the wounded, were often put to death
on the spot; but this was to save the trouble of bringing them away. The
young and the healthy were driven off for sale; but if they were not
sold when offered, they were not killed, but reserved for another
market, or became house-slaves to the conquerors. Mr. Devaynes also
maintained, contrary to the allegations of the others, that a great
number of persons were kidnapped in order to be sold to the ships; and
that the government, where this happened, was not strong enough to
prevent it. But besides these drawbacks from the weight of the testimony
which had been given, it began to be perceived by some of the lords of
the council, that the cruel superstitions which had been described,
obtained only in one or two countries in Africa, and these of
insignificant extent; whereas at the time, when their minds were carried
away, as it were by their feelings, they had supposed them to attach to
the whole of that vast continent. They perceived also, that there were
circumstances related in the evidence by the delegates themselves, by
means of which, if they were true, the inhumanity of the trade might be
established, and this to their own disgrace. They had all confessed that
such slaves, as the White traders refused to buy, were put to death; and
yet that these traders, knowing that this would be the case, had the
barbarity uniformly to reject those whom it did not suit them to
purchase. Mr. Matthews had rejected one of this description himself,
whom he saw afterwards destroyed. Mr. Penny had known the refuse thrown
down Melimba rock. Mr. Norris himself, when certain prisoners of war
were offered to him for sale, declined buying them because they appeared
unhealthy; and though the king then told him that he would put them to
death, he could not be prevailed upon to take them but left them to
their hard fate; and he had the boldness to state afterwards, that it
was his belief that many of them actually suffered.

[Footnote A: This was also the case with another witness, Mr. Weuves. He
had given me accounts, before any stir was made about the Slave Trade,
relative to it, all of which he kept back when he was examined there.]

[Footnote B: Being a religion custom, it would still have gone on,
though the Slave Trade had been abolished: nor could the merchants at
any time have bought off a single victim.]

These considerations had the effect of diminishing the prejudices of
some of the counci