The division
of work, which, in free and civilized countries, was the grand source of
wealth, and the reduction of the number of domestic servants, of whom
not less than from twenty to forty were kept in ordinary families,
afforded other resources for this purpose. But, granting that all these
suppositions should be unfounded, and that everyone of these substitutes
should fail for a time, the planters would be indemnified, as is the
case in all transactions of commerce, by the increased price of their
produce in the British market. Thus, by contending against the
abolition, they were defeated in every part of the argument. But he
would never give up the point, that the number of the slaves could be
kept up, by natural population, and without any dependence whatever on
the Slave Trade. He therefore called upon the house again to abolish it
as a criminal waste of life--it was utterly unnecessary--he had proved
it so by documents contained in the report. The merchants of Liverpool,
indeed, had thought otherwise, but he should be cautious how he assented
to their opinions. They declared last year that it was a losing trade at
two slaves to a ton, and yet they pursued it when restricted to five
slaves to three tons.
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