ed Adair, with even
more than his usual enthusiasm. "If there is one cause more than
another in which I would rather expend my life, it would be that of
getting rid of this abominable slave-trade. No scoundrels are greater,
in my opinion, than the fellows who engage in it. No country can
prosper or be happy which allows it."

The conversation was cut short by the announcement that several sail of
men-of-war were in sight. The ships began working away with their
bunting, and, when they had collected, the commanders assembled on board
the Commodore to arrange the plan of attack.

The next day, by the evening, everything was ready. The squadron,
composed of steamers as well as sailing ships, brought up off the mouth
of the Ogun river. It has a bar across it. Inside it, on an island
about two miles in circumference, near the right bank, stands the
slave-dealing city of Lagos, whose houses could just be distinguished
peeping out among the cocoa-nut trees. It was known that the place was
strongly defended with stockades, some sixty guns, and from 1,500 to
2,000 men with firearms, and gunners trained by the Spaniards and other
slave-dealers to serve the artillery. All hands watched eagerly for the
signal to commence operations. The three midshipmen were delighted to
find that they were to be in the first squadron of boats. Preceded by a
steamer, they dashed across the bar, and then anchored inside, out of
reach of shot from the town, to commence operations the next morning.
Soon after sunrise men were seen assembling on the banks of the river,
and, on pulling over to them, they found that Mr Beecroft, with the
ex-king, Akitoye, had arrived, bringing with him 500 men from Abeokuta
and Badagry. That they might be known, they had white neckcloths
distributed among them, with which the black volunteers were highly
delighted. A number of canoes were then discovered at a slave station
on the left bank, and these having been brought off, the black auxiliary
force, now considerably augmented, was passed over to the right bank.
The steamer next dropped up the river with the tide to reconnoitre the
fortifications, and it was found that, at all points where boats could
land, stakes in double rows were driven in, while an embankment had been
thrown up with a ditch in front of it, and that twenty-five guns were
trained to guard all the narrower parts of the channel. On the north
side of the island were the houses of Kosoko a