Other fallacies, also, had been industriously propogated.  Of the African trade, it had been said, that the exports amounted to a million annually; whereas, from the report on the table, it had on an average amounted to little more than half a million; and this included the articles for the purchase of African produce which were of the value of 140,000_l._

The East Indian Trade, also, had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African.  In the first place, it had but very little connexion with the former at all.  Its connexion with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre which it furnished for making gunpowder.  Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one-half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtless, of maintaining peace, and encouraging civilization among its various tribes!  Four or five thousand persons were said, also, to depend for their bread in manufacturing guns for the African trade; and these, it was pretended, could not make guns of another sort.—­But where lay the difficulty?—­One of the witnesses had unravelled it.  He had seen the negroes maimed by the bursting of these guns.  They killed more from the butt than from the muzzle.  Another had stated, that on the sea-coast the natives were afraid to fire a trade-gun.

In the West Indian commerce, two hundred and forty thousand tons of shipping were stated to be employed.  But here deception intruded itself again.  This statement included every vessel, great and small, which went from the British West Indies to America, and to the foreign islands; and what was yet more unfair, all the repeated voyages of each throughout the year.  The shipping, which could only fairly be brought into this account, did but just exceed half that which had been mentioned.

In a similar manner had the islands themselves been overrated.  Their value had been computed, for the information of the privy council, at thirty-six millions; but the planters had estimated them at seventy.  The truth, however, might possibly lie between these extremes.  He by no means wished to depreciate their importance; but he did not like that such palpable misrepresentations should go unnoticed.

An honourable member (Colonel Tarleton) had disclaimed every attempt to interest the feelings of those present, but had desired to call them to reason and accounts.  He also desired (though it was a question of feeling, if any one ever was,) to draw the attention of the committee to reason and accounts—­to the voice of reason instead of that of prejudice, and to accounts in the place of idle apprehensions.  The result, he doubted not, would be a full persuasion, that policy and justice were inseparable upon this, as upon every other occasion.

The same gentleman had enlarged on the injustice of depriving the Liverpool merchants of a business, on which were founded their honour and their fortunes.  On what part of it they founded their honour he could not conjecture, except from those passages in the evidence, where it appeared, that their agents in Africa had systematically practised every fraud and villany, which the meanest and most unprincipled cunning could suggest, to impose on the ignorance of those with whom they traded.