12. That the accounts from the Leeward Islands, and from Dominica,
Grenada, and St. Vincent's, did not furnish sufficient grounds for
comparing the state of population in the said islands, at different
periods, with the number of slaves, which had been from time to time
imported there, and exported therefrom; but that from the evidence which
had been received, respecting the present state of these islands, as
well as that of Jamaica and Barbados, and from a consideration of the
means of obviating the causes, which had hitherto operated to impede the
natural increase of the slaves, and of lessening the demand for manual
labour, without diminishing the profit of the planters, no considerable
or permanent inconvenience would result from discontinuing the further
importation of African slaves.
These propositions having been laid upon the table of the House, Lord
Penrhyn rose in behalf of the planters; and next, after him, Mr.
Gascoyne, (both members for Liverpool,) in behalf of the merchants
concerned in the latter place. They both predicted the ruin and misery
which would inevitably follow the abolition of the trade. The former
said, that no less than seventy millions were mortgaged upon lands in
the West Indies, all of which would be lost.
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