J. B. Atkins

“ I was six Weeks attending the Trials of the Pyrates at this Castle, and treated very civilly.
The Factory have every now and then a large Demand for Salt, made and brought hither from Accra. The Sale appears like a Fair in the Castle, and many of those Negroes whose Ivory or Gold would not purchase half a Bushel, I was told had travelled some hundred Miles; they chusing to go in Bodies when Seed-time is over, as a better Protection from wild Beasts, and their wilder Countrymen, who frequently make Incursions from several parts of the Coast, and sieze them for Slaves, when few and defenceless. ”

“ Courage, locutory or military, like a Trade, is gained by an Apprenticeship. The Coward to-day, may seven years hence become a brave Fellow, and metamorphosed again, perhaps by a bad Wife, or other adverse Fortune. What makes our Militia laughed at, even by Men draughted from them? only because they want that constant Discipline, the red Coat and martial Law, that makes the other terrible: Every Man in standing Troops, is in a School of Exercise, where, if not dull, he may acquire the Tread, the Talk, and Courage of a Hero. ”

“ Lastly, The Fear of the Fetish keeps them from injuring one another a little, that is, one another in the same Combination; but has little or no Influence in respect to us; whom they rob, cheat, or murder, as best answers their Conveniencies. They are like the Articles of Pyrates, which keep up a sort of Honesty among themselves, tho’ they despoil every body else. John Conny is very upright and just himself in all Bargains; but then he does not want what the others are thieving; it is below his Game: rigorous also in exacting his Dues, or inflicting Punishments. ”

“ When Men of War have no other Lading than Provisions and Necessaries, the Duty of Sailors is eased, and their Conveniencies better; whereas Cargoes, besides dishonouring the Commission, and unfitting the King’s Ships for Action, stifle and sicken a Ship’s Company in warm Climates, impose hard Services, and spoil the Trade of the Merchant they are designed to encourage, and expect a Gratuity from; because Labour and Freight free, they can afford to undersel. ”

“ To which I answer——A Voyage to Sea is a Type of that dark and unknown one we are to make in Death: Wherefore it is not unnatural with a Departure from the Land’s End of England, shooting into an Abyss of Waters, to consider a little on that Life, which lost is a Departure from the World’s End, and to launch into a greater Abyss, Eternity;—The Principle, in what is material of us, I think, highly consonant to Reason, and continues still the Doctrine of the Eastern Sages. ”

“ For if any of our Ships from Bristol or Liverpool play tricks, and under pretence of Traffick seize and carry away such of them as come on board, and trust themselves on that Confidence, the Friends and Relations never fail with the first Opportunity to revenge it; they never consider the Innocence of who comes next, [152] but as Relations in Colour, Panyarr the Boat’s Crews who trust themselves foolishly on shore, and now and then by dissembling a Friendship, have come on board, surprized and murdered a whole Ship’s Company. ”

“ Whether when we have shut up this Life we shall remain resolved into our Elements; revive again in some Plant or Animal; or thirdly, be reinstated Soul and Body into Glory, is an Enquiry worthy our utmost Concern and Diligence; as it will sweeten the imbittered Potions of Life, make us patient under Afflictions, and even easy on this treacherous Element the Sea; whom none ought to trust ”

“ I am tempted to think this the most plausible of all Philosophical Opinions, in relation to our future Existence, that we are not Creatures of that consequence we imagine; our Natures neither deserving, nor should they expect in reason any other Immortality than what other Creatures enjoy in their Seed and Transmigration. ”

“ WINDS. The Winds, different from our Quarter of the World, in these Voyages are either peculiar to warm Latitudes; such are Trade-Winds, Land and Sea Breezes; or to the Coast, Tornadoes, and Air-Mattans.
Trade-Winds are easterly, blow fresh night and day, all the Year, and every where round the Globe; that Part of it I mean that we are upon, the Ocean, whether Atlantick, Indian, or American: for the Soil and Position of Lands, though the same Cause of them subsists more powerfully, gives uncertain and various Deflections. ”

“ Do not many men in politer Nations, renounce the World for Cloisters and Desarts, and place a greater happiness in preserving their Innocence, than enjoying even the Necessaries of Life; nay, often ravished with the neglect of them. Wherever therefore Contentment can dwell, tho’ under the meanest Circumstances, it is a barbarous Corruption to stile such poor, for they have every thing they desire, or, which is much the same, are happily ignorant of any thing more desirable. ”

“ Age the Coast of Guinea, is a Country as little known as any Part of the Globe. Marmol says, the Arabians in the 400 of the Hegyra, passed into Afric and divided it. This is certain, that it has many fine large Rivers, some of them navigable for Ships. Along the Banks of these Rivers, the Inhabitants abound with Millet, Rice, Pulse or, Indian-Corn. The further we depart from Morocco on this West Side, or Egypt on the East, there is always found less Industry and more Ignorance: For Governments, tho’ never so tyrannical, are better than none, extending some Improvement to Humanity. ”

“ Honesty in all trading places is bottom’d upon this in the lower, and upon Interest in the higher Ranks of Men; if the former can provide themselves as well, or better, that is, with quieter Sleeps and less Anguish by being honest than Robbers; it is egregious Folly, abating the Crime, to forsake it: and when prosperous Events give Increase to Riches, it is Interest to allure others, a general Security lying in it. And they may, by the Influence of Example, and an open Behaviour, make particular Men so, that were not first in the Design. ”

“ Dancing is the Diversion of their Evenings: Men and Women make a Ring in an open part of the Town, and one at a time shews his Skill in antick Motions and Gesticulations, yet with a great deal of Agility, the Company making the Musick by clapping their hands together during the time, helped by the louder noise of two or three Drums made of a hollowed piece of Tree, and covered with Kid-Skin. ”

“ The Land-breeze when it does succeed, is at the same distance from Sun-set or later, small, sultry, and stinking, especially when from Rivers whose Banks are pestered with rotten Mangroves, stagnating Waters, &c.
They seem to arise entirely from the Heat of the Sun-beams: That the Air is more rarified by their Reflections on the solid Body of the Earth than on a fluid, is certain; therefore till their rarified Air, made so by three or four hours Sun, is brought to an Equilibrium, the Breezes must be from the Sea at all parts of the Coast, because at all parts, the same Cause is operating. ”

“ From these light Observations, I think it may be concluded, First, that in all Places, Currents and Tides have a very great affinity. That it is principally the Formation of the Lands drives them into the one or the other; if contracted between two Shores so as to form a Channel, the diurnal Elevation of the Ocean, by the Attraction of the Moon, will make there a Tide, rapid in proportion to it’s Breadth, Depth, and Sea it is open to: And if an open Coast, as Guinea, those Tides become Currents. ”

“ The People are for the most part polite and well-bred, promoting Trade by a magnificent way of living; the chief of them are Colonels, or Captains of Militia, and in the Assembly are divided into a Party-Interest, on the civil Affairs of the Island, their chief Distinction; murmuring, or elate, just as they are in or out of the Governor’s Favour, who can abate in the Customs, or imploy in the Application: (tho’ by the way the fewer Officers, and those Menials, the better advantage to him.) ”

“ When the Nakedness, Poverty and Ignorance of these Species of Men are considered; it would incline one to think it a bettering their Condition, to transport them to the worst of Christian Slavery; but as we find them little mended in those respects at the West-Indies, their Patrons respecting them only as Beasts of Burthen; there is rather [62] Inhumanity in removing them from their Countries and Families; here they get Ease with their spare Diet; the Woods, the Fruits, the Rivers, and Forests, with what they produce, is equally the property of all. ”

“ I assure you, several are come into ours, and others are gone farther Leeward to seek for Work and Food. You who are tender Parents, consider how terrible it must be for Families with nothing in their House, nothing growing on their Land, not a grain of any thing to support themselves and dear helpless Children: No Money, and no Credit, no Relief from without, and no Bread, nor Water either, hardly within or without. I have heard of poor Men going about for Work, to sustain their own Bodies, forced to leave Wife and Children at home to starve ”

“ Slaves differ in their Goodness; those from the Gold Coast are accounted best, being cleaned limbed, and more docible by our Settlements than others; but then they are, for that very reason, more prompt to Revenge, and murder the Instruments of their Slavery, and also apter in the means to compass it.
To Windward they approach in Goodness as is the distance from the Gold Coast; so, as at Gambia, or Sierraleon, to be much better, than at any of the interjacent places. ”

“ There is scarcely a Spot in that delicious Country, but is recorded for some remarkable Occurrence; is memorable for High-ways, Grottos, Lakes, Statues, Monuments, some Victory gained, or Battle lost, the Birth or Death of Cæsar or his Friends. On the African Side, stands or did stand, Carthage, Troy, Tyre, Nice, Ephesus, Antioch, Smyrna; and on that shore was once Christianity firmly planted (no less than 300 Bishops being expelled thence;) but alas how all things change! neither Greatness nor Virtue can exempt from [xvii] Mortality: Towns, Countries, and Religions, have their Periods. ”

“ He seemed shy of entering the Ship, apprehending a Panyarring; his Town’s People having often suffered by the Treachery of Ships, and they as often returned it, sometimes with Cruelty, which has given rise to the Report of their being Savages and Cannibals at several places; very unlikely any where, because they could not part with their Slaves, which are but few, if they had this Custom, nor could they have any Trade or Neighbours: Their Fears would make them shun their Enemies (the rest of Mankind) and all Correspondence totally cease. ”

“ White People are seldom or never admitted to Presence, but at the times they pay their Customs; very considerable from Europeans, who drive here the greatest Slave-Trade of any on the whole Continent: Besides these Dues, the King augments his Revenue by a Duty on every thing bought or sold by his People. To his Women, he gives entirely the Privilege of making and selling a Beer brewed from Indian Corn, pretty much in use here, called Putto. ”

“ Quære? whether other, or all Creatures have not such a Principle of Concoction, more or less discernible in some, than others, there; tho’ imperceptible, and differently shaped and coloured, as is the Nature of the Food swallowed, and the Strength and Heat of the Animal swallowing. ”

“ Who, on the one hand, but feels an inexpressible Pleasure in treading over that Ground, he supposes such Men inhabited, [xviii] whose Learning and Virtues have been the Emulation of all succeeding Ages? ”