But his expectations had been greatly surpassed by
the testimony they had given. He did not mean to impeach their private
characters, but they certainly showed themselves under the influence of
such gross prejudices, as to render them incompetent judges of the subject
they came to elucidate. They seemed (if he might so say) to be enveloped by
a certain atmosphere of their own; and to see, as it were, through a kind
of African medium. Every object, which met their eyes, came distorted and
turned from its true direction. Even the declarations, which they made on
other occasions, seemed wholly strange to them. They sometimes not only
forgot what they had seen, but what they had said; and when to one of them
his own testimony to the privy council was read, he mistook it for that of
another, whose evidence he declared to be "the merest burlesque in the
world."
But the House must be aware that there was not only an African medium, but
an African logic. It seemed to be an acknowledged axiom in this; that every
person, who offered a slave for sale, had a right to sell him, however
fraudulently he might have obtained him. This had been proved by the
witnesses, who opposed him.
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