It was,
indeed, a great satisfaction to himself, that among the many arguments
for prohibiting the Slave Trade, the security of our West Indian
possessions against internal commotions, as well as foreign enemies, was
among the most prominent and forcible. And here he would ask his
honourable friend, whether in this part of the argument he did not see
reason for immediate abolition. Why should we any longer persist in
introducing those latent principles of conflagration, which, if they
should once burst forth, might annihilate the industry of a hundred
years? which might throw the planters back a whole century in their
profits, in their cultivation, and in their progress towards the
emancipation of their slaves? It was our duty to vote that the abolition
of the Slave Trade should be immediate, and not to leave it to he knew
not what future time or contingency.
Having now done with the argument of expediency, he would consider the
proposition of his right honourable friend Mr. Dundas; that, on account
of some patrimonial rights of the West Indians, the prohibition of the
Slave Trade would be an invasion of their legal inheritance. He would
first observe, that, if this argument was worth anything, it applied
just as much to gradual as to immediate abolition.
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