Certain it is that this excrable practice of kidnapping was put in execution from the year 1740 and downwards, by several merchants in that city, some of whom, for reasons too well known, have since deserted their country. I remember that much about that time, there were idle fellows employed by those traders, to cajole and decoy men, women, and children, to serve in the plantations in America. The poor deluded parents being ignorant of the nature of the traffic, and equally ignorant how or where to apply for redress, were obliged to rely on the fair promises of the merchants whose delusions proved fatal to many of the unhappy victims, who were even come of age, and much more so to infants from six to fourteen years, who were incapable to contract for themselves, and transported without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

These were left to lament the loss of their children: many of them without the consolation of knowing what had become of them, and who could only imagine that an untimely end had been their fate. Such, it is to be supposed, were the dreadful apprehensions that filled the eyes of my aged parent with tears, from whom I was thus separated in my nonage [1]. What heart can be unmoved with pity at the relation of so dismal a tale? Who can think, without horror, on these monsters of impiety, who could make a traffic of their fellow creatures in a Christian country, almost as openly as is practised on the coast of Guinea? Quis taliafando temper it a lachrimis? [2]

And here the following queries occur, which will tend to explain the meaning of kidnapping.

I. Whether or not, when children are either carried off by force, or decoyed by fraud, without the consent, or without the knowledge, of their parents, in a state of infancy, or under the years of pupilarity, and incapable of entering into an indenture, may not this be called Kidnapping?

II. Whether or not the shutting these children up in prison, or places of confinement, in order to make sure of them as a prey, and conceal them from their parents, is not contrary to law, and an attrocious crime ?

III. If these proceedings were agreeable to law, and the inclination of the persons so imprisoned, what occasion was there for confinement? When a person enlists himself in any service as a volunteer, where is the necessity of putting him in prison? But,

IV. If these proceedings were contrary to all laws human and divine, what punishment can be inflicted adequate to the crime?

My betrayers well knew the impracticability of making children abide by any obligation, extorted from them, or any agreement to which they were decoyed; and therefore they confined us in barns, on board ships, and other convenient places; and, to make our time pass away the more insensibly, and free of reflection, they entertained us with music, cards, and other childish diversions, till such time as they had got their compliment, and the ship was ready to sail.

Various were the arts and stratagems made use of to inveigle these unhappy creatures. Some were ensnared by receiving a trifle of money, and then told they were fairly enlisted [3]. Others were tempted with the bait of great promises, being told that they were going to a country where they should live like gentlemen; that they should ride in their coaches, with several negroes [4] to attend them; that they should possess large plantations of their own, and soon be in a condition to come home and visit their friends with great pomp and grandeur. By these specious and artful insinuations, many unthinking giddy youths were seduced into slavery, relying on promises which were meant only to insnare and not to enrich them.

Some were carried off from their parents by violence, and whipt into the flock, like strayed sheep going to the shambles. All these methods, and many more, were practised in this execrable branch of traffic, of which the reader will find a proof to his conviction, by perusing the depositions formerly inserted.

How far these specious promises were fulfilled, will appear from the treatment we met with when landed in America. On our arrival there, our merchant, or supercargo, who had the charge of us, took the earliest opportunity to dispose of us to the planters, some of whom will buy ten, others twenty, to labour in their plantations and cultivate their ground. Thus were we driven through the country like cattle to a Smithfield Market, and exposed to sale in public fairs, as so many brute beasts. When thus maltreated by our countrymen, what reason had we to expect better usage from our new masters, whose property we now were?

Luckily for me I fell into the hands of one of my own countrymen [5] who had undergone the same fate himself, and who used me in a more tender manner than many of my companions in slavery had to boast of. No thanks however to my Kidnappers; for if the devil had come in the shape of a man to purchase us, with money enough in his pocket, it would have been as readily accepted as of the honestest and most humane man in the world.

1. the period of immaturity or youth

2. A quote from the memoir of James Marquis of Montrose [1639-50], concerning a mad search

3. British naval officers employed a tricked where they would drop a penny in a man’s mug at a tavern, and then when he drained it, inform him that since he had taken “the King’s penny” he was now in the navy and have him dragged aboard ship to a life in many ways more horrible than plantation slavery.

4. There is a delicious irony in tricking people into slavery through a promise to own slaves.

5. The readers, too, are indebted to this man, who provided Peter with the rare ability among kidnapped people to produce this document.