The substance of his communications on these occasions I shall now put down, and I beg the reader's particular attention to it, as he will be referred to it in other parts of this work.
With respect to the produce of Africa, Mr.Norris enumerated many articles in which a new and valuable trade might be opened, of which he gave me one, namely, the black pepper from Whidah before mentioned.

This he gave me, to use his own expressions, as one argument among many others of the impolicy of the Slave Trade, which, by turning the attention of the inhabitants to the persons of one another for sale, hindered foreigners from discovering, and themselves from cultivating, many of the valuable productions of their own soil.
On the subject of procuring slaves, he gave it as his decided opinion that many of the inhabitants of Africa were kidnapped by each other, as they were travelling on the roads, or fishing in the creeks, or cultivating their little spots.

Having learned their language, he had collected the fact from various quarters, but more particularly from the accounts of slaves whom he had transported in his own vessels.

With respect, however, to Whidah, many came from thence who were reduced to slavery in a different manner.

The king of Dahomey, whose life (with the wars and customs of the Dahomans) he said he was then writing, and who was a very despotic prince, made no scruple of seizing his own subjects, and of selling them, if he was in want of any of the articles which the slave-vessels would afford him.