Whether the company was expressly founded for slave traffic may be doubtful; but it is certain that this branch of their business was soon found to be the most lucrative one, and that from this time Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides, like the waves on troubled water, and not, like them, to become fainter and fainter as the circles widen.

For slavery was now assuming an entirely new phase.
Hitherto, the slave had been merely the captive in war, "the fruit of the spear," as he has figuratively been called, who lived in the house of his conquer, and laboured at his lands.

Now, however, the slave was no longer an accident of war.

He had become the object of war.

He was no longer a mere accidental subject of barter.