Abolition of the African slave-trade, by the British Parliament.

Front matter

ABOI^ITlOJi

OF THE

AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE,

Chapter I

i^'ontinuation from June 1788 to July 1789--"Authos' travels to collect further evidence — great difficul~ ties in obtaiDing" it — forms committees on his tour. — Privy council resume the examinations — inspect cabinet of African productions — obliged to leave many of the witnesses in behalf of the abolition unexamined — prepare their report.-— -Labours of the committee in the interim. — Proceedings of the planters and others. — Report laid on the table of the House of Commons.— —Introduction of the question, and debate there — twelve propositions deduced from the report and reserved for future discussion — day of discussion arrives— opponents refuse to argue from the report-— require new evidence — this granted and introduced — further consideration of the subject deferred to the next scs-^ sion. — Death and character of Ramsay, Pag-e 9

Chapter II

Continuation from July 1789 to July 1790. — Author travels to Paiis to promote the abolition in France —no success -returns to England. — Examination of merchants' and planters' evidence resumed in the House of Commons. — Author travels in search of evidence in i'avoti'* of the abolition— Opposition to the hearing of it — ^This evidence is at length introduced. — Cowper's Negro's Complaint.

Contents

CHAPTER UL

Continuation from July 1790 to July 1791.-— Author travels ag^ain throughout the kingdom — Object of his journey — Motion in the House of Commons to resume the liearing- of evidence in favour of the abolition— Maichinations of interested persons, and cruel circumstances of the times previously to the day of decision— Motion at length made for stopping all further importation of Slaves from Africa — debates upon it — motion lost. — Resolutions oi the committee for the Abolition of the Slave-trade. — Establishment of the Sierra Leone Company. 81

Chapter IV

Continuation from July 1791 to> July 1792, — Author travels round the kingdom again — Object of his journey. — People begin to leave off the use of sugar — to form committees — and to send petitions to Parliament.— Motion made in the House of Commons for the immediate abolition of the trade — Debates upon it — Abolition resolved upon, but not to commence till 1796— Kesolution taken to the lords — Latter determine upon hearing evidence — Evidence at length introduced — 'Further hearing of it postponed to the next session. - - 127

CHAPTER V. Continuation from July 1792 to July 1793 Author

travels round the kingdom again.— Motion to renew the resolution of the last year in the Commons — motion lost — new motion in the Commons to abolish the foreign Slave-trade — motion lost. — Proceedings of the Lords. - - - , iq)

Chapter VI

Continuation from July 1793 to July 1794. — Author travels round the kingdom again.- — Motion to abolish the foreign Slave-trade renewed in the Commons — and carried — but lost in the Lords — furthbi' proceedings there.—Author, on account of his declining health, obliged to retire from the cause. - - 164

CONTENTS- f

CHAPTER Vn.

Continuation from July 1794 to July 1799-~Various motions within this period. > - - 16^

Chapter VIII

Continuation from July 1799 to July 1805 — Varioufi motions within this period. - - - 173

Chapter IX

Continuation from July 1805 to July 1806. — Author returns to his duty in the committee — travels again round the king-dom.— Death of Mr^ Pitt — his character, as it retated to the question. — Motion for the abolition of the foreign Slave-trade — resolution to take measures for the total abolition of it — Address to the king" to negotiate with foreign powers for their concurrence in it — Motion to prevent any new vessel going" into the trade — these carrieS^ through both houses of parliament. - 170

Chapter X

Continuation from July 1806 to March 1807.— Death of Mr. Fox.—Bill for the total abolition of the Slave-trade carried in the House of Lords — sen^ from thnnce to the Commons — amended and passed there — carried back, and passed with its amendments hj the Lords — receives the royal assent —

Reflections on this great event. - - 199

Appendix

Brief view of the Slave-trade since its Abolition by the British Parliament. . - - . 209

African Institution. - - - ^ - 232

Anti-Slavery Society. 234

American Colonization Society. • 240

VOL. IT. 5

VI CONTENTS.

Slave-trade in the Uaited States, - 2 if^

Conclusion, „ _ « 25:;

[Note. — In preparing the Appendix, considerable assistance has been received from the London Chris tian Observer, work, which has often and eloquent iy, by array of argniments and facts, pleaded the fjsLv.se of the oppressed.]

HI8TORY

OF THE

Chapter 1

Continuation from June 1788 to July 1789-^ Author travels to collect further evidence'-^ great dijiculties in obtaining it-^forms committees on his tour — Privy council resume the examinations — inspect cabinet of African prO' ductions — obliged to leave many of the witnesses in behalf of the abolition unexamined^prepare their report-^Labours of the committee in the interim — Proceedings of the planters and others — Report laid on the table of the House of Commons — Introduction of the question, and debate there — twelve propositions deduced from the report and reserved for future discussion — day of discussion arrives — opponents refuse to argue from the report — require new evidence — this granted and introduced— further coTisideration of the subject deferred to

the next session Death and character of

Ramsay,

Matters had now become serious. The gauntlet had been thrown down and accepted. The combatants had taken their stations, and the contest was to be renewed which was to be decided soon on the great theatre of the nation. The committee by the very act of their kistiW

VOL. 3 tion had pronounced the Sla'. -trade to be crini inal. They, on the other hanca, who wore concerned in it, had denied the charge. It became the one to prove, and the other to refute it-, or to fall in the ensuing session.

The committee, in this perilous situation, were anxious to find out such other persons, as might become proper evidences before the prjvy council. They had hitherto sent there only nine or ten, and they had then only another, whom they could count upon for this purpose, in their view% The proposal of sending persons to Africa, and the West-Indies, who might come back and report what they bad witnessed, had been already negatived* The question then was, what they were to do. Upon this they deliberated, and the result was an application to me to undertake a journey to different parts of the kingdom for this purpose.

When this determination was made I was at Teston, writing a long letter to the privy council on the ill usage and mortality of the seamen employed in the Slave-trade, which it had been previously agreed should be received as evidence there. I thought it proper, however, before I took my departure, to form a system of questions upon the general subject. These I divided into six tables. The first related to the productions of Africa, and the disposition and manners of the natives. The second, to the methods of reducing them to slavery. The third, to the manner of bringing them to the ships, their value, the medium of exchange, and other circumstances. The fourth, to their transportation. The fifth, to their treatment in the colonies. The sixth, to the seamen employed in the trade.

ABaLrnoi*^ op the slave-trade. 11

These tables contained togsther one hundred and forty-five questions. My idea was, that they should be printed on a small sheet of paper, which should be folded up in seven or eight leaves, of the length and breadth of a small almanac, and then be sent in franks to our different correspondents. These, when they had them, might examine persons capable of giving evidence, who might live in their neighbourhoods or fail in their way, and return us their examinations by letter.

The committee having approved and printed the tables of questions, I began my tour.

Of this tour 1 shall not give the reader any very particula** account. I shall mention only those things which are most worthy of his notice in it. • At Poole, in Dorsetshire, I laid the foundation of a committee, to act in harmony with that of London for the promotion of the cause.

As Poole vyas a great place for carrying on the trade to Newfoundland, I determined to examine the assertion of the earl of Sandwich in the house of lords, when he said, in the debate on Sir William Dolben's bill, that the Slave-trade was not more fatal to seamen than the Newfoundland and some others. This assertion I knew at the time to be erroneous, as far as my own researches had been concerned : for out of twenty-four vessels, which had sailed out of the port of Bristol in that employ, only two sailors were upon the dead list. In sixty vessels from Poole, I found but four lost. At Dartmouth, where I went afterwards on purpose, I found almost a similar result. On conversing, however, with governour Holdsworth, I learned that the year i7S6 had been more fatal than any other in this

HISTORY OF THt;

trade. I learned that in consequence of extraordinary storms and hurricanes, no Jess than five sailors had died and twenty-one had been drowned in eighty-three vessels from that port. Upon this statement I determined to look into the muster-rolls of the trade there for two or three years together. I began by accident with the yeait 1769, and I wenz on to the end of 1772. About eighty vessels on an average had sailed (hence in each of these years. Taking the loss in t^iese years, and compounding it with that in the fatal year, three sailors had been Jost, but taking it in these four years by themselves, only two had been lost, in twenty-four vessels so employed. On a compaHson with the Slave-trade, the result would be, that two vessels to Africa would destroy more seamen than eighty-three sailing to Newfoundland. There was this diif^rence also to be noted, that the loss in the one trade was generally by the weather or by accident, but in the other by cruel treatment or disease ; and that they, who went out in a declining state of health in the one, came home generally recovered, whereas they, who went out robust in the other, came home in a shattered condition.

At Plymouth I laid the foundation of another committee.

With respect to evidence, which was the great object of this toilr, I found myself often very unpleasantly situated in collecting it. I heard of many persons capable of giving it to our advantage, to whom I could get no introduction. I had to go after these many miles out of my established route. Not knowing me, ihey received me coldly, and even suspiciously ; while I fell in with othjrs, who, considering them^

ABOLITION OP THIi SLAVE-TRADE. lo

selves, on account of their concerns and connexions, as our opponents, treated me in an uncivil manner.

But the difficulties and disappointments in other respects, which I experienced in this tour, even where I had an introduction, and where the parties wf»re not interested in the continuance of the Slave-trade, were greater than people in general would have imagined. One would have thought, considering the great enthusiasm of the nation on this important subject, that they, who could have given satisfactory information upon it, would have rejoiced to do it. But I found it otherwise, and this frequently to my sorrow. There was an aversion in persons to appear before such a tribunal as they conceived the privy council to be. With men of shy or timid character this operated as an insuperable barrier in their way. But it operated more or less upon all. It was surprising to see what little circumstances affected many. When I took out my pen and ink to put down the information, which a person was giving me, he became evidently embarrassed and frightened. He began to excuse himself from staying, by alleging that he had nothing

more to communicate, and he took himself awav as quickly as he could with decency. The sight of the pen and ink had lost me so many good evidences, that I was obliged wholly to abandon the use of them, and to betake myself to other means. I was obliged for the future to commit my tables of questions to memory, and endeavour by practice to put down, after the examination of a person, such answers as he had given me to each of them.

Others went off because it happened that imiHSTOaV OP THE mediately on my interview, I acquainted them with the nature of my errand, and solicited iheir attendance in London. Conceiving that I had no right to ask them such a favour, or terrified at the abruptness and apparent awfulness of my request, some of them gave me an immediate denial, which they would never afterwards retract. I began to perceive in time that it was only by the most delicate management that I could get forward on these occasions. I resolved therefore for the future, except in particular cases, that, when I should be introduced to persons who had a competent knowledge of this trade, I would talk with them upon it as upon any ordinary subject, and then leave them without saying any thing about their becoming evidences. I would take care, however, to commit al' their conversation to writing, when it was over, and I would then try to find out that person among their relations or friends, who could apply to them for this purpose with the least haz-> ard of a refusal.

There were others also? who, though they were not so much impressed by the considerations mentioned, yet objected to give their public testimony. Those, whose livelihood, or promotion, or expectations, were dependent upon the government of the country, were generally backward upon these occasions. Though they thought they discovered in the parliamentary conduct of Mr. Pitt, a bias in favour of the cause, they knew to a certainty that the lord chancellor Thurlow was against it. They conceived, therefore, that the administration was at least divided upon the question, and they w( re fearful of being called upon lest they should give

ABOLITIONS 0F TllF. SLAVE-TRAI^E. 15

, *)ffence, and thus injure their prospects in life., This objection was very prevalent in that part of the kingdom which I had selected for ray tour.

The reader can hardly conceive how my rnind was agitated and distressed on these different accounts. To have travelled more than twc months, to have seen many who could have materially served our cause, and to have lost most of them, was very trying. And though it is true that I applied a remedy, I was not driven to the adoption of it till I had performed more than half my tour. Suffice it to say, that after having travelled upwards of sixteen hundred miles backwards and forwards, and having conversed with forty-seven persons, who where capable of promoting the cause by their evidence, I could only prevail upon nine, by all the interest I could make, to be examined.

On my return to London, whithey I had been called up by the committee to take upon me the superintendence of the evidence, which the privy council was now ready again to hear, I found my brother : he was then a young officer in the navy ; and as I knew he felt as warmly as I did in this great cause, I prevailed upon him to go to Havre de Grace, the great slave-port in France, where he might make his observations for two or three months, and then report what he had seen and heard ; so that we might have some one to counteract any false statement of things which might be made relative to the subject in that quarter.

At length the examinations, were resumed, and with them the contest, in which our own reputation and the fate of our cause were involved. The committee for the abolition had dis-

HHTORY OP THE covered one or two willing evidences during my absence, and Mr. Wilberforce, v^ho was now recovered from his severe indisposition, had found one or two others. These added to mv own, made a respectablr body : but we had sent no more than four o? five of these to the council when the king's illness unfortunately stopped our career. For nearly five weeks between the middle of November and January the examinations were interrupted or put off, so that at the latter period we began to fear that there would be scarcely time to hear the rest ; for not only the privy council report was to be printed, but the contest itsslf was to be decided by the evidence contained in it, in the existing session.

The examinations, however, went on, but they went on only slowly, being still subject to interruption from the same unfortunate cause. Among others I offered my mite of information again. I wished the council to see more of my African productions and manufactures, that they might really know what Africa was capable of affording instead of the Slave-trade, and that they might make a proper estimate of the genius and talents of the natives. The samples which I had collected, had been obtained by great labour, and at no inconsiderable expense : for whenever 1 had notice that a vessel. had arrived immediately from that continent, I never hesitated to go, unless under the m.ost pressing en= gagements elsewhere, even as far as Bristol, if I could pick up but a single new article. The lords having consented, I selected several things for their inspection out of my box, of the contents of which the following account may not be unacceptable to the reader.

The first division of the bos consisted of woods of about four inches square, all pohshed. Among these we?e mahogany of five different sorts, tuJip-woodj satin-woodj camwood-, barwood, fustic, black and yellow ebony, palm tree, mangrove, calabash, and date.

The second division included ivory and musk ; four species of pepper, the long, the black, the Cayenne, and the Malaguetta : three species of gum ; namely, Senegal, Copal, and ruber astringens ; cinnamon, rice, tobacco, indigo, white and Nankin cotton, Guinea corn, and millet; three species of beans, of which two were used for food, and the other for dyeing orange ; two species of tamarinds, one for food, and the other to give whiteness to the teeth ; pulse, seeds, and fruits of various kinds, some of the latter of which Dr. Spaarman had pronounced, from a trial during his residence in Africa, to be peculiarly valuable as df.'ugs.

The third division contained an African loom, and an African spindle with spun cotton round it ; cloths of cotton of various kinds, made by the natives, some white, but others dyed by them of different colours, and others, in which they had interwoven European silk ; cloths and bags made of grass, and fancifully coloured ; ornaments made of the same materials ; ropes made from a species of aloes, and others, remarkably strong, from grass and straw ; fine string made from the fibres of the roots of trees ; soap of two kinds, one of which was formed from an earthy substance ; pipe-bowls made of clay, and of a brown red ; one of these, which came from the village of Dakard, was beautifully ornamented by black devises burnt in, and was besides high-

roL, IT, 3

JliSTORy OF TUE ly glazed ; another, brought from Galara, was made of earth, which was richly impregnated with little particles of gold ; trinkets made by the natives from their own gold ; knives and daggers made by ihsm from our bar iron ; and various other articles, such as bags, sandals, dagger cases, quivers, grisgris, all made of leather of their own manufacture, and dyed of various colours, and ingeniously sewed together.

The fourth division consisted of the thumbscrew, speculum oris, and chains and shackles of different kinds, collected at Liverpool. To these were added, iron neck-collars, and other instruments of punishment and confinement, used in the West-Indies, and collected at other places. The instrument, also, by which Charles Horseler was mentioned to have been killed, in thf; former volume, was to be seen among these.

We were now advanced far into February, when we were alarmed by the intelligence that the lords of the council were going to prepare their report. At this time we had sent but few persons to them to examine, in comparison with our opponents, and we had yet eighteen to introduce : for answers had come into my tables of questions from several places, and persons had been pointed out to us by our correspondents, who had increased our list of evidences to this number. I wrote therefore to them, at the desire of the committee for the abolition, and gave them the names of the eighteen, and requested that all of them might be examined. In reply to my first request they informed me, that it was impossible, in the advanced state of the session, (it being then the middle of March,) that the examinations of so many could be taken ; but 1 was at liberty, in conjunction with the bishop of London, to select eight for this purpose. This occasioned me to address them again; and I then found, to my surprise and sorrow, that even this last number was to be diminished to three.

This answer, considering the difficulties we had found in collecting a body cf evidence, and the critical situation in which we then were, was peculiarly distressing ; but we had no remedy left ag, nor eouid we reasonably complain. Three therefore were selected, and they were sent to deliver their testimony on their arrival in town.

But before the last of these had left the council room, who should come up to me but Mr. Arnold ! He had but lately arrived at Bristol from Africa : and having heard from our friends there that we had been daily looking for him, he had come t© us in London, He and Mr. Gardiner were the two surgeons, as mentioned in the former volume, who had promised me, when I was in Bristol, in the year 1787, that they would keep a journal of facts for me during the voyages they were then going to perform. They had both of them kept this promise. Gardiner, I found, had died upon the coast, and his journal, having been discovered at his death, had been buried with him in great triumph. But Arnold had survived, and he came now to differ us his services in the cause.

As it was a pity that such correct information as that taken down in writing upon the spot should be lost (for all the other evidences, except Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom, had spoken from their memory only) I made all the interest I could to procure a hearing for Mr. Arnold,

Pieading now for the examination of him only, and und^r these particular circumstances, I was attended to. It was consented, in consequence of the little time which was now left for preparing and printing the report, that I should make out his evidence from his journal under certain heads. This 1 did. Mr. Arnold swore to the truth of it, when so drawn up, before Edward Montague, Esquire, a master in chancery. He then delivered the paper in which it was contained to the lords of the council, who, on receiving it, read it throughout, and then questioned him upon it.

At this time, also, my brother returned with accounts and papers relative to the Siave-trade, from Havre de Grace; but as I had pledged myself to offer no other person to be ej^amined, his evidence was lost. Thus, after all, the pains we had taken, and in a contest, too, on the success of which our own reputation and the fate of Africa depended, we were obliged to fight the battle with sixteen less than we could have brought into the field ; while our opponents, on the other hand, on account of their superiour advantages, bad mustered all their forces, not having omitted a single man.

I do not know of any period of my life in which I suffered so much both in body and mind, as from the time of resuming these public inquiries by the privy council, to the time when they ^erc closed. Fori had my weekly duty to attend at the committee for the abolition during this interval. I had to take down the examinations of all the evidences who came to London, and to make certain copies of these. I had to f.ummon thefse to town, and to make provision

ABOLiriON OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 21

against ali accidents: and here I was often troubled by means of circumstances, which unexpectedly occurred, lest, when committees of the council had been purposely appointed to hear them, they should not be forthcoming at the time. I had also a new and extensive correspondence to keep up ; for the tables of questions which had been sent down to our correspondents, brought letters almost innumerable on this subject, and they were always addressed to me. These not only required answers of themselves, but as they usually related to persons capable of giving their testimony, and contained the particulars of what they could state, they occasioned fresh letters to be written to others. Hence the writing of ten or twelve daily became necessary.

But the contents of these letters, afforded the circumstances which gave birth to so much suffering. They contained usually some affecting tale of woe. At Bristol my feelings had been harassed by the cruel treatment of the seamen, which had come to my knowledge there : but now I was doomed to see this treatment over again in many other melancholy instances ; and addhionally to take in the various sufferings of the unhappy slaves. These accounts I could seldom get time to read till late in the evening, and sometimes not till midnight, when the letters containing them were to be answered. The effect of those accounts was in some instances to overwhelm me for a time in tears, and in others to produce a vivid indignation, which affected my whole frame. Recovering from these, I walked up and down the room. I felt fresh vigour, and made new determinations of perpetual warfare against this impious trade. 1 implored strength that I might proceed. I then sal down, and continued my work as long as my wearied eyes would permit me to see. Havmg been agitated in this manner, 1 went to bed : but my rest was frequently broken by the visions which floated before me. When I awoke, these renewed themselves to me, and they flitted about with me for the remainder of the day. Thus I was kept continually harassed : my mind was confined to one gloomy and heart breaking subject for months. It had no respite, and my health began now materially to suffer.

But the contents of these letters were particularly grievous, on account of the severe labours, which they necessarily entailed upon me in other ways than those which have been mentioned. It was my duty, while the privy council examinations went on, m >t only to attend to all the evidence which way ? resented to us by our correspondents, but to ^jiad out and select the best. The happiness of millions depended upon it. Hence I was often obliged to travel during these examinations, in order to converse with those who had been pointed out to us as capable of giving their testimony ; and, that no time might be lost, to do this in the night. More than two hundred miles in a week were sometimes passed over on these occasions.

The disappointments too, which I frequently experienced in these journeys, increased the poignancy of the suffering, which arose from a contemplation of the melancholy cases which I had thus travelled to bring forward to the public view. The reader at present can have no idea of these. I have been sixty miles to visit a person of whom I had heard, not only as possessing

ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TEADE.

important knowledge, but as espousing our opinions on this subject I have at length seen him. Xle has applauded my pursuit at our first interview. He has told me, in the course of our conversation, that neither my own pen, nor that of any other riian, could describe adequately the horrors of the Slave-trade, horrors which he himself had witnessed. He has exhorted me to perseverance in this noble cause. Could I have wished for a more favourable reception ? But mark the issue. He was the nearest relation of a rich person concerned in the traffic ; and if he were to come forward with his evidence publicly, he should ruin all his expectations from that quarter. In the same week I have visited another at a still greater distance. I have met with similar applause. I have heard him describe scenes of misery^ which he had witnessed, and on the relation of which he himself almost wept. But mark the issue again, " I am a surgeon," says he : " through that window you see a spacious house. It is occupied by a West-Indian. The medical attendance upon his family is of considerable importance to the temporal interests of mine. If I give you my evidence I lose his patronage. At the house above him lives an East-Indian. The two families are connected : I fear, if 1 lose the support of one, I shall lose that of the other also : but I will give you privately all the intelligence in my power."