Guinea grains, elephants' teeth, &c., but
negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.

They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads,
but especially to that part which related to the buying of negroes, which
was a trade at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as far as
it was, had been carried on by assientos, or permission of the kings of
Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public stock: so that few
negroes were bought, and these excessively dear.

It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my
acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them
came to me next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon
what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make
a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me
that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all
plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as
servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because
they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came home, so they
desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes on shore privately,
and divide them among their own plantations; and, in a word, the question
was whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the
trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that I should
have my equal share of the negroes, without providing any part of the
stock.

This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any
one that had not had a settlement and a plantation of his own to look
after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable, and
with a good stock upon it; but for me, that was thus entered and
established, and had nothing to do but to go on as I had begun, for three
or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred pounds from
England; and who in that time, and with that little addition, could
scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling,
and that increasing too--for me to think of such a voyage was the most
preposterous thing that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty
of.

But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the
offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs when my father'
good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with
all my heart, if th