n was the having placed them in so unnatural a
position, that their enemies might seem to be furnished with an argument
more plausible than sound, drawn from the Negro's supposed unfitness for
immediate emancipation.

In order to promote these four great objects, a society was formed in
May 1807, called the African Institution, and although, at first, its
labours were chiefly directed to the portion of the subject relating to
Africa, by degrees, as the extinction of the British Slave Trade was
accomplished, its care was chiefly bestowed on West India matters, which
were more within the power of this country than the slave traffic, still
carried on by foreign nations. But it is necessary in the first place,
to recite the measures by which our own share in that enormous crime was
surrendered, and the stigma partially obliterated, which it had brought
upon our national character, Thomas Clarkson bore a forward and
important part in all these useful and virtuous proceedings. His health
was now, by rest among the Lakes of Westmoreland for several years,
comparatively restored and his mind once more bent itself to the
accomplishment of the grand object; of his life, we may he permitted
reverently to suggest, the end of his existence.

Mr. Stephen and others, at first, deemed the certainty of the Act passed
in March 1807, being evaded under the stimulus, and the insurance
against capture afforded by the enormous profits of the traffic, so
clear, that they expected the law to become, almost from the time of its
being enacted, a dead letter. There soon appeared the strongest reasons
to concur in this opinion, the result of long and close observation in
the Islands where Mr. Stephen had passed part of his life. The
slave-dealers knew the risk of penalty and forfeiture which they ran;
but they also knew that if one voyage in three or four was successful,
they were abundantly remunerated for all their losses; and, therefore,
they were no more restrained by the Abolition Act, than by any moderate
increase of the cost or the risk attending their wicked adventures. This
was sure, to be the case, as long as the law only treated slavetrading
as a contraband commerce, subjecting those who drove it to nothing but
pecuniary penalties. But it was equally evident that the same persons
who made these calculations of profit and risk, while they only could
lose the ship or the money by a seizure, would hesitate before they
encountered the haza