Such transactions, he said, were
recorded in every history of Africa, and the report on the table
confirmed them. With respect, however, to these he should make but one
or two observations. If we looked into the reign of Henry the Eighth, we
should find a parallel for one of them. We should find that similar
convictions took place; and that penalties followed conviction. With
respect to wars, the kings of Africa were never induced to engage in
them by public principles, by national glory, and least of all by the
love of their people. This had been stated by those most conversant in
the subject, by Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom. They had conversed with
these princes, and had learned from their own mouths that to procure
slaves was the object of their hostilities. Indeed, there was scarcely a
single person examined before the privy council who did not prove that
the Slave Trade was the source of the tragedies acted upon that
extensive continent. Some had endeavoured to palliate this circumstance;
but there was not one who did not more or less admit it to be true. By
one the Slave Trade was called the concurrent cause, by the majority it
was acknowledged to be the principal motive, of the African wars.
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