And with whom was I to unite? I believed, also, that it looked so much like one of the feigned labours of Hercules, that my understanding would be suspected if I proposed it. On ruminating, however, on the subject, I found one thing at least practicable, and that this also was in my power. I could translate my Latin dissertation;-I could enlarge it usefully;-I could see how the public received it, or how far they were likely to favour any serious measures, which should have a tendency to produce the abolition of the slave trade. Upon this then I determined; and in the middle of the month of November, 1785, I began my work.'

Our scanty limits forbid our following the author through the various toils and difficulties he encountered in his endeavours to promote the grand object which occupied all his thoughts. He had interviews with Fox, Pitt, and Wilberforce, and associated himself with other humane characters, declining no labour, however great, fearing no danger, however imminent, but eagerly embracing every opportunity that seemed to promise the least success to the noble cause in which he was engaged. It was necessary to procure witnesses, whose testimony, as to the kidnapping of Africans, could not be impeached; and it was particularly important to ascertain whether the slaves brought from the villages on the rivers of Calabar and Bonny were not so obtained; since it had been asserted by the anti-abolitionists, that the natives had never suffered a white man in their canoes. Mr. Clarkson was told by a friend, that he had been once in company with a man who had visited these places; but that he knew nothing more of this person than that he belonged to some ship of war in ordinary. Hopeless as appeared the attempt to find out this individual, Mr. Clarkson yet undertook to discover him. His acquaintance with Sir Charles Middleton, then comptroller of the navy, procured him permission to board every ship in ordinary, in the different ports of the kingdom. Furnished in this manner Mr. C. began his journey. He boarded all the ships of war lying in ordinary at Deptford, and examined the different persons in each. From Deptford he proceeded to Woolwich, where he did the same. Thence he hastened to Chatham, and then, down the Medway, to Sheerness. He had now boarded above a hundred and sixty vessels of war. He had found out two good and willing evidences among them; but he could

gain no intelligence of him who was the object of his search.

From Chatham he made the best of his way to Portsmouth-harbour. A very formidable task presented itself here; but the master's boats were ready for him, and he continued his pursuit. On boarding the Pegase, on the second day, he discovered a very respectable person in the gunner of that ship. His name was George Millar. He had been on board the Canterbury slave-ship at the dreadful massacre at Calabar. He was the only disin terested evidence living, of whom Mr. C. had yet heard. He expressed his willingness to give his testimony, if his presence should be thought necessary in London. Mr. C. then continued his pursuit for the remainder of the day. On the next day he resumed and finished it for this quarter. He had now examined the different persons in more than a hundred vessels in this harbour; but he had not discovered the person he went to seek.

Matters now began to look rather disheartening, as far as this grand object was concerned. There was but one other port left, and this was between two and three hundred miles distant. He determined, however, to go to Plymouth. He had already been more successful in this tour, with respect to obtaining general evidence, than in any other of the same length; and the probability was, that as he should continue to move among the same kind of people, his success would be in a similar proportion, according to the number visited. These were great encouragements to him to proceed. At length he arrived at the place of his last hope. On his first day's expedition he boarded forty vessels, but found no one in these who had been on the coast of Africa in the slave trade. One or two had been there in King's ships; but they had never been on shore. Things were now drawing near to a close; and notwithstanding his success, as to general evidence, in this journey, his heart began to beat. He was restless and uneasy during the night. The next morning he felt agitated again between the alternate pressure of hope and fear; and in this state he entered his boat. The fifty-seventh vessel he boarded was the Melampus frigate. One person belonging to it, on examining him in the captain's cabin, said he had been two voyages to Africa; and Mr. C. had not long discoursed with him, before he found, to his inexpressible joy, that he was the man. He found, too, that he unravelled the

question in dispute precisely as inferences had deter mined it. He had been two expeditions up the river Ca labar in the canoes of the natives. In the first of these, they came within a certain distance of a village: they then concealed themselves under the bushes, which hung over the water from the banks. In this position they remained during the daylight; but at night they went up to it armed, and seized all the inhabitants, who had not time to make their escape. They obtained forty-five persons in this manner. In the second, they were out eight or nine days, when they made a similar attempt, and with nearly similar success. They seized men, women, and children, as they could find them in the huts. They then bound their arms, and drove them before them to the canoes. The name of the person thus discovered on board the Melampus was Isaac Parker. On inquiring into his character from the master of the division, Mr. C. found it highly respectable. He found also afterwards that he had sailed with Captain Cook, with great credit to himself, round the world.

He returned now in triumph. He had been out only three weeks, and he had found out this extraordinary person, and five respectable witnesses besides. These, added to the three discovered in the last journey, and to those provided before, made the abolitionists more formidable than at any former period; so that the delay of their opponents, which they had looked upon as so great an evil, proved in the end truly serviceable to the cause.

The fate of the several motions in the House of Commons, in consequence of the partial encouragement the measure met with from the ministry, though supported by Mr. Pitt's eloquence, at length disheartened the committee for the abolition, who, says Mr. G. were reduced to this"either they must exert themselves without hope, or they must wait till some change should take place in their favour. As far as I myself was concerned, all exertion was then over. The nervous system was almost shattered to pieces. Both my memory and my hearing failed me; sudden dizzinesses seized my head; a confused singing in the ears followed me wherever I went. On going to bed the very stairs seemed to dance up and down under me, so that, misplacing my foot, I sometimes fell. Talking too, if it continued but for half an hour, exhausted me so, that profuse perspirations followed; and the same effect was produced even by an active exertion of the mind VOL. IV.

U

for the like time. These disorders had been brought on by degrees, in consequence of the severe labours necessarily attached to the promotion of the cause. For seven years I had a correspondence to maintain with 400 persons with my own band. I had some book or other annually to write on behalf of the cause. In this period, I had travelled more than thirty-five thousand miles in search of evidence, and a great part of these journeys in the night. All this time my mind had been on the stretch. It had heen bent, too, to this one subject; for I had not even leisure to attend to my own concerns. The various instances of barbarity, which had come successively to my knowledge within this period, had vexed, harassed, and afflicted it. The wound, which these had produced, was rendered still deeper by those cruel disappointments before related, which arose from the reiterated refusal of persons to give their testimony, after I had travelled hundreds of miles in quest of them. But the severest stroke was that inflicted by the persecution, begun and pursued by persons interested in the continuance of the trade, of such witnesses as had been examined against them, and whom, on account of their dependent situation in life, it was most easy to oppress. As I had been the means of bringing them forward on these occasions, they naturally came to me, when thus persecuted, as the author of their miseries and their ruin. From their supplications and wants it would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled. These different circumstances, by acting together, had at length brought me into the situation just mentioned; and I was therefore obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where I had placed the great honour and glory of my life."

Mr. Clarkson retired into the country, and by degrees his health was restored; and now, having lived to witness the long-desired ABOLITION, he waits only, like old Simeon, to depart in peace, and receive the reward reserved for so good and faithful a servant.

Lives of British Statesmen. By John Macdiarmid, Esq Author of an Inquiry into the System of National De fence in Great Britain, and of an Inquiry into the Principles of Subordination. 4to. 21. 28. Longman, 1807.

The indefatigable compiler of these memoirs lived only to complete the biography of Sir Thomas More, Lord Burleigh, Lord Strafford, and Hyde, Earl of Cla

rendon. Though, in point of composition, there is not much to admire in what he has done, he has collected so many curious and interesting facts concerning those eminent statesmen, that it is to be lamented he had not proceeded further.

Mr. M. has thus explained his plan, and the motives for his adopting it,

"Of the men who have guided the councils of our country, and attained distinguished political eminence, we are desirous to learn many particulars, which would be misplaced in the general annals of a nation, The skilful historian may seize the prominent features of their charac, ter, and describe the most important of their public transactions: but numerous anecdotes, both of their public and private life, however interesting, he must leave unrecorded, while a whole people demand his attention, We are solicitous to know the steps by which they ascended to power, the arts by which they retained their stations, the incidents by which they terminated their exalted career. We are pleased to observe them in the more private intercourse of life; to follow them into their families and closets and to discover how the men, who govern empires, conduct themselves amidst the cares and duties which are common to the humble and exalted.

"Nor is our curiosity alone interested by such information. To those who prepare to tread the same paths, and to gratify their ambition in the discharge of public functions, the progress and transactions of their illus trious predecessors must be the volume in which they are to read the most important lessons. But it is not the statesman by profession who is alone called upon to observe the results of political experience, In this country, where public opinion is possessed of so much sway, the voice even of private individuals may have some ins fluence on the national councils,

"The moral lessons afforded by the career of states、men demand not less attention. Every one is interested to learn, from such eminent examples, that the lustre of the highest station is derived from the same virtues which embellish private life; and that happiness is most attain able, as well as most secure, when our condition excites not the jealous passions of mankind.

"Such are the views which have guided the author in delineating the Lives of British Statesmen. He has been anxious to derive his information from the most authentic