but briers and thorns,' to use the words of the prophet."
