h subject he
spoke in the following words: "Though the witnesses are some of them
interested in the trade, and all of them parties against the bill, their
confession is, that of the Negros of the windward coast, who are men of the
strongest constitution which Africa affords, no less on an average than
five in each hundred perish in the voyage,--a voyage, it must be
remembered, but of six weeks. In a twelvemonth, then, what must be the
proportion of the dead? No less than forty-three in a hundred, which is
seventeen times the usual rate of mortality; for all the estimates of life
suppose no more than a fortieth of the people, or two and a half in the
hundred, to die within the space of a year. Such then is the comparison. In
the ordinary course of nature the number of persons, (including those in
age and infancy, the weakest periods of existence,) who perish in the space
of a twelvemonth, is at the rate of but two and a half in a hundred; but in
an African voyage, notwithstanding the old are excluded and few infants
admitted, so that those who are shipped are in the firmest period of life,
the list of deaths presents an annual mortality of forty-three in a
hundred. It presents this mortality even in vessels from the windward coast
of Africa; but in those which sail to Bonny, Benin, and the Calebars, from
whence the greatest proportion of the slaves are brought, this mortality is
increased by a variety of causes, (of which the greater length of the
voyage is one,) and is said to be twice as large, which supposes that in
every hundred the deaths annually amount to no less than eighty-six. Yet
even the former comparatively low mortality, of which the counsel speaks
with so much satisfaction, as a proof of the kind and compassionate
treatment of the slaves, even this indolent and lethargic destruction gives
to the march of death seventeen times its usual speed. It is a destruction,
which, if general but for ten years, would depopulate the world, blast the
purposes of its creation, and extinguish the human race."

After having gone with great ability through the other branches of the
subject, he concluded in the following manner: "Thus I have considered the
various objections which have been stated to the bill, and am ashamed to
reflect that it could be necessary to speak so long in defence of such a
cause: for what, after all, is asked by the proposed regulations? On the
part of the Africans, the whole of their purport is, tha