In freedom's train, the ever-formost band, The jocund muses skim the happy land. Sweet _Poesy_ precedes the virgin quire Calls inspiration with her sounding lyre: Gives to awaken'd verse th' auspicious morn, Whose mid-day fire shall quicken bards unborn. In the full suffrage of immortal strains The future _Hayley_ of these solar plains, Warm'd by the theme, will shake the tuneful shores, From Gambia's flood to mild Angola's bow'rs. His heav'n-born lay will fire th' enraptur'd throng, While neigb'ring realms hang o'er the sacred song, That sings, How wafted from the genial isle, Whose silver clifts on circling ocean smile, Loose-vested _Liberty_, by _Mercy_ led, Broke the huge chain, press'd _Slav'ry_'s miscreant head, Bad rescu'd Nature claim her birth-right boast; And _British_ freedom smile on _Afric_'s coast. FINIS. OBSERVATIONS ON A GUINEA VOYAGE. —————————— LETTER I. SIR, Having had the dishonour to be employed in the Slave-Trade, and having been for some time resident in a factory up the country, observations and facts have occurred, that may add a little to the mass of materials, your humanity has been at such labour to collect; and which has already thrown so much light on a traffic, that from its commencement to its close, is marked with a rapacity and oppression, unequalled in any, the most horrid process of individual or collective guilt, that has stained the page of history. The epistolary form will be an apt medium for a few observations, where there is no time for a logical arrangement, and my addressing of them to a Gentleman, to whose energy and elucidations the cause is so much indebted, will be allowed the claim of propriety at least, and I hope will meet with your excuse. Without taking up your time by a longer preface, I will hasten to my remarks, commencing with as early a stage of the bussiness as possible, so that they may, as far as circumstances will allow, connect the whole round of a GUINEA VOYAGE. I have been the readier to take up my pen, when I consider the impenetrable veil that has been thrown over this traffic for such a number of years. Its principle, its process, and its effects, have been with-held from the public eye by every effort that interest, ingenuity, and influence, could devise. It would be but a natural question in this place, were it asked, How it is possible that a trade, which has been carried on so long, and in such an open manner, whose effects are every day before us, and to continue, which such a number of people are employed, can be marked with such uncommon circumstances of cruelty, injustice, murder, and oppression, as have been usually laid to its charge?