318 FAREWELL SPEECH. 



should we be able to open a communication advantageous to 

 ourselves with the natives of the interior of Africa, it would be 

 our great duty to confer upon them those great benefits of 

 Christianity which have been bestowed upon ourselves. Let us 

 not make the same mistake in Africa that we have made in 

 India, but let us take to that country our Christianity with us. 



" I confess that I am not sanguine enough to hope for any 

 speedy results from this expedition, but I am sanguine as to its 

 ultimate result. I feel convinced that if we can establish a 

 system of free labor in Africa, it will have a most decided in- 

 fluence upon slavery throughout the world. Success, however, 

 under Providence, depends upon us as Englishmen. I look 

 upon Englishmen as perhaps the most freedom-loving people in 

 the world, and I think that the kindly feeling which has been 

 displayed towards me since my return to my native land has 

 arisen from the belief that my efforts might at some future time 

 tend to put an end to the odious traffic in slaves. England has, 

 unfortunately, been compelled to obtain cotton and other raw 

 material from slave States, and has thus been the mainstay and 

 support of slavery in America. Surely, then, it follows that if 

 we can succeed in obtaining the raw material from other sources 

 than from the slave States of America we should strike a heavy 

 blow at the system of slavery itself. 



" I do not wish to arouse expectations in connection with 

 this expedition which may never be realized, but what I want 

 to do is to get in the thin end of the wedge, and then I leave it 

 to be driven home by English energy and English spirit. 



" I cannot express to you in adequate language the sense 

 which I entertain of the kindness which I have received since 

 my return to this country, but I can assure you that I shall 

 ever retain a grateful recollection of the way you have received 

 me on the eve of my departure from my native land. 



" Reference has been made in language most kind to Mrs. 

 Livingstone. Now, it is scarcely fair to ask a man to praise 

 his own wife, but I can only say that when I left her at the 

 Cape, telling her that I should return in two years, and when 

 it happened that I was absent four years and a half, I supposed 

 that I should appear before her with a damaged character. I 

 was, however, forgiven. My wife will accompany me in this 



