Each of these would have an assembling headquarters with field agents collecting slaves for it, one or more vessels perhaps for the coastwise traffic, and a selling agency at one of the centers of slave demand.

The methods followed by some of the purchasing agents, and the local esteem in which they were held, may be gathered by an item written in 1818 at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley: "Several wretches, whose hearts must be as black as the skins of the unfortunate beings who constitute their inhuman traffic, have for several days been impudently prowling about the streets of this place with labels on their hats exhibiting in conspicuous characters the words 'Cash for negroes,'"[22] That this repugnance was genuine enough to cause local sellers to make large concessions in price in order to keep faithful servants out of the hands of the long-distance traders is evidenced by the following report in 1824 from Hillsborough on the eastern shore of Maryland: "Slaves in this county, and I believe generally on this shore, have always had two prices, viz.

a neighbourhood or domestic and a foreign or Southern price.

The domestic price has generally been about a third less than the foreign, and sometimes the difference amounts to one half."[23] [Footnote 22: _Virginia Northwestern Gazette_, Aug.

15, 1818.] [Footnote 23: _American Historical Review_, XIX, 818.] The slaves of whom their masters were most eager to be rid were the indolent, the unruly, and those under suspicion.