re Englishmen,
above all others, were to go to find out and punish adultery? Did it
become us to cast the first stone? It was a most extraordinary
pilgrimage for a most extraordinary purpose! And yet upon this plea we
justified our right of carrying off its inhabitants. The offence alleged
next was witchcraft. What a reproach it was to lend ourselves to this
superstition!--Yes: we stood by; we heard the trial; we knew the crime
to be impossible; and that the accused must be innocent: but we waited
in patient silence for his condemnation; and then we lent our friendly
aid to the police of the country, by buying the wretched convict, with
all his family; whom, for the benefit of Africa, we carried away also
into perpetual slavery.

With respect to the situation of the slaves in their transportation, he
knew not how to give the House a more correct idea of the horrors of it,
than by referring them to the printed section of the slave-ship; where
the eye might see what the tongue must fall short in describing. On this
dismal part of the subject he would not dwell. He would only observe,
that the acts of barbarity, related of the slave-captains in these
voyages, were so extravagant, that they had been attributed in some
instances to insanity. But was not this the insanity of arbitrary power?
Who ever read the facts recorded of Nero without suspecting he was mad?
Who would not be apt to impute insanity to Caligula--or Domitian--or
Caracalla--or Commodus--or Heliogabalus? Here were six Roman emperors,
not connected in blood, nor by descent, who, each of them, possessing
arbitrary power, had been so distinguished for cruelty, that nothing
short of insanity could be imputed to them. Was not the insanity of the
masters of slave-ships to be accounted for on the same principles?

Of the slaves in the West Indies it had been said, that they were taken
from a worse state to a better. An honourable member, Mr. W. Smith, had
quoted some instances out of the evidence to the contrary. He also would
quote one or two others. A slave under hard usage had run away. To
prevent a repetition of the offence his owner sent for his surgeon, and
desired him to cut off the man's leg. The surgeon refused. The owner, to
render it a matter of duty in the surgeon, broke it. "Now," says he,
"you must cut it off; or the man will die." We might console ourselves,
perhaps, that this happened in a French island; but he would select
another instance, which ha