The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade | Page 8

may be, or however
small the progress may be that we may make in it, we ought never to
despair; for that, whatever checks and discouragements we may meet
with, "no virtuous effort is ever ultimately lost." And finally, it cannot
be otherwise than useful to us to form the opinion, which the
contemplation of this subject must always produce, namely, that many
of the evils, which are still left among us, may, by an union of wise and
virtuous individuals, be greatly alleviated, if not entirely done away: for
if the great evil of the Slave-trade, so deeply entrenched by its hundred
interests, has fallen prostrate before the efforts of those who attacked it,
what evil of a less magnitude shall not be more easily subdued? O may
reflections of this sort always enliven us, always encourage us, always

stimulate us to our duty! May we never cease to believe, that many of
the miseries of life are still to be remedied, or to rejoice that we may be
permitted, if we will only make ourselves worthy by our endeavours, to
heal them! May we encourage for this purpose every generous
sympathy that arises in our hearts, as the offspring of the Divine
influence for our good, convinced that we are not born for ourselves
alone, and that the Divinity never so fully dwells in us, as when we do
his will; and that we never do his will more agreeably, as far as it has
been revealed to us, than when we employ our time in works of charity
towards the rest of our fellow-creatures!

CHAPTER II.
_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. There has been often indeed
such a distance between the events themselves and the lives of those
who have recorded them, that the different means and motives
belonging to them have been lost through time. On the present occasion,

however, we shall have the peculiar satisfaction of knowing that we
communicate the truth, or that those, which we unfold, are the true
causes and means. For the most remote of all the human springs, which
can be traced as having any bearing upon the great event in question,
will fall within the period of three centuries, and the most powerful of
them within the last twenty years. These circumstances indeed have had
their share in inducing me to engage in the present history. Had I
measured it by the importance of the subject, I had been deterred: but
believing that most readers love the truth, and that it ought to be the
object of all writers to promote it, and believing moreover, that I was in
possession of more facts on this subject than any other person, I
thought I was peculiarly called upon to undertake it.
In tracing the different streams from whence the torrent arose, which
has now happily swept away the Slave-trade, I must begin with an
inquiry as to those who favoured the cause of the injured Africans from
the year 1516 to the year 1787, at which latter period a number of
persons associated themselves in England for its abolition. For though
they, who belonged to this association, may, in consequence of having
pursued a regular system, be called the principal actors, yet it must be
acknowledged that their efforts would never have been so effectual, if
the minds of men had not been prepared by others, who had moved
before them. Great events have never taken place without previously
disposing causes. So it is in the case before us. Hence