The expense
of the salary list, ship hire, provisions and merchandise was heavy and
continuous, while the returns were precarious to a degree. Not often did
such great wars occur as the Dahomey invasion of the Whidah country in
1726[16] and the general fighting of the Gambia peoples in 1733-1734[17] to
glut the outward bound ships with slave cargoes. As a rule the company's
advantage of steady markets and friendly native relations appears to have
been more than offset by the freedom of the separate traders from fixed
charges and the necessity of dependence upon lazy and unfaithful employees.
[Footnote 14: Moore, pp. 112, 164, 182.]
[Footnote 15: _Ibid_., p. 82.]
[Footnote 16: William Snelgrave, _A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and
the Slave Trade_ (London, 1734), pp. 8-32.]
[Footnote 17: Moore, p. 157.]
Instead of jogging along the coast, as many had been accustomed to do, and
casting anchor here and there upon sighting signal smokes raised by natives
who had slaves to sell,[18] the separate traders began before the close
of the colonial period to get their slaves from white factors at the
"castles," which were then a relic from the company regime.
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