ftate another transaction to fhew the manner of obtaining flaves, a tranfaction which took place no longer ago than Auguft laft. Six Britifli fhips were anchoring off the town of Calabar; the captains thinking that too high a price was afked for the flaves, confulted together, and refolved to fire on the town to compel them to take a lower price; they fent notice of their deter mination to fire in the morning if their of fers were not accepted; no answer being returned, the flave captains, when their word had been given for a bloody and cruel purpose, kept its they brought their guns to bear upon a defenceless town, and fired on it for three hours, in which time they did confiderable execution. The chief fent out to procure a ceffation, but not offering terms low enough, the captains commenced firing again, and continued until their terms were accepted. By this murderous tranf action he doubted not but the Liverpool and Bristol merchants were fome hundreds of pounds richer, than they would have been had it not been adopted. But bloody and ferocious as thefe captains had proved themselves, they had not the courage to venture on fhore to purchase the flaves, but fent, as was not cuftomary, the furgeons, from one of whom he had his information. The furgeon faw three of the poor wretches in the agonies of death, and was informed of twenty more that had been killed. What rendered this tranfaction ftill more difgraceful to England was, that a French flave fhip was on the fame station when the bloody purpofe was proposed; the French captain, however, would not agree to be a participator in it, but purchased the flaves at the price offered, and failed. The Britifh captains pottponed their purposes until the Frenchman was gone, and then put their bloody design into execution. What he had ftated, was no matter of secrecy at Briftol or Liverpool, where the conduct of the captains was not confidered improper, but, as was to be prefumed by their being furnished with new births, their conduct was confidered meritorious, and men capable of fuch conduct confidered the fitteft for flave fhip captains-[A call of name, name.]-The hon. gentleman faid, it had not been his intention to name the parties, or to call for their profecution, being averfe to profecute and punish perfons concerned in a trade, while that trade was countenanced by parliament; but as he was called on to name them, he had no objection: The fhips were the Thomas, Philips, of Bristol; the Recovery, Kimber, of Briftol; the Thomas, of Liverpool; the Ana

tree, of Briftol; the Betfey, Doyle, of Li verpool; and the Wafp, Houfe, of Bristol. After dwelling fome time on the atrocity of fuch conduct, he called upon the honour, the humanity, and the justice of the house, to refift and put an end to fuch pro ceedings, by voting, for the abolition of the trade.

The hon. gentleman next noticed the Middle Paffage, in which, he said, all attempts to do away the mortality would prove ineffectual, until the house could triumph over nature, and enter into refolutions to influence the mind. The mor tality arofe from a melancholy in the blacks, in confequence of their being torn from their country, from their relatives and friends; that melancholy could never be done away. In ftating the cruelties practifed in the Middle Paffage, he said he had it in his power to relate to the house the conduct of one of the captains of the ships he had before mentioned: a poor negro girl of fifteen, who was in fuch a peculiar fituation that induced her, from modefty, to fit with her body bending down, was fufpended by the wrifts, by order of the captain, and expofed to the whole crew, He afterward had her flogged; then fufpended by her two legs, and again expofed to the crew; and not having exhaufted his cruel inventions, had her fufpended afterwards, firt by one leg, and then by the other, until, worn out by torture, fhe fell into convulfions, in which the continued for three days, and then died, The barbarous wretch who thus perpetrated this murderous deed, was captain Kimber. To the flaves alone this tyranny and ferocity was not confined; inftances might be produced of fhameful conduct to the feamen; as a proof of which he need only ftate that out of a whole fhip's crew fix or feven only returned. Who was to regulate a trade carried on by fuch agents, agents bred up in robbery and murder, and whofe habits and conduct could not be eradicated, but which would continue as long as the trade was permitted? It was a trade too bad to be continued; it was a fyftem the house ought to condem, as dif graceful to the English nation. Whichever way it wooked at, robbery, murder, perfidy, and defolation, ftared you in the face; in Africa, in the Middle Paffage, and in the Islands, the fame horrors were to be found, and those who carried on the trade would be found the mott abandoned beings; they were accustomed to cruel and ferocious habits, and proved themselves to be capable of unmixed, un002 fophifticated

fophifticated wickedness. He who loves juftice will condemn the trade, for that man who loves juftice muft love mercy. The hon. gentleman noticed the refolution of Denmark to abolish the trade, as an argument against the affertion of its fupporters, that if quitted by this country it would be taken up by others. The prefent, he faid, was a time Great Britain was peculiarly called upon to abolish the trade; poffeffed of profperity and happinefs, we were called upon to promote that of our fellow-creatures; we were called upon to promote it, not by gifts, but by, ceafing to inflict on them evils. The people of England had expreffed their fenfe against the trade, and had addreffed the house, as they valued the favour of Hea yen, to abolish it. If the petitions of the people of England were attended to, and the trade abolished, we should be enabled to establish another of greater profit with the natives of Africa. By abolishing the trade, the house would do good in every part of the world. He invited all thofe therefore who were inclined to do good by wholesale, to vote with him for the abolition. He hoped gentlemen were at length convinced of the wickedness of the trade, and that the house would that night come to an unanimous vote for its annihilation :He thought the recent enormities had been permitted by the providence of Heaven, for the purpose of rendering it impoffible that any one fhould dare to rife in defence of the trade. He concluded by moving,

That it is the opinion of this committee, that the trade carried on by British fubjects for the purpose of procuring flaves from Africa, ought to be abolished.' And

That the chairman be directed to move the house for leave to bring in a bill to prevent the future importation of flaves into the British Islands.'

Mr. Bailey afferted, that the flave trade implicated in its feveral departments a great part of the trade of Great Britain, which trade would of courfe be materially affected, if the motions received the concurrence of the houfe; that that difcuffion of laft. year had occafioned all the difturbances in St. Domingo tehat the witneffes who had given evidence in favour of the abolition were a fet of low, ignorant wretches, felected purposely from the refufe of man

kind.

Mr. Vaughan declared himself to be a Weft Indian and a merchant. In the early part of his life he was for the abolition of the flave trade. He went to the Weft Indies on purpose to prove whether

that opinion was well founded or not; while in the Weft Indies, he was convinced that the negroes were not in a fit condition to be reitored to freedom. Freedom generated certain mental wants. Slavery poffeffed only bodily wants. If they were now to be emancipated, they would immediately degenerate into idleness and wick.. ednefs. Their fituation certainly might be meliorated, but it was by no means fo bad as had been afferted. He had also been convinced that they were not ill used, and flavery and particular circumstances of cruelty excepted, their fituation was certainly as comfortable as that of the lower orders of the people of Great Britain. The prefent ftock of negroes could not be kept up on account of the decrease of population. This decrease was stated to be owing to cruelty, but the fact was otherwise; it was to be attributed to celibacy, and to the fmall number of females compared with that of the males.

Mr. Thornton conceived that both the gentlemen who had spoken against the abolition had totally forgotten the main point, by omitting all allufions to the manner in which flaves were obtained. Mr. Bailey had ftated, the negroes to be as comfortable as they could be, and Mr. Vaughan had acknowledged that their fitua tion might be meliorated. This was an argument that only enforced the neceffity of an immediate abolition, which could alone produce that melioration.-He related fome nefarious practices that had been adopted near the fettlement of Sierra Leone. The relations of a king of a neighbouring diftrict had been kidnapped by a captain Coxe, and fold in the West Indies.

There was one view of the fubject which had not been ftated by Mr. Wilberforce, It was of the utmost importance that the credit of parliament should not be fuffered to decay. It was apparent that the people were for the abolition of the trade, to which, if their representatives refufed to accede, a fufficient ground might be given to those who wished to prejudice the conftitution in the eyes of the nation.

Colonel Tarleton obferved, that the prefent queftion, which had fo often met the adjudication of that houfe, was not now to be decided by ftudied eloquence and pathetic diction. The measure rested on the grounds of its own impoffibility. The voice of the minifter in the last year had caufed a neceffity of an additional number of troops being fent out to Ja maica; and it was to be apprehended, that if thefe difcuffions were often repeated, the

whole

whole of the British troops in Europe may poffibly find employment in the Weft Indies!

On the fubject of the petitions on the table, the colonel indulged himself in a vein of ridicule. They were all, he faid, fo much in the fame ftyle, that it was evident they were fabricated in the fame mint. To his knowledge many of them had been procured by mendicant phyficians and itinerant clergymen. He faid, that the Town Halls had been feldom vifited on this occafion, but well-meaning men had been induced to fign not only their own names, but those of their neighbours! Even the grammar fchools had been vifited, and the boys who could write were folicited for invented fignatures,

To give to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name !'-

After reading one or two letters to prove thefe affertions, he faid, that the popular mind had been inflamed by unfair and mutilated extracts from the printed evidence.

Mr. M. Montague contended that there were evils in existence, in confequence of the African trade, which had been proved to the house, and a remedy ought to be applied to them efficiently. They had not been met fairly, he said, in their arguments by the gentlemen who had fpoken against his hon. friend's queftion. He challenged thofe gentlemen to difcufs the real merits of the queftion, and replied to many parts of Mr. Vaughan's fpeech, declaring that the fuffering a flave to give evidence would be a worfe evil to the planters than the motion of his hon. friend, if carried.

fuch a defpotifm tended to corrupt hearts naturally good, and to vitiate and debafe the beft understandings.

He proceeded to vindicate the authenticity and refpectability of the petitions on the table, as fpeaking the general fenfe of an intelligent majority of the nation. If they were alike in fubftance, it was only because there was but one plain tale to be told. If doubts were to be fuggefted of their authenticity, much more might be ftated refpecting the weight of the letters which had been read, the writers of fome of which the hon. colonel [Tarleton] himfelf did not profefs to know.

With respect to the disturbances in St. Domingo, they had been unfoundedly faid to arife from the difcuffions on this fubject in Europe. The fact was, that in every human bofom a line was drawn, beyond which human patience could not proceed!

Mr. Milbank made an emphatic declaration, that where there was flavery there must be oppreffion, and therefore he would vote for the motion.

Mr. Dundas profeffed to agree in opinion with Mr. Wilberforce, but to differ widely as to the mode. He felt fome difficulty, he faid, to fhape his conduct, where both parties argued in extremes. He was free to admit, that the trade was neither founded in policy, nor ultimately effential to the Welt India iflands; nor was there any good caufe affigned why the propagation of the Creole flaves fhould not be made to keep pace with the confumption; but he had fill his doubts as to the prudence and practicability of the mode which was now before the house.

No mildness in practice could make right that which was fundamentally wrong. Nothing could make him give his affent to the original fin of delivering man over to the defpotifm of man. It was too degrading to fee, not the produce of human labour, but man himself made the object of trade; and this was the more mortifying when it was recollected, that the known effect of

gees, and the purchasers in the islands, had all acted under the fanction of parliament, and it would not be fair to proceed without confulting the intereft of those whofe properties had been thus mifled.

Other nations, it had been faid, would take up the traffic which, we were about to relinquifh; but that did not weigh with him, if the derelictions were proved to be fafe and prudent on our part; but until this was made apparent, he should regret to fee the trade of Liverpool moved to St. Euftatius, and that of Bristol perhaps to Ottend.

He profeffed himself to be therefore for a lyf

This fyftem Mr. Dundas contended was lefs vifionary, and more practicable, than what had as yet been offered.

He argued against the oppofition which was excited against the abolition, by quoting the refiftance which had been made in the year 1775, in the extinction of the villenage exifting in the falt-works in ScotJand, and latterly to the regulation of the Middle Paffage. Both these measures, he obferved, had been pronounced in the first inftance to be as ruinous as they Had fince been proved to be beneficial! He repeated his confidence that every moderate man would agree with him, and inftead of acceding to a measure which may convulfe the flate, would adopt a middle line between the zeal and obftinacy of the oppo fing parties.

Mr. Addington (the "peaker) declared, that he felt a folid fatisfaction on hearing what had fallen from the right hon. fe cretary. He had felt much previous diffculty on this fubject. While he turned with difguft from the hateful trade, he faw the neceffity of confidering the oppofite claims, and was alfo fearful that the trade, if relinquished by us, may be car ried on in a manner more repugnant to the interefts of humanity. He thought thefe oppofite intereft's would be in a great degree reconciled by the feheme of a gradual abolition. He fuggefted, that the imports of flaves into the iflands, fhould be limited to ten or twelve years, and that in the mean time bounties fhould be alJowed on the import of females, and on the number of children reared to maturity. He confeffed, that he did not confider this commerce as a trade but as a erime; and obferved, that it had in fact received its death-wound when it met a firft difcuffion.

Mr. Fox obferved, that the two right

connections.

The fcheme of Mr. Wilberforce, he contended, was more practicable and lefs vifionary than that which was now produced by Mr. Dundas. The former propofed that which was immediately in the power of a British parliament; the latter fuggefted that which could only tend to involve them in a quarrel with all the colonial legiflatures. He had fug, gefted, in his termination of hereditary flavery, a fcheme the most theoretical and complicated that perhaps had ever been offered to a committee of that houfe. In the plan the flave was to be educated at the expence of the importer of his parents. It was then recollected, that this expence muft in fome way be defrayed. This was propofed to do by a fervitude of ten or fifteen years, after which time the object of the regulation must be as com pletely a flave, as if he never had enjoy ed a portion of ideal freedom! In fpeaking of the unfairness of the trade, Mr. Fox obferved on the crimes which were im puted to the 22,000-unfortunate creatures who were yearly purchased.

A great part of thefe was punished for the crime of withcraft, which, as it ap peared, we execrated with fuch a facred horror, that, left it fhould efcape from punishment, we degraded ourselves into executioners. The next crime was a dultery, which we lent our aid to punish affo; but there was this difference between thefe leading crimes, that we appeared to punish the former merely because we had no objects at home of the latter, it could only be faid, perhaps, that the objects at home were fo numerous that we were at a lofs with which to begin.

After fome remarks on the unfair use which had alfo been made of the evidence of lord Rodney, lord Macartney, and other gentlemen, who had never been on

the

the coaft of Africa, Mr. Fox proceeded to notice the juftification which had been attempted of this fyftem of cruelty. Thefe were all refolvable into one, namely, the difference of colour. It was faid, though he trufted the reports were exaggerated, that there was much riot and anarchy now prevailing in feveral parts of France. But if it were propofed, that English veffels fhould be fent to the ports of that kingdom to purchase the democrates of the ariftocrates, and vice verfa, every man's blood would run cold with horror! Yet the leading difference between the parties confifted merely in their colour; and a more vain, unphilofophical, irreligious, and blafphemous diftinction could not well be fuppofed to exift. He fhould therefore hold it his duty to perfevere in the motion, if it fhould now prove unfuccefsful. If it were faid, that other nations may not adopt the example, he, and thofe who voted with him, thould have the fubftantial confolation of having done their duty, and of glorying to lead, where others did not dare, even in fuch a caufe, to follow.

Mr. Dundas moved, as an amendment, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the trade in flaves, between the coaft of Africa and the Weft India iflands, fhould gradually be abolished.'

Mr. Jenkinton went decidedly against the original motion. Such a measure, in his opinion, could not diminish the evil; to extirpate it, as propofed, was impoffible.

He concluded with reading an addrefs to the king, praying, that the governors of our colonies may be ordered to iffue bounties for the rearing of flaves, and that every negro woman, having borne five children, fhould be declared free.' He moved, that for the purpose of taking this addrefs into future confideration, the chairman do now leave the chair.'

The chancellor of the exchequer rofe to support all the obfervations of Mr. Fox, except where he lamented the principles of Mr. Dundas and the speaker. Though he differed from them, was pleafed to fee that neither they nor Mr. Jenkinfon actually approved of the trade, but differed only as to the mode and time of abolishing it. From this hour, the fentence on this trade was fealed. It was gone past; nothing remained but to arrange and fettle the plan of ending it; to do this, they muft examine the opinions of his right honourable friends, and he would do this rigorously. He differed from them en

tirely. He thought the true course was an immediate abolition. He repeated his old statements, to fhew that the stock in the iflands would be maintained without recruits by this abominable trade, against which the feelings and the philofophy of the age revolted. He next came to the injuftice of continuing a trade that had fo long difgraced the country, and which could not be too foon put an end to. He then went to the different reafonings of the friends to the flave trade, and those who wifhed it might be gradually abolished; all of which he refuted in a clear and argumentative manner. Having gone through the injuftice of the trade, he replied to what had been faid, as to the propriety of a gradual, and not an immediate abolition of it. He called the attention of gentlemen to the fituation of their own country in the earlier ftages of its history; and he read a quotation from Rapin, to prove that the practice of felling fellowcreatures for flaves, had once prevailed in this island, and that in the time of pope Gregory, a number of fine Britifa youths were feen upon fale for flaves in the publick market place at Rome. Mr. Pitt commented on this fact with great force and ingenuity, making use of it as a moft powerful appeal to the heart of every Briton, whether, after fo ftriking a proof of the happy change that had taken place in this country, which had made us the feat of Arts, the centre of commerce, and the happiest and the freest nation on the habitable globe, enjoying liberty governed and fecured by law, and living under a conftitution the envy of furrounding nations, and the conftant object of their imitation, we had a right to fay that Africa might not emerge from the ftate of barbarifm and ignorance, ix which he was at prefent involved, if we were to put an end to a practice which not only disgraced ourselves, to a degree` beyond all powers of defcription, but put it out of the power of the Africans to become an enlightened people, as long as that infernal practice was continued. Mr. Pitt purfued his ipeech to its conclufion, in one continued blaze of oratorical splen dour.

The question was then loudly called for, and the houfe divided on Mr. Jenkinson's motion for adjournment, Noes 234 Ayes 87, Majority 147.

Then on the amendment moved by Mr. Dundas, ayes 193, noes 125, majority 68.

And lastly, that the motion as amended do pass, ayes 230, noes 85, majority 145.