sometimes by the actual use of it. "I," said one of the evidences, "was
employed to dance the men, while another person danced the women." Such
then was the meaning of the word _promoted_; and it might also be observed
with respect to food, that instruments were sometimes carried out, in order
to force them to eat; which was the same sort of proof, how much they
enjoyed themselves in this instance also. With respect to their singing, it
consisted of songs of lamentation for the loss of their country. While they
sung they were in tears: so that one of the captains, more humane probably
than the rest, threatened a woman with a flogging because the mournfulness
of her song was too painful for his feelings. Perhaps he could not give a
better proof of the sufferings of these injured people during their
passage, than by stating the mortality which accompanied it. This was a
species of evidence which was infallible on this occasion. Death was a
witness which could not deceive them; and the proportion of deaths would
not only confirm, but, if possible, even aggravate our suspicion of the
misery of the transit. It would be found, upon an average of all the ships,
upon which evidence had been given, that, exclusively of such as perished
before they sailed from Africa, not less than twelve and a half per cent
died on their passage: besides these, the Jamaica report stated that four
and a half per cent died while in the harbours, or on shore before the day
of sale, which was only about the space of twelve or fourteen days after
their arrival there; and one third more died in the seasoning: and this in
a climate exactly similar to their own, and where, as some of the witnesses
pretended, they were healthy and happy. Thus, out of every lot of one
hundred, shipped from Africa, seventeen died in about nine weeks, and not
more than fifty lived to become effective labourers in our islands.

Having advanced thus far in his investigation, he felt, he said, the
wickedness of the Slave-trade to be so enormous, so dreadful, and
irremediable, that he could stop at no alternative short of its abolition.