Page:Trials of the Slave Traders Samo, Peters and Tufft (1813).pdf/2

  INTRODUCTION.

leading motive for publishing the Trials of the Slave Traders is, to afford the British Legislature, the Government, and the people in general, an early and correct view of the operation of the recent slave felony act of parliament: an act which reflects the highest honour on those whose humanity was so determined and conspicuous in conducting to a happy issue the long and strenuously contested question of African emancipation.

It is due to those great, good, and eloquent men who, with unshaken perseverance, exerted themselves in this truly benevolent cause, that they should be made acquainted, at the earliest possible moment, with the beneficial effects arising from their disinterested zeal in behalf of those thousands of enslaved Africans who could do nothing for themselves.

The characters engaged in bringing about this new and humane system might easily be named; but they are so well known, that no fresh publicity could add to their honour, or enlarge their celebrity, which are already complete; and the consciousness of their just and wise intentions is a reward so ample, as to preclude their deriving Rh