ments to their dwelling places, to their families, to their masters, they would gradually rise in the scale of beings. No longer ready on every occasion to start into insurrections, they would cease to be the continual objects of the planter's jealousy and suspicion. It would be no longer necessary for the general safety to extinguish in them the principle of moral agency. They would feel more respectable in themselves and be more respected by others; and by degrees, the harshness of their present bondage being transformed into the mildness of patriarchal servitude, they would become capable of still greater blessings and more ennobling privileges. Gentlemen will observe it is the peculiar merit of this plan, that though its full effects cannot be produced at once, we are all the while tending to their complete enjoyment, with a uniform and uninterrupted course. The slaves will daily grow happier, the islands safer, the planters richer; the whole will be like the progress of vegetation, the effects are not at first perceptible, but the great principle operating in ten thousand ways, will gradually change the whole face of things, and substitute fertility and beauty in the place of barrenness and desolation. Who is there that contemplates this delightful prospect, but must ardently long to have it realized? It is, I am persuaded, our common wish, our universal, our impatient expectation.

But it was formerly urged that this was a remedy which, however desirable in itself, the islands were not as yet in a state to admit. It was contended that they could not keep up their numbers without further importations from Africa; that were these stopped, their gangs would continually be growing weaker and weaker, until, at length, their estates should be thrown wholly out of cultivation. When the question of abolition was last before the house, I went into this subject so much at large, that I need only now advert to what I then urged; but, if it be thought necessary, I shall repeat and confirm it. It was then made out by my right honourable friend* with his usual accu

* Mr. Pitt.

racy, and that too from documents furnished by our opponents themselves, that the islands were actually keeping up their stocks of slaves. His calculations, so far from being refuted, have not, that I know of, even been denied; and the fact was confirmed by the positive testimony of a gentleman of great experience, examined in the island of Jamaica. We showed you that it had taken place under every possible circumstance of disadvantage; that the various evils under which the slaves laboured, and above all the general inattention to the breeding system, would have led us to expect a great decrease; but, that in spite of them all, great and numerous as they were, an increase having begun to take place, we were warranted in believing that the amendment of one or two particulars out of many, would alone be sufficient to render the increase rapid; and we found that negroes had actually increased considerably in various countries, and climates, and situations, many of them extremely ill adapted to their constitutions. We pointed out also many modes, whereby, if it should be deemed necessary, the chasm could be filled up, which some might think would be occasioned by immediate abolition. A great supply of hands may be obtained by turning into the field some of the superfluous domesticks, with whose immense number every gentleman, who knew any thing of the West Indies, was perfectly acquainted. Improvements in machinery were suggested; the transfer of the lands from sugar to cotton, which, requiring fewer hands, would let loose a number of labourers for other purposes. These, and other modes were proposed, whereby the quantity of laborious industry might receive supplies. But what, above all other circumstances, I must now insist on is, that five years importations have since taken place. Had there been any small errour in the calculations of my right honourable friend, or had I strained my subsidiary arguments a little too far, it is impossible to deny but that this must now be more than rectified, and that the islands are, at length, in a state to suffer not even a temporary inconvenience from the admis

sion of this salutary expedient. If, therefore, you have any regard for the happiness of the slaves, or for the safety of the islands; nay, if you are even dead to these powerful incentives, and were alive only to considerations of the planters' interest, you could not but consent to the measure I recommend to you, of stopping the further importation of African slaves.

And now, sir, abstaining, for a while, from those topicks, which, I confess after all, are nearest to my heart, I will slightly touch on what were originally said to be other disadvantages that would follow from the abolition. I wish to add up every possible item before 1 proceed to place any thing on the opposite side of the account. By this mode, it will more plainly appear how much the balance is in my favour. It was originally urged that the African trade was a nursery for seamen, and that its abolition would, of course, be highly injurious to our naval strength. This part of the subject was very early taken up by a gentlemen whose services, in the whole of this great cause, can never be overrated. I need hardly say I allude to Mr. Clarkson. He asserted, as the result of a long and laborious inquiry, that of the sailors employed in the African trade, between a fifth and sixth actually died; and that they seldom brought home more than half of their original crews. Nothing was more vehemently repelled or more obstinately resisted than these positions, till, at length, having long born with these clamorous contradictions, we moved last year for the muster rolls, documents prepared by our opponents themselves, and kept in their possession, and which cannot, therefore, be supposed to have been fabricated to serve our purpose. From these, Mr. Clarkson's calculations were fully justified." It appeared, that of twelve thousand two hundred and sixty-three persons, the number of the original crews, there had died two thousand, six hundred and fortythree, the average length of their voyages being twelve months; whilst, on the contrary, in the West India trade, in which the length of the voyage was seven months, of seven thousand, six hundred and

forty, the number of the original crews, there had died only one hundred and eighteen. But the loss by deaths was not the whole loss to the country. For, besides the broken constitutions of the survivers, which rendered many of them for the rest of their lives incapable of the duties of their profession, so many left their ships in consequence of ill usage, that they seldom brought home more than half of the persons they had taken out. This last circumstance was attempted to be accounted for, from the natural capriciousness of sailors; and it was said that they ran away in as great number from the West India as from the Guinea ships. The direct contrary appeared from the muster rolls, and this too, though from the different ways of paying them in the two trades, their forfeiting little or nothing by quitting the West Indiamen, but much by quitting the Guineamen, the reverse might be naturally expected.

I could say much more on this subject, and, in particular, I could open to you such scenes of cruelty to these unhappy men, as must excite at once the concern and indignation of every one who feels for that mass of his fellow citizens to which this nation owes so much of her safety and of her honour. But I will abstain from this painful detail, and only repeat what I recently observed, that in the outset of this business nothing was more obstinately denied than our now, no longer controverted assertions concerning the loss of seamen. This may serve to procure us credit on those points which are still in dispute, and prove that it is not necessary for our opponents to be correct in order to be positive.

I will but just touch on the effects of immediate abolition on our general policy; on our commerce and manufactures, and on the prosperity of the places whence the slave trade is chiefly carried on. We have seen from the accounts upon your table how small a part it constitutes of the trade of Bristol and of Liverpool; and that it has become less profitable of late, cannot be denied by those gentlemen who as serted that the regulations actually introduced would

make it a losing concern. For though it were said that in the heat of opposition they might have pushed their assertions a little too far, yet it will hardly be allowed them at one moment to speak of an actual loss, and at another of an actual gain so great that it would ruin those opulent towns to be deprived of it. After the statements we have lately heard of the publick finances, and our immense exportations of British manufactures, who is there that will insist much on our exportations to Africa, to the amount of about four hundred thousand pounds, or who that will not admit we might soon establish a commerce with that country more beneficial and more innocent, were we to put a stop to this inhuman traffick in the flesh and blood of our fellow creatures?

Nor can it even be urged that the immediate abolition of the slave trade would, in this view, be productive of considerable present inconvenience. Consider what happens both at the commencement and close of every war; how, in the former case, the existing channels for the conveyance of our manufactures are suddenly barred up. The system of political economy is of so complicated a nature, that in innumerable instances we find the effect of the evils we had apprehended prevented by means of which before we had no actual ascertainment or distinct perception. I remember it is observed by Mr. Adam Smith, in his incomparable treatise on the Wealth of Nations, that at the conclusion of every war, more than one hundred thousand soldiers and sailors are at once discharged; and we see no alteration in the wages of labour, or in any other particular which the sudden influx might be expected to affect.

As to another branch of national policy, that I mean which concerns the extension of our cultivation in the West India islands, I will say nothing at present. From our evidence it abundantly appears, that the opening of new plantations with imported Africans is a system the most ruinous to the individuals concerned; and the intelligent reasonings of Mr. Irvine