s and usage of seamen in the
Slave-trade. To substantiate certain points, which belonged to this branch
of the subject, I left several depositions and articles of agreement for
the examination of the council. With respect to others, as it would take a
long time to give all the data upon which calculations had been made and
the manner of making them, I was desired to draw up a statement of
particulars, and to send it to the council at a future time. I left also
depositions with them relative to certain instances of the mode of
procuring and treating slaves.

The commitee also for effecting the abolition of the Slave-trade continued
their attention, during this period, towards the promotion of the different
objects, which came within the range of the institution.

They added the reverend Dr. Coombe, in consequence of the great increase of
their business, to the list of their members.

They voted thanks to Mr. Hughes, vicar of Ware in Hertfordshire, for his
excellent Answer to Harm's Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the
Slave-trade, and they enrolled him among their honorary and corresponding
members. Also thanks to William Roscoe, esquire, for his Answer to the
same. Mr. Roscoe had not affixed his name to this pamphlet any more than to
his poem of The Wrongs of Africa. But he made himself known to the commitee
as the author of both. Also thanks to William Smith and Henry Beaufoy,
esquires, for having so successfully exposed the evidence offered by the
slave-merchants against the bill of Sir William Dolben, and for having
drawn out of it so many facts, all making for their great object, the
abolition of the Slave-trade.

As the great question was to be discussed in the approaching sessions, it
was moved in the commitee to consider of the propriety of sending persons
to Africa and the West Indies, who should obtain information relative to
the different branches of the system as they existed in each of these
countries, in order that they might be able to give their testimony, from
their own experience, before one or both of the houses of parliament, as it
might be judged proper. This proposition was discussed at two or three
several meetings. It was however finally rejected, and principally on the
following grounds: First, It was obvious, that persons sent out upon such
an errand would be exposed to such dangers from various causes, that it was
not improbable that both they and their testimony might be lost. Secon