eyes,
whether to Africa, the Middle Passage, or the West Indies, we could find
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 o