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From the time when Mr. Wilberforce gave his first notice this session to the present, I had been variously employed, but more particularly in the composition of a new work. It was soon perceived to be the object of our opponents, to impress upon the public the preference of regulation to abolition. I attempted therefore to show the fallacy and wickedness of this notion. I divided the evils belonging to the Slave-trade into two kinds. These I enumerated in their order. With respect to those of the first kind, I proved that they were never to be remedied by any acts of the British parliament. Thus, for instance, what bill could alter the nature of the human passions? What bill could prevent fraud and violence in Africa, while the Slave-trade existed there? What bill could prevent the miserable victims of the trade from rising, when on board the ships, if they saw an opportunity, and felt a keen sense of their oppression? Those of the second I stated to admit of a remedy, and, after making accurate calculations on the subject of each, I showed that those merchants, who were to do them away effectually, would be ruined by their voyages.

The

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The work was called An Essay on the comparative Efficiency of Regulation or Abolition as applied to the Slave-trade.

The committee also in this interval brought out their famous print of the plan and section of a slave-ship; which was designed to give the spectator an idea of the sufferings of the Africans in the Middle Passage, and this so familiarly, that he might instantly pronounce upon the miseries experienced there. The committee at Plymouth had been the first to suggest the idea; but that in London had now improved it. As this print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and as it was therefore very instrumental, in consequence of the wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans, I have given the reader a. copy of it in the annexed plate, and I will now state the ground or basis, upon which it was formed.

It must be obvious that it became the committee to select some one ship, which had been engaged in the Slave-trade, with her real dimensions, if they meant to make a fair representation of the manner of the transportation.

transportation. When Captain Parrey, of the royal navy, returned from Liverpool, to which place Government had sent him, he brought with him the admeasurement of several vessels, which had been so employed, and laid them on the table of the House of Commons. At the top of his list stood the ship Brookes. The committee therefore, in choosing a vessel on this occasion, made use of the ship Brookes; and this they did, because they thought it less objectionable to take the first that came, than any other. The vessel then in the plate is the vessel now mentioned, and the following is her admeasurement as given in by Captain Parrey.

Length of the lower deck, gratings, and bulk

Ft. In.

100

0

4

10

Ο

5

8

heads included at A A,
Breadth of beam on the lower deck inside, B B, 25
Depth of hold O 00, from cieling to cieling,
Height between decks from deck to deck,

Length of the men's room, CC, on the lower deck, 46 Q
Breadth of the men's room, CC, on the lower deck,

Length of the platform, DD, in the men's room,
Breadth of the platform, in the men's room, on

each side,

Length of the boys' room, EE,

Breadth of the boys' room,

Breadth of platform, FF, in boys' room,
Length of women's room, GG,

25

4

46 0

6.0

13 9

25

6 0 28 6 Breadth

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