ble, on that
account, to the suspicion of writing it for the purpose of sounding my own
praise.

With this objection my friends were not satisfied. They answered, that I
might treat the History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade as a species of
biography, or as the history of a part of my own life: that people, who had
much less weighty matters to communicate, wrote their own histories; and
that no one charged them with vanity for so doing.

I own I was not convinced by this answer. I determined, however, in
compliance with their wishes, to examine the objection more minutely, and
to see if I could overcome it more satisfactorily to my own mind. With this
view, I endeavoured to anticipate the course which such a history would
take. I saw clearly, in the first place, that there were times, for months
together, when the commitee for the abolition of the Slave-trade was
labouring without me, and when I myself for an equal space of time was
labouring in distant parts of the kingdom without them. Hence I perceived
that, if my own exertions were left out, there would be repeated chasms in
this history, and, indeed, that it could not be completed without the
frequent mention of myself. And I was willing to hope that this would be so
obvious to the good sense of the reader, that if he should think me
vain-glorious in the early part of it, he would afterwards, when he
advanced in the perusal of it, acquit me of such a charge. This
consideration was the first, which removed my objection on this head. That
there can be no ground for any charge of ostentation, as far as the origin
of this history is concerned, so I hope to convince him there can be none,
by showing him in what light I have always viewed myself in connection with
the commitee, to which I have had the honour to belong.

I have uniformly considered our commitee for the abolition of the
Slave-trade, as we usually consider the human body, that is, as made up of
a head and of various members, which had different offices to perform.
Thus, if one man was an eye, another was an ear, another an arm, and
another a foot. And here I may say, with great truth, that I believe no
commitee was ever made up of persons, whose varied talents were better
adapted to the work before them. Viewing then the commitee in this light,
and myself as in connection with it, I may deduce those truths, with which
the analogy will furnish me. And first, it will follow, that if every
member has pe