TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have beenreplaced by the normal s in this etext.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have beenplaced at the end of the book.
The cover image was created by the transcriberand is placed in the public domain.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.These are indicated by a dashed blue underline.
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; Memberof the Royal Chamber of Commerce, and of the Royal PatrioticSociety, for Improving Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commercein Sweden.
LONDON:
Printed and Sold by James Phillips, George-Yard, Lombard-Street, 1789.
PREFACE.
IN communicating to the publick the resultof my observations lately made in avoyage to the Coast of Guinea, with two ofmy countrymen, it is not my intention, withoutsufficient reason, to add to the numberof publications which have lately enlightenedEurope, on a subject so deserving her attention,and in the impartial investigation ofwhich she is so zealously employed.
Animated with a desire of defending thecause of suffering humanity, I have no otherend in view, than that of contributing somesmall assistance to the well concerted plansof others, by making known what my ownexperience has dictated; in a word, to relatewhat I have seen, and to shew, without vainpretences, what my ideas are, on a plan so[iv]well calculated to expand every heart that isnow cherishing a hope for its success.
As the subject has been so amply treated,my readers will not expect to find novelty inevery part of this tract; but having been sofortunately situated, as to be enabled fullyto inform myself of the nature of the slavetrade; of the manner in which the negroesare treated by the Europeans; but more particularlyof the possibility of improving, bycultivation, the fruitful soil of Africa, itshall be my endeavour to treat these importantsubjects in a manner interesting andnew.
In the presence of the two most respectablenations of Europe, would I were endowedwith powers to represent in colourssufficiently striking, the frightful picture Ihave formed to myself, of the above-mentionedtraffick, and thereby to prove, thatthese detestable markets for human flesh,constitute the last stage