Nor was the philanthropy of the late Mr. Wedgwood less instrumental in turning the popular feeling in our favour.  He made his own manufactory contribute to this end.  He took the seal of the committee, as exhibited in the first volume, for his model; and he produced a beautiful cameo, of a less size, of which the ground was a most delicate white, but the Negro, who was seen imploring compassion in the middle of it, was in his own native colour.  Mr. Wedgwood made a liberal donation of these, when finished, among his friends.  I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself.  They, to whom they were sent, did not lay them up in their cabinets, but gave them away likewise.  They were soon, like The Negro’s Complaint, in different parts of the kingdom.  Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes.  Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair.  At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.

I shall now only state that the committee took as members within its own body, in the period of time which is included in this chapter, the Reverend Mr. Ormerod, chaplain to the Bishop of London, and Captain James Bowen, of the royal navy; that they elected the honourable Nathaniel Curzon (now Lord Scarsdale), Dr. Frossard of Lyons, and Benjamin Garlike, esquire, then secretary to the English embassy at the Hague, honorary and corresponding members; and that they concluded their annual labours with a suitable report; in which they noticed the extraordinary efforts of our opponents to injure our cause, in the following manner:  “In the progress of this business a powerful combination of interest has been excited against us.  The African trader, the planter, and the West India merchant have united their forces to defend the fortress, in which their supposed treasures lie.  Vague calculations and false alarms have been thrown out to the public, in order to show, that the constitution and even the existence of this free and opulent nation depend on its depriving the inhabitants of a foreign country of those rights and of that liberty, which we ourselves so highly and so justly prize.  Surely in the nature of things and in the order of Providence it cannot be so.  England existed as a great nation, long before the African commerce was known amongst us, and it is not to acts of injustice and violence that she owes her present rank in the scale of nations.”

CHAPTER III.

Continuation from July 1790 to July 1791—­Author travels again throughout the kingdom—­Object of his journey—­Motion in the House of Commons to resume the hearing of evidence in favour of the abolition—­List of all those examined on this side of the question—­Machinations of interested persons, and cruel circumstances of the times previously to the day of decision—­Motion at length made for stopping all further importation of Slaves from Africa—­debates upon it—­motion lost—­Resolutions of the committee for the Abolition of the Slave-trade—­Establishment of the Sierra Leone Company.