It might be stated also, that the importation of vast bodies of men, who
had been robbed of their rights, and grievously irritated on that
account, into our colonies, (where their miserable condition opened new
sources of anger and revenge,) was the importation only of the seeds of
insurrection into them. And here he could not but view with astonishment
the reasoning of the West Indian planters, who held up the example of
St. Domingo as a warning against the abolition of the Slave Trade;
because the continuance of it was one of the great causes of the
insurrections and subsequent miseries in that devoted island. Let us but
encourage importations in the same rapid progression of increase every
year, which took place in St. Domingo, and we should witness the same
effect in our own islands.
To expose the impolicy of the trade further, he would observe, that it
was an allowed axiom, that as the condition of man was improved, he
became more useful. The history of our own country, in very early times,
exhibited instances of internal slavery, and this to a considerable
extent. But we should find that; precisely in proportion as that slavery
was ameliorated, the power and prosperity of the country flourished.
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