ogic, that he who makes another commit a
crime is guilty of it himself, he denied the charge indignantly, and
defied a proof. But it was said to him, "Did you never order such a
thing to be done?" His reply was, "Being sick in my cabin, I was
informed that a man-slave would neither eat, drink, nor speak. I desired
the mate and surgeon to try to persuade him to speak. I desired that the
slaves might try also. When I found he was still obstinate, not knowing
whether it was from sulkiness or insanity, I ordered a person to present
him with a piece of fire in one hand, and a piece of yam in the other,
and to tell me what effect this had upon him. I learnt that he took the
yam and began to eat it, but he threw the fire overboard." Such was his
own account of the matter. This was eating by duresse, if anything could
be called so. The captain, however, triumphed in his expedient; and
concluded by telling the committee, that he sold this very slave at
Grenada for forty pounds. Mark here the moral of the tale, and learn the
nature and the cure of sulkiness.

But upon whom did the cruelties, thus arising out of the prosecution of
this barbarous traffic, fall? Upon a people with feeling and intellect
like ourselves. One witness had spoken of the acuteness of their
understandings; another, of the extent of their memories; a third, of
their genius for commerce: a fourth, of their proficiency in
manufactures at home. Many had admired their gentle and peaceable
disposition, their cheerfulness, and their hospitality. Even they who
were nominally slaves, in Africa lived a happy life. A witness against
the abolition had described them as sitting and eating with their
masters in the true style of patriarchal simplicity and comfort. Were
these, then, a people incapable of civilization? The argument that they
were an inferior species had been proved to be false.

He would now go to a new part of the subject. An opinion had gone forth
that the abolition of the trade would be the ruin of the West India
Islands. He trusted he should prove that the direct contrary was the
truth; though, had he been unable to do this, it would have made no
difference as to his own vote. In examining, however, this opinion; he
should exclude the subject of the cultivation of new lands by fresh
importations of slaves. The impolicy of this measure, apart from its
inhumanity, was indisputably clear. Let the committee consider the
dreadful mortality which attended i