had been gathered from living information of the best authority, or from the histories he had read.  But it was unnecessary either to quote the report, or to appeal to history on this occasion.  Plain reason and common sense would point out how the poor Africans were obtained.  Africa was a country divided into many kingdoms, which had different governments and laws.  In many parts the princes were despotic.  In others they had a limited rule.  But in all of them, whatever the nature of the government was, men were considered as goods and property, and, as such, subject to plunder in the same manner as property in other countries.  The persons in power there were naturally fond of our commodities; and to obtain them (which could only be done by the sale of their countrymen) they waged war on one another, or even ravaged their own country, when they could find no pretence for quarrelling with their neighbours; in their courts of law many poor wretches, who were innocent, were condemned; and, to obtain these commodities in greater abundance, thousands were kidnapped and torn from their families and sent into slavery.  Such transactions, he said, were recorded in every history of Africa, and the report on the table confirmed them.  With respect, however, to these he should make but one or two observations.  If we looked into the reign of Henry the Eighth, we should find a parallel for one of them.  We should find that similar convictions took place; and that penalties followed conviction.

With respect to wars, the kings of Africa were never induced to engage in them by public principles, by national glory, and least of all by the love of their people.  This had been stated by those most conversant in the subject, by Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom.  They had conversed with these princes, and had learned from their own mouths, that to procure slaves was the object of their hostilities.  Indeed, there was scarcely a single person examined before the privy council, who did not prove that the Slave-trade was the source of the tragedies acted upon that extensive continent.  Some had endeavoured to palliate this circumstance; but there was not one who did not more or less admit it to be true.  By one the Slave-trade was called the concurrent cause, by the majority it was acknowledged to be the principal motive of the African wars.  The same might be said with respect to those instances of treachery and injustice, in which individuals were concerned.  And here he was sorry to observe that our own countrymen were often guilty.  He would only at present advert to the tragedy at Calabar, where two large African villages, having been for some time at war, made peace.  This peace was to have been ratified by intermarriages; but some of our captains, who were there, seeing their trade would be stopped for a while, sowed dissension again between them.  They actually set one village against the other, took a share in the contest, massacred many of the inhabitants,