This bill he introduced soon afterwards, and it passed; but not without opposition.  It was a matter, however, of great pleasure to find that the worthy baronet was enabled by the assistance of Captain (afterwards Admiral) Macbride, and other naval officers in the house, to carry such clauses, as provided in some degree for the comfort of the poor seamen, who were seduced into this wicked trade.  They could not indeed provide against the barbarity of their captains; but they secured them a space under the half deck in which to sleep.  They prescribed a form of muster-rolls, which they were to see and sign in the presence of the clearing officer.  They regulated their food both as to kind and quantity; and they preserved them from many of the impositions, to which they had been before exposed.

From the time when Mr. Wilberforce gave his first notice this session to the present, I had been variously employed, but more particularly in the composition of a new work.  It was soon perceived to be the object of our opponents, to impress upon the public the preference of regulation to abolition.  I attempted therefore to show the fallacy and wickedness of this notion.  I divided the evils belonging to the Slave-trade into two kinds.  These I enumerated in their order.  With respect to those of the first kind, I proved that they were never to be remedied by any acts of the British parliament.  Thus, for instance, what bill could alter the nature of the human passions?  What bill could prevent fraud and violence in Africa, while the Slave-trade existed there?  What bill could prevent the miserable victims of the trade from rising, when on board the ships, if they saw an opportunity, and felt a keen sense of their oppression?  Those of the second I stated to admit of a remedy, and, after making accurate calculations on the subject of each, I showed that those merchants, who were to do them away effectually, would be ruined by their voyages.  The work was called An Essay on the comparative Efficiency of Regulation or Abolition as applied to the Slave-trade.

The committee also in this interval brought out their famous print of the plan and section of a slave-ship; which was designed to give the spectator an idea of the sufferings of the Africans in the Middle Passage, and this so familiarly, that he might instantly pronounce upon the miseries experienced there.  The committee at Plymouth had been the first to suggest the idea; but that in London had now improved it.  As this print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and as it was therefore very instrumental, in consequence of the wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans, I have given the reader a copy of it in the annexed plate, and I will now state the ground or basis, upon which it was formed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]