I am inclined to think, that the method of collecting slaves by war, and frequent battles, dreadful as that mode may be, is by no means the great support of the Slave Trade: but that they are procured by the still more infamous and horrid practice of _kidnapping_.
In Benin, where I was employed, I am certain it was often the case. Our factory, in which I resided, was at Gatoe, many miles from the sea, in the heart of the country. I made continual enquiries, but never heard of any wars. I understood, however, from every thing I could collect, that they were seized by fraud or violence in the internal parts of the country, and so transmitted through different hands to the immediate traders upon the coast.
But to put it out of conjecture, the business was in practice every day around us. There was a lawless body of men in the kingdom of Benin, called _Joemen_; who, encouraged by the white traders, erected themselves into an independent government. Their king, a desperate fellow, was called _Badjeka_. They had no towns nor villages, but shifted suddenly, and pitched their temporary huts where they considered it to be most opportune for their depredations. These banditti bought no slaves, but they sold multitudes. They had neither settlement nor plantations, but lived entirely by this horrid species of robbery, which, in a civilized country, like _Benin_, must have been attended every day with circumstances of cruelty and distress, beyond any thing that enthusiasm (for so the adoption of the cause of humanity is called by the cold-blooded spoilers) has ever yet imagined.
Among the islands and creeks that are numerous about the mouth of the river _Formosa_, there was also a kind of pirate admiral, distinguished by the name and title of captain _Lemma-Lemma_. This personage had a powerful fleet of war canoes, with which he made descents on all parts of the unprotected coast; he paid no taxes, but declared himself independent of the king of Benin, whose subjects he carried off for trade at every opportunity. To this man, and his exertions, we were a good deal indebted for our cargo.
Whenever we wanted to give the trade a desirable degree of celerity, the practice was, to declare that a certain number of prime commodities would be in trade till such a date, (a short one) and no longer;--or, that the vessel was to sail by such a day, and was to be replaced by no other for some time. These artifices were sure to produce the effect proposed: we had soon slaves brought down to us, in great numbers, and without the intervention of wars or battles.