dmiration of the
world. From all these blessings we must for ever have been excluded, had
there been any truth in those principles, which some had not hesitated to
lay down as applicable to the case of Africa; and we should have been at
this moment little superior, either in morals, knowledge, or refinement, to
the rude inhabitants of that continent.

If then we felt that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal
ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which could have befallen
us; if we viewed with gratitude the contrast between our present and our
former situation; if we shuddered to think of the misery, which would still
have overwhelmed us, had our country continued to the present times,
through some cruel policy, to be the mart for slaves to the more civilized
nations of the world;--God forbid, that we should any longer subject Africa
to the same dreadful scourge, and exclude the sight of knowledge from her
coasts, which had reached every other quarter of the globe!

He trusted we should no longer continue this commerce; and that we should
no longer consider ourselves as conferring too great a boon on the natives
of Africa in restoring them to the rank of human beings. He trusted we
should not think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the Slave-trade,
we gave them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the
world. If we listened to the voice of reason and duty this night, some of
us might live to see a reverse of that picture, from which we now turned
our eyes with shame. We might live to behold the natives engaged in the
calm occupations of industry, and in the pursuit of a just commerce. We
might behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their
land, which at some happy period in still later times might blaze with full
lustre; and joining their influence to that of pure religion, might
illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that immense
continent. Then might we hope, that even Africa (though last of all the
quarters of the globe) should enjoy at length, in the evening of her days,
those blessings, which had descended so plentifully upon us in a much
earlier period of the world. Then also would Europe, participating in her
improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy
kindness (if kindness it could be called) of no longer hindering her from
extricating herself out of the darkness, which, in other more fortunate
re