During our residence at this island curiosity led me to be present at a sale of slaves, just imported from the coast of Africa. As this horrid traffic in human flesh has been the topic of public investigation for some time past, and much learning and ingenuity has been displayed on both sides of the question, I shall not give any opinion on it, but merely state facts that came within my own knowledge. The sale is proclaimed by beat of drum, and is held (at Barbadoes at least) not in the open air, as I had been taught to believe, but in a commodious house appointed for that purpose. At the time I am speaking of, there were about forty men, women, and children, sitting on benches round a large room, with no other covering than a cloth round their waists. Some of them were decorated with beads, given to them by their captors, and bracelets round their wrists and ancles, and were much tattooed on their faces and breasts, which I understood from a seaman who came with them, was a mark of distinction in their own country. I was also informed that they had buried one hundred and forty-nine on the passage, having had a very bad and protracted voyage: the crew had suffered equally, and had buried one third of their original complement. As soon as the planter has fixed on a slave he retires with him and the salesman to another room, there concludes the bargain, and departs with his purchase to his plantation, where the newcomer, being clothed in a coarse jacket, and provided with a hat, knife, and other trifles, is placed with one of the old negroes, by whom he is instructed in his business. In regard to the severity exercised by the slave owners on their slaves, whatever may have been the case, I am well assured that now there are seldom instances of those cruelties which have been so feelingly described, at least in the islands we visited on this expedition. At Barbadoes they appeared to be in as comfortable a situation as the lower ranks of society generally are; and as the climate is peculiarly favourable to poverty (clothes and firing, the great articles of expence to the poor in other countries, being here hardly required), I may venture to affirm, that the slaves in the West Indies are in a better situation, _as to the necessaries of life_, than the labouring poor in England, or any other country in Europe. Far be it from me, however, to justify slavery in itself; it most certainly is an evil: but when a matter of great importance is in agitation, every information should be obtained, and both sides of the question ought to be strictly examined. Certainly the benevolent intentions of the friends to the abolition of slavery in the West Indies have, by their exertions in the cause of humanity, occasioned a more minute inquiry into the situation of the slaves than had ever been made before; and several excellent laws to regulate the treatment of that unfortunate class of human beings have in consequence been passed in the different islands.