The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume IIClarkson, Thomas
History
The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume II
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa
The reader may now conceive the many miserable hours I must have spent,
after such visits, in returning home; and how grievously my heart must have
been afflicted by these cruel disappointments, but more particularly where
they arose from causes inferior to those which have been now mentioned, or
from little frivolous excuses, or idle and unfounded conjectures, unworthy
of beings expected to fill a moral station in life. Yes, O man! often in
these solitary journeyings have I exclaimed against the baseness of thy
nature, when reflecting on the little paltry considerations which have
smothered thy benevolence, and hindered thee from succouring an oppressed
brother. And yet, on a further view of things, I have reasoned myself into
a kinder feeling towards thee. For I have been obliged to consider
ultimately, that there were both lights and shades in the human character;
and that, if the bad part of our nature was visible on these occasions, the
nobler part of it ought not to be forgotten. While I passed a censure upon
those, who were backward in serving this great cause of humanity and
justice, how many did I know, who were toiling in the support of it! I drew
also this consolation from my reflections, that I had done my duty; that I
had left nothing untried or undone; that amidst all these disappointments I
had collected information, which might be useful at a future time; and that
such disappointments were almost inseparable from the prosecution of a
cause of such magnitude, and where the interests of so many were concerned.
Having now given a general account of my own proceedings, I shall state
those of the committee; or show how they contributed, by fulfilling the
duties of their several departments, to promote the cause in the interim.
In the first place they completed the rules, or code of laws, for their own
government.
They continued to adopt and circulate books, that they might still
enlighten the public mind on the subject, and preserve it interested in
favour of their institution. They kept the press indeed almost constantly
going for this purpose. They printed, within the period mentioned, Ramsay's
Address on the proposed Bill for the Abolition; The Speech of Henry
Beaufoy, esquire, on Sir William Dolben's Bill, of which an extract was
given in the first volume; Notes by a Planter on the two Reports from the
Committee of the honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica; Observations on
the Slave-trade by Mr. Wadstrom; and Dickson's Letters on Slavery. These
were all new publications. To those they added others of less note, with
new editions of the old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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