I

placed the women and children, the men, and others capable of fwimming, attending on them, whilft they drifted before the wind towards the ifland where the feamen had landed. The minds of these, if, by the habits of the flave trade, they had not become hardened against every feeling of humanity, must have been moved by fo interefting a scene: they would have been eager to repair their former cruel neglect, and to lend them, though late, their best affiftance. But what was indeed the fequel?" from an apprehenfion that the ne"groes would confume the water and provifion which they had landed, they came to a refolution to deftroy the negroes, by means of their fire arms and other weapons, and "as the poor wretches approached the fhore, they actually "deftroyed between 3 and 400! Out of the whole cargo, "only 33 or 34 were faved, and brought to Kingston, where "they were fold at public vendue." It is the charitable conjecture of Mr. Rofs, that they were in a state of intoxication, when they adopted the above-mentioned refolution, without having first made an attempt to difpatch their boat to Jamaica for affiftance, or a vefiel to take them and the flaves off the ifland; adding his perfuafion, that, if they had acted with common difcretion, there was no neceffity for deftroying one of them. But this, there wa but too much reafon to fear, was a fuppofition more of charity than justice; for there appeared no want of coolnefs and difcretion, in the precautions they took for their own fafety. It would, however, be to no purpose, Mr. Wilberforce added, to relieve the flave trade from this act of barbarity; the ftory of the Morant Keys was but paralleled by that of Captain Collingwood; and were you to get rid of these, another, and another, would still prefent itself.

The volume of evidence which lay before him, was filled with accounts of different kinds of miferies. His feelings were too powerfully worked on to allow him to ftop; and he must shut up the book at once, or he must read the Whilft he had been juft reading to them the ftory of the Morant keys, his eye had but glanced on the oppofite page, and it met another circumftance of horror attending this trade, which had efcaped him in its proper place. It related to what were called the "refufe flaves:" what was fignified by this term, he could not better explain to the Committee, than by reading to them fome words from Mr. Rofs. After faying there were, in the town of Kingfton, a number of people who fpeculated in the purchase of the flaves, left after the first day's fale, for the purpose of carrying them to the country, and retailing them, he proceeded to declare, that he had frequently feen the very refuse of the flaves of "Guinea fhips, landed and carried to the venduc-mafter in a

66 very wretched ftate, fometimes in the agonies of death, "and there fold at very fmall prices, even as low as a dollar, "and that he had known inftances of their expiring in the "piazzas of the vendue-mafier." The bare defcription fuperfeded the neceffity of any remark: yet these are the familiar incidents of the flave trade!

But there were other fatalities to which feamen, in this trade, were peculiarly liable. In the courfe of his inquiries, it had occurred to him to look into the lift that was kept at Lloyd's, of the cafualties that befel our fhipping, and thence he foon collected the account, contained in the book he held in his hand, where, in fome years, it appeared one, in others two, and in others three, and in one as many as fix, fhips, were cut off by the natives, or deftroyed in fome other manner. Such articles as thefe were every where to be met with in fhort, the hiftory of this commerce was written throughout in characters of blood.

Mr. Wilberforce came next to the confideration of the effects of the abolition of the flave trade on thofe places by which it was moft carried on. He alluded to Bristol and Liverpool, particularly the latter, of the commerce of which it had been usually thought to conftitute, a confiderable share. Long might he be rich and flourishing, provided it was by fair and honeft gains; and he was happy in being able to fay, that it was not by this deteftable traffic that he had risen to her present opulence; and that, not only because it compofed but a thirtieth part of her export trade, but also because, from private information, as well as public documents, he was authorised to fay, it was merely a lottery-profitable, indeed, to fome individuals, but a lofing trade on the whole. The delegates from Liverpool had declared, at the bar of the Houfe, that, in order to give the merchants a profit, he must be allowed to carry a greater number of flaves, in proportion to his tonnage, than he was permitted by the exifting law; and in the accounts contained in the papers on the table, of the tonnage of fhips, and the number of flaves they carried, the cargoes of a great part of them would be found to be below that proportion.

Of the commerce of Bristol, the flave trade conftituted a ftill smaller proportion. For the effects of the abolition on the general commerce, and on the manufactures of Great Britain, he would refer the Committee, once more, to the evidence of Mr. Irving, where they would find that the benefits of its continuance, in thefe views, had been extremely exaggerated. The medium value of British manufactures, exported to Africa, amounted but to between four and five hundred thousand pounds a year, and there was no doubt but that the fuperior capital, ingenuity, industry, and integrity,

of

fthe British manufacturer, would command new markets. for the produce of his industry, when this should be no more; but he fhould advert hereafter to this fubject. He might i have been warranted to call our exports to Africa a trifle, confidering that the value of British manufactures, of late exported from this country, exceeds that of the most flourishing period before the laft war, in the fum of 2,500,000l. One branch, indeed, of our manufactures, he must confefs, was likely to fuffer from the abolition, and that was the manufacture of gunpowder, of which the nature of our connection with Africa, drew from us as much as we exported to all the rest of the world befides.

He haftened, however, to another part of the argument, on which it would be neceffary for him to take up more of the time of the Houfe. By many perfons it had been said to him, "We wifh, as earneftly as you can do, to put an end "to the flave trade, but we cannot approve of your mode. "Allow it to be carried on for fome time longer; for, by a "hafty abolition, you will displease the Legislatures of the "Weft-India iflands, on whom you muft, in fact, depend "for fuch a melioration of the flaves' condition, as, by in"furing the keeping up of the numbers, will prevent the "neceffity of importation. It is by them the laws muft be "paffed for the protection of flaves, and it is by the magif"trates, and others in the islands, that thefe laws must be "enforced" Now, faid Mr. Wilberforce, I am directly at iffue with these gentlemen; and though the effects of the flave trade on Africa, were not fuch as to preclude every idea of regulation, I fhould be decidedly of opinion, that the abolition was to be recommended as the beft, and indeed the only certain, mode of fo far amending the treatment of flaves in the Weft Indies, as to fecure their increafe. Mr. Wilberforce added, that he trusted he fhould prove that the mode preferred by these gentlemen was at once inefficacious and unfafe. In order to fhew the inefficacy of any laws which might be paffed for fecuring good treatment to the flaves, it would be fufficient to acquaint the Houfe, if they were not already aware of it, that the evidence of negroes is, in no cafe, admitted against white men. The confequences of this would be obvious, when it fhould be confidered that there were feldom more than one or two white men on a plantation; and, in the language of the Grenada anfwer, that "those who were capable of the guilt in queftion, will, in "general, be artful enough to prevent any but flaves being "witneffes of the fact." Hence it had arifen, that when pofitive laws had been made, in fome of the islands, for the protection of the flaves, they had been found almost a dead letter, as was abundantly proved in the evidence before them.

But,

1

1

But, granting it were poffible, by pofitive laws, to protect the flaves from the extremes of ill ufage, from murder and mutilation, by what laws could they hope to enter into every man's domeftic concerns, and regulate the interior economy of his house and plantation? This would be fomething more than a general excife, and what never could, or would be borne by freemen. Yet on all these, and innumerable other minuteneffes, muft depend the comfort of the flaves' fituation, and the probability of their increafe. A new fyftem, indeed, had been attempted to be introduced, by which individuals, under the name of guardians, were, by turns, to attend to carrying the laws into execution; but all this machinery would be to no purpose; and fo long as it continued in action, it would make every man a fpy upon his neighbour's conduct: it would poifon the comforts of domeftic life, and deftroy the confidence of focial intercourfe.Would any one, therefore, conceive it poffible, that it should prove efficient, or if fo, that it could long continue in operation? But it would be concealing too much to admit, that, even in greater matters, the laws would be effe&tual. It was univerfally allowed, that the regulations of the Code Noir, however excellent, had been utterly neglected in the French West India islands, though there was an officer appointed by the Crown, for the exprefs purpofe of feeing them enforced. The provifions of the Directorio had been but of little more avail in the Portuguese fettlements, nor the inftitution of a Protector of the Indians in thofe of the Spaniards. This leffon of the futility of flave laws, was fo experimentally inculcated on the fpot, that many in the iflands afcribed the bills which had been lately paffed, to a difpofition to blind the people of this country, rather than to any ferious expectation of being able to carry them into execution. Mr. Wilberforce, for his own part, fincerely difclaimed any fuch opinion on the contrary, he gave ample credit to many of thofe who had an active fhare in bringing them forward; and, in particular, he had read, with pleasure, the language on that fubject of a gentleman to whom he had before had occafion to allude. But, after all their regulations, what degree of protection the flaves would enjoy, might be inferred from the admiffion of the gentleman by whom this very plan had been recommended; no ordinary man, but a person of difcernment and legal resources. He had propofed a limitation of the number of lashes, to be given by the mafter or overfeer, for one offence; but when asked, "Can you fuggeft any mode

by which the master can be brought to punishment, even "if he should give the flave ever so great a number of lashes, "in a fhort fpace of time, fcreening himfelf under the arti"fice of splitting one crime into many, and giving the li

<<mited number of lafhes for each ?" he frankly replied, "I 66 can devise none, while the evidence of faves continues "inadmiffible against their masters." After this, who would maintain, that the treatment of flaves by their mafters could be made subject to the regulations of the law? The artifice fuggefted before, was not an ideal one: they who had read the evidence, would recollect a difgufting inftance of it recorded by Captain Cook; wherein an inhuman wretch, in Barbadoes, had chained a negro girl, of about nineteen, to the floor, and flogged her till she was nearly expiring, with agony and lofs of blood. After he had retreated to avoid the effects of the refentment fo fhocking a fight naturally kindled in perfons unused to fuch fcenes, he cried out with exultatian, "I have only given her 39 lafhes [the "number prescribed by law] at any one time, and that I "have only given her three times fince the beginning of the "night;" adding, "that he would flog her to death for all any one, and would have given her the fourth 39 before "morning!"

Bur he must repeat it, this plan of amending the fituation of the flaves, and fecuring their good treatment by laws, was not inefficacious only, but unfafe. He entered his protest against the fatal confequences which might refult from it, and called on those who were moft immediately interested in the question, to lend their ferious attention to his argument. The negroes were creatures like ourselves: they had the fame feelings, and even stronger affections than our own; but their minds were uninformed, and their moral characters were altogether debafed. Men, in this ftate, were almoft incapacitated for the reception of civil rights. In order to become fit for the enjoyment of thefe, they muft, in fome measure, be restored to that level from which they had been fo unjustly and cruelly degraded. To give them a power of appealing to the laws, would be to awaken in them a fenfe of the dignity of their nature. The firft return of life, after a fwoon, was commonly a convulfion, dangerous at once to the party himself and to all around him. Such, in the cafe of the flaves, Mr. Wilberforce feared might be the confequence of a fudden communication of the confcioufnefs of civil rights. This was a feeling it would be dangerous to impart, till you should release them from fuch humiliating and ignominious diftinctions, as, with that confcioufnefs, they would never endure. You must conduct them to the fituation in queftion, having firft prepared them for it, and not bring the fituation to them. To be under the protection of law, was, in fact, to be a freeman; and, to unite flavery and freedom in one condition, was a vain attempt; they were, in fact, incompatible, and could never coalefce. With this system,