to which man
could not be degraded without injustice; and this they would maintain,
was the condition of the African, who was torn away into slavery.

He then explained the limits of that portion of Africa, which the bill
intended to set apart as sacred to peace and liberty. He showed that
this was but one-third of the coast; and, therefore, that two-thirds
were yet left for the diabolical speculations of the slave merchants. He
expressed his surprise that such witnesses, as those against the bill,
should have been introduced at all: he affirmed that their oaths were
falsified by their own log-books; and that, from their own accounts, the
very healthiest of their vessels were little better than pestilential
gaols. Mr. Robert Hume, one of these witnesses, had made a certain
voyage: he had made it in thirty-three days: he had shipped two hundred
and sixty-five slaves, and he had lost twenty-three of them. If he had
gone on losing his slaves, all of whom were under twenty-five years of
age, at this rate, it was obvious, that he would have lost two hundred
and fifty-three of them, if his passage had lasted for a year. Now, in
London only, seventeen would have died of that age, out of one thousand
within the latter period.

After having exposed the other voyages of Mr. Hume in a similar manner,
he entered into a commendation of the views of the Sierra Leone company,
and then defended the character of the Africans in their own country, as
exhibited in the Travels of Mr. Mungo Park. He made a judicious
discrimination with respect to slavery, as it existed among them: he
showed that this slavery was analogous to that of the heroic and
patriarchal ages, and contrasted it with the West Indian in an able
manner.

He adverted, lastly, to what had fallen from the learned counsel, who
had supported the petitions of the slave-merchants. One of them had put
this question to their Lordships, "If the Slave Trade were as wicked as
it had been represented, why was there no prohibition of it in the Holy
Scriptures?" He then entered into a full defence of the Scriptures on
this ground, which he concluded by declaring, that, as St. Paul had
coupled men-stealers with murderers, he had condemned the Slave Trade in
one of its most productive modes, and generally in all its modes. And
here it is worthy of remark, that the word used by the apostle on this
occasion, and which has been translated men-stealers, should have been
rendered slave tra