I communicated my ideas to the committee, and offered to go round the kingdom to accomplish this object.  The committee had themselves been considering what measures to take, and as each in his own mind had come to conclusions similar with my own, my proposal was no sooner made, than adopted.

I had not been long upon this journey, when I was called back.  Mr. Wilberforce, always solicitous for the good of this great cause, was of opinion, that, as commotions had taken place in France, which then aimed at political reforms, it was possible that the leading persons concerned in them might, if an application were made to them judiciously, be induced to take the Slave-trade into their consideration, and incorporate it among the abuses to be done away.  Such a measure, if realized, would not only lessen the quantity of human suffering, but annihilate a powerful political argument against us.  He had a conference therefore with the committee on this subject; and, as they accorded with his opinion, they united with him in writing a letter to me, to know if I would change my journey, and proceed to France.

As I had no object in view but the good of the cause, it was immaterial to me where I went, if I could but serve it; and therefore, without any further delay, I returned to London.

As accounts had arrived in England of the excesses which had taken place in the city of Paris, and of the agitated state of the provinces through which I was to pass, I was desired by several of my friends to change my name.  To this I could not consent; and, on consulting the committee, they were decidedly against it.

I was introduced as quickly as possible, on my arrival at Paris, to the friends of the cause there, to the Duke de la Rochefoucald, the Marquis de Condorcet, Messieurs Petion de Villeneuve, Claviere, and Brissot, and to the Marquis de la Fayette.  The latter received me with peculiar marks of attention.  He had long felt for the wrongs of Africa, and had done much to prevent them.  He had a plantation in Cayenne, and had devised a plan, by which the labourers upon it should pass by degrees from slavery to freedom.  With this view he had there laid it down as a principle, that all crimes were equal, whether they were committed by Blacks or Whites, and ought equally to be punished.  As the human mind is of such a nature, as to be acted upon by rewards as well as punishments, he thought it unreasonable, that the slaves should have no advantage from a stimulus from the former.  He laid it down therefore as another principle, that temporal profits should follow virtuous action.  To this he subjoined a reasonable education to be gradually given.  By introducing such principles, and by making various regulations for the protection and comforts of the slaves, he thought he could prove to the planters, that there was no necessity for the Slave-trade; that the slaves upon all their estates would increase sufficiently by population; that they might be introduced gradually, and without detriment, to a state of freedom; and that then the real interests of all would be most promoted.  This system he had begun to act upon two years before I saw him.  He had also, when the society was established in Paris, which took the name of The Friends of the Negros, enrolled himself a member of it.