[23] Thos. Clarkson states, in his History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, that "the arrival of slave ships on the coasts of Africa was the uniform signal for the immediate commencement of wars for the attainment of prisoners, for sale and exportation to America and the West Indies." In Maryland and Delaware, the same drama is now performed in miniature. The arrival of the Man-Traffickers, _laden_ with cash, at their respective _stations_, near the coasts of a great American water, called justly, by Mr. Randolph, "a Mediterranean sea," or at their several _inland posts_, near the dividing line of Maryland and Delaware, (at some of which they have grated prisons for the purpose) is the well known signal for the professed _kidnappers_, like beasts of prey, to commence their nightly invasions upon the _fleecy flocks_; extending their ravages, (generally attended with bloodshed, and sometimes murder,) and spreading terror and consternation amongst both freemen and slaves throughout the _sandy regions_, from the western to the eastern shores. These "two-legged featherless animals," or _human bloodhounds_, when overtaken (rarely) by the messengers of law, are generally found armed with instruments of death, sometimes with pistols with _latent_ spring daggers attached to them! Mr. Cooper, one of the representatives to congress from Delaware, assured me that he had often been afraid to send one of his servants out of his house in the evening, from the danger of their being seized by kidnappers. While at Wilmington (Del.) I accidentally heard a black woman telling the gate-keeper of the bridge, that she had set out to go to Georgetown, (Del.) but was returning without having reached it, for fear of being caught on the road by the kidnappers. [24] I was informed in Delaware, that her seller absconded in about ten days after the outrage was committed. [25] The mulatto youth had been purchased in the city of Washington, and kept in it in irons several weeks, by a person who confessed his regret that he had not removed him before the suit for the recovery of his freedom had commenced; and that, if he had known it sooner, he would have taken him on to ----, (the place of his residence,) even if he had been satisfied of his being free. One Slave-Trader, to whom he had been offered, was however so conscientious, that he refused to purchase him, or the lad who was with him, (before mentioned) being confident that they were illegally enslaved.