Introduction. The many flagrant violations that have been attempted on the liberties of free-born English subjects, by mercenary hirelings and abandoned miscreants, who with hearts steeled against every impression of humanity, make a trade of selling their fellow-creatures to slavery, and thereby subjecting them and their relatives to the most agonizing woe; having recalled to my memory the peculiar case of a friend, who unhappily fell a victim to their accursed frauds; I determined to lay it before the public, in order to enhance their detestation of such despicable means of living, and guard unwary youth from falling into their crafty snares. The opportunities which my employment in life has afforded of being an eye-witness to the distresses of my countrymen, will enable me to set forth their aggravated circumstances, as attested facts, and must obviate those doubts that naturally arise from want of evidence, and are the offspring of report, conjecture, and surmise. Liberty is one of the greatest blessings of human life, and essentially requisite to its true enjoyment. Freedom is the glory of a rational mind, and indispensably necessary to the proper discharge of its various functions:  therefore under a deprivation of these glorious, these invaluable privileges, despair must fill the active soul, and the mind must degenerate into a state of stupid drowsiness, when absorbed in the contemplation of its remediless misery. Perhaps, upon due reflection, no character can be more odious, or indeed injurious to society, than that of a kid-napper or crimp; the highwayman demands your money at the hazard of his life; the gambler picks your pocket, but leaves it at your option to be a second time trepanned; the slanderer traduces your character, but cannot deprive you of the means of vindicating it; but the kid-napper robs the ignorant, unsuspecting person of the very rank in creation, he was entitled to fill, and infamously sells that liberty which was his birthright, his boast, his glory, as a subject to the crown of England.  Besides, this vile practice may deprive the community of many valuable members, and consign those to the most servile offices in life, who were by nature and birth adapted to fill the highest and most important. To recount the evils that result to mankind in general, and to individuals in particular, from this unjust attempt on their liberty, is almost impossible; as they are so various in their nature, and so aggravated in their degrees; waving therefore any further detail on that point, I presume to hope that the series of misfortunes which was experienced by the subject of the following narrative is equally conducive to instruction and entertainment. If upon the whole it should sensibly touch the generous mind; if it should draw the tear of pity from the eye of inhumanity, or cause the relentless breast to melt with compassion; if it tends to the detection of one villain, or the preservation of one innocent, the editor will esteem it an ample compensation for the pains he has taken, in digesting the various circumstances that have occurred, during the long exile and slavery of an unfortunate friend, as well as the many grievances to which thousands are at this day exposed in foreign climes, from the base arts that are still practised, by the more than brutal in human form. It will be necessary to premise, that the editor, being an officer in the naval service, and on a voyage to divers settlements belonging to the English in the East-Indies; happened one morning when the troops were drawn up at Calcutta, to observe one amongst them, in whose face he discovered some traces of the features of an old school-fellow, for whom, during his minority, he had conceived the warmest friendship of which a youthful mind can be susceptible. Determined to gratify his curiosity concerning the identity of his supposed friend; as soon as the corps had gone through their discipline, and obtained their discharge from present duty, he accosted the poor soldier by his name, in order to be convinced at once of the validity of his suspicion. He had no sooner mentioned his name, than his exiled friend looked at him steadfastly in the face, and soon recognized the companion of his juvenile, his happy hours, but was prevented, by a torrent of tears, from giving him an immediate answer. At length the mixture of joy, grief, and surprise, which agitated his mind, having found vent, they passed mutual congratulations on the unexpected interview, and retired to a convenient place, in order to recount to each other the various incidents that had befallen them since their separation from school. As the adventures of the unfortunate Mr. Thomas Page, who was decoyed by one of the infamous crimps, that have long infected this metropolis, and sold to slavery, in climes far remote from his native country, where he could obtain no relief, and suffered indignities that drove him to despair, which proved the cause of his death, will compose the subject of this volume; the editor begs leave to inform the reader, that each circumstance was verbally communicated to him, during a stay of four months at Calcutta, in the year 1758,  and that as such, he prefers them arranged in the order, in which they occurred; having given some account of the birth, education and disposition of his unfortunate friend, as  a necessary prelude to the sequel of his affecting story.