directed that a commitee of privy council should sit as a board of trade, “to take into their consideration the present state of the African trade, particularly as far as related to the practice and manner of purchasing or obtaining slaves on the coast of Africa, and the importation and sale thereof, either in the British colonies and settlements, or in the foreign colonies and settlements in America or the West-Indies; and also as far as related to the effects and consequences of the trade both in Africa and in the said colonies and settlements, and to the general commerce of this kingdom; and that they should report to him in council the result of their inquiries, with such observations as they might have to offer thereupon.”

Of this order of council Mr. Wilberforce, who had attended to this great subject, as far as his health would permit since I left him, had received notice; but he was then too ill himself to take any measures concerning it.  He therefore wrote to me, and begged of me to repair to London immediately in order to get such evidence ready, as we might think it eligible to introduce when the council sat.  At that time, as appears from the former chapter, I had finished the additions to my Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, and I had now proceeded about half way in that of the Impolicy of it.  This summons, however, I obeyed, and returned to town on the fourteenth of February, from which day to the twenty-fourth of May I shall now give the history of our proceedings.

My first business in London was to hold a conversation with Mr. Pitt previously to the meeting of the council, and to try to interest him, as the first minister of state, in our favour.  For this purpose Mr. Wilberforce had opened the way for me, and an interview took place.  We were in free conversation together for a considerable time, during which we went through most of the branches of the subject.  Mr. Pitt appeared to me to have but little knowledge of it.  He had also his doubts, which he expressed openly, on many points.  He was at a loss to conceive how private interest should not always restrain the master of the slave from abusing him.  This matter I explained to him as well as I could; and if he was not entirely satisfied with my interpretation of it, he was at lease induced to believe that cruel practices were more probable than he had imagined.  A second circumstance, of the truth of which he doubted, was the mortality and usage of seamen in this trade; and a third was the statement, by which so much had been made of the riches of Africa, and of the genius and abilities of her people; for he seemed at a loss to comprehend, if these things were so, how it had happened that they should not have been more generally noticed before.  I promised to satisfy him upon these points, and an interview was fixed for this purpose the next day.