But no one of the occasions, on which it
grounded its proceedings, now existed. He would plead, then, the act
itself as an argument for the abolition. If it had been proved that,
instead of being very advantageous to Great Britain, it was the most
destructive to her interests--that it was the ruin of her seamen--that
it stopped the extension of her manufactures;--if it had been proved, in
the second place, that it was not now necessary for the supply of our
Plantations with Negroes;--if it had been further established, that it
was from the beginning contrary to the first principles of justice, and
consequently that a pledge for its continuance, had one been attempted
to be given, must have been absolutely void--where in this act of
parliament was the contract to be found, by which Britain was bound, as
she was said to be, never to listen to her own true interests and to the
cries of the natives of Africa? Was it not clear, that all argument,
founded on the supposed pledge of Parliament, made against those who
employed it?
But if we were not bound by existing laws to the support of this trade,
we were doubly criminal in pursuing it; for why ought it to be abolished
at all? Because it was incurable injustice.
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