w also to
whom Africa is so much indebted for her deliverance, I shall subjoin
their names in the three following lists. The first will contain those
who were examined by the privy council only; the second those who were
examined by the privy council and the House of Commons also; and the
third those who were examined-by the House of Commons only.

LIST I.

LIST II.

LIST III.

The evidence having been delivered on both sides, and then printed, it
was judged expedient by Mr. Wilberforce, seeing that it filled three
folio volumes, to abridge it. This abridgement was made by the different
friends of the cause. William Burgh, Esq., of York; Thomas Babington,
Esq., of Rothley Temple; the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge; Mr.
Campbell Haliburton, of Edinburgh; George Harrison, with one or two
others of the committee, and myself, were employed upon it. The greater
share, however, of the labour, fell upon Dr. Dickson. That no
misrepresentation of any person's testimony might be made, Matthew
Montagu, Esq., and the Honourable E.J. Elliott, members of Parliament,
undertook to compare the abridged manuscripts with the original text,
and to strike out or correct whatever they thought to be erroneous, and
to insert whatever they thought to have been omitted. The committee for
the abolition, when the work was finished, printed it at their own
expense, Mr. Wilberforce then presented it to the House of Commons, as a
faithful abridgement of the whole evidence. Having been received as
such, under the guarantee of Mr. Montague and Mr. Elliott, the committee
sent it to every individual member of that House.

The book having been thus presented, and a day fixed for the final
determination of the question, our feelings became almost insupportable;
for we had the mortification to find, that our cause was going down in
estimation, where it was then most important that it should have
increased in favour. Our opponents had taken advantage of the long delay
which the examination of evidence had occasioned, to prejudice the minds
of many of the members of the House of Commons against us. The old
arguments of emancipation, massacre, ruin, and indemnification, had been
kept up; but, as the day of final decision approached, they had been
increased. Such was our situation at this moment, when the current was
turned still more powerfully against us by the peculiar circumstances of
the times. It was, indeed, the misfortune of this great caus