For the most remote of all the human springs, which can be traced as having any bearing upon the great event in question, will fall within the period of three centuries, and the most powerful of them within the last twenty years.

These circumstances indeed have had their share in inducing me to engage in the present history.

Had I measured it by the importance of the subject, I had been deterred: but believing that most readers love the truth, and that it ought to be the object of all writers to promote it, and believing moreover, that I was in possession of more facts on this subject than any other person, I thought I was peculiarly called upon to undertake it.
In tracing the different streams from whence the torrent arose, which has now happily swept away the Slave-trade, I must begin with an inquiry as to those who favoured the cause of the injured Africans from the year 1516 to the year 1787, at which latter period a number of persons associated themselves in England for its abolition.

For though they, who belonged to this association, may, in consequence of having pursued a regular system, be called the principal actors, yet it must be acknowledged that their efforts would never have been so effectual, if the minds of men had not been prepared by others, who had moved before them.

Great events have never taken place without previously disposing causes.