s to consist,--of the blessings of society,--of
the charities of the dear relationships of husband, wife, father, son, and
kindred,--of the due discharge of the relative duties of these,--and of
that freedom, which in its pure and natural sense was one of the greatest
gifts of God to man.

It was impossible to read the evidence, as it related to this trade,
without acknowledging the inhumanity of it, and our own disgrace. By what
means was it kept up in Africa? By wars instigated, not by the passions of
the natives, but by our avarice. He knew it would be said in reply to this,
that the slaves, who were purchased by us, would be put to death, if we
were not to buy them. But what should we say, if it should turn out, that
we were the causes of those very cruelties, which we affected to prevent?
But, if it were not so, ought the first nation in the world to condescend
to be the executioner of savages?

Another way of keeping up the Slave-trade was by the practice of
man-stealing. The evidence was particularly clear upon this head. This
practice included violence, and often bloodshed. The inhumanity of it
therefore could not be doubted.

The unhappy victims, being thus procured, were conveyed, he said, across
the Atlantic in a manner which justified the charge of inhumanity again.
Indeed the suffering here was so great, that neither the mind could
conceive nor the tongue describe it. He had said on a former occasion, that
in their transportation there was a greater portion of misery condensed
within a smaller space, than had ever existed in the known world. He would
repeat his words; for he did not know, how he could express himself better
on the subject. And, after all these horrors, what was their destiny? It
was such, as justified the charge in the resolution again: for, after
having survived the sickness arising from the passage, they were doomed to
interminable slavery.

We had been, he said, so much accustomed to words, descriptive of the
cruelty of this traffic, that we had almost forgotten their meaning. He
wished that some person, educated as an Englishman, with suitable powers of
eloquence, but now for the first time informed of all the horrors of it,
were to address their lordships upon it, and he was sure, that they would
instantly determine that it should cease. But the continuance of it had
rendered cruelty familiar to us; and the recital of its horrors had been so
frequent, that we could now hear them sta