ocean to other lands. And here I must observe at once, that, as far as this
part of the evil is concerned, I am at a loss to describe it. Where shall I
find words to express properly their sorrow, as arising from the reflection
of being parted for ever from their friends, their relatives, and their
country? Where shall I find language to paint in appropriate colours the
horror of mind brought on by thoughts of their future unknown destination,
of which they can augur nothing but misery from all that they have yet
seen? How shall I make known their situation, while labouring under painful
disease, or while struggling in the suffocating holds of their prisons,
like animals inclosed in an exhausted receiver? How shall I describe their
feelings, as exposed to all the personal indignities, which lawless
appetite or brutal passion may suggest? How shall I exhibit their
sufferings as determining to refuse sustenance and die, or as resolving to
break their chains, and, disdaining to live as slaves, to punish their
oppressors? How shall I give an idea of their agony, when under various
punishments and tortures for their reputed crimes? Indeed every part of
this subject defies my powers, and I must therefore satisfy myself and the
reader with a general representation, or in the words of a celebrated
member of Parliament, that "Never was so much human suffering condensed in
so small a space."

I come now to the evil, as it has been proved to arise in the third case;
or to consider the situation of the unhappy victims of the trade, when
their painful voyages are over, or after they have been landed upon their
destined shores. And here we are to view them first under the degrading
light of cattle. We are to see them examined, handled, selected, separated,
and sold. Alas! relatives are separated from relatives, as if, like cattle,
they had no rational intellect, no power of feeling the nearness of
relationship, nor sense of the duties belonging to the ties of life! We are
next to see them labouring, and this for the benefit of those, to whom they