By these means, but particularly by the former, the current of opinion in particular circles ran against us for the first month, and so strong, that it was impossible for me to stem it at once:  but as some of the council recovered from their panic, and their good sense became less biassed by their feelings, and they were in a state to hear reason, their prejudices began to subside.  It began now to be understood among them, that almost all the witnesses were concerned in the continuance of the Trade.  It began to be known also, (for Mr. Pitt and the Bishop of London took care that it should be circulated,) that Mr. Morris had but a short time before furnished me at Liverpool with, information, all of which he had concealed[A] from the council, but all of which made for the abolition of it.  Mr. Devaynes also, a respectable member of parliament, who had been in Africa, and who had been appealed to by Mr. Norris, when examined before the privy council, in behalf of his extraordinary facts, was unable, when summoned, to confirm them to the desired extent.  From this evidence the council collected, that human sacrifices were not made on the arrival of White traders, as had been asserted; that there was no poll-tax in Dahomey at all; and that Mr. Norris must have been mistaken on these points, for he must have been there at the time of the ceremony of watering the graves, when about sixty persons suffered.  This latter custom moreover appeared to have been a religious superstition of the country, such as at Otaheite, or in Britain in the time of the Druids, and to have had nothing to do with the Slave-trade[B].  With respect to prisoners of war, Mr. Devaynes allowed that the old, the lame, and the wounded, were often put to death on the spot; but this was to save the trouble of bringing them away.  The young and the healthy were driven off for sale; but if they were not sold when offered, they were not killed, but reserved for another market, or became house-slaves to the conquerors, Mr. Devaynes also maintained, contrary to the allegations of the others, that a great number of persons were kidnapped in order to be sold to the ships, and that the government, where this happened, was not strong enough to prevent it.  But besides these draw-backs from the weight of the testimony which had been given, it began to be perceived by some of the lords of the council, that the cruel superstitions which, had been described, obtained only in one or two countries in Africa, and these of insignificant extent; whereas at the time, when their minds were carried away as it were by their feelings, they had supposed them to attach to the whole of that vast continent.  They perceived also, that there were circumstances related in the evidence by the delegates themselves, by means of which, if they were true, the inhumanity of the trade might be established, and this to their own disgrace.  They had all confessed that such slaves as the White traders refused to buy were put