Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/225

 St. Domingo, in consequence of the revolution which had been effected there, and an insurrection had broken out in the British island of Dominica. All

had been industriously exaggerated in print, and produced a terrific effect upon many members. In this unfavorable frame of mind they went into the house on the day appointed.

On the eighteenth of April, 1791, 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 o. 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. Die stated that he should argue the matter from the evidence. lie 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 ou 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 earned on by one community against another, but that the kings were stimulated to practice 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.

On the windward coast, it appeared from Lieutenant Story and Mr. Bowman, that the evils just mentioned existed, if possible, in a still higher degree. They had seen the remains of villages which had been burned, whilst the fields of corn were still standing beside them, and every other trace of recent desolation. Here an agent was sent to establish a settlement in the country, and to send to the ships such slaves as he might obtain. The orders he received from the captain were, that "he was to encourage the chieftains by brandy and gunpowder to go to war, to make slaves." This he did. The chieftains