Negroe Governments on the river Gambia, and speaks of the inslaving the
peaceable inhabitants, as a violence which only happens under a corrupt
administration of justice; he says,[A] "The Kings of that country
generally advise with their head men, scarcely doing any thing of
consequence, without consulting them first, except the King of
Barsailay, who being subject to hard drinking, is very absolute. It is
to this King's insatiable thirst for brandy, that his subjects freedoms
and families are in so precarious a situation.[B] Whenever this King
wants goods or brandy, he sends a messenger to the English Governor at
James Fort, to desire he would send a sloop there with a cargo: _this
news, being not at all unwelcome_, the Governor sends accordingly;
against the arrival of the sloop, the King goes and ransacks some of his
enemies towns, seizing the people, and selling them for such commodities
as he is in want of, which commonly are brandy, guns, powder, balls,
pistols, and cutlasses, for his attendants and soldiers; and coral and
silver for his wives and concubines. In case he is not at war with any
neighbouring King, he then falls upon one of his own towns, which are
numerous, and uses them in the same manner." "He often goes with some of
his troops by a town in the day time, and returning in the night, sets
fire to three parts of it, and putting guards at the fourth, there
seizes the people as they run out from the fire; he ties their arms
behind them, and marches them either to Joar or Cohone, where he sells
them to the Europeans."

[Footnote A: Moor, page 61.]


[Footnote B: Idem, p. 46.]

A. Brue, the French director, gives much the same account, and says,[A]