Having advanced thus far in his investigation, he felt, he said, the
wickedness of the Slave Trade to be so enormous, so dreadful, and
irremediable, that he could stop at no alternative short of its
abolition, A trade founded on iniquity, and carried on with such
circumstances of horror, must be abolished, let the policy of it be what
it might; and he had from this time determined, whatever were the
consequences, that he would never rest till he had effected that
abolition. His mind had, indeed, been harassed by the objections of the
West India planters, who had asserted, that the ruin of their property
must be the consequence of such a measure. He could not help, however,
distrusting their arguments. He could not believe that the Almighty
Being, who had forbidden the practice of rapine and bloodshed, had made
rapine and bloodshed necessary to any part of his universe. He felt a
confidence in this persuasion, and took the resolution to act upon it.
Light, indeed, soon broke in upon him. The suspicion of his mind was
every day confirmed by increasing information, and the evidence he had
now to offer upon this point was decisive and complete. The principle
upon which he founded the necessity of the abolition was not policy, but
justice: but though justice were the principle of the measure, yet he
trusted he should distinctly prove it to be reconcilable with our truest
political interest.
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