transporters usually engaged merchants on shore to sell the slaves as
occasion permitted, whether by private sale or at auction. At Charleston
these merchants charged a ten per cent commission on slave sales, though
their factorage rate was but five per cent. on other sorts of merchandise;
and they had credits of one and two years for the remittance of the
proceeds.[48] The following advertisement, published at Charleston in 1785
jointly by Ball, Jennings and Company, and Smiths, DeSaussure and Darrell
is typical of the factors' announcements: "GOLD COAST NEGROES. On Thursday,
the 17th of March instant, will be exposed to public sale near the Exchange
(if not before disposed of by private contract) the remainder of the cargo
of negroes imported in the ship _Success_, Captain John Conner, consisting
chiefly of likely young boys and girls in good health, and having been
here through the winter may be considered in some degree seasoned to this
climate. The conditions of the sale will be credit to the first of January,
1786, on giving bond with approved security where required--the negroes not
to be delivered till the terms are complied with."[49] But in such colonies
as Virginia where there was no concentration of trade in ports, the ships
generally sailed from place to place peddling their slaves, with notice
published in advance when practicable. The diseased or otherwise unfit
negroes were sold for whatever price they would bring. In some of the ports
it appears that certain physicians made a practise of buying these to sell
the survivors at a profit upon their restoration to health.[50]

[Footnote 48: D.D. Wallace, _Life of Henry Laurens_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 49: _The Gazette of the State of South Carolina_, Mch. 10, 1785.]

[Footnote 50: C. C. Robin, _Voyages_ (Paris, 1806), II, 170.]

That by no means all the negroes took their enslavement grievously is