West Indies; so long will you have human beings (who are called men) whose hearts are steeled against humanity, who will inflict without remorse every species of cruelty on their victims, by which profit may be produced, or even expected. Te misery of their fellow creatures is nothing to such persons
when in competition with profit; and therefore, all the measures which were so laudably taken by the Legislature in favour of the health, and with a view of alleviating the sufferings of these wretched beings, have failed of their intended effect. It is true that they did a little good; but cruelty being the essence
of the Traffick, misery is the inevitable effect, notwithstanding any legislative regulation which you may adopt. I could almost have wished it had been repeated at your bar, to
impress upon the mind of everyone of your Lordships, that which has long been impressed on mine, evidence in many instances, not by witnesses who were called in favour of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, but against it. I could wish that the [slave trader] witnesses should declare to
you, my Lords, in their own language, their savage brutal language, the acts which they themselves commit, and which, according to their feelings are justified by the necessity of the thing, and which, for naught I know, may be absolutely necessary for the attainment of their object in the course of their odious pursuit. I am perfectly confident that if your Lordships were, now, to
hear at your bar, those who are employed in the passage of the Negroes, declare what they do, and what they justify the doing of, from the necessity of it; in short what is called the Defence of the Traffick, your Lordships would regard it as a perfectly good reason for the Abolition. In the passage of the Negroes from the Coast of Africa, there
is a greater portion of human misery condensed within a smaller space than has ever yet been found in any other place on the face of this globe. I have often repeated, and I say again “that men who are en-
spread this misery; over nearly a whole quarter of the world, the inhabitants of which are, by your practices, and for our avarice, doomed to slavery, after hundreds and thousands of their country- men have been murdered to effect our object! And of the truth of all this, no human being, who has the gift of
reason, and will peruse the evidence, can entertain a single doubt. While you give encouragement to war in Africa, war will prevail there. While you give encouragement to fraud, violence and cruelty, in Africa, fraud, violence and cruelty will prevail there. Remember, my Lords, that this can only be done by your con-
sent. Te unhappy victims being thus procured, in what manner are they carried to another country; and how are they treated in their transit? We have on our table, and we have read enough, and more than enough, of the cruelties of what is called the Mid- dle Passage. My Lords, the hearts of even those who were steeled against everything that was urged against the Traffick in general were unable to bear the recital of the cruelties of this part of it. We endeavoured, but endeavoured in vain, to remedy the evil.
Tere is but one remedy that can be applied with effect; for as long as you suffer your ships to sail in this Traffick of human blood; [Hear! Hear! Hear!, from various parts of the House]; as long as you steal men from the Coast of Africa and carry them by force to the
gaged in this Traffick, do, for the gratification of their avarice, press together and condense a greater portion of human beings in one mass of common misery than ever were put together in the same space in any other instance, at any time, upon the face of the globe”. Never will I cease to utter this sentence when occasion shall
require it, while I possess the power of speech – never shall I cease to lift up my voice, exclaim and protest to Heaven, against this most frightful injustice; and I will add, that if you have no sense of feeling for the helpless Africans, who are torn from their country, their families, and friends, if the practices employed to procure them, fraud, violence, and bloodshed, do not excite your horror, turn your eyes to the ships employed in the passage of these victims from their native land, to their land of slavery. See the misery on board. If this cannot affect you, and make
you exclaim against the Traffick; turn your eyes upon your own interest and see the mortality it creates among your seamen, and then let me ask you whether, even upon the score of interest, anything can justify your conduct in continuing the Slave Trade? Whether any good, if good it were, that can attend this Traffick, can coun- terbalance so much evil? But my Lords, what is meant to be attained by all this? Te end
is, my Lords, that these most wretched Africans, if they survive the sickness arising from the stench and pestilence of their passage,
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