This
was sure, to be the case, as long as the law only treated slavetrading
as a contraband commerce, subjecting those who drove it to nothing but
pecuniary penalties. But it was equally evident that the same persons
who made these calculations of profit and risk, while they only could
lose the ship or the money by a seizure, would hesitate before they
encountered the hazard of being tried as for a crime. And, surely, if
ever these was an act which deserved to be declared felony, and dealt
with as such, it was this of slave-trading. Accordingly, in 1810, Mr.
Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, in moving an address to
the crown, (which was unanimously agreed to,) for more vigorous measures
against the traffic, both British and Foreign, gave notice of the Bill,
which he next year carried through Parliament, and which declared the
traffic to be a felony, punishable with transportation. Some years
afterwards it was by another Act made capital, under the name of Piracy,
but this has since been repealed. Several convictions have taken place
under the former Act, (of 1811,) and there cannot be the least doubt
that the law has proved effectual, and that the Slave Trade has long
ceased to exist as far as the British dominions are concerned.
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