THE AFRICAN HORRORS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The sentence in your issue of November 15th (p. 669),
"Even Mr. Bonny accuses himself of selling Negro women for food, amid much laughter on all sides," though literally true, might convey a wrong idea to the mind of any one who had not read Mr. Bonny's statement. The women were not sold to any one but to their own people ; they were held to ransom for food which the Negroes had refused to supply or to sell. If, as I understood the passage in Mr. Bonny's account, the Negroes joined in the laughter, it seems to have been, at least partly, because they felt that it was not altogether a serious business ; that, as the manner of the women's capture had not been very cruel and accompanied by bloodshed, so they would not be ill-treated, or sold to strangers, if not ransomed by their own people. I hope this was so ; and that was the way I read it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Walton, Warwick, November 20th. F. A. O'BRIEN. [Did not Mr. Bonny capture the women in order to exchange them for food P—En. Spectator.]
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