For,
having been themselves either long resident in Africa, or very frequently
there, their knowledge of it could not be questioned. Having been concerned
also in the trade, it was not likely that they would criminate themselves
more than they could avoid. Writing too at a time, when the abolition was
not even thought of, they could not have been biassed with any view to that
event. And, lastly, having been dead many years, they could not have been
influenced, as living evidences may be supposed to have been, either to
conceal or to exaggerate, as their own interest might lead them, either by
being concerned in the continuance of the trade, or by supporting the
opinions of those of their patrons in power, who were on the different
sides of this question.
Furnished then in this manner, I began my work. But no person can tell the
severe trial, which the writing of it proved to me. I had expected pleasure
from the invention of the arguments, from the arrangement of them, from the
putting of them together, and from the thought in the interim that I was
engaged in an innocent contest for literary honour.
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