[Sidenote: As it is desirable to know the true sources of events in
history, so this will be realized in that of the abolition of the Slave
Trade.--Inquiry as to those who favoured the cause of the Africans
previously to the year 1787.--All these to be considered as necessary
forerunners in that cause.--First forerunners were Cardinal Ximenes; the
Emperor Charles the Fifth; Pope Leo the Tenth; Elizabeth, queen of
England; Louis the Thirteenth, of France.]
It would be considered by many, who have stood at the mouth of a river,
and witnessed its torrent there, to be both an interesting and a
pleasing journey to go to the fountain head, and then to travel on its
banks downwards, and to mark the different streams in each side, which
should run into it and feed it. So I presume the reader will not be a
little interested and entertained, in viewing with me the course of the
abolition of the Slave Trade, in first finding its source, and then in
tracing the different springs which have contributed to its increase.
And here I may observe that, in doing this, we shall have advantages,
which historians have not always had in developing the causes of things.
Many have handed down to us, events, for the production of which they
have given us but their own conjectures.
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