But how did these savages behave, when they had these different persons in their power?  Did they not instantly retaliate by murdering them all?  No—­they only obliged the captain to give an order on the vessel to pay his debts.  This fact came out only two:  months ago in a trial in the Court of Common Pleas—­not in trial for piracy and murder, but in the trial of a civil suit, instituted by some of the poor sailors, to whom the owners refused their wages, because the natives, on account of the villainous conduct of their captain, had kept them from their vessel by detaining them as prisoners on shore.  This instance, he said, proved the dreadful nature of the Slave Trade, its cruelty, its perfidy, and its effect on the Africans as well as on the Europeans, who carried it on.  The cool manner in which the transaction was conducted on both sides, showed that these practices were not novel.  It showed also the manner of doing business in the trade.  It must be remembered, too, that these transactions were carrying on at the very time when the inquiry concerning this trade was going forward in Parliament, and whilst the witnesses of his opponents were strenuously denying not only the actual, but the possible, existence of any such depredations.

But another instance happened only in August last.  Six British ships, the Thomas, Captain Philips; the Wasp, Captain Hutchinson; the Recovery, Captain Kimber, of Bristol; the Martha, Captain Houston; the Betsey, Captain Doyle; and the Amachree, (he believed,) Captain Lee, of Liverpool; were anchored off the town of Calabar.  This place was the scene of a dreadful massacre about twenty years before.  The captains of these vessels, thinking that the natives asked too much for their slaves, held a consultation, how they should proceed; and agreed to fire upon the town unless their own terms were complied with.  On a certain evening they notified their determination to the traders; and told them, that, if they continued obstinate, they would put it into execution the next morning.  In this they kept their word.  They brought sixty-six guns to bear upon the town; and fired on it for three hours.  Not a shot was returned.  A canoe then went to offer terms of accommodation.  The parties however not agreeing, the firing recommenced; more damage was done; and the natives were forced into submission.  There were no certain accounts of their loss.  Report said that fifty were killed; but some were seen lying badly wounded, and others in the agonies of death by those who went afterwards on shore.

He would now say a few words relative to the Middle Passage, principally to show, that regulation could not effect a cure of the evil there.  Mr. Isaac Wilson had stated in his evidence, that the ship, in which he sailed, only three years ago, was of three hundred and seventy tons; and that she carried six hundred and two slaves.  Of these she lost one hundred and fifty-five.  There were three or four other vessels in company with her, and which belonged