INTRODUCTION.

For many years I have ardently wished that it had been possible for me to plead, in your presence, the great cause of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Conscious that I was accountable to you for the discharge of the important trust which your kindness had committed to me, I have longed for such an opportunity of convincing you, that it was not without reason that this question had occupied so large a share of my parliamentary life. I wished you to know, that the cause of my complaint was no minute grievance, which, from my eyes having been continually fixed on it, had swelled by degrees into a false shew of magnitude; no ordinary question, on which my mind, warming in the pursuit of its object, and animated by repeated contentions, had at length felt emotions altogether disproportionate to their subject. Had I however erred, unintentionally, I have too long experienced your candour not to have hoped for your ready forgiveness. On the 2contrary, if the Slave Trade be indeed the foulest blot that ever stained our National character, you will not deem your Representative to have been unworthily employed, in having been among the foremost in wiping it away.

Besides the desire of justifying myself in the judgment of my Constituents, various other motives prompt me to the present address. Fourteen long years have now elapsed since the period when the question was fully argued in Parliament; and the large share of national attention which it then engaged, has since been occupied successively by the various public topics of the day. During the intervening period, also, such strange and interesting spectacles have been exhibited at our very doors, as to banish from the minds of most men all recollection of distant wrongs and sufferings. Thus it is not only by the ordinary effects of the lapse of time, that the impression, first produced by laying open the horrors of the Slave Trade, has been considerably effaced, but by the prodigious events of that fearful interval.

It should also be remembered, that, within the last fourteen or fifteen years, a great change has taken place in the component 3parts of Parliament, especially in those of the House of Commons; not merely from the ordinary causes, but also from the addition which has been made to the National Legislature by our Union with Ireland. Hence it happens, that, even in the Houses of Parliament themselves, though a distinct impression of the general outlines of the subject may remain, many of its particular features have faded from the recollection. For hence alone surely it can happen, that assertions and arguments formerly driven fairly out of the field, appear once more in array against us. Old concessions are retracted; exploded errors are revived; and we find we have the greater part of our work to do over again. But if in Parliament, nay even in the House of Commons itself, where the subject was once so well known in all its parts, the question is but imperfectly understood, much more is it natural, that great misconceptions should prevail respecting it in the minds of the people at large. Among them, accordingly, great misapprehensions are very general. To myself, as well as to other Abolitionists, opinions are often imputed which we never held, declarations which we never made, designs which we never entertained. These I desire to rectify; and now that the question is once more about to come under the consideration of the legislature, 4it may not be useless thus publicly to record the facts and principles on which the Abolitionists rest their cause, and for which, in the face of my country, I am willing to stand responsible.

But farther I hesitate not to avow to you; on the contrary, it would be criminal to withhold the declaration, that of all the motives by which I am prompted to address you, that which operates on me with the greatest force, is, the consideration of the present state and prospects of our country, and of the duty which at so critical a moment presses imperiously on every member of the community, to exert his utmost powers in the public cause.

That the Almighty Creator of the universe governs the world which he has made; that the sufferings of nations are to be regarded as the punishment of national crimes; and their decline and fall, as the execution of His sentence; are truths which I trust are still generally believed among us. Indeed to deny them, would be directly to contradict the express and repeated declarations of the Holy Scriptures. If these truths be admitted, and if it be also true, that fraud, oppression, and cruelty, are crimes of the blackest dye, and that guilt is aggravated in proportion as the 5criminal acts in defiance of clearer light, and of stronger motives to virtue (and these are positions to which we cannot refuse our assent, without rejecting the authority not only of revealed, but even of natural religion); have we not abundant cause for serious apprehension? The course of public events has, for many years, been such as human wisdom and human force have in vain endeavoured to controul or resist. The counsels of the wise have been infatuated; the valour of the brave has been turned to cowardice. Though the storm has been raging for many years, yet, instead of having ceased, it appears to be now increasing in fury; the clouds which have long been gathering around us, have at length almost overspread the whole face of the heavens with blackness. In this very moment of unexampled difficulty and danger, those great political Characters, to the counsels of the one or the other of whom the nation has been used to look in all public exigencies, have both been taken from us. If such be our condition; and if the Slave Trade be a national crime, declared by every wise and respectable man of all parties, without exception, to be a compound of the grossest wickedness and cruelty, a crime to which we cling in defiance of the clearest light, not only in opposition to our own acknowledgments 6of its guilt, but even of our own declared resolutions to abandon it; is not this then a time in which all who are not perfectly sure that the Providence of God is but a fable, should be strenuous in their endeavours to lighten the vessel of the state, of such a load of guilt and infamy?

Urged by these various considerations, I proceed to lay before you a summary of the principal facts and arguments on which the Abolitionists ground their cause, referring such as may be desirous of more complete information to various original records,^[1] and 7for a more detailed exposition of the reasonings of the two parties, to the printed Report of the Debates in Parliament,^[2] and to various excellent publications which have from time to time been sent into the world.^[3] 8The advocates for abolition court inquiry, and are solicitous that their facts should be thoroughly canvassed, and their arguments maturely weighed.

I fear I may have occasion to request your accustomed candour, not to call it partiality, for submitting to you a more defective statement than you might reasonably require from me. But when I inform you that I had just entered on my present task when I was surprized by the dissolution of Parliament, I need scarcely add, that I have been of necessity compelled to employ in a very different manner the time which was to have been allotted to this service. Under my present circumstances, I had almost resolved to delay addressing you till I could look forward to a longer interval of leisure, than the speedily approaching meeting of Parliament will now allow me; but I hope that this address, though it may be defective, will not be erroneous. It may not contain all which I might otherwise lay before you; but what 9it does contain will be found, I trust, correct; and if my address should bear the marks of haste, I can truly assure you that the statements and principles which I may hastily communicate to you, have been most deliberately formed, and have been often reviewed with the most serious attention. But I already foresee that my chief difficulty will consist in comprising within any moderate limits, the statements which my undertaking requires, and the arguments to be deduced from them; to select from the immense mass of materials which lies before me, such specimens of more ample details, as, without exhausting the patience of my readers, may convey to their minds some faint ideas, faint indeed in colouring but just in feature and expression, of the objects which it is my office to delineate. If my readers should at any time begin to think me prolix, let them but call to mind the almost unspeakable amount of the interests which are in question, and they will more readily bear with me.

Probable Effects of the Slave Trade.

It might almost preclude the necessity of inquiring into the actual effects of the Slave Trade, to consider, arguing from the acknowledged and never failing operation of certain given causes, what must necessarily 10be its consequences. How surely does a demand for any commodities produce a supply. How certainly should we anticipate the multiplication of thefts, from any increase in number of the receivers of stolen goods. In the present instance, the demand is for men, women, and children. And, can we doubt that illicit methods will be resorted to for supplying them? especially in a country like Africa, imperfectly civilized, and divided in general into petty communities? We might almost anticipate with certainty, the specific modes by which the supply of Slaves is in fact furnished, and foretell the sure effects on the laws, usages, and state of society of the African continent. But any doubts we might be willing to entertain on this head are but too decisively removed, when we proceed in the next place to examine, what are the actual means by which Slaves are commonly supplied, and what are the Slave Trade’s known and ascertained consequences? To this part of my subject I intreat peculiar attention; the rather, because I have often found an idea to prevail; that it is the state of the Slaves in the West Indies, the improvement of which is the great object of the Abolitionists. On the contrary, from first to last, I desire it may be borne in mind, that Africa is the 11primary subject of our regard. It is the effects of the Slave Trade on Africa, against which chiefly we raise our voices, as constituting a sum of guilt and misery, hitherto unequalled in the annals of the world.

Evidence against the Slave Trade difficult to be procured.

But, before I proceed to state the facts themselves, which are to be laid before you, it may be useful to make a few remarks on the nature of the evidence by which they are supported; and more especially on the difficulties which it was reasonable to suppose would be experienced in establishing, by positive proof, the existence of practices discreditable to the Slave Trade, notwithstanding the great numbers of British ships which for a very long period have annually visited Africa, and the ample information which on the first view might therefore appear to lie open to our inquiries.

Africa, it must be remembered, is a country which has been very little visited from motives of curiosity. It has been frequented, almost exclusively, by those who have had a direct interest in it’s peculiar traffic; as, the agents and factors of the African Company, or of individual Slave merchants, or by the Captains and Officers of slave ships. The situation of captain of an African ship is an 12employment, the unpleasant and even dangerous nature of which must be compensated by extraordinary profits. The same remark extends in a degree to all the other officers of slave ships; who, it should also be remarked, may reasonably entertain hopes, if they recommend themselves to their employers, of rising to be Captains. They all naturally look forward, therefore, to the command of a ship, as the prize which is to repay them for all their previous sacrifices and sufferings, and some even of the Surgeons appear, in fact, to have been promoted to it. Could these men be supposed likely to give evidence against the Slave Trade? nay, must not habit, especially when thus combined with interest, be presumed to have had it’s usual effect, in so familiarizing them to scenes of injustice and cruelty, as to prevent their being regarded with any proportion of that disgust and abhorrence which they would excite in any mind not accustomed to them? In truth, were the secrets of the prison-house ever so bad, these men could not well be expected to reveal them. But let it also be remembered, that when the call for witnesses was made by Parliament, the question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade had become a party question; and that all the West Indian as well as the African property and influence 13were combined together in it’s defence. The supporters of the trade were the rich and the powerful, the men of authority, influence and connection. They had ships and factories and counting houses, both at home and abroad. Theirs it was, to employ shopkeepers and artizans; theirs to give places of emolument, and the means of rising in life. On the other hand, it was but too obvious (I am sorry to say my own knowledge fully justifies the remark) that, in the great towns especially, in which the African, or West Indian Trade, or both, were principally carried on, any man who was not in an independent situation, and who should come forward to give evidence against the Slave Trade, would expose himself and his family to obloquy and persecution, perhaps to utter ruin. He would become a marked man, and be excluded from all opportunities of improving his condition, or even of acquiring a maintenance among his own natural connections, and in his accustomed mode of life. Any one who will duly weigh the combined effect of all these circumstances, will rather be surprized to hear that any of those who had been actually engaged in carrying on the Slave Trade, were found to give evidence of it’s enormities, than that this description of persons was not more numerous.

Evidence actually obtained.

14For, notwithstanding all the obstacles to which I have been alluding, much oral testimony of the most valuable kind was obtained from persons who had been engaged in the actual conduct of the Slave Trade. And of by far the greatest part of those witnesses it may be truly said, that the more closely they were examined, and the more strongly their evidence was illustrated by light from other quarters, the more was it’s truth decisively established. So much I have thought it the more necessary to observe; because insinuations, to use the softest term, have been not seldom cast against some of the witnesses who gave evidence unfavourable to the Slave Trade, before the House of Commons.—Happily, however, some other sources of information were discovered; and the exact conformity of the intelligence derived from these, with that which has been already mentioned, gave to both indubitable confirmation. A very few men of science were found, who from motives of liberal curiosity had visited those parts of the coast of Africa where the Slave Trade was carried on. Some few also of His Majesty’s naval and military officers, who, while on service in Africa, had opportunities of obtaining useful information concerning the Slave Trade, consented to be examined. They were indeed little 15on shore, and they went to no great distance within the country; but still the facts they stated, were of the utmost importance; the more so, because of the credit which they reflect on the testimony of others, who, on account of their inferior rank in life, might in the judgment of some persons be more exceptionable witnesses.

Other sources of information:—Old Authors.

Lastly, there lay open to the Abolitionists another source of information, to which great attention was due; the acknowledged publications of several persons who at different periods had resided in Africa, some of them for many years, and in high stations, in the employ of the chief Slave trading Companies of the various European nations, and whose accounts had been given to the world long before the Slave Trade had become a subject of public discussion.

It might indeed be presumed, that though no attack had yet been made on the Slave Trade, such persons would be disposed to regard it with a partial and indulgent eye. To it they had owed their fortunes; and, even independently of all pecuniary interest, no man likes to own that he is engaged in a way of life which is hateful and dishonourable, Still, if it be not the express purpose of a narrative to deceive, the truth is apt to 16break out at intervals, and the Advocates for Abolition might therefore expect to find some indirect proofs, some occasional and incidental notices of the real nature and effects of the Slave Trade. They were at least entitled to claim the full benefit of any facts to the disparagement of the Slave Trade, which should be found in this class of writings; and where these earlier publications, of writers so naturally biassed in favour of the Slave Trade, should exactly accord, in what they might state to it’s disparagement, with other living witnesses, several of them, men most respectable in rank and character, and utterly uninterested either way in the decision of the question concerning it’s abolition; men too, whose testimony was the result of their own personal knowledge; the facts which should be thus proved, would be established by a force of evidence, little short of absolute demonstration.

Modern valuable information.

Lastly, there are several other printed accounts of Travels in Africa, which contain much valuable information. The authors of the publications here referred to, having visited Africa of late years, can scarcely indeed be said to be so unexceptionably free, as those who wrote before the Slave Trade had become a subject of public discussion, from all 17bias, either from their connections, their interest, or their preconceived opinions. No imputation, however, is hereby intended to be thrown out against them. With the character of one of them, Dr. Winterbottom, I have long been well acquainted, and it is such as must alone entitle him to the full credit which he has universally obtained. But Mr. Parke justly stands at the head of all African travellers. There prevails throughout his work a remarkable air of authenticity, and to all the facts which it contains, entire credit is due. At the same time, I have heard, from persons who saw his original minutes, that they contained several statements favourable to the views of the Abolitionists, which are not inserted in the publication. His work, however, must ever be read with avidity, from its containing that which perhaps of all human spectacles is the most interesting, the exhibition of superior energies, called into action by extraordinary difficulties and dangers. Other publications concerning Africa have since appeared. That of Golberry, was drawn up and published under the patronage of Bonaparte, about the very time when the latter entered on his crusade against the Blacks in St. Domingo; the Abolitionists may therefore claim the benefit of any facts to the discredit of the 18Slave Trade which it contains. Barrow’s highly interesting account of the Cape of Good Hope, and his late work, containing the account of the expedition to the Booshuana country, reflect also much light on the African character, and indirectly on the effects of the Slave Trade.

Methods by which Slaves are supplied.

Wars.

Let us now proceed to examine what are the principal sources from which the Slave market is furnished with its supplies. The result of that Inquiry will enable us to judge what effect that traffic produces on the happiness of Africa. A very large proportion of the Slaves consists of prisoners of war. But here it becomes advisable to rectify some misconceptions, which have prevailed on this head. The Abolitionists have been represented as maintaining, that in Africa, wars never arise from the various causes whence wars have so commonly originated in the other quarters of the globe; but that they are undertaken solely for the purpose of obtaining captives, who may be afterwards sold for Slaves. In contradiction to this position, various African wars have been cited, which historians state to have arisen from other causes; and it has been denied that wars furnish any considerable supply to the Slave market. Can it be necessary to declare, 19that the advocates for abolition never made so foolish, as well as so false an assertion, as that which has been thus imputed to them? Africans are men—The same bad passions therefore which have produced wars among other communities of human beings, produce the same wasteful effects in Africa likewise. But it will greatly elucidate this point to state, that, as we are informed by Mr. Parke, who has travelled farther into the interior of Africa than any modern traveller, there are two kinds of war in Africa. The one bears a resemblance to our European contests, is openly avowed, and previously declared. “This class however, we are assured, is generally terminated in a single campaign. A battle is fought; the vanquished seldom think of rallying; the whole inhabitants become panick struck; and the conquerors have only to bind their slaves,^[4] and carry off their plunder and their victims.” These are taken into the country of the invader, 20whence, as opportunities offer, they are sent to the Slave market.

Predatory expeditions.

But the second kind of warfare, called Tegria, which means, we are told, plundering or stealing, and which appears to be no other than the practice of predatory expeditions, is that to which the Slave market is indebted for its chief supplies, and which most clearly explains the nature and effect of the Slave Trade. Mr. Parke indeed tells us, that this species of warfare arises from a sort of hereditary feud, which subsists between the inhabitants of neighbouring nations or districts. If we take into the account that the avowed compiler of Mr. Parke’s work, the patron to whose good will he looked for the recompense of all his labours, was one of the warmest and most active opposers of the abolition of the Slave Trade, we shall not wonder that the fact alone is stated, without being traced to it’s original cause. This however is a case, if such a case ever existed, in which the features of the offspring might alone enable us to recognise the rightful parent. But in truth we know from positive testimony, that though hereditary feuds of the deadliest malignity are but too surely generated by these predatory expeditions, and consequently that hatred and revenge may sometimes 21have a share in producing a continued course of them, yet that, speaking generally, the grand operating motive from which they are undertaken, and to which therefore, as their primary cause, they may be referred, is the desire of obtaining Slaves. “These predatory expeditions,” Mr. Parke tells us, “are of all dimensions, from 500 horsemen, headed by the son of the king of the country; to a single individual, armed with his bow and arrow, who conceals himself among the bushes, until some young or unarmed person passes by. He then, tyger-like, springs upon his prey, drags his victim into the thicket, and at night carries him off as a slave.” (Vide note, p. 19). “These incursions,” Mr. Parke goes on to inform us, “are generally conducted with great secresy; a few resolute individuals, led by some person of enterprize and courage, march quietly through the woods, surprize in the night some unprotected village, and carry off the inhabitants, (vide note, p. 19) and their effects, before their neighbours can come to their assistance.”—“One morning,” says Mr. Parke, “during my residence at Kamalia, we were all much alarmed by a party of this kind. The prince of Focladoo’s son, with a strong party of horse, 22passed secretly through the woods, a little to the southward, and the next morning plundered three towns belonging to a powerful chief of Jollonkadoo. The success of this expedition encouraged the governor of another town to make a second inroad on a part of the same country. Having assembled about 200 of his people, he passed the river in the night, and carried off a great number of prisoners. (Vide note, p. 19). Several of the inhabitants who had escaped these attacks, were afterwards seized by the Mandingoes (another people, let it be observed) as they wandered about in the woods, or concealed themselves in the glens and strong places in the mountains.”

Predatory expeditions very common.

“These plundering excursions are very common, and the inhabitants of different communities watch every opportunity of undertaking them.”—“They always,” as Mr. Parke adds, “produce speedy retaliation; and when large parties cannot be collected for this purpose, a few friends will combine together, and advance into the enemy’s country, with a view to plunder, or carry off the inhabitants.” (Note, vide, pa. 19). Thus hereditary feuds are excited and perpetuated between different 23nations, tribes, villages, and even families, each waiting but for the favourable occasion of accomplishing it’s revenge. Such is the picture of the Interior of Africa, as it is given by one who penetrated much further inland than any other modern traveller, and of whom it must be at least confessed, that he was not disposed to exaggerate the evils produced by the Slave Trade.

Sources of supply continued.

Village-breaking.

In another part of the country, we learn from the most respectable testimony, a practice prevails called Village-breaking. It is precisely the Tegria of Mr. Parke, with this difference, that though often termed making war, it is acknowledged to be practised for the express purpose of obtaining victims for the Slave market. It is carried on, sometimes by armed parties of individuals; sometimes by the soldiers of the petty kings and chieftains, who, perhaps in a season of drunkenness, the consequences of which when recovered from the madness of intoxication they have themselves often most deeply deplored, are instigated to become the plunderers and destroyers of those very subjects whom they were bound to protect. The village is attacked in the night; if deemed needful, to increase the confusion, it is set on fire, and the wretched inhabitants, as they 24are flying naked from the flames, are seized and carried into slavery. This practice, especially when conducted on a smaller scale, is called panyaring; |Panyaring, or kidnapping.| for the practice has long been too general not to have created the necessity of an appropriate term. It is sometimes practised by Europeans, especially when the ships are passing along the coast, or when their boats, in going up the rivers, can seize their prey without observation; in short, whenever there is a convenient opportunity of carrying off the victims, and concealing the crime: and the unwillingness which the natives universally shew to venture into a ship of war, until they are convinced it is not a Slave ship, contrasted with the freedom and confidence with which they then come on board, is thus easily accounted for^[5]. But these depredations are far more commonly perpetrated by the natives on each other; and on a larger or a smaller scale, according to the power and number of the assailants, and the resort of ships to the coast, it prevails so generally, as, throughout 25the whole extent of Africa, to render person and property utterly insecure.

Allegation, “that a small proportion of Slaves are prisoners of war,” considered.

And here, before we proceed to other sources of supply, let us for a moment recur to the assertions formerly mentioned, on which our opponents lay very considerable stress,—that but a small proportion of the whole supply of the market consists of prisoners of war, and that African wars do not often originate from the desire of obtaining Slaves. Should we even concede these points, we are now abundantly qualified to estimate the force of the concession; for though we should grant, that declared and national wars are not often undertaken for the purpose of obtaining Slaves, yet it is at least equally undeniable, that those predatory expeditions which are so common, and of which it is the express object to acquire Slaves, are often productive of national wars on the largest scale, and of the most destructive consequences; while they also are the sure and abundant cause of those incessant quarrels and hereditary feuds, which are said to be universal in Africa, and which acts of mutual outrage cannot fail to generate, in countries where the artificial modes of controlling and terminating the disputes and hostilities of adverse tribes and nations are 26unknown. It appears also, that wars are in Africa rendered singularly cruel and wasteful, by the peculiar manner in which they are carried on. So that though we cannot fairly lay to the charge of the Slave Trade all the wars of Africa, we yet may allege that to the causes which produce wars elsewhere, the Slave Trade superadds one entirely new and constant source of great copiousness and efficiency, while it gives to the wars, which arise from every other cause, a character of peculiar malignity and desolation. But happy even, from what has been already stated, happy would it be for Africa, if her greatest miseries were those of avowed and open warfare. War, though the greatest scourge of other countries, is a light evil in the African estimate of suffering. Direct and avowed wars will happen but occasionally, as the circumstances which produce them may arise. Wars, besides, between uncivilized nations, scarcely ever last long; those of Africa, Mr. Parke tells us, seldom beyond a single campaign; and the very consciousness that an evil will be of short duration, mitigates the pain which it occasions. But it is not of accidental or temporary injuries that Africa complains. Her miseries, severe in degree, are also permanent; they know neither intervals or remissions.

Sources of supply continued.

Administration of justice.

27But the Slave Trade is not sustained exclusively by acts of hostile outrage. The administration of justice is turned into another engine for its supply. The punishments, as we are told by some of the old writers,^[6] were formerly remarkable for their lenity; but by degrees, they have been moulded, especially on the coast, into a more productive form. The most trifling offences are punished by the fine of one or more Slaves, which if the culprit be unable to pay, he himself is to be sold into slavery, often for the benefit of the very judges by whom he is condemned.^[7] When the necessity for obtaining Slaves becomes more pressing, new crimes are fabricated, accusations and convictions are multiplied; the unwary are artfully seduced into the commission of crimes. The imaginary offence of witchcraft becomes often a copious source of supply, a conviction being punished by the sale of the whole family.

Native superstitions: Witchcraft.

28Indeed, on some parts of the country bordering on the coast, this charge furnishes the ready means of obtaining, especially for a chieftain, the supply of European articles. A person accused of this crime is required to purge himself by the ordeal of drinking what is called ‘red water’. If the accused drinks it with impunity, he is declared innocent, but if, as more commonly happens, the red water being generally medicated for the purpose, the party is taken sick, or dies, in general the whole, or at the least a certain number of his family, are immediately sold into slavery. An eye witness, who stated the effects of this system, mentioned his having seen king Sherbro, the chief of the river of that name, kill six persons in that way in a single morning. In some extensive districts near the windward coast of Africa, almost every death is believed by the natives to be occasioned by magical influence; and the belief, it is difficult to say, whether real or pretended, in this superstition, is carried to such an extent as to break every tie of natural affection. In these districts it is estimated that two-thirds of the whole export of Slaves were sold for witchcraft. Every man who has acquired any considerable property, or who has a large family, the sale of which will produce a considerable profit, excites 29in the Chieftain near whom he resides, the same longings which are called forth in the wild beast, by the exhibition of his proper prey, and he himself lives in a continual state of suspicion and terror.

Famine and Insolvency.

To this long catalogue are to be added two other sources, famines, and insolvency. In times of extreme scarcity, persons sometimes sell themselves for subsistence; and still more frequently, it is said, children are sold by their parents to procure provisions for the rest of the family. These famines, Mr. Parke, who mentions this source of slavery, observes, are often produced by wars. But while on the one hand we must remark, that this effect arises chiefly out of that peculiarly wasteful manner of carrying on war in Africa, which we have already noticed; so may we not fairly presume that to the Slave Trade also, and to the habits of mind which it generates, it is to be ascribed, that in such seasons of general distress, he who possesses food refuses to part with so much as will suffice for the bare maintenance of his neighbours and fellow sufferers, at any price except that of selling themselves or their children into perpetual slavery? With respect to debt or insolvency, the laws respecting debtor and creditor which prevail in Africa, furnish a 30striking illustration of the effect of the Slave Trade, in gradually moulding to it’s own purpose all the institutions and habits of the country in which it prevails, and rendering them instrumental in forwarding the grand object of furnishing a supply for the Slave market. Creditors, in compensation of their claims on the debtor, have not only a right to seize his own person, and sell him for a Slave, but also any of his family; and if he or they cannot be taken, any inhabitants of the same village, or, as Mr. Parke says, any native of the same kingdom. Indeed it is very rarely that the debtor himself is molested, it is his neighbours or townsmen who are the sufferers. Hence persons become debtors more freely, because, while they gratify their appetites by obtaining the European goods they want, they are not likely to pay for their rashness in their own persons. The Captains of Slave ships are in their turn less backward in advancing goods on credit to the Black factors, and they again to other native dealers, knowing that from some quarter or another the Slaves will surely be supplied.

Distinctions between the Interior countries, and those on the Coast.

In giving this general account of the manner of procuring Slaves, it ought to be observed, that the number and extent of the 31countries whence the Slaves are furnished, and their varying circumstances, will doubtless occasion some variations in the manner of carrying on the traffic: still we might presume that the same causes, operating for a long course of years, on human beings, in something like the same rude state of society, would produce nearly similar effects. In fact we find, from positive testimony, that there is this general similarity in the consequences of the Slave Trade wherever it exists. But there is one distinction which ought to be noticed, that between the inland countries and those on the coast. The proportion furnished by them respectively varies in different parts of Africa; but every where the greater number is supplied from the interior. Many of them come from great distances inland, and the sufferings of these unhappy beings during their journey are such as would alone, if the voice of humanity were to be heard, prompt us to abandon at once so horrid a traffic. Mr. Parke travelled down with a small party of them; and hard indeed must be the heart of that man who can read his account without shuddering.

The difference between the circumstances of the inland districts and those adjacent to the coast, will of course create some corresponding 32difference in the effects produced on them by the Slave Trade. In the interior of the country, the kingdoms, though even they are often split into a number of independent states, are generally of greater extent than on the coast, which is often, especially on the Windward and Gold coast, separated into numberless petty communities, under their respective Chieftains or Aristocracies. It should likewise be remarked, that on one extensive part of the coast of Africa which is divided into a number of different states, every black or white factor who has acquired a little property, forms a settlement or village, and becomes a petty chieftain, and carries on against his neighbours a predatory warfare, by which they are of course excited to reciprocal acts of hostility. In the interior, acts of depredation on members of another community, though, as we are told, very common, are not near so frequent as on the coast; except, perhaps, on the boundaries of kingdoms: and it is remarkable, that Mr. Parke informs us, that the boundaries even of the most populous and powerful kingdoms are commonly very ill peopled. On members of the same community also, these depredations, though undoubtedly frequent, are for many reasons much less common than in the countries 33bordering on the shore. The concealment of any such act of rapine would be obviously much more difficult; neither might it be easy for private traders to secrete their victims, during the long interval which might elapse, before an opportunity might offer of disposing of them. Again, the chieftains or kings of these large communities, while on the one hand, their more abundant revenues place them above the necessity of resorting to such ruinous means of supplying their wants, as the pillage of their own villages, so on the other, not coming into immediate contact with the Slave Traders, they are not so liable to be suddenly instigated, in the madness of intoxication, to the commission of such outrages. The same difference in the circumstances of the interior, prevents the administration of justice, or the native superstitions, being resorted to in the same degree as on the coast. And it is remarkable, that though Mr. Parke speaks of crimes as one source of supply to the Slave Trade, we do not find in his narrative, one single instance specified of a Slave having been so furnished. |Evils of Slave Trade aggravated on the Coast.| But, above all, let it be remembered, on the coast the grand repository of temptations is palpable, and on the spot; of temptations commonly of that precise kind, which, by the gratifications they hold out to the depraved 34appetites, and bad passions of man, spirituous liquors, gunpowder, and fire-arms, the incentives to acts of violence, and the means of committing them, are apt to operate most powerfully on uncivilized men. The love of spirituous liquors, is a passion also, which becomes from indulgence, more craving, and difficult to be resisted. The Captains of Slave ships, who are sound practical philosophers, thoroughly conversant, at least, with all the bad parts of human nature, are well aware of these propensities, and of the advantages which may be derived from them; and hence, they often begin by giving to the petty king or chieftain a present of brandy or rum, anticipating the large returns for this liberality, which future acts of depredation will supply. It is almost a happy circumstance when the chieftain, by possessing the implements of war, is tempted to revenge some old injury, or to ravage and carry off the inhabitants of some neighbouring district, instead of preying on his own miserable subjects. Meanwhile the Slave factor himself takes no part in the quarrels between contending chieftains, but which party soever is victorious, he finds his advantage in the war. He supplies all the contending parties with fire-arms and ammunition, and receives all the Slaves which are made on both sides with perfect 35impartiality. Under such circumstances, might we not anticipate, what we know from positive evidence, that the factor stirs up and inflames dissensions, from which, whoever else may be the loser, he is sure to gain. It has been even imputed to neighbouring chiefs, who, assisted by their respective allies, have carried on with each other a long protracted war, that by a mutual understanding, they have abstained from wasting each other’s territories, while each carried on his ravages against the allies of his enemy with great activity and success. But it is not to kings or chieftains only, that the Slave Trade holds out strong temptations. The appetite for spirituous liquors is universal. European commodities are coveted by all. Whether for attack or defence, fire-arms and gunpowder are most desirable. In such a loose state of society, almost every one has some malice to wreak, some injury to retaliate. Thus sensuality, avarice, hostility, revenge, every bad passion is called into action; while there lies the Slave ship, ready to receive old and young, males and females, all in short who are brought to it, and, without question or exception, to furnish the desired gratification in return. The Captains of Slave ships themselves, who gave evidence before the House of Commons, frankly and invariably acknowledged, 36that it is the universal practice, if the price can be agreed on, to purchase all who are brought to them, without examination as to the manner in which the Slave has been obtained, as to his former condition, or the vendor’s right to sell. So well did they seem to be aware how much the success of their traffic might depend on this mode of conducting it, that they even resented it as an insult on their understandings, when they were asked whether any questions of this kind were put by the purchaser. Thus, whenever a Slave ship is on the coast, a large and general premium is immediately held out for the perpetration of acts of fraud, violence, and rapine. Every child, every unprotected female that can be seized on, can be immediately turned to account. No wonder that, as Captain Wilson informs us, the inhabitants are afraid of venturing out of their own doors without being armed; a practice of which one of themselves gave him the explanation, by significantly pointing to a Slave ship which then lay in sight, completing her cargo.

But it is not only without doors that the Slave ship holds out its lure; it is not only by open violence that it operates. When the Slave ships arrive, unjust convictions are multiplied. Accusations for witchcraft become 37frequent. And it is well worthy of remark, that these native superstitions, being thus maintained in continued life and action, have continued in full force in those very districts, where the intercourse of the natives with the Europeans has been the longest, and the most intimate; while in the interior, the same barbarous practices have either gone into decay of themselves, or seem to have faded away before the feeble light of Mahometanism. Even among private families the seeds of insecurity and cruelty are copiously sown; and from the pressure of present temptation, a husband or a master is often induced, in a fit of temporary anger or jealousy, to sell his wife or his domestics, whom afterwards he often in vain wishes he could recover.

Practice of receiving relations as pawns, and consequences of it.

But besides these general and powerfully operating causes of evil, which have been already noticed, there is one circumstance in the manner of conducting the trade on the coast, which so naturally tends to the production of frequent acts of violence, as to deserve a distinct specification. It affords another striking instance of the way in which the Slave Trade has in a long course of years gradually imparted a taint to all the institutions and customs of Africa. It is the general 38custom for Captains of Slave ships, in exchange for the goods which they advance on credit, and of which the value, as has been stated, is to be repaid to them in Slaves, to receive the children or some other near relations of the Black Factor as pledges, or as they are termed in Africa pawns, whom the Slave captains are to return when the stipulated number of Slaves has been delivered. With the goods which have been entrusted to him he commonly goes up the country; and, knowing that by some means or other the requisite number of Slaves must be furnished, or that his own nearest relatives, and he himself too if he can be taken, will be carried off into slavery, it is obvious, that when the day for the sailing of the ship draws nigh, he will not be very scrupulous in the means to which he resorts for completing his assortment. Thus even parental instinct and the domestic and social affections are rendered by the Slave Trade the incentives to acts of cruelty and rapine. But it would be endless were I to attempt to lay before you in detail all the various forms and modes of wickedness, and misery, of which, directly and indirectly, the Slave Trade is productive. It’s general and leading features have been now exhibited to you.

Recapitulation of effects of Slave Trade.

39Such are the methods by which from eighty to one hundred thousand of our fellow creatures, a race of people too, declared by Mr. Parke himself, to be perhaps beyond all others, passionately attached to their native soil, are annually torn from their country, their homes, their friends, and from whatever is most dear to them. All the ties of nature, and habit, and feeling, are burst asunder; and, by a long voyage, the horrors of which were acknowledged to constitute of themselves an almost incalculable sum of misery, these victims of our injustice are carried to a distant land, to wear away the whole remainder of their lives in a state of hopeless slavery and degradation, with the same melancholy prospect for their descendants after them, for ever.

Yet even this is not all. There is one consequence of the Slave Trade, a consequence too, most important to Africa, which still remains to be pointed out. It were much to foment and aggravate, not seldom to produce, long and bloody wars—to incite to incessant acts of the most merciless depredation—to poison and embitter the administration of the laws—and in general, to give a malignant taint to religious and civil institutions; thus, turning into engines of 40oppression and misery, that very machinery of the social state, which is naturally conducive to the protection and comfort of mankind. It is much to compel men to live at home amid the alarm, elsewhere only felt, and with the precautions only used in an enemy’s country,—to hold out a direct premium to rapine and murder,—in short, to produce the general prevalence of selfishness, and fraud, and violence, and cruelty, and terror, and revenge. And all this; not on a small scale, or within narrow limits, but throughout an immense region, bounded by a line of coast of between three and four thousand miles, and stretching inland to various depths, not seldom to a distance which it requires several months to travel. But there is one triumph still behind; one effect of the Slave Trade; which, if it excite not at first the same lively sympathy, as some others of it’s more direct outrages, on the comforts of domestic or the peace of social life, will yet, in the deliberate judgment of a considerate mind, appear on reflection to be of more importance than all the rest. |Another most important consequence of the Slave Trade.| This is, that by keeping in a state of incessant insecurity, of person and property, the whole of the district which is visited by Europeans, we maintain an impassable barrier on that side, through which 41|It prevents the civilization of Africa.| alone any rays of the religious and moral light and social improvements of our happier quarter of the globe might penetrate into the interior, and thus lock up the whole of that vast continent in it’s present state of wretchedness and darkness.

No natural death of the Slave Trade.

Here, then, we see the bitter cup of Africa filled to the very brim. For the above consideration shews but too clearly, that she cannot expect any natural termination of her sufferings from the gradual progress of civilization and knowledge, which have, in some other instances, put a period to a less extended traffic for Slaves in countries differently situated. The very channels through which alone, according to all human calculation, Africa might have hoped to receive the blessings of religious and moral light, and social improvement, are precisely those through which her miseries flow in upon her with so full a tide. Thus the African Slave Trade provides for it’s own indefinite continuance. Here also, as in other instances which have been already pointed out, it turns into poison what has been elsewhere most salutary, and renders that very intercourse, which has been ordinarily the grand means of civilization, the most sure and operative instrument, in the perpetuation of barbarism.

Our aggravated guilt.

42At length, then, we are prepared to form some judgment of the effects of European intercourse on the state and happiness of Africa. The darkness of Paganism were a very insufficient palliation of such a tissue of cruelty and crimes. But surely it is no small aggravation of our guilt, that We, who are the prime agents in this traffic of wickedness and blood, are ourselves the most free, enlightened, and happy people that ever existed upon earth. We profess a religion which inculcates truth and love, peace and good-will, among men—We are foremost in a commerce which exists but by war, treachery, and devastation. We enjoy a political constitution of government, eminent above all others for securing to the very meanest and weakest the blessings of civil liberty, of personal security, and equal laws—yet We take the lead in maintaining this accursed system, which begins in fraud and violence, and is consummated in bondage and degradation. Blessed ourselves with religious light and knowledge, we prolong in Africa the reign of ignorance and superstition. In short, instead of endeavouring to diffuse among nations, less favoured than ourselves, the blessings we enjoy; after our crime has been indisputably proved to us, in defiance alike of conscience and of reputation, we industriously 43and perseveringly continue to deprave and darken the Creation of God.

There is scarcely any point of view in which the nature and effects of our intercourse with Africa will appear so peculiarly disgraceful to us as a christian nation, as when we contemplate them in connection with the benefits which the Africans derive from their intercourse with the Mahometans. When we cast our eyes towards the south-west of Europe, and behold extensive countries, once possessed by the most polished nations, the chosen seats of literature and the liberal arts; and now behold one universal waste of ignorance and barbarism, we have always been accustomed to ascribe the fatal change to the conquest of a band of Mahometan invaders, and to regret that such fine countries should remain under the benumbing effects of a Mussulman government. On the other hand, in contemplating the superior state of our northern parts of Europe, we have been used, with reason, to ascribe much of our light and liberty, and many of our various blessings, to the influence of that pure religion which is the friend of freedom, of peace, and good-will among men. But with what shame must we acknowledge, that in Africa, Christianity and Mahometanism 44appear to have mutually interchanged characters.—Smith, the African Company’s own agent in 1722, tells us, “the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the traffic of Slaves, and that before our coming they lived in peace. But, say they, it is observable, that wherever Christianity comes, there come with it, a sword, a gun, powder and ball.”^[8]

The same picture may appear to claim still greater attention from the hand of Mr. Parke, whose visit is more recent, and whose knowledge of Africa is more extensive.—Speaking of the Foulah nation, who are many of them professed Mahometans, he says, “religious persecution is not known among them, nor is it necessary, for the system of Mahomet is made to extend itself by means abundantly more efficacious. By establishing small schools in the different towns, where many of the Pagan as well as Mahometan children are taught to read the Koran, and instructed in the tenets of the prophet, the Mahometan priests fix a bias on the minds, and form the character of their young disciples, which no 45accidents of life can ever afterwards remove or alter. Many of these little schools I visited in my progress through the country, and observed with pleasure the great docility, and submissive deportment of the children, and heartily wished they had had better instructors, and a purer religion.” Again, speaking of the Mandingo country, and of other parts of Africa, and of the eagerness which the natives, both Pagan and Mahometan, shew to acquire some knowledge of letters, Mr. Parke speaks out still more intelligibly, and appears feelingly alive to the humiliation of his own religion; and, from motives of christian zeal as well as of humanity, he recommends our endeavouring to introduce the light of true religion into that benighted land.^[9] “Although,” says he, “the negroes in general have a very great idea of the wealth and power of the Europeans, I am afraid that 46the Mahometan converts among them think but very lightly of our superior attainments in religious knowledge. The white traders in the maritime districts take no pains to counteract this unhappy prejudice.”—“To me, therefore, it was not so much the subject of wonder, as matter of regret, to observe, that while the superstition of Mahomet has in this manner scattered a few faint beams of learning among these poor people, the precious light of Christianity is altogether excluded. I could not but lament, that although the coast of Africa has now been known and frequented by the Europeans for more than two hundred years, yet the negroes still remain entire strangers to the doctrines of our holy religion.”— “The poor Africans, whom we affect to consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as little better than a race of formidable but ignorant Heathens.”

Such was Smith’s relation, near a century ago, of the judgment formed by the Africans, of the effects of their intercourse with the Christian nations. Such is the acknowledgment of Mr. Parke, who is certainly disposed to paint the effects of the Slave Trade in the softest colours. Is it possible for any one who calls himself a Christian, and a member 47of the British Empire, to read the passage without the deepest humiliation and sorrow, and without longing also, not only to stop the guilty commerce we have so long carried on, but to endeavour to repair, in some degree, the wrongs of Africa, and with active but tardy kindness, to impart to her some small share of the overflowings of our superabundant blessings?

“But surely,” you will long ere now have been ready to exclaim, “Surely the facts which you have laid before us, though believed by the abolitionists, could not have been established in the judgment of the majority of the House of Commons;”—and you may justly require some decisive evidence in proof of them.

Evidence by which the above statements are established.

To adduce all the specific testimony by which the above allegations were established, would be to fill a volume. I mean, as a specimen of the whole, to extract, and subjoin in an appendix, a few passages from the vast body of evidence with which we are furnished on this subject. But it would be injustice to the great cause I am pleading, not to declare, that the above statements were established beyond all possible dispute; and also, that, with occasional 48variations, resulting from the difference in the forms of government, and in other circumstances, they were found to be applicable not to particular parts only of Africa, but to the whole of that vast district which is visited by the European Slave ships; to be, not the exception, but the rule; not the occasional, but the general and systematic effects of the Slave Trade ships. We have the evidence of several most respectable Officers of the navy, to prove, that wherever they touched, acts of depredation were common. The same practices were found to prevail in the widely distant countries of Senegambia and the Gold coast, by men of Science, one of whom produced a journal, kept at the time, in which he daily entered all that appeared to him worthy of remark; and it was from this record that the Committee read the affecting account which has been mentioned, in which one of the African Kings, with every appearance of sincerity, repeatedly expressed his deep remorse for having been instigated, in a season of intoxication, into which he had been drawn by the Slave merchants, to oppress and pillage his subjects. Much of the Abolitionists’ information was also obtained from those who, in different capacities, chiefly as surgeons, more commonly as mates, and in some few 49instances as common sailors, had been actually employed in Slave ships; some of these persons had likewise been for many months on shore among the natives; and several of them had witnessed the practice of attacking villages by armed parties in the night, and carrying away, and selling all they could seize.

Opponents’ contrary evidence.

In opposition to all this testimony, the Slave Traders produced several witnesses, who were either still engaged in the Slave Trade, or who had formerly carried it on, some of whom had resided several years in Slave factories on the coast. By them it was generally declared, that acts of depredation for the purpose of procuring Slaves were never committed; they had never even heard of such practices, nor had they ever heard of the practice, or of the term, of panyaring or kidnapping.^[10] Crimes and witchcraft were said to be the chief sources of supply; a few were furnished 50by insolvency. The trials were said to be fair, the convictions just. In short, according to their report, the Africans, of whose natural dispositions and character they at the same time gave a highly unfavourable representation, and whose government was said to be very loose and imperfect, must have been a people of the most extraordinary moral excellency, who had for centuries resisted present and strong temptations, which in every other country had proved too powerful to be successfully opposed. Such, according to these witnesses, was the state of things on the coast. Of the interior, from whence the greater part of the Slaves were brought, they professed to know little or nothing.

Opponents’ evidence decisively refuted.

The allegations of these persons, even though they had not been effectually disproved by the concurrent testimony of the various classes of witnesses already noticed, carried their refutation on the very face of them. But if any doubts could have been entertained to which of the two accounts most credit was due, to that of men who were still concerned in carrying on the Slave Trade, or had made their fortunes by it, on the one side; and of witnesses on the other, most of whom, highly respectable both in point of rank and character, had no interest 51at stake either way; these doubts would have been completely removed by another branch of evidence. For, happily for the cause of truth and justice, we were able to adduce, in support of our allegations, the testimony of another set of witnesses, against whom our opponents at least could urge no objections, |Especially by accounts of Africa, published by Slave Traders, and before the Slave Trade had been attacked.| persons in the employ of the African Company or of private merchants, who had been long resident in Africa, for the express purpose of carrying on the Slave Trade, and who, as was formerly mentioned, had published to the world the result of their observations and experience. It might indeed have been feared, that we should be compelled to except against their testimony; and it must be confessed, that for the sake of their own credit, and for that of the occupation by which they had made their fortunes, they would naturally be disposed, even in acknowledging abuses, to touch them with a tender and favourable hand. Yet, however short of the truth we may reasonably suppose their representations to fall, where they are discreditable to the Slave Trade, we find our charges positively and abundantly proved.

Slave Trade’s cruelty and guilt acknowledged by the parliamentary opposers of the abolition.

But it is due to our opponents themselves in the House of Commons, excepting only such of them as were personally connected 52with the places whence the Slave Trade is principally carried on, who are allowed a certain license of speaking and reasoning, on the ground of their being understood to utter the language of their constituents rather than their own; to the rest even of our opponents it is due, to declare, that they never for a moment affected to entertain a doubt of the substantial correctness of our statements. Of the injustice and inhumanity of the Slave Trade, there was but one opinion. The chief advocates for gradual abolition, and even the very few who resisted abolition in any form, reprobated the traffic in the plainest and strongest terms; avowing their firm conviction of its incurable wickedness and cruelty. One of them declared that he knew no language which could add to its horrors; another, that in the pursuit of the general object he felt equally warm with the Abolitionists themselves; another acknowledged the Slave Trade was the disgrace of Great Britain, and the torment of Africa. Whatever might be thought of the consistency of our opponents, who, after thus admitting our premises, stopped short of the conclusions to which such premises might be thought infallibly to lead, it was no great stretch of candour in them to speak in such terms of the Slave Trade, when, so clearly indisputable 53were it’s nature and effects, that Mr. Bryan Edwards, one of the ablest, and most determined enemies of abolition, while avowedly opposing the measure in an eloquent speech (which was afterwards published by authority) made the following memorable declaration. After having confessed he had not the smallest doubt that |Mr. Bryan Edward’s declaration to the same effect.| “in Africa the effects of the Slave Trade were precisely such as I had represented them to be;” he added, “the whole or the greatest part of that immense continent, is a field of warfare and desolation; a wilderness, in which the inhabitants are wolves towards each other; a scene of oppression, fraud, treachery, and blood.”—“The assertion, that a great many of the slaves are criminals and convicts, is mockery and insult.”

Pleas against abolition.

But if the charges which the Abolitionists brought against the Slave Trade were thus clearly proved, you may now be much more disposed to wonder, what arguments could be found sufficiently strong to induce the House of Commons of Great Britain to hesitate, even for a moment, to wipe away so foul a blot from our national character.

The grand operating consideration, which, from the very first discussion of the question 54in 1791 to the present moment, has prevented the actual abolition of the Slave Trade, though so long a period has elapsed since Mr. Pitt congratulated the House of Commons, the Country, and the World, that “its sentence was sealed, that it had received it’s condemnation,” has undoubtedly been, the persuasion that it’s continuance is necessary to the well-being of our West Indian colonies. We will, therefore, inquire into that necessity. But as several other allegations were set up, and various arguments urged, on the part of the Slave Traders, it may be best to consider, previously, such of them as are included in the African division of the subject, in order to clear the way for what may be termed, the West Indian branch of the subject.

The Negroes an inferior race.

The advocates for the Slave Trade originally took very high ground; contending, that the Negroes were an inferior race of beings. It is obvious, that, if this were once acknowledged, they might be supposed, no less than their fellow brutes, to have been comprised within the original grant of all inferior creatures to the use and service of man. A position so shameless, and so expressly contradicted by the Holy Scriptures, could not long be maintained in plain terms. But many 55others, which may not improperly be supposed, from their features, to belong to the same family, were afterwards brought forward. To this class belong the assertions, that, though it might scarcely be justifiable to withhold from the Africans the name of men, yet that they were manifestly inferior to the rest of the human species, both in their intellectual and moral powers. Hence, doubtless, it was, that they never had attained to any height of civilization; whence it was also inferred, that they never could be civilized; that therefore they might be reasonably regarded, as intended by Providence to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water of the species; as a race originally destined to servile offices, and fairly applicable to any purpose by which they might be rendered most subservient to the interest and comfort of the Lords of the Creation. This, indeed, was high ground, as has been already remarked; but it was not injudiciously selected, had it been but tenable; for our opponents well knew, that could they but obtain credit for their representations of the incorrigible stupidity and depravity of the Negro race, our commiseration of them would be proportionably lessened, and then all, except perhaps a few stubborn advocates for justice 56in the abstract, would be content to leave them to their fate.

It therefore becomes highly interesting, in a practical point of view, to ascertain the real character and qualities, both intellectual and moral, of the natives of Africa; and, remembering the advantages we derived in a former instance, from publications which had appeared before the Slave Trade became a subject of public discussion, we might be disposed to congratulate ourselves in having access, on the present occasion, to a work which was published many years before any proposition had been brought forward for abolishing the Slave Trade. |Mr. Long’s account of the Negro race.| The publication to which I allude is Mr. Long’s elaborate History of Jamaica, a work which has been long regarded as of the highest authority on all West Indian topics. We may consider it as containing a more fair representation of the opinion entertained of the Negroes, and of the estimation in which they were held by the well-informed colonists, than any statements which, having been subsequently made, may be supposed to have received a tincture from that discussion. Mr. Long’s work appeared long before the necessity of vindicating the Slave Trade, and the difficulty of finding arguments for that 57purpose had driven the enemies of abolition to the unworthy expedient of calumniating the African character. Yet we find this commonly respectable author speaking of the race of Negroes in such terms, as they who have read the more recent accounts of Africa will peruse with astonishment, as well as with disgust. Far be it from me to quote them with any design of injuring the reputation of a work of established credit. But the passages are in several points of view highly important, and well deserving of your most serious consideration.

Extracts from Long’s History of Jamaica.

“For my own part (says Mr. Long) I think there are extremely potent reasons for believing that the white and the negro are two distinct species.” “In general (he goes on) the African negroes are void of genius, and seem almost incapable of making any progress in civility or science. They have no plan or system of morality among them. Their barbarity to their children debases their nature even below that of brutes. They have no moral sensations; no taste, but for women, gormandizing and drinking to excess; no wish but to be idle. Their children, from their tenderest years, are suffered to deliver themselves up to all that nature suggests to them. Their houses are miserable cabins. 58They conceive no pleasure from the most beautiful parts of their country, preferring the most sterile. Their roads, as they call them, are mere sheep paths, twice as long as they need be, and almost impassable. Their country in most parts is one continued wilderness, beset with briars and thorns.

“They use neither carriages nor beasts of burthen. They are represented by all authors as the vilest of the human kind, to which they have little more pretension of resemblance than what arises from their exterior form.

“In so vast a continent as that of Africa, and in so great a variety of climates and provinces, we might expect to find a proportionable diversity among the inhabitants, in regard to their qualifications of body and mind; strength, agility, industry, and dexterity, on the one hand; ingenuity, learning, arts and sciences, on the other. But on the contrary, a general uniformity runs through all these various regions of people; so that if any difference be found, it is only in degrees of the same qualities; and, what is more strange, those of the worst kind; it being a common known proverb, that all people 59on the globe have some good as well as ill qualities, except the Africans. Whatever great personages this country might anciently have produced, and concerning whom we have no information, they are now everywhere degenerated into a brutish, ignorant, idle, crafty, bloody, thievish, mistrustful, and superstitious people, even in those states where we might expect to find them more polished, humane, docile, and industrious.”—“This brutality somewhat diminishes when they are imported young, after they become habituated to clothing, and a regular discipline of life; but many are never reclaimed, and remain savages, in every sense of the word, to their latest period. We find them marked with the same bestial manners, stupidity, and vices, which debase their brethren on the continent, who seem to be distinguished from the rest of mankind, not in person only, but in possessing in the abstract every species of inherent turpitude that is to be found dispersed at large among the rest of the human creation, with scarce a single feature to extenuate this shade of character, differing in this particular from all other men; for in other countries, the most abandoned villain we ever heard of has 60rarely, if ever, been known unportioned with some one good quality at least in his composition.”—“Among so great a number of provinces on this extensive continent, and among so many millions of people, we have heard but of one or two insignificant tribes, who comprehended any thing of mechanic arts, or manufacture; and even these, for the most part, are said to perform their work in a very bungling and slovenly manner, perhaps not much better than an oran-outang might with a little pains be brought to do.”

“Ludicrous as the opinion may seem, I do not think that an oran-outang husband would be any dishonour to a Hottentot female.”

“Maize, palm-oil, and a little stinking fish, make up the general bill of fare of the prince and the slave.”

“They esteem the ape species as scarcely their inferiors in humanity.”

“Their hospitality is the result of self-love; they entertain strangers only in hopes of extracting some service or profit from them.”

61“Their corporeal sensations are generally of the grossest frame,” &c. &c. &c.

Such is Mr. Long’s portrait of the negro character; such was the state of contempt into which the whole race had fallen, in the estimation of those who had known them chiefly in that condition of wretchedness and degradation into which a long continued course of slavery had depressed them. Can any thing shew more clearly, with what strong prejudices against the negro race, the minds not only of low uneducated men, but of a West Indian, whose authority is great, and whose name stands high among his countrymen, were some years ago at least infected: consequently they prove with what spirit and temper, even well-informed men, among the colonists, entered on the consideration of the various questions involved in the large and complicated discussion concerning the abolition of the Slave Trade.

The question of highly important practical tendencies.

But the subject is of the very first importance in another view; for it is a truth so clear, that it would be a mere waste of time to prove it in detail—that our estimate of the intellectual and moral qualities, of the natural and acquired tempers and feelings, and habits, of any class of our fellow creatures, will determine our judgment as to what is 62necessary to their happiness, and still more as to the treatment they may reasonably claim at our hands. Now it be remembered, the author, whose account of the Africans has been just laid before you, was the very best informed of those on whose views and feelings, respecting the Negroes, our opponents would have had us entirely rely. Must not the representations of such witnesses against the Negroes be received with large abatement, and ought we not to lend ourselves to their suggestions with considerable diffidence? What judgment would they be likely to form of the consideration to which, whether in Africa, on shipboard, or in the West Indies, the negro Slaves were entitled? By how scanty a measure would their comforts be dispensed to them! And when, in answer to our inquiries, we were assured that in these several situations, their treatment was sufficiently mild and humane, and that due attention was paid to their wants and feelings, might we not reasonably receive these assurances with some reserve, on calling to mind that they proceeded from persons whose estimate of sufficiency was drawn from their calculations of what was due to the wants and feelings, the pleasures, and pains of a being little above the brute creation; not, of a Being of talents and passions, 63of anticipations and recollections, of social and domestic feelings similar to our own?

Slave Traders account of the Negro character.

The account given by the witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, of the natural and moral qualities of the Negroes, was of the same unfavourable kind, though considerably less strong in its colouring. I should detain you too long by stating it in detail. It may suffice to mention, in general, that the Africans were represented, in respect to civilization and knowledge, as but very little advanced beyond the rudest state of savage life. The population was said to be thin, their agriculture in the lowest state, their only manufacture a species of coarse mat or cloth. They very rarely used any beasts for draught or burthen, they had no public roads; no knowledge of letters, or apparent sense of their value. But the account of their personal qualities was still more melancholy; because it was such as to leave but slender hopes of their ever emerging out of this dark and barbarous state. The most respectable witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, some of whom had resided among the Africans many years, and on various parts of the coast, declared, that their stupidity, and still more their indolence, were so firmly rooted in their nature, as to be absolutely invincible; 64and, what may perhaps be justly regarded as indicative of the worst natural disposition, that they were deficient in domestic and parental affection.

Mr. Bryan Edwards’s account.

Even Mr. Bryan Edwards, though in common more liberal than other defenders of the Slave Trade, gives in his History of the West Indies a highly unfavourable account of the African character. It ought, however, in all fairness, to be urged in his defence, that his judgment of the Negroes was formed under circumstances highly disadvantageous to them; being grounded on what he had known and heard of them in our West India colonies, where their natural character must necessarily have derived a deep taint from the depraving effects of a long continued state of slavery. To this cause, indeed, he himself very frankly ascribes most of the bad qualities which he enumerates. After exhibiting the different shades of character of the Slaves brought from different parts of Africa, he goes on to state, what may be deemed the general properties of the Negro race, and these are of the most debasing and depraving kind. They are in general distrustful and cowardly; falsehood is one of the most prominent features in their character; they are prone to theft; sullen, selfish, 65unrelenting; and while the softer virtues are seldom found among them, they are so sunk in dissoluteness and licentiousness, that the attempt to introduce the ceremony of marriage among them, would be impracticable to any good purpose. One of the few pleasing traits in their character is their high veneration for old age.

Parke’s character of the Negroes.

After this melancholy picture, it is a relief to the humane mind, to peruse the accounts of the intellectual and moral dispositions and character of the Negroes, which have been given by persons who have had far superior means of information. The chief of them, Mr. Parke, and Mr. Golberry, were also, from their connections, unfriendly to the abolition, and cannot therefore be supposed to be tinctured with any of the prejudices which may be presumed to bias the minds of the avowed advocates of the negro race. It would be a grateful task to lay before you such copious extracts, as would give you a full and minute enumeration of the particulars of the negro character; but my extracts, to do justice to the subject, would almost fill a volume. I must therefore refer you to my appendix for a brief specimen of them, and content myself here with exhibiting the mere outlines of the very different portrait which 66has been taken of the Negroes, after a more familiar and extended survey of their tempers and conduct.

Mr. Parke represents the Africans of the interior as naturally superior, both in their intellectual and moral endowments, to almost any other uncivilized nation. He speaks in high terms of their powers of ingenuity and invention, of their quickness and cheerfulness; of the value which they set on the learning within their reach, and the price at which they are willing to acquire it for themselves, or their children; of the skill which they display in several arts and manufactures. But the natural character of the Africans rises in our estimation, when, from considering their intellectual, we take a fair survey of their moral qualities; of the reverence for truth in which the children are educated by their mothers, among the Mandingoes, who, let it be observed, constitute the bulk of the inhabitants in all the vast districts of Africa visited by Mr. Parke; of their almost universal benevolence, gentleness, and hospitality; of their courage, and, when they have any adequate motive to prompt them to work, of their industry and perseverance; of their parental and filial tenderness, of their social and domestic affection, 67of the conjugal fidelity of the women, combined with great cheerfulness and frankness; of the extraordinary attachment of the Negroes to their country and home; in some cases, of their magnanimity, of which two instances are given, scarcely inferior to any thing which is recorded in Greek or Roman story.

Golberry’s character of the Negroes.

Mr. Golberry’s account of the negro character is at least equally favourable. “The Foulahs, he says, are intelligent and industrious, fine, strong, brave men; but, from their habitual commerce with the Moors, they are become savage and cruel. The Mandingoes are well informed, graceful, and active, and, in their mercantile character, clever and indefatigable. The Jaloffs are honest, hospitable, generous, and faithful; their character mild, and inclined to good order and civilization.” Besides this account of particular nations, he observes of the Negroes in general, that they have both taste, ingenuity, and cleverness, and may be reckoned among the most favoured people of nature. They are, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species, which is probably owing to the moderation they in general observe, in their habits, regimen, and pleasures. He bears, 68if possible, a still stronger testimony to the benevolence, hospitality, frankness, and generosity of the negro character. The mothers, says he, are passionately fond of their children, and these discover in return great filial tenderness. The women are always kind and attentive.

Mr. Winterbottom’s.

Concerning Mr. Winterbottom’s account, I will here only state, that it corresponds, in the great essentials of character, with the representations already given, though it be perhaps scarcely so favourable to the negro character.

The Hottentots vindicated.

Even the poor calumniated Hottentots, who were long regarded as among the lowest in the scale of being, have at length found respectable and able advocates. Among the many good qualities which the Hottentot possesses, there is one, says Mr. Barrow, of which he is master in an eminent degree, a rigid adherence to truth: he may be considered also as exempt from stealing. Sir James Craig, when he commanded at the Cape, attempted to form an African corps, in defiance of the most confident prediction of the colonists, whose prejudices against the Hottentot race were scarcely less strong than those of Mr. Long himself. “We were told,” 69says Sir James, “that their propensity to drunkenness was so great, we should never be able to reduce them to order or discipline; and that the habit of roving was so rooted in their disposition, we must expect the whole corps would desert, the moment they had received their clothing.” Both these charges were confuted by experience. Sir James goes on to remark, “Never were people more contented or more grateful for the treatment they now receive. We have upwards of three hundred, who have been with us nine months. It is therefore with the opportunity of knowing them well, that I venture to pronounce them an intelligent race of men. All who bear arms exercise well, and understand, immediately and perfectly, whatever they are taught to perform. Many of them speak English tolerably well. Of all the qualities that can be ascribed to a Hottentot, it will little be expected I should expatiate upon their cleanliness; and yet it is certain, that at this moment our Hottentot parade would not suffer in a comparison with that of some of our regular regiments. They are now likewise cleanly in their persons; the practice of smearing themselves with grease being entirely left off. I have frequently observed them washing themselves in a 70rivulet, where they could have in view no other object but cleanliness.” The poor Bosjesman Hottentots are also stated as a docile, tractable people, of innocent manners, and beyond expression grateful to their benefactors.

Character of Booshuana and Baroloo natives.

Some later travellers from the Cape of Good Hope, and in the service of Government, have penetrated into the heart of Africa to a great depth, but short of the region in which the Slave Trade prevails, and the account which, both from their own knowledge and from the representations of others, they give of the natives, is still of the same encouraging kind.

Character given of the Negroes by the Abolitionists witnesses.

After these accounts, you will not be surprised to hear, that the representations given of the Africans by the naval officers, and the men of science before alluded to, were highly favourable. One witness spoke of the acuteness of their perceptions; another, of the extent of their memory; a third, of their genius for commerce; others, of their good workmanship in gold, iron, and leather; the peculiarly excellent texture of their cloth, and the beautiful and indelible tincture of their dyes. It was acknowledged that they supplied the ships with many articles of provision, with wood, and water, and other necessaries. 71Some spoke in high terms of their peaceable disposition; all of their cheerfulness and eminent hospitality.

I have been the more diffuse on this topic, because, though our commercial connection, with Africa be of so old a date, we have scarcely, till of late years, had any authentic account of the interior. In a region so vast, there must be a great variety of nations, and very different accounts may be adduced of particular countries; accounts not always, however, of a very authentic kind. But it is highly encouraging, and it is more than enough to rescue the African race from the unjust and general stigma which has been cast on it, to know, that later travellers who have visited the interior, in parts widely distant from each other, have made such pleasing reports of the intelligence, tempers and dispositions, habits, and manners of the natives of this vast continent.

Yet Africa never was civilized.—Argument resulting from that fact considered.

But, notwithstanding all which has been here adduced in favour of the negro character, I am aware that there exists, not uncommonly, in the minds even of men of understanding and candour, a strong prejudice against the African Negroes, on the ground of their never having advanced to any considerable 72state of civilization and knowledge, in any period of the world. Let me be permitted, in the first place, to consider that position more particularly. They were always, it is alleged, to a considerable degree barbarous. Still more, in the remotest times to which our accounts extend, slavery, and even a Slave Trade, have been found to prevail in Africa. Hence a presumption arises, that her inhabitants are incapable of civilization, and that Africa cannot much complain of a practice which has become so congenial to her, and which seems to arise, not from European avarice, or cruelty, but rather from the genius and dispositions of her people, or from some incorrigible vice in her system of laws, institutions, and manners.

That Africa, which contains nearly a third of the habitable globe, should never at any period have been reclaimed from a state of comparative barbarism, is, indeed, on the first view, a strange phenomenon. But without stopping to comment on the precision of that reasoning which, on this ground, should argue that it is justifiable for the European nations to make Africa the scene, and her sons the objects of the Slave Trade, we may confidently affirm, that a considerate review of the history, origin, and progress of civilization 73and the arts, in all ages and countries, will not only explain the difficulty, but will give us good grounds for believing, that, reasoning from experience, the interior of Africa is full as much civilized as any other race of men would have been, if placed in the same situation.

How is it that civilization and the arts grow up in any country? The reign of law and of civil order must be first established. From law, says a writer of acute discernment and great historical research, from law arises security; from security, curiosity; from curiosity, knowledge. As property is accumulated, industry is excited, a taste for new gratifications is formed, comforts of all kinds multiply, and the arts and sciences naturally spring up and flourish in a soil and climate thus prepared for their reception. Yet, even under these circumstances, the progress of the arts and sciences would probably be extremely slow, if a nation were not to import the improvements of former times and other countries. And we are well warranted, by the experience of all ages, in laying it down as an incontrovertible position—that the arts and sciences, knowledge, and civilization, have never yet been found to be the native growth of any country; but that they have ever been 74communicated from one nation to another, from the more to the less civilized. Now, whence was Africa to receive these valuable presents?

Let us summarily and briefly trace the actual progress of human civilization from the very earliest times. We learn from the Holy Scriptures, and the researches of the ablest antiquaries strongly confirm the supposition, that Mesopotamia was the original seat of the human race. We know not to what extent the globe had been civilized before the Flood; but the single family which survived that event, inhabited the same or an adjacent part of Asia. About a century afterwards, happened the dispersion of nations, and confusion of tongues; when different races of men, like streams from one common fountain, diverged in various directions to people the whole earth. Without going into minute, and therefore difficult, inquiries, we know that Assyria and Egypt were the first nations which attained to any great heights of social improvement. Babylon, the capital of Assyria, was built about 150 years after the flood, and the Assyrian empire is supposed to have soon after risen to a high degree of splendour. The neighbouring province of Egypt, from the mildness of its climate, and its singular 75fertility, naturally attracted inhabitants, who, of course, brought along with them the arts of their native land. It is represented by the Mosaic writings to have been, about 450 years after the flood, a flourishing and well regulated kingdom; and all history testifies that it was one of the earliest seats of the arts and sciences.

Next to these come the Phœnicians, a colony from Egypt, situated on the coasts of Syria, whose advances towards refinement appear to have been great, and commercial opulence considerable. They gradually made settlements in the islands and on the shores of the Mediterranean. By them, the first rudiments of civilization, above all, the art of alphabetical writing, were conveyed to Greece, the various inhabitants of which were then in a far ruder state than most of the African nations in the present day. They are said to have been cannibals, and to have been ignorant even of the use of fire. Indeed, their barbarous state, had it not been proved by positive testimony, might have been almost inferred, from the single circumstance, of their assigning divine honours to him who reclaimed them from living on acorns and other spontaneous fruits of the earth, and taught them to cultivate the 76ground for corn. Greece, as is justly observed by Mr. Hume, was in a situation the most favourable of all others to improvements of every kind, especially in the arts and sciences. It was divided into a number of little independent communities, connected by commerce and policy, and exciting each other by mutual competition to those heights of excellence to which they at length attained, and which, in the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and oratory, have perhaps never since been reached by any other nation. About 150 years before Christ, Greece was subdued by the Romans, who thence derived their civilization and knowledge. By the extension of the Roman arms over almost the whole of Europe, the seeds of civilization were first sown in our northern regions, till then immersed in darkness and barbarism; and they sprung up and flourished during the order and security which, previous to the irruption of the northern swarms, prevailed for some centuries throughout the Roman empire. Such was the state of Europe.

In Asia also, the progress of the Roman arms was considerable, and their empire extensive: there were, besides, other great and populous nations, which, from their connection with the earliest seats of civilization, had 77attained to various degrees of social refinement. But of Africa, those parts alone which border on the Mediterranean Sea had been settled by colonies from any civilized nation. This will not appear extraordinary, if we consider the geographical circumstances of that quarter of the globe, and, still more, the low state of navigation among the ancients. Their knowledge of navigation was so imperfect, that they scarcely ever ventured out of sight of land; and the account of the Phœnicians having penetrated into the ocean, and having found a way into the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, although there now seems reason to believe its truth, was in general regarded as bearing on it’s very face it’s own contradiction. The Romans had therefore no access by the ocean to the interior of Africa; and it was separated from the provinces bordering on the Mediterranean by an immense sea of sandy desert, near nine hundred miles from north to south, and twice that extent from east to west, beyond which, though a few adventurous parties might venture to penetrate, there was nothing of the established regularity and order of a Roman province. The very tales which were told of the inhabitants of these districts, sufficiently denote the imperfect acquaintance and limited intercourse which subsisted with them. 78Hitherto, then, how or whence was civilization to find its way into the interior of Africa?

Next, the Northern nations, who, seeking for a more genial climate and a more fertile soil, in the finest provinces of both the eastern and western empire, overran the civilized world in the fifth century after Christ, were under no temptations to extend their settlements beyond those natural barriers which had formed the boundaries of the Roman conquests. While the coasts of the Mediterranean therefore were throughout ravaged and colonized, the interior of Africa was still neglected.

At length the all-conquering followers of Mahomet issued forth, and, after desolating the fine African provinces which were subject to Rome, some of their adventurous bands seem to have penetrated in various quarters into the interior, and, occupying the banks of one of the finest rivers, to have planted themselves, in greater or less numbers, beyond the immense desert which forms the northern boundary of interior Africa. But it should be remembered, that while the Mahometans, who overran the various provinces of both the eastern and 79western empires, became civilized by the nations they subdued, as Rome had been before by her conquest of Greece, so that they soon attained to a great degree of knowledge and refinement; the tribes which planted themselves in Africa, finding only nations as illiterate and as unpolished as themselves, retained all their original barbarism; while their ferocious tempers and habits, and their intolerant tenets, led them to keep down their negro subjects in a state of grievous subjection, and prevented that secure enjoyment of person and property which prompts men to industry, by securing to them the enjoyment and use of what they have acquired, and is indispensably necessary for enabling the mind to exercise its powers with freedom. Here, perhaps however, the first faint beams of knowledge and civilization shot into the darkness of the negro nations; and it is remarkable, that, barbarous as were the first Mahometan settlers of interior Africa, and hostile to all improvement as is the genius of Mahometanism, yet such is the effect of any regular government, that in those districts in which the Mahometans either possess the entire government, or a very considerable influence over it, there were many centuries ago great and populous cities, provinces not ill cultivated, 80and a considerable degree of social order and civilization.