this traffic which the human imagination could not aggravate. He had
witnessed such scenes over the whole coast of Africa; and he could say,
that if their lordships could only have a sudden glimpse of them, they
would be struck with horror, and would be astonished that they could
ever have been permitted to exist. What then would they say to their
continuance year after year, and from age to age?

From information, which he could not dispute, he was warranted in
saying, that, on this continent, husbands were fraudulently and forcibly
severed from their wives, and parents from their children; and that all
the ties of blood and affection were torn up by the roots. He had
himself seen the unhappy natives put together in heaps in the hold of a
ship, where, with every possible attention to them, their situation must
have been intolerable. He had also heard proved, in courts of justice,
facts still more dreadful than those which he had seen. One of these he
would just mention. The slaves on board a certain ship rose in a mass to
liberate themselves, and having advanced far in the pursuit of their
object, it became necessary to repel them by force. Some of them
yielded, some of them were killed in the scuffle, but many of them
actually jumped into the sea and were drowned, thus preferring death to
the misery of their situation; while others hung to the ship, repenting
of their rashness, and bewailing with frightful noises their horrid
fate. Thus the whole vessel exhibited but one hideous scene of
wretchedness. They who were subdued and secured in chains were seized
with the flux, which carried many of them off. These things were proved
in a trial before a British jury, which had to consider whether this was
a loss which fell within the policy of insurance, the slaves being
regarded as if they had been only a cargo of dead matter. He could
mention other instances, but they were much too shocking to be
described. Surely their lordships could never consider such a traffic to
be consistent with humanity or justice. It was impossible.

That the trade had long subsisted there was no doubt, but this was no
argument for its continuance. Many evils of much longer standing had
been done away, and it was always our duty to attempt to remove them.
Should we not exult in the consideration, that we, the inhabitants of a
small island, at the extremity of the globe, almost at its north pole,
were become the morningstar to enlighten the nation