The evidence having been delivered on both sides, and then printed, it was judged expedient by Mr. Wilberforce, seeing that it filled three folio volumes, to abridge it.  This abridgement was made by the different friends of the cause.  William Burgh, Esq., of York; Thomas Babington, Esq., of Rothley Temple; the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge; Mr. Campbell Haliburton, of Edinburgh; George Harrison, with one or two others of the committee, and myself, were employed upon it.  The greater share, however, of the labour, fell upon Dr. Dickson.  That no misrepresentation of any person’s testimony might be made, Matthew Montagu, Esq., and the Honourable E.J.  Elliott, members of Parliament, undertook to compare the abridged manuscripts with the original text, and to strike out or correct whatever they thought to be erroneous, and to insert whatever they thought to have been omitted.  The committee for the abolition, when the work was finished, printed it at their own expense, Mr. Wilberforce then presented it to the House of Commons, as a faithful abridgement of the whole evidence.  Having been received as such, under the guarantee of Mr. Montague and Mr. Elliott, the committee sent it to every individual member of that House.

The book having been thus presented, and a day fixed for the final determination of the question, our feelings became almost insupportable; for we had the mortification to find, that our cause was going down in estimation, where it was then most important that it should have increased in favour.  Our opponents had taken advantage of the long delay which the examination of evidence had occasioned, to prejudice the minds of many of the members of the House of Commons against us.  The old arguments of emancipation, massacre, ruin, and indemnification, had been kept up; but, as the day of final decision approached, they had been increased.  Such was our situation at this moment, when the current was turned still more powerfully against us by the peculiar circumstances of the times.  It was, indeed, the misfortune of this great cause to be assailed by every weapon which could be turned against it.  At this time, Thomas Paine had published his Rights of Man.  This had been widely circulated.  At this time, also, the French revolution had existed nearly two years.  The people of England had seen, during this interval, a government as it were dissected.  They had seen an old constitution taken down, and a new one put up, piece by piece, in its stead.  The revolution, therefore, in conjunction with the book in question, had had the effect of producing dissatisfaction among thousands; and this dissatisfaction was growing, so as to alarm a great number of persons of property in the kingdom, as well as the government itself.  Now will it be believed that our opponents had the injustice to lay hold of these circumstances, at this critical moment, to give a death-blow to the cause of the abolition?  They represented the committee,