In the West Indies he could say, personally, that the slaves were well
treated, where he had an opportunity of seeing them. But no judgment 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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