“Sir,--About five days ago the king of this country gave me yours of the 1st instant, and immediately required me to answer it in his presence, which I did, though in a very different manner, so that if I do not recall it, I hope that you will excuse that as well as this. As to the late conference I had with his majesty, on receiving your letter, I think he does not want to make a price to let me go, for when I pressed him much to tell me on what terms he would send me away, his answer was, he did not want to sell me, I was not a black man; but upon my again pressing him he made a sort of jesting demand to the sum of I think 700 slaves, about £10,000, or £14 a-head. Which strange ironical way of talking, as I told him, made my blood run cold in my veins; and, upon recovering myself, I asked him if he thought the king of my country would listen to such an outrageous proposal, and that you and the company would think that both he and I had lost our senses, should I have writ anything like what he said. Upon which he laughed, and told me not to put anything of that in the letter; for that he would order his head captain of trade to treat with you upon that subject, and that if you had not something very fine for him at Whydah you must write to the company. Upon which I told him I feared I must die in his country, and that I would only send for a few clothes and necessaries, which I desired he would let his people bring for me, and he agreed to it, so that I don’t find there is any other way of redeeming me than by the company sending him a present of a crown and sceptre, which must be paid for out of what remains due to the late King of Ardah. I know nothing else but what he will think mean, being stocked with great quantities of plate, wrought gold, and other rich things, and also all sorts of rich gowns, cloths, hats, caps, etc. He has likewise all sorts of common goods beyond measure, and gives away booges like dirt and brandy like water, for he is prodigiously vain and proud; but he is withal, I believe, the richest king and greatest warrior in this part of the world, and you may depend upon it in time will subdue most of the countries round him. He has already set his two chief palaces round with men’s skulls, as thick as they can lie on the walls, one by another, and are such as he has killed in war; each of which palaces are in circumference larger than St. James’s Park, about a mile and a half round. I hope my royal masters will take my case into consideration, and think of the long and many sufferings I have had in their service, and what a miserable condition I am still in, as it were, banished all the pleasures of this life, not only from my wife, and other friends, but all conversation in general; so that I am like one buried alive from the world, and think nothing can come