This tour was the most vexatious of any I had yet undertaken; many still refused to come forward to be examined, and some on the most frivolous pretences; so that I was disgusted, as I journeyed on, to find how little men were disposed to make sacrifices for so great a cause. In one part of it, I went over nearly two thousand miles, receiving repeated refusals. I had not secured one witness within this distance. This was truly disheartening. I was subject to the whims and the caprice of those whom I solicited on these occasions.* To these I was obliged to accommodate myself. When at Edinburgh, a person who could have given me material information, declined seeing me, though he really wished well to the cause. When I had returned southward as far as York, he changed his mind; and he would then see me. I went back, that I might not lose him. When I arrived, he would give me only private information. Thus I travelled, backwards and forwards, four hundred miles to no purpose. At another place a circumstance almost similar happened, though with a different issue. I had been for two years writing about a person, whose testimony was important. I had passed once through the town in which he lived; but he would not then see me. I passed through it now, but no entreaties of his friends could make him alter his resolution. He was a man highly respectable as to situation in life; but of consider

*Ten or twelve of those who were examined, much to their honor, came forward of their own accord.

able vanity. I said, therefore, to my friend, on leaving the town, You may tell him that I expect to be at Nottingham in a few days; and though it be a hundred and fifty miles distant, I will even come back to see him, if he will dine with me on my return. A letter from my friend announced to me, when at Nottingham, that his vanity had been so gratified by the thought of a person coming expressly to visit him from such a distance, that he would meet me according to my appointment. I went back. We dined together. He yielded to my request. I was now repaid; and I returned towards Nottingham in the night. These circumstances I mention, and I feel it right to mention them, that the reader may be properly impressed with the great difficulties we found in collecting a body of evidence, in comparison with our opponents. They ought never to be forgotten; for if with the testimony, picked up as it were under all these disadvantages, we carried our object against those who had almost numberless witnesses to command, what must have been the merits of our cause! No person can indeed judge of the severe labor and trials in these journeys. In the present, I was out four months. I was almost over the whole island. I intersectd it backwards and forwards both in the night ind in the day. I travelled nearly seven thousand miles in this time, and I was able to count upon twenty new and willing evidences.

Having now accomplished my object, Mr. Wilberforce moved on the fourth of February in the

house of commons, that a committee be appointed to examine further witnesses in behalf of the abolition of the Slave-trade. This motion was no sooner made, than Mr. Cawthorne rose, to our great surprise, to oppose it. He took upon himself to decide, that the house had heard evidence enough. This indecent motion was not without its advocates. Mr. Wilberforce set forth the injustice of this attempt; and proved, that out of eighty-one days, which had been given up to the hearing of evidence, the witnesses against the abolition had occupied no less than fifty-seven. He was strenuously supported by Mr. Burke, Mr. Martin, and other respectable members. At length, the debate ended in favor of the original motion, and a committee was appointed accordingly.

The examinations began again on February the seventh, and continued till April the fifth, when they were finally closed. In this, as in the former session, Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. William Smith principally conducted them; and indeed it was necessary that they should have been present at these times; for it is, perhaps, difficult to conceive the illiberal manner in which our witnesses were treated by those on the other side of the question. Men, who had left the trade upon principle, and who had come forward, against their apparent interest, to serve the cause of humanity and justice, were looked upon as mereenaries and culprits, or as men of doubtful and suspicious character. They were brow-beaten.

Unhandsome questions were put to them. Some were kept for four days under examination. It was, however, highly to their honor, that they were found in no one instance to prevaricate, nor to waver as to the certainty of their facts.

But this treatment, hard as it was for them to bear, was indeed good for the cause; for, coming thus pure out of the fire, they occasioned their own testimony, when read, to bear stronger marks of truth than that of the generality of our opponents; nor was it less superior, when weighed by other considerations. For the witnesses against the abolition were principally interested. They who were not, had been hospitably received at the planters' tables. The evidence, too, which they delivered, was almost wholly negative. They had not seen such and such evils. But this was no proof that the evils did not exist. The witnesses, on the other hand, who came up in favor of the abolition, had no advantage in making their several assertions. In some instances, they came up against their apparent interest; and, to my knowledge, suffered persecution for so doing. The evidence, also, which they delivered, was of a positive nature. They gave an account of specific evils, which had come under their own eyes. These evils were never disproved. They stood therefore on a firm basis, as on a tablet of brass. Engraved there in affirmative characters, a few of them were of more value than all the negative and airy testimony which had been advanced on the other side of the question.

That the public may judge, in some measure, of the respectability of the witnesses in favor of the abolition, and that they may know also to whom Africa is so much indebted for her deliverance, I shall subjoin their names in the three following lists. The first, will contain those who were examined by the privy council only; the second, those who were examined by the privy council and the house of commons also; and the third, those who were examined by the house of commons only.

LIST I.

Andrew Spaarman, physician, botanist, and successor to Linnæus, traveller on discovery in Africa for the king of Sweden.

Reverend Isham Baggs, chaplain for two voyages to Africa in H. M. ship Grampus.

Captain James Bowen, of the royal navy, one voyage to Africa. Mr. William James, a master in the royal navy, three voyages as mate of a slave-vessel.

Mr. David Henderson, gunner of H. M. ship Centurion, three voyages to Africa.

Harry Gandy, two voyages to Africa, as captain of a slave vessel.

Thomas Eldred, two voyages there, as mate.

James Arnold, three voyages there, as surgeon and surgeon's

mate.

Thomas Deane, two voyages there, as captain of a wood and ivory ship.

LIST II.

Major-general Rooke, commander of Goree, in Africa.

Henry Hew Dalrymple, esquire, lieutenant of the 75th regiment at Goree, and afterwards in all the West India islands.

Thomas Willson, esquire, naval commander at Goree.

John Hills, esquire, captain of H. M. ship Zephyr, on the African station.