went, with my books, papers, and African productions. Mr. Pitt examined them himself. He turned over leaf after leaf, in which the copies of the muster rolls were contained, with great patience, and when he had looked over above a hundred pages accurately, and found the name of every seaman inserted—his former abode or service—the time of his entry—and what had become of him, either by death, discharge, or desertion—he confessed with some emotion, that his doubts were wholly removed, with respect to the destructive nature of the employ; and he said, that the facts contained in these documents if they had been but fairly copied, could never be disproved.
"He was equally astonished at the various woods, and other productions of Africa; but most of all, at the manufactures of the natives, in cotton, leather, gold and iron, which were laid before him. These, he handled and examined over and over again. On the sight of these, many sublime thoughts seemed to rush in upon him at once; some of which he expressed, with observations becoming a great and dignified mind." Granville Sharp's notes declare the same conviction of Mr. Pitt's magnanimity and integrity in this holy cause.
But though Sharp, as chairman and member of the committee of the society for abolishing the African slave trade, confined himself to that particular and limited object, he did not merge therein his personal and separate identity, or forsake the nobler yearnings of his soul. Alive to the cause of universal philanthropy, he seized every opportunity of urging the sacred cause of the slave; and of asserting the principle dear to his heart, which the British code and everlasting law alike establish, "that it is better to suffer every evil, than to consent to any," Melius est omnia mala pati, quam malo consentire. In a letter to the Bishop of London, of January, 1795, he earnestly warns him, "of the great national danger, of tolerating slavery in any part of the British dominions," and urges the scriptural doctrines, that "the throne is established by righteousness," and that no power can be durably established without it. In a memorandum, (without date) the
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