The principles of the Slave Trade, and the conduct of the officers on
the voyage, are _alike_, in all the cases I have met with, whether from
actual knowledge, or well-attested information. Publications therefore
of this kind must grow tiresome, and be necessarily marked with an
unfavourable degree of sameness; unfavorable, I mean, with regard to the
patience of cold, dispassionate readers: for, taken in another point of
view, it seems to give additional strength to the cause. Is it not a
strong presumptive proof of the veracity of the circumstances that have
been offered, that a number of men, unknown to each other, from
different parts of the kingdom, dating their facts so long asunder,
bringing their scenes of destruction from different places and vessels,
without an invitation, without interest to serve, without any other
purpose than that of supporting the cause of humanity, should concur in
such a wonderful degree, that a warm reader would be almost led to
imagine, that the observations were all made on one voyage, and the
misery and murder the produce of the same vessel? And, yet, to a
_multitude_ of proofs is opposed the simple unsupported affirmation,
that the practice is not general. I have again to declare, that though I
made every possible inquiry, and had the very best opportunity for those
inquiries, on the coast, in the West Indies, and in England, I never
heard but of _one_ Guinea vessel, in which the usage and conduct were in
any degree of moderation. The lists were filled with famine, flogging,
torture, and every horrid species of wanton barbarity and oppression.
I will not, Sir, press any farther upon your time. I hope you will
excuse the inaccuracies to be found in these letters, and if I should
have appeared either warm or earnest, let it be remembered how hard it
is to be cold in such a cause; that these remarks have not been compiled
from the patient and laborious stores of collected evidence; but come
warm from a heart that has felt the miseries it describes, and from a
recollection, that still smarts with the barbarities it has witnessed.