Mr. Wilberforce having concluded his speech, which lasted three hours
and a half, read, and laid on the table of the House, as subjects for
their future discussion, twelve propositions which he had deduced from
the evidence contained in the privy council report, and of which the
following is the abridged substance:--
1. That the number of slaves annually carried from the coast of Africa,
in British vessels, was about 38,000, of which, on an average, 22,500
were carried to the British islands, and that of the latter only 17,500
were retained there.
2. That these slaves, according to the evidence on the table, consisted,
first, of prisoners of war; secondly, of free persons sold for debt, or
on account of real or imputed crimes, particularly adultery and
witchcraft; in which cases they were frequently sold with their whole
families, and sometimes for the profit of those by whom they were
condemned; thirdly, of domestic slaves sold for the profit of their
masters, in some places at the will of the masters, and in others, on
being condemned by them for real or imputed crimes; fourthly, of persons
made slaves by various acts of oppression, violence, or fraud, committed
either by the princes and chiefs of those countries on their subjects,
or by private individuals on each other; or, lastly, by Europeans
engaged in this traffic.
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