Author proceeds to Manchester; finds a spirit rising among the people
there for the abolition of the Slave Trade; is requested to deliver a
discourse on the subject of the Slave Trade; heads of it, and
extracts.--Proceeds to Keddleston, and Birmingham; finds a similar
spirit at the latter place.--Revisits Bristol; new and difficult
situation there.--Author crosses the Severn at night; unsuccessful
termination of his journey; returns to London.
I now took my departure from Liverpool, and proceeded to Manchester,
where I arrived on the Friday evening. On the Saturday morning, Mr.
Thomas Walker, attended by Mr. Cooper and Mr. Bayley of Hope, called
upon me. They were then strangers to me. They came, they said, having
heard of my arrival, to congratulate me on the spirit which was then
beginning to show itself among the people of Manchester, and of other
places, on the subject of the Slave Trade, and which would
unquestionably manifest itself further by breaking out into petitions to
parliament for its abolition. I was much surprised at this information.
I had devoted myself so entirely to my object, that I had never had time
to read a newspaper since I left London. I never knew, therefore, till
now, that the attention of the public had been drawn to the subject in
such a manner. And as to petitions, though I myself had suggested the
idea at Bridgewater, Bristol, Gloucester, and two, or three other
places, I had only done it provisionally, and this without either the
knowledge or the consent of the committee. The news, however, as it
astonished, so it almost overpowered me with joy. I rejoiced in it,
because it was a proof of the general good disposition of my countrymen;
because it showed me that the cause was such as needed only to be known,
to be patronized; and because the manifestation of this spirit seemed to
me to be an earnest, that success would ultimately follow.
The gentleman now mentioned took me away with them, and introduced me to
Mr. Thomas Phillips. We conversed, at first, upon the discoveries made
in my journey; but in a little time, understanding that I had been
educated as a clergyman, they came upon me with one voice, as if it had
been before agreed upon, to deliver a discourse the next day, which was
Sunday, on the subject of the Slave Trade. I was always aware that it
was my duty to do all that I could with propriety to serve the cause I
had undertaken, and yet I found myself embarrassed at their request.
Foreseeing, as I have before related, that this cause might demand my
attention to it for the greatest part of my life, I had given up all
thoughts of my profession. I had hitherto but seldom exercised it, and
then only to oblige some friend. I doubted, too, at the first view of
the thing, whether the pulpit ought to be made an engine for political
purposes, though I could not but consider the Slave Trade as a mass of
crimes, and therefore the effort to get rid of it as a Christian duty. I
had an idea, too, that sacred matters should not be entered upon without
due consideration, nor prosecuted in a hasty, but in a decorous and
solemn manner. I saw besides that, as it was then two o'clock in the
afternoon, and this sermon was to be forthcoming the next day, there was
not sufficient time to compose it properly. All these difficulties I
suggested to my new friends without any reserve. But nothing that I
could urge would satisfy them. They would not hear of a refusal, and I
was obliged to give my consent, though I was not reconciled to the
measure.
When I went into the church it was so full that I could scarcely get to
my place; for notice had been publicly given, though I knew nothing of
it, that such a discourse would be delivered. I was surprised, also, to
find a great crowd of black people standing round the pulpit. There
might be forty or fifty of them. The text that I took, as the best to be
found in such a hurry, was the following:--"Thou shalt not oppress a
stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers
in the land of Egypt."
I took an opportunity of showing, from these words, that Moses, in
endeavouring to promote among the children of Israel a tender
disposition towards those unfortunate strangers who had come under their
dominion, reminded them of their own state when strangers in Egypt, as
one of the most forcible arguments which could be used on such an
occasion. For they could not have forgotten that the Egyptians "had made
them serve with rigour; that they had made their lives bitter with hard
bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the
field; and that all the service, wherein they made them serve, was with
rigour." The argument, therefore, of Moses was simply this:--"Ye knew
well, when ye were strangers in Egypt, the nature of your own feelings.
Were you not made miserable by your debased situation there? But if so,
you must be sensible that the stranger, who has the same heart, or the
same feelings with yourselves, must experience similar suffering, if
treated in a similar manner. I charge you, then, knowing this, to stand
clear of the crime of his oppression."
The law, then, by which Moses commanded the children of Israel to
regulate their conduct with respect to the usage of the stranger, I
showed to be a law of universal and eternal obligation, and for this,
among other reasons, that it was neither more nor less than the
Christian law, which appeared afterwards, that we should not do that to
others which we should be unwilling to have done unto ourselves.
Having gone into these statements at some length, I made an application
of them in the following words:--
"This being the case, and this law of Moses being afterwards established
into a fundamental precept of Christianity, I must apply it to facts of
the present day, and I am sorry that I must apply it to--ourselves.
"And first,--Are there no strangers whom we oppress? I fear the wretched
African will say, that he drinks the cup of sorrow, and that he drinks
it at our hands. Torn from his Native soil, and from his family and
friends, he is immediately forced into a situation, of all others the
most degrading, where he and his progeny are considered as cattle, as
possessions, and as the possessions of a man to whom he never gave
offence.
"It is a melancholy fact, but it can be abundantly proved, that great
numbers of the unfortunate strangers, who are carried from Africa to our
colonies, are fraudulently and forcibly taken from their native soil. To
descant but upon a single instance of the kind must be productive of
pain to the ear of sensibility and freedom. Consider the sensations of
the person, who is thus carried off by the ruffians, who have been
lurking to intercept him. Separated from everything which he esteems in
life, without the possibility even of bidding his friends adieu, beheld
him overwhelmed in tears--wringing his hands in despair--looking
backwards upon the spot where all his hopes and wishes lay;--while his
family at home are waiting for him with anxiety and suspense--are
waiting, perhaps, for sustenance--are agitated between hope and
fear--till length of absence confirms the latter, and they are
immediately plunged into inconceivable misery and distress.
"If this instance, then, is sufficiently melancholy of itself, and is at
all an act of oppression, how complicated will our guilt appear who are
the means of snatching away thousands annually in the same manner, and
who force them and their families into the same unhappy situation,
without either remorse or shame!"
Having proceeded to show, in a more particular manner than I can detail
here, how, by means of the Slave Trade, we oppressed the stranger, I
made an inquiry into the other branch of the subject, or how far we had
a knowledge of his heart.
To elucidate this point, I mentioned several specific instances out of
those which I had collected in my journey, and which I could depend upon
as authentic, of honour--gratitude--fidelity--filial, fraternal, and
conjugal affection--and of the finest sensibility on the part of those
who had been brought into our colonies from Africa in the character of
slaves; and then I proceeded for a while in the following words:--
"If, then, we oppress the stranger, as I have shown, and if, by a
knowledge of his heart, we find that he is a person of the same passions
and feelings as ourselves, we are certainly breaking, by means of the
prosecution of the Slave Trade, that fundamental principle of
Christianity, which says, that we shall not do that unto another which
we wish should not be done unto ourselves, and, I fear, cutting
ourselves off from all expectation of the Divine blessing. For how
inconsistent is our conduct! We come into the temple of God; we fall
prostrate before Him; we pray to Him, that He will have mercy upon us.
But how shall He have mercy upon us, who have had no mercy upon others!
We pray to Him, again, that He will deliver us from evil. But how shall
He deliver us from evil, who are daily invading the rights of the
injured African, and heaping misery on his head!"
I attempted, lastly, to show, that, though the sin of the Slave Trade
had been hitherto a sin of ignorance, and might, therefore, have so far
been winked at, yet as the crimes and miseries belonging to it became
known, it would attach even to those who had no concern in it, if they
suffered it to continue either without notice or reproach, or if they
did not exert themselves in a reasonable manner for its suppression. I
noticed particularly, the case of Tyre and Sidon, which were the Bristol
and the Liverpool of those times. A direct judgment had been pronounced
by the prophet Joel against these cities, and, what is remarkable, for
the prosecution of this same barbarous traffic. Thus, "And what have ye
to do with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? Ye
have cast lots for my people. Ye have sold a girl for wine. The children
of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem, have ye sold unto the Grecians,
that ye might remove them far from their own border. Behold! I will
raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will
recompense your wickedness on your own heads." Such was the language of
the prophet; and Tyre and Sidon fell, as he had pointed out, when the
inhabitants were either cut off, or carried into slavery.
Having thrown out these ideas to the notice of the audience, I concluded
in the following words:--
"If, then, we wish to avert the heavy national judgment which is hanging
over our heads, (for must we not believe that our crimes towards the
innocent Africans lie recorded against us in heaven?) let us endeavour
to assert their cause. Let us nobly withstand the torrent of the evil,
however inveterately it may be fixed among the customs of the times;
not, however, using our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness against
those, who, perhaps, without due consideration, have the misfortune to
be concerned in it, but upon proper motives, and in a proper spirit, as
the servants of God; so that if the sun should be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood, and the very heaven should fall upon us, we may
fall in the general convulsion without dismay, conscious that we have
done our duty in endeavouring to succour the distressed, and that the
stain of the blood of Africa is not upon us."
From Manchester I proceeded to Keddleston in Derbyshire, to spend a day
with Lord Scarsdale, and to show him my little collection of African
productions, and to inform him of my progress since I last saw him. Here
a letter was forwarded to me from the Reverend John Toogood, of Keington
Magna in Dorsetshire, though I was then unknown to him. He informed me
that he had addressed several letters to the inhabitants of his own
county, through their provincial paper, on the subject of the Slave
Trade, which letters had produced a considerable effect. It appeared,
however, that, when he began them, he did not know of the formation of
our committee, or that he had a single coadjutor in the cause.
From Keddleston I turned off to Birmingham, being desirous of visiting
Bristol in my way to London, to see if anything new had occurred since I
was there. I was introduced by letter, at Birmingham, to Sampson and
Charles Lloyd, the brothers of John Lloyd, belonging to our committee,
and members of the religious society of the Quakers. I was highly
gratified in finding that these, in conjunction with Mr. Russell, had
been attempting to awaken the attention of the inhabitants to this great
subject, and that in consequence of their laudable efforts, a spirit was
beginning to show itself there, as at Manchester, in favour of the
abolition of the Slave Trade. The kind manner in which these received
me, and the deep interest which they appeared to take in our cause, led
me to an esteem for them, which, by means of subsequent visits, grew
into a solid friendship.
At length I arrived at Bristol about ten o'clock on Friday morning. But
what was my surprise, when almost the first thing I heard from my friend
Harry Gandy was, that a letter had been despatched to me to Liverpool,
nearly a week ago, requesting me immediately to repair to this place;
for that in consequence of notice from the lords of the Admiralty,
advertised in the public papers, the trial of the chief mate, whom I had
occasioned to be taken up at Bristol, for the murder of William Lines,
was coming on at the Old Bailey, and that not an evidence was to be
found. This intelligence almost paralyzed me. I cannot describe my
feelings on receiving it. I reproached myself with my own obstinacy for
having resisted the advice of Mr. Burges, as has been before explained.
All his words now came fresh into my mind. I was terrified, too, with
the apprehension that my own reputation was now at stake. I foresaw all
the calumnies which would be spread, if the evidences were not
forthcoming on this occasion. I anticipated, also, the injury which the
cause itself might sustain, if, at our outset, as it were, I should not
be able to substantiate what I had publicly advanced; and yet the mayor
of Bristol had heard and determined the case,--he had not only examined,
but re-examined, the evidences,--he had not only committed, but
re-committed, the accused: this was the only consolation I had. I was
sensible, however, amidst all these workings of my mind, that not a
moment was to be lost, and I began, therefore, to set on foot an inquiry
as to the absent persons.
On waiting upon the mother of William Lines, I learnt from her, that two
out of four of the witnesses had been bribed by the slave-merchants, and
sent to sea, that they might not be forthcoming at the time of the
trial; that the two others had been tempted also, but that they had been
enabled to resist the temptation; that, desirous of giving their
testimony in this cause, they had gone into some coal-mine between Neath
and Swansea, where they might support themselves till they should be
called for; and that she had addressed a letter to them, at the request
of Mr. Gandy, above a week ago, in which she had desired them to come to
Bristol immediately, but that she had received no answer from them. She
then concluded, either that her letter had miscarried, or that they had
left the place.
I determined to lose no time, after the receipt of this intelligence;
and I prevailed upon a young man, whom my friend Harry Gandy had
recommended to me, to set off directly, and to go in search of them. He
was to travel all night, and to bring them, or, if weary himself with
his journey, to send them up, without ever sleeping on the road. It was
now between twelve and one in the afternoon. I saw him depart. In the
interim I went to Thompson's, and other places, to inquire if any other
of the seamen, belonging to the Thomas, were to be found; but, though I
hunted diligently till four o'clock, I could learn nothing satisfactory.
I then went to dinner, but I grew uneasy. I was fearful that my
messenger might be at a loss, or that he might want assistance on some
occasion or other. I now judged that it would have been more prudent if
two persons had been sent, who might have conferred with each other, and
who might have divided, when they had reached Neath, and gone to
different mines, to inquire for the witnesses. These thoughts disturbed
me. Those, also, which had occurred when I first heard of the vexatious
way in which things were situated, renewed themselves painfully to my
mind. My own obstinacy in resisting the advice of Mr. Burges, and the
fear of injury to my own reputation, and to that of the cause I had
undertaken, were again before my eyes. I became still more uneasy: and I
had no way of relieving my feelings, but by resolving to follow the
young man, and to give him all the aid in my power.
It was now near six o'clock. The night was cold and rainy and almost
dark. I got down, however, safe to the passage-house, and desired to be
conveyed across the Severn. The people in the house tried to dissuade me
from my design. They said no one would accompany me, for it was quite a
tempest. I replied that I would pay those handsomely who would go with
me. A person present asked me if I would give him three guineas for a
boat. I replied I would. He could not for shame retract. He went out,
and in about half an hour brought a person with him. We were obliged to
have a lanthorn as far as the boat. We got on board, and went off. But
such a passage I had never before witnessed. The wind was furious. The
waves ran high. I could see nothing but white foam. The boat, also, was
tossed up and down in such a manner that it was with great difficulty I
could keep my seat. The rain, too, poured down in such torrents that we
were all of us presently wet through. We had been, I apprehend, more
than an hour in this situation, when the boatmen began to complain of
cold and weariness. I saw, also, that they began to be uneasy, for they
did not know where they were. They had no way of forming any judgment
about their course, but by knowing the point from whence the wind blew,
and by keeping the boat in a relative position towards it. I encouraged
them as well as I could, though I was beginning to be uneasy myself, and
also sick. In about a quarter of an hour they began to complain again.
They said they could pull no longer. They acknowledged, however, that
they were getting nearer to the shore, though on what part of it they
could not tell. I could do nothing but bid them hope. They then began to
reproach themselves for having come out with me. I told them I had not
forced them, but that it was a matter of their own choice. In the midst
of this conversation I informed them that I thought I saw either a star
or a light straight forward. They both looked at it and pronounced it to
be a light, and added with great joy that it must be a light in the
Passage-house; and so we found it; for in about ten minutes afterwards
we landed, and, on reaching the house, learnt that a servant maid had
been accidentally talking to some other person on the stair-case, near a
window, with a candle in her hand, and that the light had appeared to us
from that circumstance.
It was now near eleven o'clock. My messenger, it appeared, had arrived
safe about five in the evening, and had proceeded on his route. I was
very cold on my arrival, and sick also. There seemed to be a chilliness
all over me, both within and without. Indeed I had not a dry thread
about me. I took some hot brandy and water, and went to bed; but
desired, as soon as my clothes were thoroughly dried, to be called up,
that I might go forward. This happened at about two in the morning, when
I got up. I took my breakfast by the fire-side. I then desired the
post-boy, if he should meet any persons on the road, to stop and inform
me, as I did not know whether the witnesses might not be coming up by
themselves, and whether they might not have passed my messenger without
knowing his errand. Having taken these precautions, I departed. I
travelled on, but we met no one. I traced, however, my messenger through
Newport, Cardiff, and Cowbridge. I was assured, also, that he had not
passed me on his return; nor had any of those passed me whom he was
seeking. At length, when I was within about two miles of Neath I met
him. He had both the witnesses under his care. This was a matter of
great joy to me. I determined to return with them. It was now nearly two
in the afternoon. I accordingly went back, but we did not reach the
Passage-house again till nearly two the next morning.
During our journey, neither the wind nor the rain had much abated. It
was quite dark on our arrival. We found only one person, and he had been
sitting up in expectation of us. It was in vain that I asked him for a
boat to put us across the water. He said all the boatmen were in bed;
and, if they were up, he was sure that none of them would venture out.
It was thought a mercy by all of them that we were not lost last night.
Difficulties were also started about horses to take us another way.
Unable, therefore, to proceed, we took refreshment and went to bed.
We arrived at Bristol between nine and ten the next morning; but I was
so ill that I could go no further; I had been cold and shivering ever
since my first passage across the Severn; and I had now a violent sore
throat and a fever with it. All I could do was to see the witnesses off
for London, and to assign them to the care of an attorney, who should
conduct them to the trial. For this purpose I gave them a letter to a
friend of the name of Langdale. I saw them depart. The mother of William
Lines accompanied them. By a letter received on Tuesday, I learnt that
they had not arrived in town till Monday morning at three o'clock; that
at about nine or ten they found out the office of Mr. Langdale; that, on
inquiring for him, they heard he was in the country, but that he would
be home at noon; that, finding he had not then arrived, they acquainted
his clerk with the nature of their business, and opened my letter to
show him the contents of it; that the clerk went with them to consult
some other person on the subject, when he conveyed them to the Old
Bailey; but that, on inquiring at the proper place about the
introduction of the witnesses, he learnt that the chief mate had been
brought to the bar in the morning, and, no person then appearing against
him, that he had been discharged by proclamation. Such was the end of
all my anxiety and labour in this affair. I was very ill when I received
the letter; but I saw the necessity of bearing up against the
disappointment, and I endeavoured to discharge the subject from my mind
with the following wish, that the narrow escape which the chief mate had
experienced, and which was entirely owing to the accidental
circumstances now explained, might have the effect, under Providence, of
producing in him a deep contrition for his offence, and of awakening him
to a serious attention to his future life[A].
[Footnote A: He had undoubtedly a narrow escape; for Mr. Langdale's
clerk had learnt that he had no evidence to produce in his favour. The
slave-merchants, it seems, had counted most upon bribing those who were
to come against him, to disappear.]
I was obliged to remain in Bristol a few days longer in consequence of
my illness; but as soon as I was able I reached London, when I attended
a sitting of the committee after an absence of more than five months. At
this committee it was strongly recommended to me to publish a second
edition of my _Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species_,
and to insert such of the facts in it in their proper places, out of
those collected in my late travels, as I might judge to be productive of
an interesting effect. There appeared, also, an earnest desire in the
committee, that, directly after this, I should begin my _Essay on the
Impolicy of the Slave Trade_.
In compliance with their wishes, I determined upon both these works; but
I resolved to retire into the country, that, by being subject to less
interruption there, I might the sooner finish them. It was proper,
however, that I should settle many things in London before I took my
departure from it; and, among these, that I should find out George
Ormond and Patrick Murray, whom I had sent from Liverpool on account of
the information they had given me relative to the murder of Peter Green.
I saw no better way than to take them before Sir Sampson Wright, who was
then at the head of the police of the metropolis. He examined and
cross-examined them several times, and apart from each other. He then
desired their evidence to be drawn up in the form of depositions, copies
of which he gave to me. He had no doubt that the murder would be proved.
The circumstances of the deceased being in good health at nine o'clock
in the evening, and of his severe sufferings till eleven, and of the
nature of the wounds discovered to have been made on his person, and of
his death by one in the morning, could never, he said, be done away by
any evidence who should state that he had been subject to other
disorders which might have occasioned his decease. He found himself,
therefore, compelled to apply to the magistrates of Liverpool, for the
apprehension of three of the principal officers of the ship; but the
answer was that the ship had sailed, and that they whose names had been
specified were then, none of them, to be found in Liverpool.
It was now for me to consider whether I would keep the two witnesses,
Ormond and Murray, for a year, or perhaps longer, at my own expense, and
run the hazard of the death of the officers in the interim, and of other
calculable events. I had felt so deeply for the usage of the seamen in
this cruel traffic, which indeed had embittered all my journey, that I
had no less than nine prosecutions at law upon my hands on their
account, and nineteen witnesses detained at my own cost. The committee
in London could give me no assistance in these cases. They were the
managers of the public purse for the abolition of the Slave Trade, and
any expenses of this kind were neither within the limits of their
object, nor within the pale of their duty. From the individuals
belonging to it, I picked up a few guineas by way of private
subscription, and this was all. But a vast load still remained upon me,
and such as had occasioned uneasiness to my mind. I thought it,
therefore, imprudent to detain the evidences for this purpose for so
long a time, and I sent them back to Liverpool. I commenced, however, a
prosecution against the captain at common law for his barbarous usage of
them, and desired that it might be pushed on as vigorously as possible;
and the result was, that his attorney was so alarmed, particularly after
knowing what had been done by Sir Sampson Wright, that he entered into a
compromise to pay all the expenses of the suit hitherto incurred, and to
give Ormond and Murray a sum of money as damages for the injury which
they themselves had sustained. This compromise was acceded to. The men
received the money, and signed the release, (of which I insisted upon a
copy,) and went to sea again in another trade, thanking me for my
interference in their behalf. But by this copy, which I have now in my
possession, it appears that care was taken by the captain's attorney to
render their future evidence in the case of Peter Green almost
impracticable; for it was there wickedly stated, "that George Ormond and
Patrick Murray did then and there bind themselves in certain penalties
that they would neither encourage nor support any action at law against
the said captain, by or at the suit or prosecution of any other of the
seamen now or late on board the said ship, and that they released the
said captain also from all manner of actions, suits, and cause and
causes of action, informations, prosecutions, and other proceedings
which they then had, or ever had, or could or might have, by reason of
the said assaults upon their own persons, or _other wrongs or injuries
done by the said captain heretofore and to the date of this
release_[A]."
[Footnote A: None of the nine actions before mentioned ever came to a
trial; but they were all compromised by paying sums to the injured
parties.]