in the seasoning.

He then argued the impossibility of beasts doing the work of the
plantations. He endeavoured to prove that the number of these, adequate to
this purpose, could not be supplied with food; and after having made many
other observations, which, on account of the lowness of his voice, could
not be heard, he concluded by objecting to the motion.

Mr. William Smith rose. He wondered how the last speaker could have had the
boldness to draw arguments from scripture in support of the Slave-trade.
Such arguments could be intended only to impose on those, who never took
the trouble of thinking for themselves. Could it be thought for a moment,
that the good sense of the House could be misled by a few perverted or
misapplied passages, in direct opposition to the whole tenor and spirit of
Christianity; to the theory, he might say, of almost every religion, which
had ever appeared in the world? Whatever might have been advanced, every
body must feel, that the Slave-trade could not exist an hour, if that
excellent maxim, "to do to others as we would wish that others should do to
us," had its proper influence on the conduct of men.

Nor was Mr. Stanley more happy in his argument of the antiquity and
universality of slavery. Because a practice had existed, did it necessarily
follow that it was just? By this argument every crime might be defended
from the time of Cain. The slaves of antiquity, however, were in a
situation far preferable to that of the Negros in the West Indies. A
passage in Macrobius, which exemplified this in the strongest manner, was
now brought to his recollection. "Our ancestors," says Macrobius,
"denominated the master father of the family, and the slave domestic, with
the intention of removing all odium from the condition of the master, and
all contempt from that of the servant." Could this language be applied to
the present state of West India slavery?

It had been complained of by those who supported the trade, that they
laboured under great disadvantages by being obliged to contend against the
most splendid abilities which the House could boast. But he believed they
laboured under one, which was worse, and for which no talents could
compensate; he meant the impossibility of maintaining their ground fairly
on any of those principles, which every man within those walls had been
accustomed, from his infancy, to venerate as sacred. He and his friends too
laboured under some disadvantages. They had