The truth is, the slave-traders can dispense with assistance from the Liberian colonists. They procure goods, and everything necessary to their trade, at Sierra Leone, or from any English or American vessel on the coast. If the merchantmen find a good market for their cargoes, they are satisfied, whatever be the character of their customers. This is well understood and openly avowed here. The English have no right to taunt the Americans, nor to claim higher integrity on their own part. They lend precisely the same indirect aid to the traffic that the Americans do, and furnish everything except vessels, which likewise they would supply, if they could build them. It is the policy of the English ship-masters on the coast to represent the Americans as engaged in the slave-trade; for if, by such accusations, they can induce British or American men-of-war to detain and examine the fair trader, they thus rid themselves of troublesome rivals. The natives are generally favorable to the slave-trade. It brings them many comforts and luxuries, which the legitimate trade does not supply. Their argument is, that "if a man goes into the Bush and buys camwood, he must pay another to bring it to the beach. But if he buy a slave, this latter commodity will not only walk, but bring a load of camwood on his back." All slaves exported are Bushmen, many of whom are brought from two or three hundred miles in the interior. The Fishmen and Kroomen are the agents between the slave-traders and the interior tribes. They will not permit the latter to become acquainted with the white men, lest their own agency and its profits should cease. A slave, once sold, seldom returns to his home. If transported to a foreign country, his case is of course hopeless; and even if recaptured on the coast, his return is almost impossible. His home, probably, is far distant from the sea. It can only be reached by traversing the territories of four or five nations, any one of whom would seize the hapless stranger, and either consign him to slavery among themselves, or send him again to a market on the coast. Hence, those recaptured by the English cruisers are either settled at Sierra Leone, or transported to some other of the colonies of Great Britain. The price paid to the native agents for a full grown male slave, is about one musket, twelve pieces of romauls, one cutlass, a demijohn of rum, a bar of iron, a keg of powder, and ten bars of leaf-tobacco, the whole amounting to the value of thirty to thirty-five dollars. A female is sold for about a quarter less; and boys of twelve or thirteen command only a musket and two pieces of romauls. Slave-vessels go from Havana with nothing but dollars and doubloons. Other vessels go out with the above species of goods, and all others requisite for the trade. The slaver buys the goods on the coast, pays for them with specie, and lands them in payment for the slaves, money being but little used in traffic with the natives.