[Footnote 44: E.D. Collins, "Studies in the Colonial Policy of England,
1672-1680," in the American Historical Association _Report_ for 1901, I,
158.]

[Footnote 45: Maryland Historical Society _Fund Publications_ no. 28, p.
249.]

[Footnote 46: G.L. Beer, _The Old Colonial System_ (New York, 1912), part
I, vol. I, chap. 5.]

Most of the sales, in the later period at least, were without previous
contract. A practice often followed in the British West Indian ports was to
advertise that the cargo of a vessel just arrived would be sold on board at
an hour scheduled and at a uniform price announced in the notice. At the
time set there would occur a great scramble of planters and dealers to grab
the choicest slaves. A variant from this method was reported in 1670 from
Guadeloupe, where a cargo brought in by the French African company was
first sorted into grades of prime men, (_pièces d'Inde_), prime women, boys
and girls rated at two-thirds of prime, and children rated at one-half. To
each slave was attached a ticket bearing a number, while a corresponding
ticket was deposited in one of four boxes according to the grade. At prices
then announced for the several grades, the planters bought the privilege of
drawing tickets from the appropriate boxes and acquiring thereby title to
the slaves to which the numbers they drew were attached.[47]

[Footnote 47: Lucien Peytraud, _L'Esclavage aux Antilles Françaises avant
1789_ (Paris, 1897), pp. 122, 123.]

In the chief ports of the British continental colonies the maritime