It is much to the honour of the English people, that they should have
continued to feel for the existence of an evil which was so far removed
from their sight. But at this moment their feelings began to be
insupportable. Many of them resolved, as soon as parliament had rejected
the bill, to abstain from the use of West Indian produce. In this state of
things a pamphlet, written by William Bell Crafton, of Tewksbury, and
called "A Sketch of the Evidence, with a Recommendation on the Subject to
the Serious Attention of People in general," made its appearance; and
another followed it, written by William Fox, of London, "On the Propriety
of abstaining from West India Sugar and Rum." These pamphlets took the same
ground. They inculcated abstinence from these articles as a moral duty;
they inculcated it as a peaceable and constitutional measure; and they laid
before the reader a truth, which was sufficiently obvious, that if each
would abstain, the people would have a complete remedy for this enormous
evil in their own power.
While these things were going on, it devolved upon me to arrange all the
evidence on the part of the abolition under proper heads, and to abridge it
into one volume.
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