Merchants, manufacturers and others would come to beggary. But in this
deplorable situation they would expect to be indemnified for their
losses. Compensation, indeed, must follow: it could not be withheld. But
what would be the amount of it? The country would have no less than from
eighty to a hundred millions to pay the sufferers; and it would be
driven to such distress in paying this sum as it had never before
experienced.
The last attempt was to show them that a regulation of the trade was all
that was now wanted. While this would remedy the evils complained of, it
would prevent the mischief which would assuredly follow the abolition.
The planters had already done their part. The assemblies of the
different islands had most of them made wholesome laws upon the subject.
The very bills passed for this purpose in Jamaica and Grenada had
arrived in England, and might be seen by the public; the great
grievances had been redressed; no slave could now be mutilated or
wantonly killed by his owner; one man could not now maltreat, or bruise,
or wound the slave of another; the aged could not now be turned off to
perish by hunger. There were laws, also, relative to the better feeding
and clothing of the slaves.
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