He put the case, that, supposing the slaves were treated ever so humanely, when they were carried to the West Indies, what compensation could be made them for being torn from their nearest relations, and from everything that was dear to them in life?
He hoped no political advantage, no national expediency, would be allowed to weigh in the scale against the eternal rules of moral rectitude.

As for himself, he had no hesitation to declare, in this early stage of the business, that he should think himself a wicked wretch if he did not do everything in his power to put a stop to the Slave Trade.
Sir William Dolben said, that he did not then wish to enter into the discussion of the general question of the abolition of the Slave Trade, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so desirous of postponing; but he wished to say a few words on what he conceived to be a most crying evil, and which might be immediately remedied, without infringing upon the limits of that question.

He did not allude to the sufferings of the poor Africans in their own country, nor afterwards in the West India islands, but to that intermediate state of tenfold misery which they underwent in their transportation.

When put on board the ships, the poor unhappy wretches were chained to each other, hand and foot, and stowed so close, that they were not allowed above a foot and a half for each individual in breadth.

Thus crammed together like herrings in a barrel, they contracted putrid and fatal disorders; so that they who came to inspect them in a morning had occasionally to pick dead slaves out of their rows, and to unchain their carcasses from the bodies of their wretched fellow-sufferers, to whom they had been fastened.