countrymen of his acquaintance, they told him that he was a fool, for he would be sold to the blacks, and they would eat him; that upon this he resolved immediately to leave the town, which he did." It appeared that those who endeavoured to recover their children were threatened with coercive measures; and the poor people seem to have been impressed with the conviction, that they were in the hands of an overwhelming power, with which it would be vain to contend. Thus one individual, having recovered possession of his son, met the captain of the transport vessel in the street, who bade him send back the youth, otherwise he might expect unpleasant consequences. Therefore he "promised and engaged to return his said son, which he accordingly did. Depones, that if he could have hindered his son from going to America he would have done it; and if he had known as much then as he does now, he would have done it. Depones, that before he promised to return his son to the said ship as above, he was himself threatened to be put into the Tolbooth." The line of defence adopted by the kidnappers was, that no one was forced, in the first instance; that each boy was the object of a distinct agreement, either with his parents or with himself; and the subsequent coercion employed towards them, which could not be denied, was thus interpreted to be a judicious protection by the employers of the property they had fairly acquired. But the very evidence given by their own emissaries--almost every sentence bearing in its bosom a general assurance that nothing illegal was done--is quite sufficient in the description of minute facts to support, if not confirm, the darkest suspicions. Thus one of the crimps, desiring to excite some feeling against the exiles, as a graceless inconsiderate class, unworthy of sympathy, said "that such persons, whether boys or older people, whom the deponent engaged to go to America on board the said ship, the Planter, after they had been--some four, some five, some six weeks clothed and maintained by him at the expense of his employers, were endeavouring to desert and run away, and were tampered with, or decoyed to engage or take on with other people in the town of Aberdeen, who were, at the very same time, engaging and indenting servants to America; and, in order to prevent their being so decoyed, the older people so engaged by the deponent were put in prison, and the younger people were put into the workhouse or poor's hospital." There was, it seems, much competition in the trade; and, at the same time, the live commodity had a propensity to remove itself from the custody of its owners. Thus might the employment be termed a doubly hazardous one; and a certain scrupulous citizen, who had grave doubts about the propriety of joining the speculation, though he wished to be a part-owner of the ship in which it was conducted, gave this account of his hesitation: "Having been informed that servants had been