A Moor had seized a free negro, and, having secured him, he brought him to Senegal, and sold him to the company. A few days afterwards this moor was taken by some negroes in the same manner, and brought to be sold in his turn. The company seldom buy moors: but as they were obliged, in consequence of their privileges, to supply the colony of Cayenne with a certain number of slaves, and as several ships then in the road, in consequence of the king of Almammy’s edict, as before related, could not complete their cargoes, they made the less scruple to buy him on this occasion. Chance so directed, that the moor, after he had been purchased, was carried on board the same ship, in which the negro lay. They no sooner met, than a quarrel took place between them, which occasioned, for some days, a great tumult in the vessel. Such rencounters frequently happen in the slave-ships, and the uproars, occasioned by them, are seldom or never quieted, till some mischief has been done. CHAP. III. _Of ROBBERY._ I have been hitherto describing the _Pillage_, as it is either publick or private. I have also considered it as practiced by the blacks upon one another. I come now to speak of it, as it is practiced upon these by the whites; and this I call _Robbery_. It is too well known, at least on some parts of the coast, that the Europeans have not failed, when opportunity presented itself, to seize the unsuspicious natives of Africa, and to carry them by force to their own colonies. This is usually practiced by the Europeans, where they have no settlements; so that the fact generally escapes the notice of their countrymen; I mean principally up the rivers, where they have ventured to penetrate for the purpose of a more advantageous trade. At such places, they compel the negroes to deliver them hostages, whom they keep on board. The truce being concluded, the unsuspicious natives embark with confidence, and repeatedly visit the vessel without any kind of suspicion or fear. But, if the wind should be at all favourable, none of the European monsters, who are engaged in this trade, scruple to set sail, and to carry away not only the free negroes, who have come on board to trade, but the hostages also, in defiance of the law of nations and common honesty. These transactions are not only iniquitous in themselves, and therefore derogatory from the character of a civilized nation, but are often so fatal in their consequences, that those, who perpetrate them, have a claim to the appellation of devils rather than men. For it may easily be supposed, that the relations and friends of those, who have been thus fraudulently carried off, will spare no pains to retaliate. This is generally the case. The next ship that visits the coast, is perhaps cut off. Thus, to a villainous action, is superadded the guilt of becoming instrumental to the murder perhaps of their own countrymen, and at any rate of occasioning the innocent to undergo the punishment of the guilty.