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
insurrections of the Negros in the different islands, no one of which
events had any thing to do with the abolition of the Slave-trade, the
current was turned against us; and in this unfavourable frame of mind many
members of parliament went into the House, on the day fixed for the
discussion, to discharge their duty with respect to this great question.
On the eighteenth of April Mr. Wilberforce made his motion. He began by
expressing a hope, that the present debate, instead of exciting asperity
and confirming prejudice, would tend to produce a general conviction of the
truth of what in fact was incontrovertible; that the abolition of the
Slave-trade was indispensably required of them, not only by morality and
religion, but by sound policy. He stated that he should argue the matter
from evidence. He adverted to the character, situation, and means of
information of his own witnesses; and having divided his subject into
parts, the first of which related to the manner of reducing the natives of
Africa to a state of slavery, he handled it in the following manner.
He would begin, he said, with the first boundary of the trade. Captain
Wilson and Captain Hills, of His Majesty's navy, and Mr. Dalrymple of the
land service, had concurred in stating, that in the country contiguous to
the river Senegal, when slave-ships arrived there, armed parties were
regularly sent out in the evening, who scoured the country, and brought in
their prey. The wretched victims were to be seen in the morning bound back
to back in the huts on shore, whence they were conveyed, tied hand and
foot, to the slave-ships. The design of these ravages was obvious, because,
when the Slave-trade was stopped, they ceased. Mr. Kiernan spoke of the
constant depredations by the Moors to procure slaves. Mr. Wadstrom
confirmed them. The latter gentleman showed also that they were excited by
presents of brandy, gunpowder, and such other incentives; and that they
were not only carried on by one community against another; but that the
Kings were stimulated to practise them, in their own territories, and on
their own subjects: and in one instance a chieftain, who, when intoxicated,
could not resist the demands of the slave-merchants, had expressed, in a
moment of reason, a due sense of his own crime, and had reproached his
Christian seducers. Abundant also were the instances of private rapine.
Individuals were kidnapped, whilst in their fields and gardens. There was
an universal feeling of distrust and apprehension there. The natives never
went any distance from home without arms; and when Captain Wilson asked
them the reason of it, they pointed to a slave-ship then lying within
sight.
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