They differed in this
entirely from the imported slaves, who were both a burthen and a curse
to themselves and others. The measure now proposed would operate like a
charm; and, besides stopping all the miseries in Africa and the passage,
would produce even more benefit in the West Indies than legal
regulations could effect.
He would now just touch upon the question of emancipation. A rash
emancipation of the slaves would be mischievous. In that unhappy
situation, to which our baneful conduct had brought ourselves and them,
it would be no justice on either side to give them liberty. They were as
yet incapable of it; but their situation might be gradually amended.
They might be relieved from everything harsh and severe; raised from
their present degraded state; and put under the protection of the law.
Till then, to talk of emancipation was insanity. But it was the system
of fresh importations, which interfered with these principles of
improvement; and it was only the abolition which could establish them.
This suggestion had its foundation in human nature. Wherever the
incentive of honour, credit, and fair profit appeared, energy would
spring up; and when these labourers should have the natural springs of
human action afforded them, they would then rise to the natural level of
human industry.
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