friends, and country.  So powerfully did this sorrow operate, that many of them attempted in various ways to destroy themselves, and three actually effected it.  Others obstinately refused to take sustenance; and when the whip and other violent means were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and said with a smile, in their own language, “Presently we shall be no more.”  This, their unhappy state of mind, produced a general languor and debility, which were increased in many instances by an unconquerable aversion to food, arising partly from sickness, and partly, to use the language of the slave-captains, from sulkiness.  These causes naturally produced the flux.  The contagion spread; several were carried off daily; and the disorder, aided by so many powerful auxiliaries, resisted the power of medicine.  And it was worth while to remark, that these grievous sufferings were not owing either to want of care on the part of the owners, or to any negligence or harshness of the captain; for Mr. Wilson declared, that his ship was as well fitted out, and the crew and slaves as well treated, as any body could reasonably expect.

He would now go to another ship.  That, in which Mr. Claxton sailed as a surgeon, afforded a repetition of all the horrid circumstances which had been described.  Suicide was attempted, and effected; and the same barbarous expedients were adopted to compel the slaves to continue an existence, which they considered as too painful to be endured.  The mortality also was as great.  And yet here again the captain was in no wise to blame.  But this vessel had sailed since the regulating act.  Nay, even in the last year the deaths on shipboard would be found to have been between ten and eleven per cent. on the whole number exported.  In truth, the House could not reach the cause of this mortality by all their regulations.  Until they could cure a broken heart—­until they could legislate for the affections, and bind by their statutes the passions and feelings of the mind, their labour would be in vain.

Such were the evils of the Passage.  But evils were conspicuous every where, 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.