Page:Trials of the Slave Traders Samo, Peters and Tufft (1813).pdf/32

 is most valuable. The annihilation of this diabolical traffic is the victim to the law that we demand. Your sentence shall be deferred until the first day of the next sessions, in the hope of finding such exertions made by your friends to extirpate this trade, as will in a great measure diminish, though they may not be able to eradicate it. And in proportion to the contrition exhibited, and the zeal for its destruction manifested, the discretion which the law gives to the Court shall be extended to you; and if it appears evidently the intention of the other slave factors, in the vicinity of this colony, to lead a new life, and turn benevolent and industrious, I will use my influence with the amiable personage at the head of this Government to extend the royal mercy to you on this laudable, salutary, and necessary repentance. Let it be done quickly and extensively—let that baneful commerce which has so long, retarded the civilization, diminished the population, and dimmed the glory of Africa, be destroyed—let it be shattered to atoms in a storm of benevolent charity for mankind—it will be an immolation acceptable to the Deity—it will be a sacrifice of human viciousness on the altar of Divine compassion—it will be a death unto sin—and a new birth unto righteousness—it will plead your pardon in this life, and plead for mercy in life everlasting.

Let the prisoner be conveyed to the jail from whence he came, and there held in close confinement until the first day of the next sessions of oyer and terminer, when he shall be brought to the bar of the Court, to receive the sentence prescribed by law for the crime of which he stands convicted. Samo was immediately re-conducted to prison.