song to ridicule the captain as to his ship, his designs, and his person; and he taught it to the whole ship's

company.

He thus proceeded for about six months, at which time the ship was preparing to leave the coast; but, a few days before she sailed, the captain died. Mr. N. was not upon much better terms with his mate, who succeeded to the command, and upon some occasion had treated him ill. He felt certain, that, if he went in the ship to the West Indies, the mate would have put him on board a man of war, a consequence more dreadful to him than death itself: to avoid this, he determined to remain in Africa, and pleased himself with imagining it would be an opportunity of improving his fortune.

Upon that part of the coast there were a few white men settled, whose business it was to purchase slaves, &c., and sell them to the ships at an advanced price; one of these, who had first landed in circumstances similar to Mr. N.'s, had acquired considerable wealth. This man had been in England, and was returning in the same vessel with Mr. N., of which he owned a quarter part. His example impressed Mr. N. with hopes of the same success, and he obtained his discharge, upon condition of entering into the trader's service, to whose generosity he trusted without the precaution of terms. He received, however, no compensation for his time on board the ship, but a bill upon the owners in England, who failing before his return, the bill was never paid; the day, therefore, on which the vessel sailed, he landed upon the island of Benanoes like one shipwrecked, with little more than the clothes upon his back.

"The two following years," says he, "of which I am now to give some account, will seem as an absolute blank in my life: but I have seen frequent cause since to admire the mercy of God in banishing me to those distant parts, and almost excluding me from all society, at a time when I was big with mischief, and, like one infected with a pestilence, was capable of spreading a taint wherever I went. But the Lord wisely placed me where I could do little harm. The few I had to converse with were too much like myself, and I was soon brought into such abject circumstances that I was too low to have any influence. I was rather shunned and despised than imitated, there being few, even of the Negroes themselves, during the first year of my residence,

C

but thought themselves too good to speak to me. I was as yet an outcast ready to perish, but the Lord beheld me with mercy-he even now bid me live; and I can only ascribe it to his secret upholding power, that what I suffered, in a part of this interval, did not bereave me either of my life or senses.'

The reader will have a better idea of the station Mr. N. was now in by his brief sketch of it.

"From Cape de Verd, the most western point of Africa, to Cape Mount, the whole coast is full of rivers : the principal are the Gambia, Rio Grande, Sierra Leone, and Sherbro. Of the former, as it is well known, and as I was never there, I need say nothing. The Rio Grande (like the Nile) divides into many branches near the sea. On the most northerly, called Cacheo, the Portuguese have a settlement. The most southern branch, known by the name of Rio Nuna, is, or was, the usual boundary of the white men's trade northward. Sierra Leone is a mountainous peninsula, uninhabited, and I believe inaccessible, upon account of the thick woods, excepting those parts which lie near the water. The river is large and navigable. From hence about twelve leagues to the south-east are three contiguous islands, called the Benanoes, twenty miles in circuit: this was about the centre of the white men's residence. Seven leagues farther, the same way, lie the Plantanes, three small islands, two miles distant from the continent, at the point which forms one side of the Sherbro. This river is more properly a sound, running within a long island, and receiving the confluence of several large rivers, ' rivers unknown to song,' but far more deeply engraven in my remembrance than the Po or Tiber. The southernmost of these has a very peculiar course, almost parallel to the coast: so that in tracing it a great many leagues upwards, it will seldom lead one above three miles, and sometimes not more than half a mile from the sea shore."

Mr. N.'s new master had resided near Cape Mount, but at this time had settled at the Plantanes, on the largest of the three islands. It is low and sandy, about two miles in circumference, and almost covered with palm-trees. They immediately began to build a house. Mr. N. had some desire to retrieve his time and character, and might have lived tolerably well with his master, if this man had not been much under the di

rection of a black woman, who lived with him as a wife, and influenced him against his new servant. She was a person of some consequence in her own country, and he owed his first rise to her interest. This woman, for reasons not known, was strangely prejudiced against Mr. N. from the first; he also had unhappily a severe fit of illness, which attacked him before he had opportunity to show what he could or would do in the service of his master. Mr. N. was sick when his master sailed in a shallop to Rio Nuna, and was left in the hands of this woman. He was taken some care of at first, but, not soon recovering, her attention was wearied, and she entirely neglected him. Sometimes it was with difficulty he could procure a draught of cold water when burning with a fever! His bed was a mat, spread upon a board or chest, with a log for his pillow. Upon his appetite returning, after the fever left him, he would gladly have eaten, but "no one gave unto him." She lived in plenty, but scarcely allowed him sufficient to sustain life, except now and then, when in the highest good humour, she would send him victuals in her own plate after she had dined. And this (so greatly was he humbled) he received with thanks and eargerness, as the most needy beggar does an alms.

"Once," says he, "I well remember, I was called to receive this bounty from her own hand, but, being exceedingly weak and feeble, I dropped the plate. Those who live in plenty can hardly conceive how this loss touched me: but she had the cruelty to laugh at my disappointment, and though the table was covered with dishes (for she lived much in the European manner) she refused to give me any more. My distress has been at times so great as to compel me to go by night, and pull up roots in the plantation (though at the risk of being punished as a thief), which I have eaten raw upon the spot, for fear of discovery. The roots I speak of are very wholesome food, when boiled or roasted, but as unfit to be eaten raw in any quantity as a potatoe. The consequence of this diet, which after the first experiment I always expected, and seldom missed, was the same as if I had taken tartar emetic; so that I have often returned as empty as I went, yet necessity urged me to repeat the trial several times. I have sometimes been relieved by strangers; yea even by the slaves in the chain, who have secretly brought me victuals (for they durst not be seen

to do it) from their own slender pittance. Next to pressing want, nothing sits harder upon the mind than scorn and contempt, and of this likewise I had an abundant measure."

When slowly recovering, the same woman would sometimes pay Mr. N. a visit, not to pity or relieve, but to insult him. She would call him worthless and indolent, and compel him to walk; which when he could scarcely do, she would set her attendants to mimic his motions, to clap their hands, laugh, throw limes at him, and sometimes they would even throw stones. But though her attendants were forced to join in this treatment, Mr. N. was rather pitied than scorned, by the meanest of her slaves, on her departure.

When his master returned from the voyage, Mr. N. complained of ill usage, but was not credited, and as he did it in her hearing, he fared worse for it. He accompanied his master in his second voyage, and they agreed pretty well, till his master was persuaded by a brother trader, that Mr. N. was dishonest. This seems to be the only vice he could not be charged with, as his honesty seemed to be the last remains of a good educa tion which he could now boast of: and though his great distress might have been a strong temptation to fraud, it seems he never once thought of defrauding his master in the smallest matter. The charge, however, was believed, and he was condemned without evidence. From that time he was used very hardly; whenever his master left the vessel, he was locked upon deck with a pint of rice for his day's allowance, nor had he any relief till his master's return. Indeed," says he, "I believe I should have been nearly starved, but for an opportunity of catching fish sometimes. When fowls were killed for my master's own use, I seldom was allowed any part but the entrails, to bait my hooks with: and at what we call slack-water, that is, about the changing of the tides, when the current was still, I used generally to fish (at other times it was not practicable), and I very often succeeded. If I saw a fish upon my hook, my joy was little less than any other person would have found in the accomplishment of the scheme he had most at heart. Such a fish hastily broiled, or rather half burnt, without sauce, salt, or bread, has afforded me a delicious meal. If I caught none, I might, if I could, sleep away my hunger till the next return of slack-water, and then try again.

"Nor did I suffer less from the inclemency of the weather, and the want of clothes. The rainy season was now advancing; my whole suit was a shirt, a pair of trowsers, a cotton handkerchief instead of a cap, and a cotton cloth about two yards long, to supply the want of upper garments: and thus accoutred, I have been exposed for twenty, thirty, perhaps near forty hours together, in incessant rains, accompanied with strong gales of wind, without the least shelter, when my master was on shore. I feel to this day some faint returns of the violent pains I then contracted. The excessive cold and wet I endured in that voyage, and so soon after I had recovered from a long sickness, quite broke my constitution and my spirits; the latter were soon restored, but the effects of the former still remain with me, as a needful memento of the service and the wages of sin."

In about two months they returned, and the rest of the time Mr. N. spent with his master was chiefly at the Plantanes, and under the same regimen as has been mentioned. His heart was now bowed down, but not at all to a wholesome repentance. While his spirits sunk, the language of the prodigal was far from him: destitute of resolution, and almost all reflection, he had lost the fierceness which fired him when on board the Harwich, and rendered him capable of the most desperate attempts, but he was no farther changed than a tiger tamed by hunger.

However strange it may appear, he attests it as a truth, that though destitute both of food and clothing, and depressed beyond common wretchedness, he could sometimes collect his mind to mathematical studies. Having bought Barrow's Euclid at Plymouth, and it being the only volume he brought on shore, he used to take it to remote corners of the island, and draw his diagrams with a long stick upon the sand. "Thus," says he, "I often beguiled my sorrows, and almost forgot my feelings; and thus without any other assistance I made myself in a good measure master of the first six books of Euclid."

"With my staff I passed this Jordan, and now I am become two bands." These words of Jacob might well affect Mr. N., when remembering the days in which he was busied in planting some lime or lemon trees. The plants he put into the ground were no higher than a young gooseberry bush. His master and mistress, in passing the place, stopped awhile to look at him; at length