The question was, not whether there was not some evil
attending the Slave Trade, but whether by the measure now before them
they should increase or diminish the quantity of human misery in the
world. He believed, for one, considering the internal state of Africa,
and the impossibility of procuring the concurrence of foreign nations in
the measure, that they would not be able to do any good by the adoption
of it.
As to the impolicy of the trade, the policy of it, on the other hand,
was so great, that he trembled at the consequences of its abolition. The
property connected with this question amounted to a hundred millions.
The annual produce of the islands was eighteen millions, and it yielded
a revenue of four millions annually. How was this immense property and
income to be preserved? Some had said it would be preserved, because the
black population in the islands could be kept up without further
supplies; but the planters denied this assertion, and they were the best
judges of the subject.
He condemned the resolution as a libel upon the wisdom of the law of the
land; and upon the conduct of their ancestors. He condemned it also,
because, if followed up, it would lead to the abolition of the trade,
and the abolition of the trade to the emancipation of the slaves in our
colonies.
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