ter reading the evidence on the
table, and attending to the debate, could avow himself an abetter of this
shameful traffic in human flesh, it could only be either from some hardness
of heart, or some difficulty of understanding, which he really knew not how
to account for.

Some had considered this question as a question of political, whereas it
was a question of personal, freedom. Political freedom was undoubtedly a
great blessing; but, when it came to be compared with personal, it sank to
nothing. To confound the two, served therefore to render all arguments on
either perplexing and unintelligible. Personal freedom was the first right
of every human being. It was a right, of which he who deprived a
fellow-creature was absolutely criminal in so depriving him, and which he
who withheld was no less criminal in withholding. He could not therefore
retract his words with respect to any, who (whatever respect he might
otherwise have for them) should, by their vote of that night, deprive their
fellow-creatures of so great a blessing. Nay, he would go further. He would
say, that if the House, knowing what the trade was by the evidence, did not
by their vote mark to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so savage,
so enormous, so repugnant to all laws human and divine, they would consign
their character to eternal infamy.

That the pretence of danger to our West Indian islands from the abolition
of the Slave-trade was totally unfounded, Mr. Wilberforce had abundantly
proved: but if there were they, who had not been satisfied with that proof,
was it possible to resist the arguments of Mr. Pitt on the same subject? It
had been shown, on a comparison of the births and deaths in Jamaica, that
there was not now any decrease of the slaves. But if there had been, it
would have made no difference to him in his vote; for, had the mortality
been ever so great there, he should have ascribed it to the system of
importing Negros, instead of that of encouraging their natural increase.
Was it not evident, that the planters thought it more convenient to buy
them fit for work, than to breed them? Why, then, was this horrid trade to
be kept up?--To give the planters, truly, the liberty of misusing their
slaves, so as to check population; for it was from ill-usage only that, in
a climate so natural to them, their numbers could diminish. The very
ground, therefore, on which the planters rested the necessity of fresh
importations, namely, the