$56 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
they feared. In 1785, the University of Cam* 
bridge proposed a question concerning the slavery 
and commerce of the human species ; to a Latin 
Essay on which subject, by Mr T. Clarkson, the 
first prize was adjudged. An English translation 
of this Essay was soon after published, which was 
followed by other two, at different periods, " On 
" the Impolicy of the Slave-trade," and " On the 
" Inefficacy of its Regulation." By means of these 
publications, such horrid mysteries of iniquity were 
unveiled, that the friends of human nature caught 
the alarm, the Society for the Abolition of the 
Slave-Trade was formed, and Wilberforce in- 
troduced the subject into the British Parliament, 
and prosecuted his design with such disinterested 
zeal and indefatigable perseverance, as must not 
only endear his name to the virtuous of every age, 
but class him with the great benefactors of hu- 
man nature. During the American war, many 
negroes, (according to the humane maxims of 
war,) who had been invited to take up arms and 
massacre their masters, had entered on board the 
British ships of war, or repaired to the British 
standard, where they had been formed into re- 
giments of rangers. At the termination of the 
war, in 1783, they were dispersed, with the white 
loyalists, among the Bahama Islands and Nova 
Scotia, while many were conveyed to Great Bri- 
tain, especially to London. There, indigent and 
idle, despised and forlorn, they were soon vitiated 
