In order to show how this enterprise was looked upon and talked of very commonly by the majority of men in these times, we will extract the following passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which Bozzy thus enters his solemn protest: "The wild and dangerous attempt, which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our Legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose, that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received, excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity, when prosperous; or a love of general mischief, when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. "To abolish a statute which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now, when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade, would be to '---- shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'" One of the first steps of Clarkson and his associates, was the formation of a committee of twelve persons, for the collection and dissemination of evidence on the subject. * * * * * The contest now began in earnest, a contest as sublime as any the world ever saw. The Abolition controversy more fully aroused the virtue, the talent, and the religion of the great English nation, than any other event or crisis which ever occurred. Wilberforce was the leader of the question in Parliament. The other members of the Anti-slavery Committee performed those labors which were necessary out of it.