Criminal causes are tried by a public Palaver, or Assembly of the head men of the country, and Slavery is the usual punishment; a circumstance which holds out a strong temptation to prefer false accusations, particularly as the African mode of trial furnishes convenient means of promoting purposes of avarice and oppression.—(_Winterbottom’s Account_, &c. &c.) Marchais.—In case of the debtor’s insolvency, the king allows the creditor to sell him, his wives, and even his children, for the sum due. Here is also another extraordinary law; if the creditor, before witnesses, three times asks his debt of a person, whom he cannot arrest or sue on account of his dignity or power, and the debtor refuses to pay him, the creditor has a right to seize the first Slave he meets, let him belong to whom he will. There is but one sort of punishment for offences here, the offender, and all his generation, being made Slaves. In their proceedings they take no care whether the party be guilty, or deserves to be punished. [Sidenote: Golberey.] It is a striking circumstance, that in Africa, before the Slave Trade was introduced, the punishments for offences generally consisted of mulcts or fines, as is evident from the testimony of Artus, Barbot, Ogilby, Bosman, Loyer, Nyendael, and others, and that nobody was mulcted beyond his ability, except by an accumulation of crimes. Murder and sorcery were punished capitally in some of the countries of Africa, but in others, murder and every species of offence had no other punishment than a fine. If people could not pay these fines, they were disposed of in two ways. Some of them were sent into a temporary banishment in Africa; others were sold into home slavery. Debtors also, who refused to pay their debts, or became insolvent, were sold for the benefit of their creditors, in case their relations would not redeem them, and worked for these at their respective homes. But since this trade has been used, says Moore, all _punishments_ are changed into _slavery_: there being _an advantage_ in such condemnation, they _strain_ for crimes _very hard_, in order to get the _benefit of selling the criminal_. Not only murder, theft, and adultery, are punished by selling the criminal for a Slave, but _every trifling_ crime is punished in the same manner.”[61]