In some instances they came up against their
apparent interest, and, to my knowledge, suffered persecution for so
doing. The evidence also which they delivered was of a positive nature.
They gave an account of specific evils, which had come under their own
eyes; these evils were never disproved; they stood therefore on a firm
basis, as on a tablet of brass. Engraved there in affirmative
characters, a few of them were of more value than all the negative and
airy testimony which had been advanced on the other side of the
question.
That the public may judge, in some measure, of the respectability of the
witnesses in favour of the abolition, and that they may know also to
whom Africa is so much indebted for her deliverance, I shall subjoin
their names in the three following lists. The first will contain those
who were examined by the privy council only; the second those who were
examined by the privy council and the House of Commons also; and the
third those who were examined-by the House of Commons only.
LIST I.
LIST II.
LIST III.
The evidence having been delivered on both sides, and then printed, it
was judged expedient by Mr. Wilberforce, seeing that it filled three
folio volumes, to abridge it.
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