pily escape from butchery, they would be reserved only
for ruin.

An appeal was then made to them on the ground of their own interest and of
that of the people, whom they represented. It was stated that the ruin of
the islands would be the ruin of themselves and of the country. Its revenue
would be half annihilated. Its naval strength would decay. Merchants,
manufacturers and others would come to beggary. But in this deplorable
situation they would expect to be indemnified for their losses.
Compensation indeed must follow. It could not be withheld. But what would
be the amount of it? The country would have no less than from eighty to a
hundred millions to pay the sufferers; and it would be driven to such
distress in paying this sum us it had never before experienced.

The last attempt was to show them that a regulation of the trade was all
that was now wanted. While this would remedy the evils complained of, it
would prevent the mischief which would assuredly follow the abolition. The
planters had already done their part. The assemblies of the different
islands had most of them made wholesome laws upon the subject. The very
bills passed for this purpose in Jamaica and Grenada had arrived in
England, and might be seen by the public: the great grievances had
been redressed: no slave could now be mutilated or wantonly killed
by his owner; one man could not now maltreat, or bruise, or wound
the slave of another; the aged could not now be turned off to perish
by hunger. There were laws also relative to the better feeding and
clothing of the slaves. It remained only that the trade to Africa
should be put under as wise and humane regulations as the slavery in
the islands had undergone.

These different statements, appearing now in the public papers from day to
day, began, in this early stage of the question, when the subject in all
its bearings was known but to few, to make a considerable impression upon
those, who were soon to be called to the decision of it. But that, which
had the greatest effect upon them, was the enormous amount of the
compensation, which, it was said, must be made. This statement against the
abolition was making its way so powerfully, that Archdeacon Paley thought
it his duty to write, and to send to the committee, a little treatise
called Arguments against the unjust Pretensions of Slave-dealers and
Holders, to be indemnified by pecuniary Allowances at the public Expense in
case the Slave-trade should