Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/199

 that persons of so much apparent ingenuity, and capable of such beautiful work as the Africans, should be made slaves, and reduced to a level with the brute creation. My reflections here on the better use which might be made of Africa by the substitution of another trade, and on the better use which might lie made of her inhabitants, served greatly to animate and to sustain me against the labor of my pursuits.

"The next vessel I boarded was the Fly, captain Cooley. Here I found myself for the first time on the deck of a slave vessel. The sight of the rooms below and of the gratings above, and of the barricado across the deck, and the explanation of the uses of all these, filled me both with melancholy and horror. I found soon afterwards a fire of indignation kindled within me. I had now scarce patience to talk with those on board. I had not the coolness this first time to go leisurely over the places that were open to me. I got away quickly. But that which I thought I saw horrible in this vessel had the same effect upon me as that which I thought I had seen agreeable in the other, namely, to animate and to invigorate me in my pursuit.

"But I will not trouble the reader with any further account of my water expeditions, while attempting to perfect my knowledge upon this subject. I was equally assiduous in obtaining intelligence wherever it could be had; and being now always on the watch, I was frequently falling in with individuals from whom I gained something. My object was to see all who had been in Africa, but more particularly those who had never been interested, or who at any rate were not then interested in the trade. I gained, accordingly, access very early to general Rooke; to lieutenant Dalrymple, of the army; to captain Fiddes, of the engineers; to the reverend Mr. Newton; to Mr. Nisbett, a surgeon in the Minories; to Mr. Devaynes, who was then in parliament, and to many others; and I made it a rule to put down in writing, after every conversation, what had taken place in the course of it. By these means things began to unfold themselves to me more and more, and I found my stock of knowledge almost daily on the increase.

While, however, I was forwarding this, I was not inattentive to the other object of my pursuit, which was that of waiting upon members personally. The first I called upon was Sir Richard Hill. At the first interview he espoused the cause. I waited then upon others, and they professed themselves friendly; but they seemed to make this profession more from the emotion of good hearts, revolting at the bare mention of the slave-trade, than from any knowledge concerning it. One, however, whom I visited, Mr. Powys, (the late Lord Lilford,) with whom I had been before acquainted in Northamptonshire, seemed to doubt some of the facts in my book, from a belief that human nature was not capable of proceeding to such a pitch of wickedness. I asked him to name his facts. He selected the case of the hundred and thirty-two slaves who were thrown alive into the sea to defraud the underwriters. I promised to satisfy him fully upon this point, and went immediately to Granville Sharp, who lent me his account of the trial, as reported at large from the notes of the shorthand writer whom he had employed on the occasion. Mr. Powys read the