This instance, he said, proved the
dreadful nature of the Slave-trade, its cruelty, its perfidy, and its
effect on the Africans as well as on the Europeans, who carried it on. The
cool manner, in which the transaction was conducted on both sides, showed
that these practices were not novel. It showed also the manner of doing
business in the trade. It must be remembered too, that these transactions
were carrying on at the very time when the inquiry concerning this trade
was going forward in Parliament, and whilst the witnesses of his opponents
were strenuously denying not only the actual, but the possible, existence
of any such depredations.
But another instance happened only in August last. Six British ships, the
Thomas, Captain Phillips; the Wasp, Captain Hutchinson; the Recovery,
Captain Kimber, of Bristol; and the Martha, Captain Houston; the Betsey,
Captain Doyle; and the Amachree, (he believed,) Captain Lee, of Liverpool;
were anchored off the town of Calabar. This place was the scene of a
dreadful massacre about twenty years before. The captains of these vessels,
thinking that the natives asked too much for their slaves, held a
consultation, how they should proceed; and agreed to fire upon the town
unless their own terms were complied with.
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