particularly evidenced by one, whose connexion with the trade would
rather induce him to represent it in the fairest colours, to wit,
William Smith, the person sent in the year 1726 by the African company
to survey their settlements, who, from the information he received of
one of the factors, who had resided ten years in that country, says,[A]
"_That the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness,
that they were ever visited by the Europeans."--"That we christians
introduced the traffick of slaves; and that before our coming they lived
in peace_."

[Footnote A: William Smith, page 266.]

In the accounts relating to the African trade, we find this melancholy
truth farther asserted by some of the principal directors in the
different factories; particularly A. Brue says,[A] "_That the Europeans
were far from desiring to act as peace-makers amongst the Negroes; which
would be acting contrary to their interest, since the greater the wars,
the more slaves were procured_," And William Bosman also remarks,[B]
"That one of the former commanders _gave large sums of money to the
Negroes of one nation, to induce them to attack some of the neighbouring
nations, which occasioned a battle which was more bloody than the wars
of the Negroes usually are_." This is confirmed by J. Barbot, who says,
"_That the country of D'Elmina, which was formerly very powerful and
populous, was in his time so much drained of its inhabitants by the
intestine wars fomented amongst the Negroes by the Dutch, that there did
not remain inhabitants enough to till the country_."

[Footnote A: Collection, vol. 2, page 98.]