"
Lord Mornington (now Marquis Wellesley) rose to propose an amendment. He
congratulated his countrymen, that the Slave Trade had received its
death-wound. This traffic was founded in injustice; and between right
and wrong there could be no compromise. Africa was not to be sacrificed
to the apparent good of the West Indies. He would not repeat those
enormities out of the evidence, which had made such a deep impression
upon the House. It had been resolved, that the trade should be
abolished. The question then was, how long they were to persevere in the
crime of its continuance? One had said, that they might be unjust for
ten years longer; another, only till the beginning of the next century.
But this diversity of opinion had proceeded from an erroneous statement
of Mr. Dundas against the clear and irrefragable calculations of Mr.
Pitt. The former had argued, that, because Jamaica and the ceded islands
had retained almost all the slaves which had been, imported into them,
they were therefore not yet in a situation to support their population
without further supplies from Africa. But the truth was, that the
slaves, so retained, were kept, not to maintain the population there,
but to clear new land.
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