"As soon as my business would permit, I went on shore before sun-down to make inquiries about his purchase from his present master, and was pleased to find that he was the property of the merchant to whom my cargo was consigned. I told him at once frankly off hand that I wished to purchase a slave of his, to whom I had taken a fancy. He replied, I was welcome to any of them at a fair valuation, and then called his overseer--for he himself cared little about his slaves, hardly knowing them by sight--and inquired if I knew his name. I told him the one I meant was called Billy, and described him. The overseer at once knew whom I meant, and said I would be welcome to him at cost, for he was a stubborn, sulky dog, and gave him much trouble, and, besides, was getting rather sickly; so that, if I chose, I might have him for two hundred dollars. I at once agreed, and, after supper, went on board, happy that I had succeeded so well; for Billy was to be handed over to me in the forenoon, as soon as the notary had made out the transfer. At length he came on board, joy beaming in every feature; but so much had his noble spirit been crushed and broken, that he still felt his inferiority, and stood at an humble distance. He had been taught the severe lesson of what it was to be a slave. When I met him first, all he knew of the white man was the most humble submission to King Peppel and his father's humours. Their word was law to them at Bonny--how great the contrast to him here! He was insulted, despised, and tortured by the lash, by those very whites he had been taught, when a child, to look upon as scarcely his equals. Had he been even a prince in the interior, his bondage to the whites would not have been half so galling. I beckoned him to follow me to the cabin, where I got from him an account of his adventures since I had left him in Bristol.
"The captain left him at school on his next voyage to the coast, and did not take him out until the second year, when Billy could read English well, and had learned to cipher and write a tolerable hand. On being delivered safe to his father, the prime minister was proud of his accomplishments. Captain Waugh was most liberally rewarded; King Peppel was glad to have one about him, who could make 'book speak.' Billy had every appearance of rising into great favour; but, poor fellow, the accomplishments his father was so proud of, proved the ruin of them both, and of all their family. In King Peppel's court there was as much ambition, intrigue, and rivalry, as in the most civilised in Europe; nor were the political plotters less scrupulous in the means they used to overturn the influence of a rival. They first began to hint, in an indirect manner, that Bonnyface had sent his son to the white man's land, to learn obi, and write 'feteche' or charms. The King, for some time, only laughed at them; but their endless inuendoes gradually began to poison his mind; and, while he became cool and more cool in his manner, the secret enemies had bribed the priests, or 'feteche' men, who also envied Billy his accomplishments, and they openly declared that it was not good to have white man's 'feteches' in the black man's country. Old Bonnyface saw the storm gradually thicken around him, without the means of averting it; but this torturing state of uncertainty came to a close. The King, who had been ailing for some time, and applying to the surgeons of the slave ships, without much relief, was advised to try the physicians of his own country. These were the priests and feteche men; and this was the opportunity so long desired by the enemies of Billy's family. It was declared by all that there was a white man's 'feteche' upon him, and they could not remove it; but gave no opinions as to who it was that had put it on the King. It could be none of the white men in the river, for they all were his friends for trade; and then they paused, and shook their heads, received their presents, and retired. No one gave the least surmise to the King, who was the charmer; for this had been done months before. All that had been hinted of Bonnyface and Billy going to Britain rushed upon the King's mind, aggravated by fear. Next day saw Bonnyface's head struck off, to break the 'feteche;' and the interesting Billy, and all the members of the family, were sold for slaves to the Europeans, their wealth confiscated to the King, and a part of it bestowed upon those who had wrought their ruin. I brought Billy home with me--and here ends my narrative, at least for this evening."