d no comfort, no
satisfaction, no relief. It was the gracious ordinance of Providence, both
in the natural and moral world, that good should often arise out of evil.
Hurricanes cleared the air; and the propagation of truth was promoted by
persecution. Pride, vanity, and profusion contributed often, in their
remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind. In common, what was in
itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some
circumstances of palliation. The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave. We
did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with
injustice. But here the case was far otherwise. It was the prerogative of
this detested traffic to separate from evil its concomitant good, and to
reconcile discordant mischiefs. It robbed war of its generosity; it
deprived peace of its security: we saw in it the vices of polished society,
without its knowledge or its comforts; and the evils of barbarism without
its simplicity. No age, no sex, no rank, no condition was exempt from the
fatal influence of this wide-wasting calamity. Thus it attained to the
fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and, scorning
all competition and comparison, it stood without a rival in the secure,
undisputed, possession of its detestable preeminence.

But, after all this, wonderful to relate, this execrable traffic had been
defended on the ground of benevolence! It had been said, that the slaves
were captives and convicts, who, if we were not to carry them away, would
be sacrificed, and many of them at the funerals of people of rank,
according to the savage custom of Africa. He had shown, however, that our
supplies of slaves were obtained from other quarters than these. But he
would wave this consideration for the present. Had it not been acknowledged
by his opponents, that the custom of ransoming slaves prevailed in Africa?
With respect to human sacrifices, he did not deny, that there might have
been some instances of these; but they had not been proved to be more
frequent than amongst other barbarous nations; and, where they existed,
being acts of religion, they would not be dispensed with for the sake of
commercial gain. In fact, they had nothing to do with the Slave-trade; only
perhaps, if it were abolished, they might, by means of the civilization
which would follow, be done away.

But, exclusively of these sacrifices, it had been asserted, that it was
kindness to the inhabitan