themselves, do they not become abandoned? In what state of society are
the corrupt appetites so easily, so quickly, and so frequently indulged,
and where else, by means of frequent indulgence, do these experience
such a monstrous growth? Where else is the temper subject to such
frequent irritation, or passion to such little control? Yes--if the
unhappy slave is in an unfortunate situation, so is the tyrant who holds
him. Action and reaction are equal to each other, as well in the moral
as in the natural world. You cannot exercise an improper dominion over a
fellow-creature, but by a wise ordering of Providence you must
necessarily injure yourself.

Having now considered the nature of the evil of the Slave Trade in its
three separate departments of suffering, and in its corresponding
counterparts of guilt, I shall make a few observations on the extent of
it.

On this subject it must strike us, that the misery and the crimes
included in the evil, as it has been found in Africa, were not like
common maladies, which make a short or periodical visit and then are
gone, but that they were continued daily. Nor were they like diseases,
which from local causes attack a village or a town, and by the skill of
the physician, under the blessing of Providence, are removed; but they
affected a whole continent. The trade with all its horrors began at the
river Senegal, and continued, winding with the coast, through its
several geographical divisions to Cape Negro; a distance of more than
three thousand miles. In various lines or paths formed at right angles
from the shore, and passing into the heart of the country, slaves were
procured and brought down. The distance, which many of them travelled,
was immense. Those, who have been in Africa, have assured us, that they
came as far as from the sources of their largest rivers, which we know