2-949-924 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Cursory Observations on the Trade to Africa, 1778-05-04. Assessment of the state of the slave trade in West Africa presented to Parliament by John Roberts, Governor of Cape Coast Castle. One of the few pamphlets published in the second half of the 18th century, and the rarest of them, to discuss in detail the setup and shortcomings of the African Company and the mismanagement of the forts by the merchants' committee. '...African commerce...consists of Slaves, Gold, Ivory, Gums, Bees-Wax, Orchella, Woods for Dyeing, Mallagetta Pepper, (called Grains of Paradise)...purchased with the goods, and manufactures of Great Britain, and with East-India piece goods, and rum, from the colonies...the price of Gold-Coast slaves, who are far the most vaulable of any exported from Africa, hath increased to such a degree, as to become intolerably burthensome to the planters in the West-Indies, and elsewhere'.