he case of Tyre and Sidon, which were the Bristol and the
Liverpool of those times. A direct judgment had been pronounced by the
prophet Joel against these cities, and, what is remarkable, for the
prosecution of this same barbarous traffic. Thus, "And what have ye to do
with me O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? Ye have cast
lots for my people. Ye have sold a girl for wine. The children of Judah,
and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might
remove them far from their own border. Behold! I will raise them out of the
place whither ye have sold them, and will recompense your wickedness on
your own heads." Such was the language of the prophet; and Tyre and Sidon
fell, as he had pointed out, when the inhabitants were either cut off, or
carried into slavery.

Having thrown out these ideas to the notice of the audience, I concluded in
the following words:--

"If, then, we wish to avert the heavy national judgment which is hanging
over our heads (for must we not believe that our crimes towards the
innocent Africans lie recorded against us in heaven) let us endeavour to
assert their cause. Let us nobly withstand the torrent of the evil, however
inveterately it may be fixed among the customs of the times; not, however,
using our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness against those, who perhaps
without due consideration, have the misfortune to be concerned in it, but
upon proper motives, and in a proper spirit, as the servants of God; so
that if the sun should be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
and the very heaven should fall upon us, we may fall in the general
convulsion without dismay, conscious that we have done our duty in
endeavouring to succour the distressed, and that the stain of the blood of
Africa is not upon us."

From Manchester I proceeded to Keddleston in Derbyshire, to spend a day
with Lord Scarsdale, and to show him my little collection of African
productions, and to inform him of my progress since I last saw him. Here a
letter was forwarded to me from the reverend John Toogood, of Keinton Magna
in Dorsetshire, though I was then unknown to him. He informed me that he
had addressed several letters to the inhabitants of his own county, through
their provincial paper, on the subject of the Slave-trade, which letters
had produced a considerable effect. It appeared, however, that, when he
began them, he did not know of the formation of our commitee, or that he