arge indignantly, and defied a proof. But it was
said to him, "Did you never order such a thing to be done?" His reply was,
"Being sick in my cabin, I was informed that a man-slave would neither eat,
drink, nor speak. I desired the mate and surgeon to try to persuade him to
speak. I desired that the slaves might try also. When I found he was still
obstinate, not knowing whether it was from sulkiness or insanity, I ordered
a person to present him with a piece of fire in one hand and a piece of yam
in the other, and to tell me what effect this had upon him. I learnt that
he took the yam and began to eat it, but he threw the fire overboard." Such
was his own account of the matter. This was eating by duresse, if any thing
could be called so. The captain, however, triumphed in his expedient, and
concluded by telling the committee, that he sold this very slave at Grenada
for forty pounds. Mark here the moral of the tale, and learn the nature and
the cure of sulkiness.

But upon whom did the cruelties, thus arising out of the prosecution of
this barbarous traffic, fall? Upon a people with feeling and intellect like
ourselves. One witness had spoken of the acuteness of their understandings;
another of the extent of their memories; a third of their genius for
commerce; a fourth of their proficiency in manufactures at home. Many had
admired their gentle and peaceable disposition; their cheerfulness; and
their hospitality. Even they, who were nominally slaves in Africa, lived a
happy life. A witness against the abolition had described them as sitting
and eating with their masters in the true style of patriarchal simplicity
and comfort. Were these then a people incapable of civilization? The
argument that they were an inferior species had been proved to be false.

He would now go to a new part of the subject. An opinion had gone forth
that the abolition of the trade would be the ruin of the West India
Islands. He trusted he should prove that the direct contrary was the truth;
though, had he been unable to do this, it would have made no difference as
to his own vote. In examining, however, this opinion, he should exclude the
subject of the cultivation of new lands by fresh importations of slaves.
The impolicy of this measure, apart from its inhumanity, was indisputably
clear. Let the committee consider the dreadful mortality, which attended
it. Let them look to the evidence of Mr. Woolrich, and there see a contrast
drawn between the