Such were the evils of the Passage.  But evils were conspicuous everywhere in this trade.  Never was there, indeed, a system so replete with wickedness and cruelty.  To whatever part of it we turned our eyes, whether to Africa, the Middle Passage, or the West Indies, we could find no comfort, no satisfaction, no relief.  It was the gracious ordinance of Providence, both in the natural and moral world, that good should often arise out of evil.  Hurricanes cleared the air; and the propagation of truth was promoted by persecution, Pride, vanity, and profusion contributed often; in their remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind.  In common, what was in itself evil and vicious, was permitted to carry along with it some circumstances of palliation.  The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave.  We did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice.  But here the case was far otherwise.  It was the prerogative of this detested traffic to separate from evil its concomitant good, and to reconcile discordant mischiefs.  It robbed war of its generosity; it deprived peace of its security:  we saw in it the vices of polished society, without its knowledge or its comforts; and the evils of barbarism without its simplicity.  No age, no sex, no rank, no condition, was exempt from the fatal influence of this wide-wasting calamity.  Thus it attained to the fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and, scorning all competition and comparison, it stood without a rival in the secure, undisputed, possession of its detestable preeminence.

But, after all this, wonderful to relate, this execrable traffic had been defended on the ground of benevolence!  It had been said, that the slaves were captives and convicts, who, if we were not to carry them away, would be sacrificed, and many of them at the funerals of people of rank, according to the savage custom of Africa.  He had shown, however, that our supplies of slaves were obtained from other quarters than these.  But he would wave this consideration for the present.  Had it not been acknowledged by his opponents that the custom of ransoming slaves prevailed in Africa?  With respect to human sacrifices, he did not deny that there might have been some instances of these; but they had not been proved to be more frequent than amongst other barbarous nations; and, where they existed, being acts of religion, they would not be dispensed with for the sake of commercial gain.  In fact, they had nothing to do with the Slave Trade; only perhaps, if it were abolished, they might, by means of the civilization which would follow, be done away.