ABSTRACT
Looking back from 1808 Clarkson had no doubt of the enormity of the task which had faced him and his collaborators a little over twenty years earlier.
The slave trade may be considered, like the fabulous hydra, to have had a hundred heads, every one of which it was necessary to cut off before it could be subdued. And as none but Hercules was fitted to conquer the one, so nothing less than extraordinary prudence, courage, labour and patience could overcome the other.
