The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade | Page 3

dreadful
marks which had been left upon her by our crimes.
Lastly,--Many of those whom we had transported by fraud and violence
from their native country, and still more of the descendants of others
who had fallen a sacrifice to our cruelties, and perished in the course of
nature, slaves in a foreign land, remained to suffer the dreadful evils of
West India bondage. It seemed to follow, that the earliest opportunity
consistent with their own condition, should be taken to free those
unhappy beings, the victims of our sordid cruelty; and all the more to
be pitied, as we were all the more to be blamed, because one result of
our transgression was the having placed them in so unnatural a position,
that their enemies might seem to be furnished with an argument more
plausible than sound, drawn from the Negro's supposed unfitness for
immediate emancipation.
In order to promote these four great objects, a society was formed in
May 1807, called the African Institution, and although, at first, its
labours were chiefly directed to the portion of the subject relating to
Africa, by degrees, as the extinction of the British Slave Trade was
accomplished, its care was chiefly bestowed on West India matters,
which were more within the power of this country than the slave traffic,
still carried on by foreign nations. But it is necessary in the first place,
to recite the measures by which our own share in that enormous crime
was surrendered, and the stigma partially obliterated, which it had
brought upon our national character, Thomas Clarkson bore a forward
and important part in all these useful and virtuous proceedings. His
health was now, by rest among the Lakes of Westmoreland for several
years, comparatively restored and his mind once more bent itself to the
accomplishment of the grand object; of his life, we may he permitted
reverently to suggest, the end of his existence.
Mr. Stephen and others, at first, deemed the certainty of the Act passed
in March 1807, being evaded under the stimulus, and the insurance
against capture afforded by the enormous profits of the traffic, so clear,
that they expected the law to become, almost from the time of its being
enacted, a dead letter. There soon appeared the strongest reasons to

concur in this opinion, the result of long and close observation in the
Islands where Mr. Stephen had passed part of his life. The slave-dealers
knew the risk of penalty and forfeiture which they ran; but they also
knew that if one voyage in three or four was successful, they were
abundantly remunerated for all their losses; and, therefore, they were
no more restrained by the Abolition Act, than by any moderate increase
of the cost or the risk attending their wicked adventures. This was sure,
to be the case, as long as the law only treated slavetrading as a
contraband commerce, subjecting those who drove it to nothing but
pecuniary penalties. But it was equally evident that the same persons
who made these calculations of profit and risk, while they only could
lose the ship or the money by a seizure, would hesitate before they
encountered the hazard of being tried as for a crime. And, surely, if
ever these was an act which deserved to be declared felony, and dealt
with as such, it was this of slave-trading. Accordingly, in 1810, Mr.
Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, in moving an
address to the crown, (which was unanimously agreed to,) for more
vigorous measures against the traffic, both British and Foreign, gave
notice of the Bill, which he next year carried through Parliament, and
which declared the traffic to be a felony, punishable with transportation.
Some years afterwards it was by another Act made capital, under the
name of Piracy, but this has since been repealed. Several convictions
have taken place under the former Act, (of 1811,) and there cannot be
the least doubt that the law has proved effectual, and that the Slave
Trade has long ceased to exist as far as the British dominions are
concerned.
That foreign states continue shamefully to carry it on, is no less certain.
There are yearly transported to Cuba and Brazil, above 100,000
unhappy beings, by the two weakest nations in Europe, and these two
most entirely subject to the influence and even direct control of
England. The inevitable consequence is, that more misery is now
inflicted on Africa by the criminals, gently called Slave-traders, of
these two guilty nations, than if there were no treaties for the abolition
of the traffic. The number required is always carried over, and hence, as
many perish by a miserable death in escaping from the cruisers, as
reach their destination. The recitals of horror which have been made to

Parliament and