In the West Indies he could say personally, that the slaves were well
treated, where he had an opportunity of seeing them. But no judgement was
to be formed there with respect to the evils complained of. They must be
appreciated as they existed in the trade. Of these he had also been an
eye-witness. It was on this account that he felt contrition for not having
attended the House on this subject; for there were some cruelties in this
traffic which the human imagination could not aggravate. He had witnessed
such scenes over the whole coast of Africa: and he could say, that, if
their lordships could only have a sudden glimpse of them, they would be
struck with horror; and would be astonished, that they could ever have been
permitted to exist. What then would they say to their continuance year
after year, and from age to age?
From information, which he could not dispute, he was warranted in saying,
that on this continent husbands were fraudulently and forcibly severed from
their wives, and parents from their children; and that all the ties of
blood and affection were torn up by the roots. He had himself seen the
unhappy natives put together in heaps in the hold of a ship, where, with
every possible attention to them, their situation must have been
intolerable.
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