Wilberforce, seeing that it filled three folio
volumes, to abridge it. This abridgement was made by the different friends
of the cause. William Burgh, esquire, of York; Thomas Babington, esquire,
of Rothley Temple; the Reverend Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge; Mr.
Campbell Haliburton, of Edinburgh; George Harrison, with one or two others
of the committee, and myself, were employed upon it. The greater share,
however, of the labour fell upon Dr. Dickson. That no misrepresentation of
any person's testimony might be made, Matthew Montagu, esquire, and the
honourable E.J. Eliott, members of parliament, undertook to compare the
abridged manuscripts with the original text, and to strike out or correct
whatever they thought to be erroneous, and to insert whatever they thought
to have been omitted. The committee, for the abolition, when the work was
finished, printed it at their own expense. Mr. Wilberforce then presented
it to the House of Commons, as a faithful abridgement of the whole
evidence. Having been received as such under the guarantee of Mr. Montagu
and Mr. Eliott, the committee sent it to every individual member of that
House.
The book having been thus presented, and a day fixed for the final
determination of the question, our feelings became almost insupportable:
for we had the mortification to find, that our cause was going down in
estimation, where it was then most important that it should have increased
in favour.
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