"It would have stopped my trade," said one of
them, "to have asked the broker, how he came by the person he was offering
me for sale"--"We always suppose," said another, "the broker has a right to
sell the person he offers us"--"I never heard of such a question being
asked," said a third; "a man would be thought a fool, who should put such a
question."--He hoped the House would see the practical utility of this
logic. It was the key-stone, which held the building together. By means of
it, slave-captains might traverse the whole coast of Africa, and see
nothing but equitable practices. They could not, however, be wholly
absolved, even if they availed themselves of this principle to its fullest
extent; for they had often committed depredations themselves; especially
when they were passing by any part of the coast, where they did not mean to
continue or to go again. Hence it was (as several captains of the navy and
others had declared on their examination) that the natives, when at sea in
their canoes, would never come near the men of war, till they knew them to
be such. But finding this, and that they were not slave-vessels, they laid
aside their fears, and came and continued on board with unsuspecting
cheerfulness.
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