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'That some Negroes, who have had an agreeable education, have manifested a brightness of understanding equal to any of us.' Speaking of the fruitfulness of the country, he fays, 'It was very populous, plentifully provided with corn, potatoes and fruit, which grew close to each other; in some places a foot-path is the only ground that is not covered with them; the Negroes leaving no place, which is thought fertile, uncultivated; and immediately after they have reaped, they are sure to sow again.' Other parts he describes, as 'being full of towns and villages; the soil very rich, and so well cultivated as to look like an entire garden, abounding in rice, corn, oxen and poultry, and the inhabitants laborious.'
William Smith, who was sent by the African Company to visit their settlements on the coast of Guinea, in the year 1726, gives much the same account of the country of Delmina and Cape Corse, &c. for beauty and goodness, and adds,
'The more you come downward towards that part, called Slave-Coast, the more delightful and rich the foil appears.'
Speaking of their disposition, he says,
'They were a civil, good-natured people, industrious to the last degree. It is easy to perceive what happy memories they are blessed with, and how great progress they would make in the sciences, in case their genius was cultivated with study.
He adds, from the information he received of one of the Factors, who had resided ten years in that country,
'That the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness, that they were ever visited by the Europeans. — That the Christians introduced the Traffick of Slaves; and that before our coming they lived in peace.'
Andrew
