ion too prominent, so as even to have incurred the charge of
ostentation. But if there should be some who, in consequence of what
they have already read of this history, should think thus unfavourably
of me, what must their opinion ultimately be, when, unfortunately, I
must become still more prominent in it! Nor do I know in what manner I
shall escape their censure: for if, to avoid egotism, I should write, as
many have done, in the third person, what would this profit me? The
delicate situation, therefore, in which I feel myself to be placed,
makes me desirous of saying a few words to the reader on this subject.

And first, I may observe, that several of my friends urged me from time
to time, and this long before the abolition of the Slave Trade had been
effected, to give a history of the rise and progress of the attempt, as
far as it had been then made; but I uniformly resisted their
application.

When the question was decided last year, they renewed their request.
They represented to me, that no person knew the beginning and progress
of this great work so well as myself; that it was a pity that such
knowledge should die with me; that such a history would be useful; that
it would promote good feelings among men; that it would urge them to
benevolent exertions; that it would supply them with hope in the midst
of these; that it would teach them many valuable lessons;--these and
other things were said to me. But, encouraging as they were, I never
lost sight of the objection; which is the subject of this chapter; nor
did I ever fail to declare, that though, considering the part I had
taken in this great cause, I might be qualified better than some others,
yet it was a task too delicate for me to perform. I always foresaw that
I could not avoid making myself too prominent an object in such a
history, and that I should be liable, on that account, to the suspicion
of writing it for the purpose of sounding my own praise.

With this objection my friends were not satisfied. They answered, that I
might treat the History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade as a species
of biography, or as the history of a part of my own life: that people,
who had much less weighty matters to communicate, wrote their own
histories; and that no one charged them with vanity for so doing.

I own I was not convinced by this answer. I determined, however, in
compliance with their wishes, to examine the objection more minutely,
and to see if I could