Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.

The Report of the Privy Council to the King in 1788, and still more the Reports of the Committee of the House of Commons, to which had been referred the various petitions for and against the abolition, and in the Appendixes to which is contained the Evidence at length of the Witnesses who were examined on that occasion. For the convenience of those who might not have leisure to peruse so voluminous a mass of evidence, an abridged abstract of it was made. This occupies two small octavo volumes, and is entitled “An Abridgement of the Minutes of the Evidence on the Slave Trade. 1790.” It is to be purchased at Phillips’s, George-yard, Lombard-street.—Various Papers and Accounts, tending to give useful information, have also been laid before the House of Commons from time to time. The titles of these will be found in the House of Commons Journals. See especially a voluminous mass of Papers respecting the Slave Trade, ordered to be printed 8th June 1804; and another very important set of Communications from the West Indies, ordered for printing 25th February 1805. See also two very interesting Reports of the House of Assembly of Jamaica.