Note D — CHAP. VII.

: When the great income which arises to the Negroe Kings on the Slave-Coast, from the slaves brought thro' their several governments, to be shipped on board the European vessels, is considered, we have no cause to wonder that they give so great a countenance to that trade: William Bosman says, page 337, "That each ship which comes to Whidah to trade, reckoning one with another, either by toll, trade, or custom, pays about four hundred pounds, and sometimes fifty ships come hither in a year." Barbot confirms the same, and adds, page 350, "That in the neighbouring kingdom of Ardah, the duty to the King is the value of seventy or eighty slaves for each trading ship." Which is near half as much more as at Whidah; nor can the Europeans, concerned in the trade, with any degree of propriety, blame the African Kings for countenancing it, while they continue to send vessels, on purpose to take in the slaves which are thus stolen, and that they are permitted, under the sanction of national laws, to sell them to the colonies.