fling; and a principal point in which that trade might be faid to be connected with the African, was this: faltpetre, the main ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder, was largely imported from the East Indies; and of 2,700,000 pounds of gunpowder, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half was fent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtlefs, of maintaining peace and encouraging civilization among its various tribes! Following the fame line of argument, 4 or 5000 perfons were reported to depend, for their very exiflence, on the particular manufacture of guns for Africa; and this branch of the trade was defcribed as totally differnt from every other. In what the difference confifted, the informant omitted to mention; but that defect was fupplied by one of the witneffes, who had repeatedly feen negroes maimed by the bursting of these guns, and who had been told by them, that they killed more from the butt than from the muzzle. Another witnefs had ftated, That on the fea coaft, the natives are afraid to fire a trade gun.

In the Weft Indian commerce, 240,000 tons of shipping, and 21,000 feamen, were ftated to be employed; but here again deception intruded itfelf. This account was not, as gentlemen might imagine, that of the fhips engaged in the intercourfe between Great Britain and her colonies only; but it included every veffel, fmall and great, which went from the British West Indies to the Continent of America, and to the foreign iflands; and, what was yet more unfair, in order to fwell the fum, it included too all the repeated voyages of each throughout the year. The actual quantity of fhipping occupied in the Weft-Indian trade, both from Great Britain and Ireland, little exceeded half that which had been afferted, nor did the number of failors, fupported by that trade alone, amount to ten thousand!

In a fimilar manner, had the islands themselves been overrated. While, from official documents, their value had been computed, for the information of His Majefty and the Privy Council, at 36 millions, the planters had thought proper almot to double the fum, and eftimate them at 70. The truth, however, might poffibly lie between thefe extremes. Mr. Smith added, that he was forry to have taken up fo much of the time of the Committee on this part of the subject; but he thought it neceffary to animadvert upon, and to expole, mitreprefentations fo palpable and exceffive; while, at the fame time, he was very willing to allow, that our Wefl-Indian trade and dependencies were of fo much real importance, as not to require the aid of fuch exaggeration.

He would next proceed to take notice of various opinions and affertions, which had fallen from different gentlemen in the courfe of the debate. The honourable Member for Li

verpool

verpool (Colonel Tarleton) had difclaimed every attempt to intereft the feelings or paffions of the Houfe, but had defired to call them to reafon and to accounts. Many gentlenien remembered when "queftion of feeling," was rather an obhoxious phrafe; but if ever there was a queftion of feeling, a queftion which ought to intereft the beft and nobleft feelings of the human heart, it was this; but he did not wifh to have the point decided on that ground alone. He also defired to draw the attention of the Committee to reason and ac counts to the voice of reafon, inftead of the clamour of prejudice, and to accounts, in the place of idle and ill-founded apprehenfions. The refult, he doubted not, would be a full perfuafion, that the measure proposed was equally fanctioned by policy, and required by juftice. He, indeed, was convinced, that true policy and ftrict juftice were infeparable, and that no country could fuffer, in any of its effential interefts, by the moft fcrupulous adherence to the principles of rectitude and the dictates of humanity. In the prefent cafe, however, he thought it totally unneceffary to recur to humanity, as to a principle which might grant what justice might deny; for he would concede every point to his adverfaries, and utterly abandon his object, if it were not demonftrably clear, that juftice itself, in the most rigid and confined fenfe of the term, loudly and absolutely demanded the abolition of this horrible traffic.

The honourable Member had enlarged on the iniquity of depriving the traders of Liverpool of a business, "on which 66 were founded their honour and their fortunes." On what part of it they founded their honour, it was impoffible, Mr. Smith declared, for him to conjecture; but of this he was confident, that no Weft-Indian gentleman in that Committee would rife to defend the honour of the African trade. Among many other circumftances, equally honourable, it had appeared, in evidence, that the agents, employed in actually carrying on this business, had fyftematically practifed every fraud and villany, which the meaneft and most unprincipled cunning could fuggeft, to impose on ignorance; and yet, with unparalleled affurance, were the Africans accufed of treachery and deceit, fhame on them, with fuch brilliant examples of integrity before their eyes!

If there were any circumftances in the courfe of this proceeding, Mr. Smith faid, which he had peculiarly regretted, it was a defect to which the honourable gentleman had adverted, that the evidence had not been taken on oath. Numberlefs facts had been related by eye-witneffes, called in fupport of the abolition, fo dreadfully atrocious, that the very magnitude of the crimes, their horrible enormity, rendered them almoft, if not entirely, incredible to perfons acquainted VOL. XXIX.

Nn

only

only with fuch a state of society as exifts in this country; they seemed rather, to use the expreffion of Offian, like "The hiftories of the days of other times." This procured for the trade to which they owed their own birth, a fpecies of acquittal which it could not have obtained, had the Committee been authorised to have removed all objection to the validity of their teftimony, by the fanction of an oath. He apprehended alfo, that it would have had the farther advantage of making fome perfons rather more guarded in the teftimony they had given. Captain Knox might not then, perhaps, have told the Committee, that 690 flaves could have comfortable room at night, in his veffel of about 140 tons; when, by a calculation given in by another of their own witneffes, and frained to the very utmoft towards the fame point, it appeared, that fuch a veffel could afford no more than five feet fix inches in length, and fifteen inches in breadth, to 418 only, or about two-thirds of his number; nor, perhaps, would he have maintained that, in another fhip of 120 tons, he had carried 130 tons of water only, befides five hundred perfons, with fufficient provifions and ftores, &c. for them all. Mr. Smith faid, the thing was impoffible; the most informed knew it was not true, and the moft ignorant could not fwallow it. On account of these, and an infini e number of inconfiftencies, equally flagrant, which he could mention, he fincerely withed that the witneffes had been required to give their evidence on oath.

The next point on which he thould obferve, was of great confequence, and had been much infifted on-the importance. of the flave trade, as a nursery for feamen. In full confirmation of every word which had been affected on this head, by the advocates of abolition, and to the confufion of thosewho had contradicted them, it had appeared, by the mufterrolls of the flave veffels, brought from Liverpool, the production of which would have been avoided, if poffible, that confiderably more than one-fifth part of the men employed in them actually died in the fervice, amounting to several hundreds annually, exclufive of many who were discharged and perifbed in the West Indies; and yet, the honourable Colonel had been inftructed by his conftituents to fay, that notwithstanding this vaft lofs, unheard of, almoft impoffible, in any branch of legitimate commerce, it was ftill a nursery for feamen; for that about 3000 men annually failing from England, 1600, or one half, were landtimen, and therefore, that though 600 or 700 fhould die, a great number of feamen were continually forming. Not to dwell on the expensive cruelty of forming thefe feamer, by the yearly destruction of fo many hundreds, whom thefe gentlemen of Liverpool feemed entirely to difregard, if they could prove them to be only

English

Englishmen, and not failors, Mr. Smith declared he was aftonifhed that these people fhould have no more respect for their honourable representative, than to expofe him to the unpleafant circumstance of having his affertions direfly contradicted by the clearest and most undeniable evidence. Not only did it appear by the mufter-rolls from Bristol, that the proportion of landfmen little exceeded one-twelfth part, but the proper officers of the port of Liverpool itfelf, whofe bufinefs it was to be acquainted with the fubject, had, in their anfwers to the Privy Council, exprefly ftated the proportion from thence to be, not half, but one-fixteenth part only ! In the face, however, of the moft glaring facts, fome perfons had been fufficiently bold, or uninformed, to fay that the mortality in thefe veffels did not exceed that of other trades in the tropical climates. The fame documents, by which we learnt that, in this wafting traffic, 23 per cent. of the men were deftroyed, informed us, that even in the Weft-Indian fhips, only about one and a half were loft, including every cafualty; and indeed he fhould vary much alter his opinion of the value of the latter commerce, if it were poffible for human ingenuity to prove it equally deftructive. But the very men, under whofe management this mortality had been conftantly occurring for a fucceffion of years, colly informed us, that much of it might be avoided by proper regulations. He would be glad to know, then, for how much they would have to anfwer, who, knowing this, had neither publicly propofed, nor in their practice adopted, fuch regulations. Exclufive of another, and a more serious account, which they would have to render, let them recollect that it was upon them that their country had a right to charge the deftruction of multitudes of their fellow citizens, They were not, they could not, be ignorant of what was perpetually under their obfervation; but their whole fouls were occupied with another object; their attention was alone directed to the ultimate profit of the voyage; and, any farther than as it diminished their expences, the wafte of a perishing crew was a trifle beneath their concern !

Objections had been raised to a calculation brought forward by his honourable friend (Mr. Wilberforce) on a former occafion, in which the average lofs of the flaves on board was ftated at 12 and a half per cent. It was not of great confequence whether that proportion was truly exact: he was himself perfuaded that, taking in all circumftances, the honourable gentleman had not exceeded the truth; but that, for a series of years, not lefs than one tenth had fo perifhed, he would challenge thofe concerned in the traffic to difprove, Much evidence had been produced on the fubject, but both the perfons and the voyages had been generally felected by

Nn 2

thofe

thofe who poffeffed almoft all the information, nor had any one of them thought it prudent to difclose the black catalogue of death throughout the whole feries of his concerns, except Mr. Anderfon, of London, a gentleman, he believed, of very fair reputation, and whofe engagements in this line had been very inconfiderable. His lots, indeed, on the trifling number he had exported, had been only per cent.; but, unfortunately for the credit of the flave traders of Liverpool and Bristol, it appeared, on the face of the account he had delivered, that his veffels had not taken above three fourths of that number in proportion to the tonnage, which they had uniformly and repeatedly ftated to be abfolutely neceffary to the very existence of their trade; and it appeared alfo, that a commerce in the produce of the country was Mr. Anderfon's favourite object.

Another honourable gentleman (Mr. Grofvenor) had, on the preceding day, attributed the protraction of this business to those who had introduced it; but very forgetfully and erroneously for, notwithstanding the eagerness which its enemies had frequently expreffed to bring on the decifion, the original motion for farther evidence, beyond that contained in the Privy Council's Report, which firft occal oned delay, was their's. And, in the examination of witneffes, the laft Parliament, they had occupied by far the largest portion of the time employed; while, in the prefent feffion, when he and his friends had not been much interrupted, they had not exceeded the limits which the Hcufe had affigned them. The honourable gentleman had farther remarked that Great Britain had the fame right, by natural law, to carry on this trade, that any other nation poffeffed; that it was impoffible to abolish it; and that the Committee had better be eafy and quiet, for that they were happy. His firft pofition Mr. Smith did not mean to deny. We undoubtedly poffeffed a right to the trade equal to that of any other nation; but what that right could be, he was unable to imagine; nor had he been fo fortunate as to difcover the law on which it was founded in any code or fyftem of natural, or any other law, with which he had ever met. As to impoffibility, none certainly exifted, of forbidding the farther importation of Haves into our own colonies, and beyond this, the motion did not extend.

To the honourable gentleman's laft obfervation, he would reply, that it was not on account of any fuppofed unhappinefs of Parliament that it was called on to decide the question, In their individual fituations, gentlemen undoubtedly were happy; but did it, therefore, the lefs behove them to confider the happinefs of others? And was the ftate of Africa happy? Was the fituation of the flaves a happy one? The

trade