ference, by general reasoning,
by the most authentic histories of Africa, by the experience of all
countries and of all ages,--these things, and (what was still more
extraordinary) even the possibility of them, were denied by those who
had been brought forward on the other side of the question. These,
however, were chiefly persons who had been trading-governors of forts in
Africa, or who had long commanded ships in the Slave Trade. As soon as
he knew the sort of witnesses which was to be called against him, he had
been prepared to expect much prejudice. But his expectations had been
greatly surpassed by the testimony they had given. He did not mean to
impeach their private characters, but they certainly showed themselves
under the influence of such gross prejudices, as to render them
incompetent judges of the subject they came to elucidate. They seemed
(if he might so say) to be enveloped by a certain atmosphere of their
own; and to see, as it were, through a kind of African medium. Every
object which met their eyes came distorted and turned from its true
direction. Even the declarations, which they made on other occasions,
seemed wholly strange to them. They sometimes not only forgot what they
had seen, but what they had said; and when to one of them his own
testimony to the privy council was read, he mistook it for that of
another, whose evidence he declared to be "the merest burlesque in the
world."

But the House must be aware that there was not only an African medium,
but an African logic. It seemed to be an acknowledged axiom in this,
that every person who offered a slave for sale had a right to sell him,
however fraudulently he might have obtained him. This had been proved by
the witnesses who opposed him. "It would have stopped my trade," said
one of them, "to have asked the broker how he came by the person he was
offering me for sale."--"We always suppose," said another, "the broker
has a right to sell the person he offers us."--"I never heard of such a
question being asked," said a third; "a man would be thought a fool who
should put such a question."--He hoped the House would see the practical
utility of this logic. It was the key-stone which held the building
together. By means of it, slave-captains might traverse the whole coast
of Africa, and see nothing but equitable practices. They could not,
however, be wholly absolved, even if they availed themselves of this
principle to its fullest extent; for they ha