TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have been replaced by the normal s in this etext. Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book. Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. _OBSERVATIONS_ ON THE SLAVE TRADE, AND A DESCRIPTION Of some Part of the _COAST of GUINEA_, DURING A VOYAGE, Made in 1787, and 1788, in Company with _Doctor A. SPARRMAN and Captain ARREHENIUS_, BY C. B. WADSTROM, _Chief Director of the Royal Assay and Refining Office; Member of the Royal Chamber of Commerce, and of the Royal Patriotic Society, for Improving Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce in Sweden._ LONDON: Printed and Sold by JAMES PHILLIPS, George-Yard, Lombard-Street, 1789. PREFACE. In communicating to the publick the result of my observations lately made in a voyage to the Coast of Guinea, with two of my countrymen, it is not my intention, without sufficient reason, to add to the number of publications which have lately enlightened Europe, on a subject so deserving her attention, and in the impartial investigation of which she is so zealously employed. Animated with a desire of defending the cause of suffering humanity, I have no other end in view, than that of contributing some small assistance to the well concerted plans of others, by making known what my own experience has dictated; in a word, to relate what I have seen, and to shew, without vain pretences, what my ideas are, on a plan so well calculated to expand every heart that is now cherishing a hope for its success. As the subject has been so amply treated, my readers will not expect to find novelty in every part of this tract; but having been so fortunately situated, as to be enabled fully to inform myself of the nature of the slave trade; of the manner in which the negroes are treated by the Europeans; but more particularly of the possibility of improving, by cultivation, the fruitful soil of Africa, it shall be my endeavour to treat these important subjects in a manner interesting and new.