prove that it is not neceffary for our opponents to be correct in order to be positive.

I will but just touch on the effects of immediate Abolition on our general policy, on our commerce and manufactures, and on the prosperity of the places whence the Slave Trade is chiefly carried on. We have feen from the accounts upon your table how small a part it conftitutes of the trade of Briftol and of Liverpool; and that it has become less profitable of late, cannot be denied by thofe Gentlemen who afferted that the regulations actually introduced would make it a lofing concern for though it were faid that in the heat of oppofition they might have pushed their affertions a little too far, yet it will be hardly allowed them at one moment to speak of an actual lofs, and at another of a gain fo great that it would ruin those opulent towns to be deprived of it. After the ftatements we have lately heard of the public finances and our immenfe exportations of British manufactures, who is there that will infist much on our exportations to Africa to the amount of about 400,000l. or who that will not admit we might foon establish a commerce with that country more beneficial and more innocent, were we to put a stop to this inhuman traffick in the flesh and blood of our fellow creatures?

Nor can it even be urged that the immediate Abolition of the Slave Trade would in this view be productive of confiderable prefent inconvenience. Confider what happens both at the commencement and clofe of every war, how in the former cafe the exifting channels for the conveyance of our manufactures are fuddenly barred up. The system of political economy is of fo complicated a nature, that in innumerable inftances we find the effect of the evils we had apprehended prevented by means, of which before we had no actual ascertainment or diftinct perception. I remember it is obferved by Mr. Adam Smith, in his incomparable Treatife on the Wealth of Nations, that at the conclufion of every war more than 100,000 foldiers and failors are at once discharged; and we fee no alteration in the wages of labour, or in any

other particular which the fudden influx might be expected to affect.

As to another branch of national policy, that I mean which concerns the extenfion of our cultivation in the Weft India Islands, I will fay nothing at prefent. From our evidence it abundantly appears, that the opening of new plantations with imported Africans is a system the most ruinous to the individuals concerned; and the intelligent reasonings of Mr. Irvine must have convinced the Houfe that if this extenfion of cultivation be confidered only in a national view, it is by no means to be defired by any real well-wisher to the secure and abiding prosperity of this country. Thus, Sir, it appears that, leaving Africa wholly out of the queftion, Justice and Humanity would dictate to us the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the ftrongest terms, as the only fure expedient for bringing the flaves into that ftate of comfort wherein it must be our common wish to see them placed; and that this meafure is enforced on us by the principles of found policy, and a regard to the political interefts of the British empire.

But, Sir, though I have fuffered myself to dwell so long on thefe confiderations, I now proceed to that part of the subject which indeed most interests my heart. LOOK TO THE ConTINENT OF AFRICA, and there you will behold fuch a scene of horrors as no tongue can exprefs, no imagination can represent to itself. The effects of this inhuman commerce are indeed fuch that we lend our affent to them reluctantly: yet they are proved fo clearly, that it is not poffible for any man to doubt of their reality; and were pofitive teftimony defective, the reafon of the thing would have rendered it altogether unneceflary. How can it but follow, from our going to that country, and offering our commodities to the petty Chieftains for the bodies of their fubjects, but that they will not be very nice in the means they take to procure the articles, by the fale of which they are to fupply themselves with the gratifications of appetites we have diligently and but too fuccessfully taught them to indulge.

One mode they take is that of committing depredations

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upon each other's territories; and the very nature and character of wars in Africa is fuch as might have been expected from the great motive from which they originate: they are a fort of predatory expeditions, of which the chief object is the acquifition of Slaves ;-not but that, as it is natural to imagine, these often prove the occafion of more general and continual hoftilities, inafmuch as they greatly add to the causes of diffention between neighbouring communities.When on a former occafion I urged fomewhat to this effect, I remember the direct contrary was afferted, and in direct defiance of reason and common fenfe it was faid, that wars had never been caufed by the Slave Trade. I repeated my reasoning, and urged that it was not to be expected that I could be able to adduce specific inftances in a country where letters were unknown, and the very existence, as well as the causes, of past events, muft in general be foon forgotten. Again, I was challenged to produce a fingle inftance: the natural barbarity of these people was defcanted on as being alone fufficient to render Africa a fcene of general carnage, and in particular the cruelties of a certain King of Dahomey were enlarged on, and the dreadful flaughter which attended his invafion of a neighbouring kingdom. To fay nothing of the unfairness of extending to the whole of that vast district from which we collect flaves, what at the utmoft was only proved of a fingle kingdom, I must own I was a little fhaken in my belief of the reprefentations of the ftate of this very kingdom itself, when I heard it faid by another Gentleman, (who though not favourable to the cause to which I wished well, gave his evidence with a franknefs and fairness which did him great honour, I mean Mr. Devaynes,) that the Dahomans were a very happy people. But how was I aftonished, how did I admire the ftrange coincidence, when I found in this very king of Dahomey, the very specific instance that had been required of me; and that these very cruelties of his, in the conqueft of Whydah, on which fuch stress was laid, were committed by him in a war undertaken with the view of punishing the adjacent nation for having ftolen away fome of his fubjects, for the purpose of selling

them for Slaves. This curious anecdote was brought to my notice by a noble friend of mine, to whofe friendship on this, as on many other occafions, I am greatly indebted in his valuable compilation you will read the tranfaction at large; and the reflection is very remarkable which the conduct of the king of Dahomey, in this inftance, extorted from an hiftorian, who though himself concerned in the slave Trade,. feems not to have loft all fenfe of its enormity. “The king's actions carry great reputation, for by the destruction of this Trade, he relinquished his own private interests for the fake of publick juftice and humanity; and I have a natural propenfity to wish the king of Dahomey well, fince he has redeemed his countrymen from being fold as Slaves."

But, Sir, the exciting of wars between neighbouring States is almoft the lighteft of the evils Africa is doomed to fuffer from the Slave Trade: it is indeed one of the greatest calamities to which we are liable in this more higaly favoured quarter of the world, but it is a LUXURY in Africa. Still more intolerable are thofe acts of outrage which we are continually ftimulating the Kings to commit on their own fubjects; these are fill lefs to be guarded against, and the cruelty of them is aggravated by the confideration that they are committed by those who, inftead of the defpoilers and ravagers, ought to have been the Guardians and Protectors of their people. A Chieftain is in want of European commodities, and being too weak or too timid to attack his neighbours, he fends a party of foldiers by night to one of his own defencelefs villages; they fet fire to it, they seize the miferable inhabitants as they are escaping from the flames, and hurry with them to the fhips of the Chriftian Traders, who, hovering like vultures over these scenes of carnage, are ever ready for their prey. Innumerable are the initances of this kind to be met with in the courfe of the evidence. Captain Wilfon, a gentleman of unquestionable veracity and honor, faw armed parties going out to fcour the country for many fucceffive

* Lord Muncaster.

evenings.

evenings. You have in the Evidence more detailed ftories of this kind, which cannot but affect the hardest heart. We are told perpetually of villages half confumed, and bearing mark of recent deftruction; and more than one of our every witneffes has been himself engaged in one of these very night expeditions above described. Nor do we learn these transactions only from our own witneffes, but they are proved by the testimony of Slave Factors themselves, whose works were written and published long before the prefent inquiry. But it is not only by the Chief ains that these disorders are committed, (though even from their attacks poverty itself is no fecurity) every one's hand is against his neighbour: whitherfoever a man goes, be it to the watering place, or to the field, or wherever else it may be, he is no where fafe; he never can quit his house without fear of being carried off by fraud or force; and he dreads to come home again, left, on his return, he fhould find his hut a heap of ruins, and his family torn away into perpetual exile. Diftrust and terror every where prevail, and the whole country is one continued scene of anarchy and defolation.

But there is more yet behind! It might naturally have been imagined that no means of procuring Slaves would be left unreforted to; and accordingly the inventive genius of man, ftrained to the very utmost in this purfuit, has made the administration of justice itself a fertile fource of supply to this inhuman traffick. Every crime is punished by Slavery, and false accufations are perpetually brought in order to obtain the price for which the party convicted is to be fold; fometimes the judges have a confiderable part of this very price, and univerfally fees on every trial. But it is needlefs to infift on the acts of injuftice which must hence arife: if with all that we have done by fecuring the independence of judges, by the institution of juries, and by all our other legal machinery, we have not done too much to fecure the equitable admini-、 ftration of law in this civilized country, what must be the confequence in Africa, where every man is ftimulated to bring an action against his neighbour by the hope of obtaining part

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