A short sketch of the evidence for the abolition of the slave trade, delivered before a committee of the House of Commons

by William Bell Crafton

“If this be the real situation of things, how happens it (the reader may perhaps ask) that the objects of such tyranny and oppression should not obtain redress, and that our courts of law should not have to decide upon more cases of this kind, than they have at present?” It is answered, “these objects are generally without friends and money, without which the injured will seek for justice but in vain; and because the peculiarity of their situation is an impediment to their endeavours for redress.” Whoever wishes for a more particular answer to this question, may meet with it in “Clarkson’s Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave-Trade,” (page 52) from which the question and the above general reply are quoted.

If it should still be asked, “how it happens that seamen enter for slave vessels, when such general ill usage on board of them can hardly fail of being known?” the reply must be taken from the evidence, “that whereas some of them enter voluntarily, the greater part of them are trepanned; for that it is the business of certain landlords to make them intoxicated, and get them into debt, after which their only alternative is a Guineaman or a Gaol.”

In the Tenth Chapter it is proved not to be true, what some say, that the natives of Africa are happier in the European colonies than in their own country. They love their own country, but destroy themselves in the colonies, &c. &c. But any comparison between the two situations is as (H. Ross says, tho’ on another occasion) “an insult to common sense.”

The Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Chapters are on the subjects of negro population in the colonies, and plainly shew that the importation of fresh Africans might immediately be superceded, by the introduction of general good treatment, and of certain salutary regulations therein suggested.

The Fourteenth Chapter is employed to demonstrate, from the evidence before the committee, that the colonists would be able to carry on the necessary cultivation of their lands, without a fresh importation of slaves while the generation immediately succeeding the regulations proposed, were growing up to supply the vacancies occasioned by the natural deaths of the slaves of all ages, now in their possession.

The Fifteenth Chapter inquires, whether there be not a prevailing opinion in the colonies, that it is cheaper to buy or import slaves than thus to increase them by population. And whether the very reverse of this opinion be not true: namely, that it is more profitable to breed than to import. The result of this inquiry is clearly in favour of the immediate Abolition of the African Slave Trade. The same may be said of the sixteenth and last chapter, in which it is considered. Whether it be more political to extend the cultivation of the colonies by the continuance of the slave-trade, or wait till the rising generation shall be capable of performing it.

Having thus taken a general view of the most striking features of the evidence for the abolition of the traffic in the human species, as carried on by the English on the coast of Africa, it might not be improper to close it with the declaration of a virtuous and wise Senator, whose indefatigable labours on behalf of the oppressed Africans, cannot fail to insure him the unfeigned respect of every lover of freedom and humanity:

“The abolition of the slave trade (says he) IS INDISPENSIBLY REQUIRED OF US, NOT ONLY BY RELIGION AND MORALITY, BUT BY EVERY PRINCIPLE OF SOUND POLICY[10].”

The noble exordium of another able advocate of the same righteous cause, must not however be omitted in this place: The House of Commons being now apprized of the nature of this trade, having received evidence, having had the facts undeniably established, knowing, in short, what the Slave-Trade was, he declared, that if they did not, by the vote of that night, mark to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so enormous, so savage, so repugnant to all laws, human and divine, it would be more scandalous, and more defaming, in the eyes of the country, and of the world, than any vote which any House of Commons had ever given. He desired them seriously to reflect, before they gave their votes, what they were about to do that evening. If they voted that the Slave Trade should not be abolished, they would, by their vote that night, give a Parliamentary sanction to Rapine, Robbery and Murder; for a system of rapine, robbery, and murder, the Slave Trade had now most clearly been proved to be[11].