They who had attempted the abolition of the trade were led away by a
mistaken humanity; the Africans themselves had no objection to its
continuance.
With respect to the middle passage, he believed the mortality there to
be on an average only five in the hundred; whereas in regiments sent out
to the West Indies, the average loss in the year was about ten and a
half per cent.
The Slave Trade was absolutely necessary, if we meant to carry on our
West India commerce; for many attempts had been made to cultivate the
lands in the different islands by white labourers, but they had always
failed.
It had also the merit of keeping up a number of seamen in readiness for
the state. Lord Rodney had stated this as one of its advantages on the
breaking out of a war. Liverpool alone could supply nine hundred and
ninety-three seamen annually.
He would now advert to the connexions dependent upon the African trade.
It was the duty of the House to protect the planters, whose lives had
been, and were then, exposed to imminent, dangers, and whose property
had undergone an unmerited, depreciation. To what could this
depreciation, and to what could the late insurrection at Dominica be
imputed, which had been saved from horrid carnage and midnight-butchery
only by the adventitious arrival of two British regiments? They could
only be attributed to the long delayed question of the abolition of the
Slave Trade; and if this question were to go much longer unsettled,
Jamaica would be endangered also.
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