By an improvement then in the mode of
labour, the work in the islands could be doubled. But if so, what would
become of the argument of his honourable friend? for then only half the
number of the present labourers were necessary.
He would now try this argument of expediency by other considerations.
The best informed writers on the subject had told us, that the purchase
of new Negroes was injurious to the, planters. But if this statement was
just, would not the abolition be beneficial to them? That it would, was
the opinion of Mr. Long, their own historian. "If the Slave Trade," says
he, "was prohibited for four or five years, it would enable them to
retrieve their affairs by preventing them from running into debt, either
by renting or purchasing Negroes." To this acknowledgment he would add a
fact from the evidence, which was, that a North American province, by
such a prohibition alone for a few years from being deeply plunged in
debt, had become independent, rich, and flourishing.
The next consideration was the danger, to which the islands, were
exposed from the newly imported slaves. Mr. Long, with a view of
preventing insurrections, had advised, that a duty equal to a
prohibition, might be laid on the importation of Coromantine slaves.
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