trading with the negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase
upon the coast for trifles - such as beads, toys, knives, scissors,
hatchets, bits of glass, and the like - not only gold-dust, Guinea
grains, elephants' teeth, &c., but negroes, for the service of the
Brazils, in great numbers.

They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these
heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying of
negroes, which was a trade at that time, not only not far entered
into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by assientos, or
permission of the kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the
public stock: so that few negroes were bought, and these
excessively dear.

It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of
my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three
of them came to me next morning, and told me they had been musing
very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night,
and they came to make a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining
me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship
to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and
were straitened for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a
trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly
sell the negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but
one voyage, to bring the negroes on shore privately, and divide
them among their own plantations; and, in a word, the question was
whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the
trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that I
should have my equal share of the negroes, without providing any
part of the stock.