We had been, he said, so much accustomed to words, descriptive of the cruelty of this traffic, that we had almost forgotten their meaning.  He wished that some person, educated as an Englishman, with suitable powers of eloquence, but now for the first time informed of all the horrors of it, were to address their lordships upon it, and he was sure, that they would instantly determine that it should cease.  But the continuance of it had rendered cruelty familiar to us; and the recital of its horrors had been so frequent, that we could now hear them stated without being affected as we ought to be.  He intreated their lordships, however, to endeavour to conceive the hard case of the unhappy victims of it; and as he had led them to the last stage of their miserable existence, which was in the colonies, to contemplate it there.  They were there under the arbitrary will of a cruel task-master from morning till night.  When they went to rest, would not their dreams be frightful?  When they awoke, would they not awake,

          ——­“only to discover sights of woe,
  Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
  And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
  That comes to all; but torture without end
  Still urges?”——­

They knew no change, except in the humour of their masters, to whom their whole destiny was entrusted.  We might perhaps flatter ourselves with saying, that they were subject to the will of Englishmen.  But Englishmen were not better than others, when in possession of arbitrary power.  The very fairest exercise of it was a never-failing corrupter of the heart.  But suppose it were allowed, that self-interest might operate some little against cruelty; yet where was the interest of the overseer or the driver?  But he knew it would be said, that the evils complained of in the colonies had been mitigated.  There might be instances of this; but they could never be cured, while slavery existed.  Slavery took away more than half of the human character.  Hence the practice, where it existed, of rejecting the testimony of the slave:  but, if his testimony was rejected, where could be his redress against his oppressor?

Having shown the inhumanity, he would proceed to the second point in the resolution, or the injustice, of the trade.  We had two ideas of justice, first, as it belonged to society by virtue of a social compact; and, secondly, as it belonged to men, not as citizens of a community, but as beings of one common nature.  In a state of nature, man had a right to the fruit of his own labour absolutely to himself; and one of the main purposes, for which he entered into society, was, that he might be better protected in the possession of his rights.  In both cases therefore it was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labour during the whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labour.  Hence the Slave-trade and the Colonial slavery were a violation of the very principle,