James Field Stanfield was an Irish writer and former sailor who had worked on two Liverpool slave ships in the 1770s and lived in a slaving fort at Benin for eight months. His pamphlet, published in the form of letters to Thomas Clarkson, describes the slave trade as a system characterised by "cruelty, injustice, murder, and oppression" (2). He describes how sailors are tricked on board slave ships, their harsh treatment and conditions on the ships, and gives an eye-witness account of the operation of the trade on the African coast.