found in rash adventures; nor can that be called honor which arms one friend against another in a private quarrel. I tremble when I think what a precipice I have efcaped. Hen. Edward, you have touched me in the niceft point. You have difgraced my name, and I will not bear it. My heart is fixed upon revenge, and I am refolved to have it. Ed. If I have wronged you, the law is open; take what fatisfaction that will give you.

Hen. The law feldom does justice in fuch a cafe as this. Ed. I yield to the law, and fhall be content with whatever fatisfaction that will give you. But if you are not fuited with that, and ftill are bent upon revenge, ftrike at this heart; plunge your dagger into this bofom. My heart's blood fhall run freely; but my confcience I cannot violate.

Hen. Go, fcoundrel; if you will not give me fatisfaction in the only way which honor dictates, expect to feel the horfewhip, when there are none to help you, or be your witneffes.

Ed. That we defend ourselves, when we are affaulted, is nature's law. Be it known to you, I heed not your threats; nor shall I ever take one step more or less to avoid you. And if you, like a ruffian, attack me, and I do not manfully defend myself, then call me coward.

Hen. Edward, you must be sensible that you have injured me, and ought to make me fatisfaction. I ask for nothing but what is honorable. And, fince we have gone thus far, if we now refufe to fight, the world will call us both cowards; and who can endure it?

Ed. Is this your courage then! What, afraid to bear, for a few days, the fcoffs and fneers of knaves and fools! How will you dare to meet your final Judge; to be tried by Him before affembled worlds, and then condemned to everlafting woe? I am not conscious of the leaft defign to do you wrong; but this I own with fhame and deepest forrow, that I liftened in the leaft degree to your defperate propo fal of arming myself to shed your blood. But I now declare, that I hold in utter deteftation and foul abhorrence, the favage cuftom of deciding quarrels by murderous duelling. Give me

Hen. My friend, you have convinced me. your hand. I own my fault, and must acknowledge you to

be

be a man of real courage. I admire your firmaefs, and confefs that it is a barbarous custom which ftamps this cruel practice with the name of honor. My friend, you have preferved my life; and language is too feeble to exprefs the grateful fenfations of my heart for fuch a kindness.

SPEECH OF MR. PITT IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

SIR,

WHILE I regret the ill success which has

hitherto attended my efforts on this fubject, I am confoled with the thought that the house has now come to a refolution declarative of the infamy of the flave trade.

2.

The only queftion now is, on the continuance of this traffic, a traffic of which the very thought is beyond all human endurance; a traffic which even its friends think fo intolerable that it ought to be crushed. Yet the abolition of it is to be refolved into a queftion of expediency.

3. Its advocates, in order to continue it, have deferted even the principles of commerce; fo that, it seems, a traffic in the liberty, the blood, the life of human beings, is not to have the advantages of the common rules of arithmetic, which govern all other commercial dealings.

4.

The point now in difpute is the continuance for one year. As to those who are concerned in this trade, a year will not be of any confequence; but will it be of none to the unhappy flaves? It is true, that in the course of commercial concerns in general, it is faid fometimes to be beneath the magnanimity of a man of honor to infift on a scrupulous exactness, in his own favor, upon a difputed item in

accounts.

5. But does it make any part of our magnanimity to be exact in our own favor in the traffic of human blood? If I could feel that any calculation upon the fubject were to be made in this way, the fide on which I should determine, would be in favor of the unhappy sufferers; not of those who oppreffed them.

6. But this one year is only to fhow the planters that Parliament is willing to be liberal to them! Sir, I do not understand complimenting away the lives of fo many hu man beings. I do not comprehend the principle on which a few individuals are to be complimented, and their minds fet at reft, at the expenfe and total facrifice of the interest, the fecurity, the happiness of a whole quarter of this world, which, from our foul practices, has, for a vaft length of time, been a scene of mifery and horror.

7. I fay, because I feel, that in continuing this trade, you are guilty of an offence beyond your power to atone for; and by your indulgence to the planters, thousands of human beings are to be configned to mifery.

8. Every year in which you continue this trade, you add thousands to the catalogue of mifery, which, if you could behold in a single instance, you would revolt with horror from the feene; but the fize of the mifery prevents you from beholding it. Five hundred out of one thoufand who are obtained in this traffic perifh in this fcene of hor. ror; and are brought miferable victims to their graves. 9. The remaining part of this wretched group are tainte ed both in body and mind, covered with difeafe and infection, carrying with them the feeds of peftilence and infurrection to your islands.

10. Let me then ask the houfe, whether they can derive any advantage from thefe doubtful effects of a calcula tion on the continuance of the traffic? and whether twe years will not be better than three for its continuance ?

11. For my part, I feel the infamy of the trade fo heav ily, the impolicy of it fo clearly, that I am afhamed not to have been able to have convinced the houfe to abandon it altogether at an inftant; to pronounce with one voice the immediate and total abolition. There is no excufe for us. It is the very deh of juftice to utter a fyllable in fupport of it.

12. I know, Sir, I ftate this fubject with warmth. I feel it is impoffible for me not to do fo; or if it were, I fhould deteft myself for the exercife of moderation. I cannot, without fuffering every feeling and every paffion that ought to rife in the caufe of humanity to fleep within me, fpeak coolly upon fuch a subject. And did they feel as I think they ought, I am fure the decifion of the house would

H

would be with us for a total and immediate abolition of this abominable traffic.

13. In short, unless I have mifunderstood the fubject, and unless fome reafons fhould be offered, much fuperior to any I have yet heard, I fhall think it the moft fingular act that ever was done by a deliberative affembly, to refufe to affent to the propofed amendment. It has been by a refolution declared to be the first object of their defire, the first object of their duty, and the first object of their inclination.

THE SLAVES. AN ELEGY.

IF

F late I paufed upon the twilight plain
Of Fontenoy, to weep the free-born brave ;
Sure fancy now may crofs the western main,
And melt in fadder pity for the flave.

2. Lo! where to yon plantation drooping goes
A fable herd of human kind; while near
Stalks a pale defpot, and around him throws
The fcourge, that wakes, that punishes the tear.
3. O'er the far beach the mournful murmur strays,
And joins the rude yell of the tumbling tide,
As faint they labor in the folar blaze,
To feed the luxury of British pride!

4. E'en at this moment, on the burning gale
Floats the weak wailing of the female tongue;
And can that fex's softness nought avail ?
Muft feeble woman fhriek amid the throng?

5. O ceafe to think, my foul! what thousands die By fuicide, and toil's extreme despair ;

Thoufands, who never rais'd to Heaven the eye,
Thousands, who fear'd no punishment, but here.

6. Are drops of blood the horrible manure,
That fills with lufcious juice the teeming cane?
And muft our fellow-creatures thus endure,
For traffic vile, th' indignity of pain?

7. Yes, their keen forrows are the fweets we blend
With the green bev'rage of our morning meal,
The while to love meek mercy we pretend,
for fictitious is affect to feel.

8. Yes

8. Yes 'tis their anguish mantles in the bowl,
Their fighs excite the Briton's drunken joy;
Thofe ignorant fuff'rers know not of a foul,
That we enlighten'd, may its hopes destroy.

9.

And there are men, who, leaning on the laws,
What they have purchas'd, claim a right to hold.
Curs'd be the tenure, curs'd its cruel caufe ;
Freedom's a dearer property than gold!

10. And there are men, with fhameless front have faid, "That nature form'd the negroes for difgrace; "That on their limbs fubjection is display'd; "The doom of flav'ry ftamp'd upon their face.""

II.

Send your ftern gaze from Lapland to the line, And ev'ry region's natives fairly fcan,

Their forms, their force, their faculties combine,
And own the vast variety of man!

12. Then why fuppofe yourselves the chofen few,
To deal oppreffion's poifon'd arrows round;
To gall, with iron bonds, the weaker crew,
Enforce the labor, and inflict the wound?

13. 'Tis fordid int'reft guides you. In profit only can ye reafon find;

Bent on gain,

And pleafure too; but urge no more in vain,
The felfifh fubject, to the focial mind.

14. Ah! how can he, whofe daily lot is grief,
Whofe mind is vilify'd beneath the rod,
Suppofe his Maker has for him relief?

Can he believe the tongue that speaks of God?

15.

For when he fees the female of his heart,

And his lov'd daughters, torn by luft away,
His fons, the poor inheritors of fmart-
-Had he religion, think ye, he could pray?

16. Alas! he feals him from the loathfome thed,
What time moift midnight blows her venom'd breath,
And mufing, how he long has toil'd and bled,
Drinks the dire balfam of confoling death!

I 7 Hafte, hafte, ye winds, on fwifteft pinions fly, Ere from this world of mifery he go,

ell him his wrongs bedew a nation's eye, Team Britannia blufhes for his woe!

18. Så,