_Continuation from June 1788 to July 1789--Author travels to collect
further evidence--great difficulties in obtaining it--forms committees on
his tour--Privy council resume the examinations--inspect cabinet of African
productions--obliged to leave many of the witnesses in behalf of the
abolition unexamined--prepare their report--Labours of the committee in the
interim--Proceedings of the planters and others--Report laid on the table
of the House of Commons--Introduction of the question, and debate
there--twelve propositions deduced from the report and reserved for future
discussion--day of discussion arrives--opponents refuse to argue from the
report--require new evidence--this granted and introduced--further
consideration of the subject deferred to the next session--Renewal of Sir
William Dolben's bill--Death and character of Ramsay._
Matters had now become serious. The gauntlet had been thrown down and
accepted. The combatants had taken their stations, and the contest was to
be renewed, which was to be decided soon on the great theatre of the
nation. The committee by the very act of their institution had pronounced
the Slave-trade to be criminal. They, on the other hand, who were concerned
in it, had denied the charge. It became the one to prove, and the other to
refute it, or to fall in the ensuing session.
The committee, in this perilous situation, were anxious to find out such
other persons, as might become proper evidences before the privy council.
They had hitherto sent there only nine or ten, and they had then only
another, whom they could count upon for this purpose, in their view. The
proposal of sending persons to Africa, and the West Indies, who might come
back and report what they had witnessed, had been already negatived. The
question then was, what they were to do. Upon this they deliberated, and
the result was an application to me to undertake a journey to different
parts of the kingdom for this purpose.
When this determination was made I was at Teston, writing a long letter to
the privy council on the ill usage and mortality of the seamen employed in
the Slave-trade, which it had been previously agreed should be received as
evidence there. I thought it proper, however, before I took my departure,
to form a system of questions upon the general subject. These I divided
into six tables. The first related to the productions of Africa, and the
disposition and manners of the natives. The second, to the methods of
reducing them to slavery. The third, to the manner of bringing them to the
ships, their value, the medium of exchange, and other circumstances. The
fourth, to their transportation. The fifth, to their treatment in the
Colonies. The sixth, to the seamen employed in the trade. These tables
contained together one hundred and forty-five questions. My idea was that
they should be printed on a small sheet of paper, which should be folded up
in seven or eight leaves, of the length and breadth of a small almanac, and
then be sent in franks to our different correspondents. These, when they
had them, might examine persons capable of giving evidence, who might live
in their neighbourhoods or fall in their way, and return us their
examinations by letter.
The committee having approved and printed the tables of questions, I began
my tour. I had selected the southern counties from Kent to Cornwall for it.
I had done this, because these included the great stations of the ships of
war in ordinary; and as these were all under the superintendence of Sir
Charles Middleton, as comptroller of the navy, I could get an introduction
to those on board them. Secondly, because sea-faring people, when they
retire from a marine life, usually settle in some town or village upon the
coast.
Of this tour I shall not give the reader any very particular account. I
shall mention only those things which are most worthy of his notice in it.
At Poole in Dorsetshire I laid the foundation of a committee, to act in
harmony with that of London for the promotion of the cause. Moses Neave, of
the respectable society of the Quakers, was the chairman; Thomas Bell, the
secretary, and Ellis. B. Metford and the reverend Mr. Davis and others the
committee. This was the third committee, which had been instituted in the
country for this purpose. That at Bristol, under Mr. Joseph Harford as
chairman, and Mr. Lunell as secretary, had been the first. And that at
Manchester, under Mr. Thomas Walker as chairman, and Mr. Samuel Jackson as
secretary, had been the second.
As Poole was a great place for carrying on the trade to Newfoundland, I
determined to examine the assertion of the Earl of Sandwich in the House of
Lords, when he said, in the debate on Sir William Dolben's bill, that the
Slave-trade was not more fatal to seamen than the Newfoundland and some
others. This assertion I knew at the time to be erroneous, as far as my own
researches had been concerned: for out of twenty-four vessels, which had
sailed out of the port of Bristol in that employ, only two sailors were
upon the dead list. In sixty vessels from Poole, I found but four lost. At
Dartmouth, where I went afterwards on purpose, I found almost a similar
result. On conversing however with Governor Holdsworth, I learnt that the
year 1786 had been more fatal than any other in this trade. I learnt that
in consequent of extraordinary storms and hurricanes, no less than five
sailors had died and twenty-one had been drowned in eighty-three vessels
from that port. Upon this statement I determined to look into the
muster-rolls of the trade there for two or three years together. I began by
accident with the year 1769, and I went on to the end of 1772. About eighty
vessels on an average had sailed thence in each of these years. Taking the
loss in these years, and compounding it with that in the fatal year, three
sailors had been lost, but taking it in these four years by themselves,
only two had been lost, in twenty-four vessels so employed. On a comparison
with the Slave-trade, the result would be, that two vessels to Africa would
destroy more seamen than eighty-three sailing to Newfoundland. There was
this difference also to be noted, that the loss in the one trade was
generally by the weather or by accident, but in the other by cruel
treatment or disease; and that they, who went out in a declining state of
health in the one, came home generally recovered, whereas they, who went
out robust in the other, came home in a shattered condition.
At Plymouth I laid the foundation of another committee. The late William
Cookworthy, the late John Prideaux, and James Fox, all of the society of
the Quakers, and Mr. George Leach, Samuel Northcote, and John Saunders, had
a principal share in forming it. Sir William Ellford was chosen chairman.
From Plymouth I journeyed on to Falmouth, and from thence to Exeter, where
having meetings with the late Mr. Samuel Milford, the late Mr. George
Manning, the reverend James Manning, Thomas Sparkes, and others, a desire
became manifest among them of establishing a committee there. This was
afterwards effected; and Mr. Milford, who, at a general meeting of the
inhabitants of Exeter, on the tenth of June, on this great subject, had
been called by those present to the chair, was appointed the chairman of
it.
With respect to evidence, which was the great object of this tour, I found
myself often very unpleasantly situated in collecting it. I heard of many
persons capable of giving it to our advantage, to whom I could get no
introduction. I had to go after these many miles out of my established
route. Not knowing me, they received me coldly, and even suspiciously;
while I fell in with others, who, considering themselves, on account of
their concerns and connexions, as our opponents, treated me in an uncivil
manner.
But the difficulties and disappointments in other respects, which I
experienced in this tour, even where I had an introduction, and where the
parties were not interested in the continuance of the Slave-trade, were
greater than people in general would have imagined. One would have thought,
considering the great enthusiasm of the nation on this important subject,
that they, who could have given satisfactory information upon it, would
have rejoiced to do it. But I found it otherwise, and this frequently to my
sorrow. There was an aversion in persons to appear before such a tribunal
as they conceived the privy council to be. With men of shy or timid
character this operated as an insuperable barrier in their way. But it
operated more or less upon all. It was surprising to see what little
circumstances affected many. When I took out my pen and ink to put down the
information, which a person was giving me, he became evidently embarrassed
and frightened. He began to excuse himself from staying, by alleging that
he had nothing more to communicate, and he took himself away as quickly as
he could with decency. The sight of the pen and ink had lost me so many
good evidences, that I was obliged wholly to abandon the use of them, and
to betake myself to other means. I was obliged for the future to commit my
tables of questions to memory, and endeavour by practice to put down, after
the examination of a person, such answers as he had given me to each of
them.
Others went off because it happened that immediately on my interview, I
acquainted them with the nature of my errand, and solicited their
attendance in London. Conceiving that I had no right to ask them such a
favour, or terrified at the abruptness and apparent awfulness of my
request, some of them gave me an immediate denial, which they would never
afterwards retract. I began to perceive in time that it was only by the
most delicate management that I could get forward on these occasions. I
resolved therefore for the future, except in particular cases, that, when I
should be introduced to persons who had a competent knowledge of this
trade, I would talk with them upon it as upon any ordinary subject, and
then leave them without saying any thing about their becoming evidences. I
would take care, however, to commit all their conversation to writing, when
it was over, and I would then try to find out that person among their
relations or friends, who could apply to them for this purpose with the
least hazard of a refusal.
There were others also, who, though they were not so much impressed by the
considerations mentioned, yet objected to give their public testimony.
Those, whose livelihood, or promotion, or expectations, were dependent upon
the government of the country, were generally backward on these occasions.
Though they thought they discovered in the parliamentary conduct of Mr.
Pitt, a bias in favour of the cause, they knew to a certainty that the Lord
Chancellor Thurlow was against it. They conceived, therefore, that the
administration was at least divided upon the question, and they were
fearful of being called upon lest they should give offence, and thus injure
their prospects in life. This objection was very prevalent in that part of
the kingdom which I had selected for my tour.
The reader can hardly conceive how my mind was agitated and distressed on
these different accounts. To have travelled more than two months, to have
seen many who could have materially served our cause, and to have lost most
of them, was very trying. And though it is true that I applied a remedy, I
was not driven to the adoption of it till I had performed more than half my
tour. Suffice it to say, that after having travelled upwards of sixteen
hundred miles backwards and forwards, and having conversed with forty-seven
persons, who were capable of promoting the cause by their evidence, I could
only prevail upon nine, by all the interest I could make, to be examined.
On my return to London, whither I had been called up by the committee to
take upon me the superintendence of the evidence, which the privy council
was now ready again to hear, I found my brother: he was then a young
officer in the navy; and as I knew he felt as warmly as I did in this great
cause, I prevailed upon him to go to Havre de Grace, the great slave-port
in France, where he might make his observations for two or three months,
and then report what he had seen and heard; so that we might have some one
to counteract any false statement of things which might be made relative to
the subject in that quarter.
At length the examinations were resumed, and with them the contest, in
which our own reputation and the fate of our cause were involved. The
committee for the abolition had discovered one or two willing evidences
during my absence, and Mr. Wilberforce, who was now recovered from his
severe indisposition, had found one or two others. These added to my own
made a respectable body: but we had sent no more than four or five of these
to the council when the King's illness unfortunately stopped our career.
For nearly five weeks between the middle of November and January the
examinations were interrupted or put off so that at the latter period we
began to fear that there would be scarcely time to hear the rest; for not
only the privy council report was to be printed, but the contest itself was
to be decided by the evidence contained in it, in the existing session.
The examinations, however, went on, but they went on only slowly, being
still subject to interruption from the same unfortunate cause. Among others
I offered my mite of information again. I wished the council to see more of
my African productions and manufactures, that they might really know what
Africa was capable of affording instead of the Slave-trade, and that they
might make a proper estimate of the genius and talents of the natives. The
samples which I had collected, had been obtained by great labour, and at no
inconsiderable expense: for whenever I had notice that a vessel had arrived
immediately from that continent, I never hesitated to go, unless under the
most pressing engagements elsewhere, even as far as Bristol, if I could
pick up but a single new article. The Lords having consented, I selected
several things for their inspection out of my box, of the contents of which
the following account may not be unacceptable to the reader.
The first division of the box consisted of woods of about four inches
square, all polished. Among these were mahogany of five different sorts,
tulip-wood, satin-wood, cam-wood, bar-wood, fustic, black and yellow ebony,
palm-tree, mangrove, calabash, and date. There were seven woods of which
the native names were remembered: three of these, Tumiah, Samain, and
Jimlaké, were of a yellow colour; Acajoú was of a beautiful deep crimson;
Bork and Quellé were apparently fit for cabinet work; and Benten was the
wood of which the natives made their canoes. Of the various other woods the
names had been forgotten, nor were they known in England at all. One of
them was of a fine purple; and from two others, upon which the privy
council had caused experiments to be made, a strong yellow, a deep orange,
and a flesh-colour were extracted.
The second division included ivory and musk; four species of pepper, the
long, the black, the Cayenne, and the Malaguetta: three species of gum;
namely, Senegal, Copal, and ruber astringens; cinnamon, rice, tobacco,
indigo, white and Nankin cotton, Guinea corn, and millet; three species of
beans, of which two were used for food, and the other for dyeing orange;
two species of tamarinds, one for food, and the other to give whiteness to
the teeth; pulse, seeds, and fruits of various kinds, some of the latter of
which Dr. Spaarman had pronounced, from a trial during his residence in
Africa, to be peculiarly valuable as drugs.
The third division contained an African loom, and an African spindle with
spun cotton round it; cloths of cotton of various kinds, made by the
natives, some white, but others dyed by them of different colours, and
others, in which they had interwoven European silk; cloths and bags made of
grass, and fancifully coloured; ornaments made of the same materials; ropes
made from a species of aloes, and others, remarkably strong, from grass and
straw; fine string made from the fibres of the roots of trees; soap of two
kinds, one of which was formed from an earthy substance; pipe-bowls made of
clay, and of a brown red; one of these, which came from the village of
Dakard, was beautifully ornamented by black devices burnt in, and was
besides highly glazed; another, brought from Galàm was made of earth, which
was richly impregnated with little particles of gold; trinkets made by the
natives from their own gold; knives and daggers made by them from our
bar-iron; and various other articles, such as bags, sandals, dagger-cases,
quivers, grisgris, all made of leather of their own manufacture, and dyed
of various colours, and ingeniously sewed together.
The fourth division consisted of the thumb-screw, speculum oris, and chains
and shackles of different kinds, collected at Liverpool. To these were
added, iron neck-collars, and other instruments of punishment and
confinement, used in the West Indies, and collected at other places. The
instrument, also, by which Charles Horseler was mentioned to have been
killed, in the former volume, was to be seen among these.
We were now advanced far into February, when we were alarmed by the
intelligence that the Lords of the Council were going to prepare their
report. At this time we had sent but few persons to them to examine, in
comparison with our opponents, and we had yet eighteen to introduce: for
answers had come into my tables of questions from several places, and
persons had been pointed out to us by our correspondents, who had increased
our list of evidences to this number. I wrote therefore to them, at the
desire of the committee for the abolition, and gave them the names of the
eighteen, and requested that all of them might be examined. I requested
also, that they would order, for their own inspection, certain muster-rolls
of vessels from Poole and Dartmouth, that they might be convinced that the
objection which the Earl of Sandwich had made in the House of Lords,
against the abolition of the Slave-trade, had no solid foundation. In reply
to my first request they informed me, that it was impossible, in the
advanced state of the session (it being then the middle of March), that the
examinations of so many could be taken; but I was at liberty, in
conjunction with the Bishop of London, to select eight for this purpose.
This occasioned me to address them again; and I then found, to my surprise
and sorrow, that even this last number was to be diminished; for I was
informed in writing, "that the Bishop of London having laid my last letter
before their Lordships, they had agreed to meet on the Saturday next, and
on the Tuesday following, for the purpose of receiving the evidence of some
of the gentlemen named in it. And it was their Lordships' desire that I
would give notice to any three of them (whose information I might consider
as the most material) of the above determination, that they might attend
the committee accordingly."
This answer, considering the difficulties we had found in collecting a body
of evidence, and the critical situation in which we then were, was
peculiarly distressing; but we had no remedy left us, nor could we
reasonably complain. Three therefore were selected, and they were sent to
deliver their testimony on their arrival in town.
But before the last of these had left the council-room, who should come up
to me but Mr. Arnold! He had but lately arrived at Bristol from Africa; and
having heard from our friends there that we had been daily looking for him,
he had come to us in London. He and Mr. Gardiner were the two surgeons, as
mentioned in the former volume, who had promised me, when I was in Bristol,
in the year 1787, that they would keep a journal of facts for me during the
voyages they were then going to perform. They had both of them kept this
promise. Gardiner, I found, had died upon the Coast, and his journal,
having been discovered at his death, had been buried with him in great
triumph. But Arnold had survived, and he came now to offer us his services
in the cause.
As it was a pity that such correct information as that taken down in
writing upon the spot should be lost (for all the other evidences, except
Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom, had spoken from their memory only), I made
all the interest I could to procure a hearing for Mr. Arnold. Pleading now
for the examination of him only, and under these particular circumstances,
I was attended to. It was consented, in consequence of the little time
which was now left for preparing and printing the Report, that I should
make out his evidence from his journal under certain heads. This I did. Mr.
Arnold swore to the truth of it, when so drawn up, before Edward Montague,
esquire, a master in chancery. He then delivered the paper in which it was
contained to the Lords of the Council, who, on receiving it, read it
throughout, and then questioned him upon it.
At this time, also, my brother returned with accounts and papers relative
to the Slave-trade, from Havre de Grace; but as I had pledged myself to
offer no other person to be examined, his evidence was lost. Thus, after
all the pains we had taken, and in a contest, too, on the success of which
our own reputation and the fate of Africa depended, we were obliged to
fight the battle with sixteen less than we could have brought into the
field; while our opponents, on the other hand, on account of their superior
advantages, had mustered all their forces, not having omitted a single man.
I do not know of any period of my life in which I suffered so much both in
body and mind, as from the time of resuming these public inquiries by the
privy council, to the time when they were closed. For I had my weekly duty
to attend at the committee for the abolition during this interval. I had to
take down the examinations of all the evidences who came to London, and to
make certain copies of these. I had to summon these to town, and to make
provision against all accidents; and here I was often troubled by means of
circumstances, which unexpectedly occurred, lest, when committees of the
council had been purposely appointed to hear them, they should not be
forthcoming at the time. I had also a new and extensive correspondence to
keep up; for the tables of questions which had been sent down to our
correspondents, brought letters almost innumerable on this subject, and
they were always addressed to me. These not only required answers of
themselves, but as they usually related to persons capable of giving their
testimony, and contained the particulars of what they could state, they
occasioned fresh letters to be written to others. Hence the writing of ten
or twelve daily became necessary.
But the contents of these letters afforded the circumstances, which gave
birth to so much suffering. They contained usually some affecting tale of
woe. At Bristol my feelings had been harassed by the cruel treatment of the
seamen, which had come to my knowledge there: but now I was doomed to see
this treatment over again in many other melancholy instances; and
additionally to take in the various sufferings of the unhappy slaves. These
accounts I could seldom get time to read till late in the evening, and
sometimes not till midnight, when the letters containing them were to be
answered. The effect of these accounts was in some instances to overwhelm
me for a time in tears, and in others to produce a vivid indignation, which
affected my whole frame. Recovering from these, I walked up and down the
room. I felt fresh vigour, and made new determinations of perpetual warfare
against this impious trade. I implored strength that I might proceed. I
then sat down, and continued my work as long as my wearied eyes would
permit me to see. Having been agitated in this manner, I went to bed: but
my rest was frequently broken by the visions which floated before me. When
I awoke, these renewed themselves to me, and they flitted about with me for
the remainder of the day. Thus I was kept continually harassed: my mind was
confined to one gloomy and heart-breaking subject for months. It had no
respite, and my health began now materially to suffer.
But the contents of these letters were particularly grievous, on account of
the severe labours which they necessarily entailed upon me in other ways
than those which have been mentioned. It was my duty, while the privy
council examinations went on, not only to attend to all the evidence which
was presented to us by our correspondents, but to find out and select the
best. The happiness of millions depended upon it. Hence I was often obliged
to travel during these examinations, in order to converse with those who
had been pointed out to us as capable of giving their testimony; and, that
no time might be lost, to do this in the night. More than two hundred miles
in a week were sometimes passed over on these occasions.
The disappointments too, which I frequently experienced in these journeys,
increased the poignancy of the suffering, which arose from a contemplation
of the melancholy cases which I had thus travelled to bring forward to the
public view. The reader at present can have no idea of these. I have been
sixty miles to visit a person, of whom I had heard, not only as possessing
important knowledge, but as espousing our opinions on this subject. I have
at length seen him. He has applauded my pursuit at our first interview. He
has told me, in the course of our conversation, that neither my own pen,
nor that of any other man, could describe adequately the horrors of the
Slave-trade, horrors which he himself had witnessed. He has exhorted me to
perseverance in this noble cause. Could I have wished for a more favourable
reception?--But mark the issue. He was the nearest relation of a rich
person concerned in the traffic; and if he were to come forward with his
evidence publicly, he should ruin all his expectations from that quarter.
In the same week I have visited another at a still greater distance. I have
met with similar applause. I have heard him describe scenes of misery which
he had witnessed, and on the relation of which he himself almost wept. But
mark the issue again.--"I am a surgeon," says he: "through that window you
see a spacious house. It is occupied by a West Indian. The medical
attendance upon his family is of considerable importance to the temporal
interests of mine. If I give you my evidence I lose his patronage. At the
house above him lives an East Indian. The two families are connected: I
fear, if I lose the support of one, I shall lose that of the other also:
but I will give you privately all the intelligence in my power."
The reader may now conceive the many miserable hours I must have spent,
after such visits, in returning home; and how grievously my heart must have
been afflicted by these cruel disappointments, but more particularly where
they arose from causes inferior to those which have been now mentioned, or
from little frivolous excuses, or idle and unfounded conjectures, unworthy
of beings expected to fill a moral station in life. Yes, O man! often in
these solitary journeyings have I exclaimed against the baseness of thy
nature, when reflecting on the little paltry considerations which have
smothered thy benevolence, and hindered thee from succouring an oppressed
brother. And yet, on a further view of things, I have reasoned myself into
a kinder feeling towards thee. For I have been obliged to consider
ultimately, that there were both lights and shades in the human character;
and that, if the bad part of our nature was visible on these occasions, the
nobler part of it ought not to be forgotten. While I passed a censure upon
those, who were backward in serving this great cause of humanity and
justice, how many did I know, who were toiling in the support of it! I drew
also this consolation from my reflections, that I had done my duty; that I
had left nothing untried or undone; that amidst all these disappointments I
had collected information, which might be useful at a future time; and that
such disappointments were almost inseparable from the prosecution of a
cause of such magnitude, and where the interests of so many were concerned.
Having now given a general account of my own proceedings, I shall state
those of the committee; or show how they contributed, by fulfilling the
duties of their several departments, to promote the cause in the interim.
In the first place they completed the rules, or code of laws, for their own
government.
They continued to adopt and circulate books, that they might still
enlighten the public mind on the subject, and preserve it interested in
favour of their institution. They kept the press indeed almost constantly
going for this purpose. They printed, within the period mentioned, Ramsay's
Address on the proposed Bill for the Abolition; The Speech of Henry
Beaufoy, esquire, on Sir William Dolben's Bill, of which an extract was
given in the first volume; Notes by a Planter on the two Reports from the
Committee of the honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica; Observations on
the Slave-trade by Mr. Wadstrom; and Dickson's Letters on Slavery. These
were all new publications. To those they added others of less note, with
new editions of the old.
They voted their thanks to the reverend Mr. Gifford, for his excellent
sermon on the Slave-trade; to the pastor and congregation of the Baptist
church at Maze Pond, Southwark, for their liberal subscription; and to John
Barton, one of their own members, for the services he had rendered them.
The latter, having left his residence in town for one in the country,
solicited permission to resign, and hence this mark of approbation was
given to him. He was continued also as an honorary and corresponding
member.
They elected David Hartley and Richard Sharpe, esquires, into their own
body, and Alexander Jaffray, esquire, the reverend Charles Symmons of
Haverfordwest, and the reverend T. Burgess (now bishop of St. David's), as
honorary and corresponding members. The latter had written Considerations
on the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave-trade upon Grounds of natural,
religious, and political Duty, which had been of great service to the
cause.
Of the new correspondents of the committee within this period I may first
mention Henry Taylor, of North Shields; William Proud, of Hull; the
reverend T. Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge; and William Ellford, esquire, of
Plymouth. The latter, as chairman of the Plymouth committee, sent up for
inspection an engraving of a plan and section of a slave-ship, in which the
bodies of the slaves were seen stowed in the proportion of rather less than
one to a ton. This happy invention gave all those, who saw it, a much
better idea than they could otherwise have had of the horrors of their
transportation, and contributed greatly, as will appear afterwards, to
impress the public in favour of our cause.
The next, whom I shall mention, was C.L. Evans, esquire, of West Bromwich;
the reverend T. Clarke, of Hull; S.P. Wolferstan, esquire, of Stafford near
Tamworth; Edmund Lodge, esquire, of Halifax; the reverend Caleb Rotheram,
of Kendal; and Mr. Campbell Haliburton, of Edinburgh. The news which Mr.
Haliburton sent was very agreeable. He informed us that, in consequence of
the great exertions of Mr. Alison, an institution had been formed in
Edinburgh, similar to that in London, which would take all Scotland under
its care and management, as far as related to this great subject. He
mentioned Lord Gardenston as the chairman; Sir William Forbes as the deputy
chairman; himself as the secretary; and Lord Napier, professor Andrew
Hunter, professor Greenfield, and William Creech, Adam Rolland, Alexander
Ferguson, John Dickson, John Erskine, John Campbell, Archibald Gibson,
Archibald Fletcher, and Horatius Canning, esquires, as the committee.
The others were, the reverend J. Bidlake, of Plymouth; Joseph Storrs, of
Chesterfield; William Fothergill, of Carr End, Yorkshire; J. Seymour, of
Coventry; Moses Neave, of Poole; Joseph Taylor, of Scarborough; Timothy
Clark, of Doncaster; Thomas Davis, of Milverton; George Croker Fox, of
Falmouth; Benjamin Grubb, of Clonmell in Ireland; Sir William Forbes, of
Edinburgh; the reverend J. Jamieson, of Forfar; and Joseph Gurney, of
Norwich; the latter of whom sent up a remittance, and intelligence at the
same time, that a committee, under Mr. Leigh, so often before mentioned,
had been formed in that city[A].
[Footnote A: On the removal of Mr. Leigh from Norwich, Dr. Pretyman,
precentor of Lincoln and a prebend of Norwich, succeeded him.]
But the committee in London, while they were endeavouring to promote the
object of their institution at home, continued their exertions for the same
purpose abroad within this period.
They kept up a communication with the different societies established in
America.
They directed their attention also to the continent of Europe. They had
already applied, as I mentioned before, to the King of Sweden in favour of
their cause, and had received a gracious answer. They now attempted to
interest other potentates in it. For this purpose they bound up in an
elegant manner two sets of the Essays on the Slavery and Commerce of the
Human Species and on the Impolicy of the Slave-trade, and sent them to the
Chevalier de Pinto, in Portugal. They bound up in a similar manner three
sets of the same, and sent them to Mr. Eden (now Lord Auckland), at Madrid,
to be given to the King of Spain, the Count d'Aranda, and the Marquis del
Campomanes.
They kept up their correspondence with the committee at Paris, which had
greatly advanced itself in the eyes of the French nation; so that, when the
different bailliages sent deputies to the States General, they instructed
them to take the Slave-trade into their consideration as a national object,
and with a view to its abolition.
They kept up their correspondence with Dr. Frossard of Lyons. He had
already published in France on the subject of the Slave-trade; and now he
offered the committee to undertake the task, so long projected by them, of
collecting such arguments and facts concerning it, and translating them
into different languages, as might be useful in forwarding their views in
foreign parts.
They addressed letters also to various individuals, to Monsieur Snetlage,
doctor of laws at Halle in Saxony; to Monsieur Ladebat, of Bourdeaux; to
the Marquis de Feuillade d'Aubusson, at Paris; and to Monsieur Necker.
The latter in his answer replied in part as follows: "As this great
question," says he, "is not in my department, but in that of the minister
for the Colonies, I cannot interfere in it directly, but I will give
indirectly all the assistance in my power. I have for a long time taken
an interest in the general alarm on this occasion, and in the noble
alliance of the friends of humanity in favour of the injured Africans.
Such an attempt throws a new lustre over your nation. It is not yet,
however, a national object in France. But the moment may perhaps come;
and I shall think myself happy in preparing the way for it. You must
be aware, however, of the difficulties which we shall have to encounter
on our side of the water; for our colonies are much more considerable
than yours; so that in the view of political interest we are not on an
equal footing. It will therefore be necessary to find some middle line
at first, as it cannot be expected that humanity alone will be the
governing principle of mankind."
But the day was now drawing near, when it was expected that this great
contest would be decided. Mr. Wilberforce on the nineteenth of March rose
up in the House of Commons, and desired the resolution to be read, by which
the house stood pledged to take the Slave-trade into their consideration in
the then session. He then moved that the house should resolve itself into a
committee of the whole house on Thursday, the twenty-third of April, for
this purpose. This motion was agreed to; after which he moved for certain
official documents, necessary to throw light upon the subject in the course
of its discussion.
This motion, by means of which the great day of trial was now fixed, seemed
to be the signal for the planters, merchants, and other interested persons
to begin a furious opposition. Meetings were accordingly called by
advertisement. At these meetings much warmth and virulence were manifested
in debate, and propositions breathing a spirit of anger were adopted. It
was suggested there, in the vehemence of passion, that the Islands could
exist independently of the Mother-country; nor were even threats withheld
to intimidate government from effecting the abolition.
From this time, also, the public papers began to be filled with such
statements as were thought most likely to influence the members of the
House of Commons, previously to the discussion of the question.
The first impression attempted to be made upon them was with respect to the
slaves themselves. It was contended, and attempted to be shown by the
revival of the old argument of human sacrifices in Africa, that these were
better off in the islands than in their own country. It was contended also,
that they were people of very inferior capacities, and but little removed
from the brute creation; whence an inference was drawn, that their
treatment, against which so much clamour had arisen, was adapted to their
intellect and feelings.
The next attempt was to degrade the abolitionists in the opinion of the
house, by showing the wildness and absurdity of their schemes. It was again
insisted upon that emancipation was the real object of the former; so that
thousands of slaves would be let loose in the islands to rob or perish, and
who could never be brought back again into habits of useful industry.
An attempt was then made to excite their pity in behalf of the planters.
The abolition, it was said, would produce insurrections among the slaves.
But insurrections would produce the massacre of their masters; and, if any
of these should happily escape from butchery, they would be reserved only
for ruin.
An appeal was then made to them on the ground of their own interest and of
that of the people, whom they represented. It was stated that the ruin of
the islands would be the ruin of themselves and of the country. Its revenue
would be half annihilated. Its naval strength would decay. Merchants,
manufacturers and others would come to beggary. But in this deplorable
situation they would expect to be indemnified for their losses.
Compensation indeed must follow. It could not be withheld. But what would
be the amount of it? The country would have no less than from eighty to a
hundred millions to pay the sufferers; and it would be driven to such
distress in paying this sum us it had never before experienced.
The last attempt was to show them that a regulation of the trade was all
that was now wanted. While this would remedy the evils complained of, it
would prevent the mischief which would assuredly follow the abolition. The
planters had already done their part. The assemblies of the different
islands had most of them made wholesome laws upon the subject. The very
bills passed for this purpose in Jamaica and Grenada had arrived in
England, and might be seen by the public: the great grievances had
been redressed: no slave could now be mutilated or wantonly killed
by his owner; one man could not now maltreat, or bruise, or wound
the slave of another; the aged could not now be turned off to perish
by hunger. There were laws also relative to the better feeding and
clothing of the slaves. It remained only that the trade to Africa
should be put under as wise and humane regulations as the slavery in
the islands had undergone.
These different statements, appearing now in the public papers from day to
day, began, in this early stage of the question, when the subject in all
its bearings was known but to few, to make a considerable impression upon
those, who were soon to be called to the decision of it. But that, which
had the greatest effect upon them, was the enormous amount of the
compensation, which, it was said, must be made. This statement against the
abolition was making its way so powerfully, that Archdeacon Paley thought
it his duty to write, and to send to the committee, a little treatise
called Arguments against the unjust Pretensions of Slave-dealers and
Holders, to be indemnified by pecuniary Allowances at the public Expense in
case the Slave-trade should be abolished. This treatise, when the substance
of it was detailed in the public papers, had its influence upon several
members of the House of Commons. But there were others, who had been as it
were panic-struck by the statement. These in their fright seemed to have
lost the right use of their eyes, or to have looked through a magnifying
glass. With these the argument of emancipation, which they would have
rejected at another time as ridiculous, obtained now easy credit. The
massacres too and the ruin, though only conjectural, they admitted also.
Hence some of them deserted our cause wholly, while others, wishing to do
justice as far as they could to the slaves on the one hand, and to their
own countrymen on the other, adopted a middle line of conduct, and would go
no further than the regulation of the trade.
While these preparations were making by our opponents to prejudice the
minds of those, who were to be the judges in this contest, Mr. Pitt
presented the privy council report at the bar of the House of Commons; and
as it was a large folio volume, and contained the evidence upon which the
question was to be decided, it was necessary that time should be given to
the members to peruse it. Accordingly the twelfth of May was appointed,
instead of the twenty-third of April, for the discussion of the question.
This postponement of the discussion of the question gave time to all
parties to prepare themselves further. The merchants and planters availed
themselves of it to collect petitions to parliament from interested persons
against the abolition of the trade, to wait upon members of parliament by
deputation, in order to solicit their attendance in their favour, and to
renew their injurious paragraphs in the public papers. The committee for
the abolition availed themselves of it to reply to these; and here Dr.
Dickson, who had been secretary to Governor Hey, in Barbadoes, and who had
offered the committee his Letters on Slavery before mentioned and his
services also, was of singular use. Many members of parliament availed
themselves of it to retire into the country to read the report. Among the
latter were Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Pitt. In this retirement they
discovered, notwithstanding the great disadvantages under which we had
laboured with respect to evidence, that our cause was safe, and that, as
far as it was to be decided by reason and sound policy, it would triumph.
It was in this retirement that Mr. Pitt made those able calculations, which
satisfied him for ever after, as the minister of the country, as to the
safety of the great measure of the abolition of the Slave-trade; for he had
clearly proved, that not only the islands could go on in a flourishing
state without supplies from the coast of Africa, but that they were then in
a condition to do it.
At length, the twelfth of May arrived. Mr. Wilberforce rose up in the
Commons, and moved the order of the day for the house to resolve itself
into a committee of the whole house, to take into consideration the
petitions, which had been presented against the Slave-trade.
This order having been read, he moved that the report of the committee of
privy council; that the acts passed in the islands relative to slaves; that
the evidence adduced last year on the Slave-trade; that the petitions
offered in the last session against the Slave-trade; and that the accounts
presented to the house, in the last and present session, relative to the
exports and imports to Africa, be referred to the same committee.
These motions having been severally agreed to, the house immediately
resolved itself into a committee of the whole house, and Sir William Dolben
was put into the chair.
Mr. Wilberforce began by declaring, that, when he considered how much
discussion the subject, which he was about to explain to the committee, had
occasioned not only in that house but throughout the kingdom, and
throughout Europe; and when he considered the extent and importance of it,
the variety of interests involved in it, and the consequences which might
arise, he owned he had been filled with apprehensions, lest a subject of
such magnitude, and a cause of such weight, should suffer from the weakness
of its advocate; but when he recollected that in the progress of his
inquiries he had every where been received with candour, that most people
gave him credit for the purity of his motives, and that, however many of
these might then differ from him, they were all likely to agree in the end,
he had dismissed his fears and marched forward with a firmer step in this
cause of humanity, justice and religion. He could not, however, but lament
that the subject had excited so much warmth. He feared that too many on
this account were but ill prepared to consider it with impartiality. He
entreated all such to endeavour to be calm and composed. A fair and cool
discussion was essentially necessary. The motion he meant to offer was as
reconcileable to political expediency as to national humanity. It belonged
to no party-question. It would in the end be found serviceable to all
parties; and to the best interests of the country. He did not come forward
to accuse the West India planter, or the Liverpool merchant, or indeed any
one concerned in this traffic; but, if blame attached any where, to take
shame to himself, in common indeed with the whole parliament of Great
Britain, who, having suffered it to be carried on under their own
authority, were all of them participators in the guilt.
In endeavouring to explain the great business of the day, he said he should
call the attention of the house only to the leading features of the
Slave-trade. Nor should he dwell long upon these. Every one might imagine
for himself, what must be the natural consequence of such a commerce with
Africa. Was it not plain that she must suffer from it? that her savage
manners must be rendered still more ferocious? and that a trade of this
nature, carried on round her coasts, must extend violence and desolation to
her very centre? It was well known that the natives of Africa were sold as
goods, and that numbers of them were continually conveyed away from their
country by the owners of British vessels. The question then was, which way
the latter came by them. In answer to this question the privy council
report, which was then on the table, afforded evidence the most
satisfactory and conclusive. He had found things in it, which had confirmed
every proposition he had maintained before, whether this proposition had
been gathered from living information of the best authority, or from the
histories he had read. But it was unnecessary either to quote the report,
or to appeal to history on this occasion. Plain reason and common sense
would point out how the poor Africans were obtained. Africa was a country
divided into many kingdoms, which had different governments and laws. In
many parts the princes were despotic. In others they had a limited rule.
But in all of them, whatever the nature of the government was, men were
considered as goods and property, and, as such, subject to plunder in the
same manner as property in other countries. The persons in power there were
naturally fond of our commodities; and to obtain them (which could only be
done by the sale of their countrymen) they waged war on one another, or
even ravaged their own country, when they could find no pretence for
quarrelling with their neighbours; in their courts of law many poor
wretches, who were innocent, were condemned; and, to obtain these
commodities in greater abundance, thousands were kidnapped and torn from
their families and sent into slavery. Such transactions, he said, were
recorded in every history of Africa, and the report on the table confirmed
them. With respect, however, to these he should make but one or two
observations. If we looked into the reign of Henry the Eighth, we should
find a parallel for one of them. We should find that similar convictions
took place; and that penalties followed conviction.
With respect to wars, the kings of Africa were never induced to engage in
them by public principles, by national glory, and least of all by the love
of their people. This had been stated by those most conversant in the
subject, by Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom. They had conversed with these
princes, and had learned from their own mouths, that to procure slaves was
the object of their hostilities. Indeed, there was scarcely a single person
examined before the privy council, who did not prove that the Slave-trade
was the source of the tragedies acted upon that extensive continent. Some
had endeavoured to palliate this circumstance; but there was not one who
did not more or less admit it to be true. By one the Slave-trade was called
the concurrent cause, by the majority it was acknowledged to be the
principal motive of the African wars. The same might be said with respect
to those instances of treachery and injustice, in which individuals were
concerned. And here he was sorry to observe that our own countrymen were
often guilty. He would only at present advert to the tragedy at Calabàr,
where two large African villages, having been for some time at war, made
peace. This peace was to have been ratified by intermarriages; but some of
our captains, who were there, seeing their trade would be stopped for a
while, sowed dissension again between them. They actually set one village
against the other, took a share in the contest, massacred many of the
inhabitants, and carried others of them away as slaves. But shocking as
this transaction might appear, there was not a single history of Africa to
be read, in which scenes of as atrocious a nature were not related. They,
he said, who defended this trade, were warped and blinded by their own
interests, and would not be convinced of the miseries they were daily
heaping on their fellow-creatures. By the countenance they gave it, they
had reduced the inhabitants of Africa to a worse state than that of the
most barbarous nation. They had destroyed what ought to have been the bond
of union and safety among them: they had introduced discord and anarchy
among them: they had set kings against their subjects, and subjects against
each other: they had rendered every private family wretched: they had, in
short, given birth to scenes of injustice and misery not to be found in any
other quarter of the globe.
Having said thus much on the subject of procuring slaves in Africa, he
would now go to that of the transportation of them. And here he had fondly
hoped, that when men with affections and feelings like our own had been
torn from their country, and every thing dear to them, he should have found
some mitigation of their sufferings; but the sad reverse was the case. This
was the most wretched part of the whole subject. He was incapable of
impressing the house with what he felt upon it. A description of their
conveyance was impossible. So much misery condensed in so little room was
more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. Think only of
six hundred persons linked together, trying to get rid of each other,
crammed in a close vessel with every object that was nauseous and
disgusting, diseased, and struggling with all the varieties of
wretchedness. It seemed impossible to add any thing more to human misery.
Yet shocking as this description must be felt to be by every man, the
transportation had been described by several witnesses from Liverpool to be
a comfortable conveyance. Mr. Norris had painted the accommodations on
board a slave-ship in the most glowing colours. He had represented them in
a manner which would have exceeded his attempts at praise of the most
luxurious scenes. Their apartments, he said, were fitted up as
advantageously for them as circumstances could possibly admit: they had
several meals a day; some, of their own country provisions, with the best
sauces of African cookery; and, by way of variety, another meal of pulse,
according to the European taste. After breakfast they had water to wash
themselves, while their apartments were perfumed with frankincense and
lime-juice. Before dinner they were amused after the manner of their
country; instruments of music were introduced: the song and the dance were
promoted: games of chance were furnished them: the men played and sang,
while the women and girls made fanciful ornaments from beads, with which
they were plentifully supplied. They were indulged in all their little
fancies, and kept in sprightly humour. Another of them had said, when the
sailors were flogged, it was out of the hearing of the Africans, lest it
should depress their spirits. He by no means wished to say that such
descriptions were wilful misrepresentations. If they were not, it proved
that interest of prejudice was capable of spreading a film over the eyes
thick enough to occasion total blindness.
Others, however, and these men of the greatest veracity, had given a
different account. What would the house think, when by the concurring
testimony of these the true history was laid open? The slaves who had been
described as rejoicing in their captivity, were so wrung with misery at
leaving their country, that it was the constant practice to set sail in the
night, lest they should know the moment of their departure. With respect to
their accommodation, the right ancle of one was fastened to the left ancle
of another by an iron fetter; and if they were turbulent, by another on the
wrists. Instead of the apartments described, they were placed in niches,
and along the decks, in such a manner, that it was impossible for any one
to pass among them, however careful he might be, without treading upon
them. Sir George Yonge had testified, that in a slave-ship, on board of
which he went, and which had not completed her cargo by two hundred and
fifty, instead of the scent of frankincense being perceptible to the
nostrils, the stench was intolerable. The allowance of water was so
deficient, that the slaves were frequently found gasping for life, and
almost suffocated. The pulse with which they had been said to be favoured,
were absolutely English horse-beans. The legislature of Jamaica had stated
the scantiness both of water and provisions, as a subject which called for
the interference of parliament. As Mr. Norris had said, the song and the
dance were promoted, he could not pass over these expressions without
telling the house what they meant. It would have been much more fair if he
himself had explained the word _promoted_. The truth was, that, for the
sake of exercise, these miserable wretches, loaded with chains and
oppressed with disease, were forced to dance by the terror of the lash, and
sometimes by the actual use of it. "I," said one of the evidences, "was
employed to dance the men, while another person danced the women." Such
then was the meaning of the word _promoted_; and it might also be observed
with respect to food, that instruments were sometimes carried out, in order
to force them to eat; which was the same sort of proof, how much they
enjoyed themselves in this instance also. With respect to their singing, it
consisted of songs of lamentation for the loss of their country. While they
sung they were in tears: so that one of the captains, more humane probably
than the rest, threatened a woman with a flogging because the mournfulness
of her song was too painful for his feelings. Perhaps he could not give a
better proof of the sufferings of these injured people during their
passage, than by stating the mortality which accompanied it. This was a
species of evidence which was infallible on this occasion. Death was a
witness which could not deceive them; and the proportion of deaths would
not only confirm, but, if possible, even aggravate our suspicion of the
misery of the transit. It would be found, upon an average of all the ships,
upon which evidence had been given, that, exclusively of such as perished
before they sailed from Africa, not less than twelve and a half per cent
died on their passage: besides these, the Jamaica report stated that four
and a half per cent died while in the harbours, or on shore before the day
of sale, which was only about the space of twelve or fourteen days after
their arrival there; and one third more died in the seasoning: and this in
a climate exactly similar to their own, and where, as some of the witnesses
pretended, they were healthy and happy. Thus, out of every lot of one
hundred, shipped from Africa, seventeen died in about nine weeks, and not
more than fifty lived to become effective labourers in our islands.
Having advanced thus far in his investigation, he felt, he said, the
wickedness of the Slave-trade to be so enormous, so dreadful, and
irremediable, that he could stop at no alternative short of its abolition.
A trade founded on iniquity, and carried on with such circumstances of
horror, must be abolished, let the policy of it be what it might; and he
had from this time determined, whatever were the consequences, that he
would never rest till he had effected that abolition. His mind had indeed
been harassed by the objections of the West India planters, who had
asserted, that the ruin of their property must be the consequence of such a
measure. He could not help, however, distrusting their arguments. He could
not believe that the Almighty Being, who had forbidden the practice of
rapine and bloodshed, had made rapine and bloodshed necessary to any part
of his universe. He felt a confidence in this persuasion, and took the
resolution to act upon it. Light indeed soon broke in upon him. The
suspicion of his mind was every day confirmed by increasing information,
and the evidence he had now to offer upon this point was decisive and
complete. The principle upon which he founded the necessity of the
abolition was not policy, but justice: but, though justice were the
principle of the measure, yet he trusted he should distinctly prove it to
be reconcileable with our truest political interest.
In the first place, he asserted that the number of the slaves in our West
India islands might be kept up without the introduction of recruits from
Africa; and to prove this, he would enumerate the different sources of
their mortality. The first was the disproportion of the sexes, there being,
upon an average, about five males imported to three females: but this evil,
when the Slave-trade was abolished, would cure itself. The second consisted
in the bad condition in which they were brought to the islands, and the
methods of preparing them for sale. They arrived frequently in a sickly and
disordered state, and then they were made up for the market by the
application of astringents, washes, mercurial ointments, and repelling
drugs, so that their wounds and diseases might be hid. These artifices were
not only fraudulent but fatal: but these, it was obvious, would of
themselves fall with the trade. A third was, excessive labour joined with
improper food; and a fourth was, the extreme dissoluteness of their
manners. These also would both of them be counteracted by the impossibility
of getting further supplies: for owners, now unable to replace those slaves
whom they might lose, by speedy purchases in the markets, would be more
careful how they treated them in future, and a better treatment would be
productive of better morals. And here he would just advert to an argument
used against those who complained of cruelty in our islands, which was,
that it was the interest of masters to treat their slaves with humanity:
but surely it was immediate and present, not future and distant, interest,
which was the great spring of action in the affairs of mankind. Why did we
make laws to punish men? It was their interest to be upright and virtuous:
but there was a present impulse continually breaking in upon their better
judgment, and an impulse, which was known to be contrary to their permanent
advantage. It was ridiculous to say that men would be bound by their
interest, when gain or ardent passion urged them. It might as well be
asserted that a stone could not be thrown into the air, or a body move from
place to place, because the principle of gravitation bound them to the
surface of the earth. If a planter in the West Indies found himself reduced
in his profits, he did not usually dispose of any part of his slaves; and
his own gratifications were never given up, so long as there was a
possibility of making any retrenchment in the allowance of his slaves.--But
to return to the subject which he had left: He was happy to state, that as
all the causes of the decrease which he had stated might be remedied, so,
by the progress of light and reformation, these remedies had been gradually
coming into practice; and that, as these had increased, the decrease of
slaves had in an equal proportion been lessened. By the gradual adoption of
these remedies, he could prove from the report on the table, that the
decrease of slaves in Jamaica had lessened to such a degree, that from the
year 1774 to the present it was not quite one in a hundred, and that in
fact they were at present in a state of increase; for that the births in
that island, at this moment, exceeded the deaths by one thousand or eleven
hundred per annum. Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, and the Bermudas, were, like
Jamaica, lessening their decrease, and holding forth an evident and
reasonable expectation of a speedy state of increase by natural population.
But allowing the number of negros even to decrease for a time, there were
methods which would ensure the welfare of the West India islands. The lands
there might be cultivated by fewer hands, and this to greater advantage to
the proprietors and to this country, by the produce of cinnamon, coffee,
and cotton, than by that of sugar. The produce of the plantations might
also be considerably increased, even in the case of sugar, with less hands
than were at present employed, if the owners of them would but introduce
machines of husbandry. Mr. Long himself, long resident as a planter, had
proved, upon his own estate, that the plough, though so little used in the
West Indies, did the service of a hundred slaves, and caused the same
ground to produce three hogsheads of sugar, which, when cultivated by
slaves, would only produce two. The division of work, which, in free and
civilized countries, was the grand source of wealth, and the reduction of
the number of domestic servants, of whom not less than from twenty to forty
were kept in ordinary families, afforded other resources for this purpose.
But, granting that all these suppositions should be unfounded, and that
every one of these substitutes should fail for a time, the planters would
be indemnified, as is the case in all transactions of commerce, by the
increased price of their produce in the British market. Thus, by contending
against the abolition, they were defeated in every part of the argument.
But he would never give up the point, that the number of the slaves could
be kept up by natural population, and without any dependence whatever on
the Slave-trade. He therefore called upon the house again to abolish it as
a criminal waste of life--it was utterly unnecessary--he had proved it so
by documents contained in the report. The merchants of Liverpool, indeed,
had thought otherwise, but he should be cautious how he assented to their
opinions. They declared last year that it was a losing trade at two slaves
to a ton, and yet they pursued it when restricted to five slaves to three
tons. He believed, however, that it was upon the whole a losing concern; in
the same manner as the lottery would be a losing adventure to any company
who should buy all the tickets. Here and there an individual gained a large
prize, but the majority of adventurers gained nothing. The same merchants,
too, had asserted that the town of Liverpool would be ruined by the
abolition. But Liverpool did not depend for its consequence upon the
Slave-trade. The whole export-tonnage from that place amounted to no less
than 170,000 tons; whereas the export part of it to Africa amounted only to
13,000. Liverpool, he was sure, owed its greatness to other and very
different causes; the Slave-trade bearing but a small proportion to its
other trades.