or Liverpool took every opportunity
of occasioning delay. They had recourse twice to counting out the house;
and at another time, though complaint had been made of their attempts to
procrastinate, they opposed the resuming of their own evidence with the
same view,--and this merely for the frivolous reason, that, though there
was then a suitable opportunity, notice had not been previously given. But
in this proceeding, other members feeling indignant at their conduct, they
were overruled.

The witnesses brought by the Liverpool merchants against this humane bill
were the same as they had before sent for examination to the privy council,
namely, Mr. Norris, Lieutenant Matthews, and others. On the other side of
the question it was not deemed expedient to bring any. It was soon
perceived that it would be possible to refute the former out of their own
mouths, and to do this seemed more eligible than to proceed in the other
way. Mr. Pitt, however, took care to send Captain Parrey, of the royal
navy, to Liverpool, that he might take the tonnage and internal dimensions
of several slave-vessels, which were then there, supposing that these, when
known, would enable the house to detect any misrepresentations, which the
delegates from that town might be disposed to make upon this subject.

It was the object of the witnesses, when examined, to prove two things:
first, that regulations were unnecessary, because the present mode of the
transportation was sufficiently convenient for the objects of it, and was
well adapted to preserve their comfort and their health. They had
sufficient room, sufficient air, and sufficient provisions. When upon deck,
they made merry and amused themselves with dancing. As to the mortality, or
the loss of them by death in the course of their passage, it was trifling.
In short, the voyage from Africa to the West Indies "was one of the
happiest periods of a Negro's life."

Secondly, that if the merchants were hindered from taking less than two
full-sized, or three smaller Africans, to a ton, then the restriction would
operate not as the regulation but as the utter ruin of the trade. Hence the
present bill, under the specious mask of a temporary interference, sought
nothing less than its abolition.

These assertions having been severally made, by the former of which it was
insinuated that the African, unhappy in his own country, found in the
middle passage, under the care of the merchants, little less than