By attending to these and to various other parts of the subject, I began to
see as it were with new eyes: I was enabled to make several necessary
discriminations, to reconcile things before seemingly contradictory, and to
answer many objections which had hitherto put on a formidable shape. But
most of all was I rejoiced at the thought that I should soon be able to
prove that which I had never doubted, but which had hitherto been beyond my
power in this case, that Providence, in ordaining laws relative to the
agency of man, had never made that to be wise which was immoral, and that
the Slave-trade would be found as impolitic as it was inhuman and unjust.
In keeping up my visits to members of parliament, I was particularly
attentive to Mr. Wilberforce, whom I found daily becoming more interested
in the fate of Africa. I now made to him a regular report of my progress,
of the sentiments of those in parliament whom I had visited, of the
disposition of my friends in the City of whom he had often heard me speak,
of my discoveries from the Custom-houses of London and Liverpool, of my
documents concerning West India estates, and of all, indeed, that had
occurred to me worth mentioning.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244