3830.] Voice of the Country Abolition of Slavery. 77 



dwelt on the assurances he had given his majesty, his court,, and his 

 people,, of the sure alliance and aid they might expect from Mr.Wilber- 

 force and his associates in this country !* 



" The secretary of the society next congratulated the company on the 

 display of African talent which they had just heard ; and said he would 

 favour them with another specimen of its superiority, by calling on Mr. 

 Paul for a speech." 



This Mr. Paul repeated a composition, something between a speech 

 and a sermon : but by this time the party-coloured children had made 

 their way to the table, and were delivering their sentiments so loudly 

 on the relative merits of the nuts, figs, and oranges of the desert, as to 

 give no small interruption to Mr. Paul, and render much of his narra- 

 tion inaudible. It appeared, however, to consist principally of a mix- 

 ture of religious instruction, more connected with the mysteries of the 

 Christian faith than with moral advice, and of fulsome compliments upon 

 Mr. Wilberforce, interlarded with texts of scripture. He congratulated 

 himself " on the happiness he never expected to enjoy, of seeing face to face 

 the saviour and benefactor of the blacks, the friend of the whole human 

 race," by which we presume the orator meant not merely the negroes 

 in the West Indies, but also those in the foreign colonies, in the United 

 States of America, in St. Domingo, and in Africa, for whose benefit he 

 and his associates are doing what ? strenuously exerting themselves ? 

 No! neither they nor the other philanthropists of the present day in- 

 clude these unhappy beings, nor the numerous uninstructed and starving 

 poor of Great Britain and Ireland in the narrow pale of their humanity. 



Mr.Wilberforce, who sat " attentive to his own applause, declared when 

 another of the company wished to address the chair, that he was glad 

 to find it was one of his own countrymen ; for after the admirable spe- 

 cimens of eloquence they had just heard from their brethren of colour, 

 he began to be apprehensive they had monopolized all the talents, and 

 that he should feel ashamed of his own complexion. Mr. Stephen de- 

 termined to take the lead in this gratuitous contest of humility, intimated 

 that he actually felt (the hypocrite !) that shame which Mr. Wilberforce 

 only began to apprehend. 



ft Dr. Stoddart prefaced the health of Mr.Wilberforce by an eulogium 

 upon that gentleman; according to which Mr. Wilberforce was the 

 greatest living being in this hemisphere, as King Henry of Hayti was in 

 the other ! The world was full of their fame ; and nothing but the uni- 

 versal conflagration, which is to devour the universe, would prevent its 

 continuing to resound with their praises ! !" 



Mr. Wilberforce then praised Mr. Stephen, Mr. Stephen praised Dr. 

 Stoddart, Dr. Stoddart returned the compliment with interest, and trans- 

 lated an address, composed by a French gentleman present who, like 

 King Henry, had not, we suppose, studied English in praise of Mr. 

 Wilberforce. But enough of this nauseous humbug ! 



We shall only add, that in the early part of the entertainment a black 

 man led in a white woman, with a party-coloured child, the fruit of their 



* Mr. Mackenzie in his " Notes on Haiti," gives among other documents a fac-simile of 

 a letter addressed by this enlightened monarch, as king, to " Baron de Dupuy, Secretaire, 

 &c. de S. M.," in which there is the following amusing specimen of his progress in English 

 composition and orthography : " You no me, and of sufficient and of to no I alway keeping, 

 good what, and no you too fare men alway keeping good what." The signature, is fully as 

 unintelligible as that of some members of parliament J 



