should have to sustain
from persons trained to a familiarity with the rapine and desolation
necessarily attendant on the Slave Trade, and sensible, also, of the
prejudices which implicitly arise from long-established usages, this
committee consider the late decision in the House of Commons as a delay,
rather than a defeat. In addressing a free and enlightened nation on a
subject, in which its justice, its humanity, and its wisdom are
involved, they cannot despair of final success; and they do hereby,
under an increasing conviction of the excellence of their cause, and in
conformity to the distinguished examples before them, renew their firm
protestation, that they will never desist from appealing to their
countrymen, till the commercial intercourse with Africa shall cease to
be polluted with the blood of its inhabitants.

These resolutions were published, and they were followed by a suitable
report.

The committee, in order to strengthen themselves for the prosecution of
their great work, elected Sir William Dolben, Bart., Henry Thornton,
Lewis Alexander Grant, and Matthew Montagu, Esqrs., who were members of
parliament, and Truman Harford, Josiah Wedgewood, jun., Esq., and John
Clarkson, Esq., of the royal navy, as members of their own body; and
they elected the Rev. Archdeacon Plymley (afterwards Corbett) an
honorary and corresponding member, in consequence of the great services
which he had rendered their cause in the shires of Hereford and Salop,
and the adjacent counties of Wales.

The several committees, established in the country, on receiving the
resolutions and report as before mentioned, testified their sympathy in
letters of condolence to that of London on the late melancholy occasion;
and expressed their determination to support it as long as any vestiges
of this barbarous traffic should remain.

At length the session ended; and though, in the course of it, the
afflicting loss of the general question had occurred, there was yet an
attempt made by the abolitionists in parliament, which met with a better
fate. The Sierra Leone Company received the sanction of the Legislature.
The object of this institution was to colonize a small portion of the
coast of Africa. They, who were to settle there, were to have no concern
in the Slave Trade, but to discourage it as much as possible. They were
to endeavour to establish a new species of commerce, and to promote
cultivation in its neighborhood by free labour. The