ry, prevailing only a few years ago, in the
collieries in certain boroughs of Scotland. Emancipation there was thought
a duty by Parliament: But what an opposition there was to the measure!
Nothing but ruin would be the consequence of it! After several years
struggle the bill was carried. Within a year after, the ruin so much talked
of vanished in smoke, and there was an end of the business. It had also
been contended that Sir William Dolben's bill would be the ruin of
Liverpool: and yet one of its representatives had allowed, that this bill
had been of benefit to the owners of the slave-vessels there. Was he then
asking too much of the West Indians, to request a candid consideration of
the real ground of their alarms? He would conclude by stating, that he
meant to propose a middle way of proceeding. If there was a number of
members in the House, who thought with him, that this trade ought to be
ultimately abolished, but yet by moderate measures, which should neither
invade the property nor the prejudices of individuals; he wished them to
unite, and they might then reduce the question to its proper limits.

Mr. Addington (the speaker) professed himself to be one of those moderate
persons called upon by Mr. Dundas. He wished to see some middle measure
suggested. The fear of doing injury to the property of others, had hitherto
prevented him from giving an opinion against a system, the continuance of
which he could not countenance.

He utterly abhorred the Slave-trade. A noble and learned lord, who had now
retired from the bench, said on a certain occasion, that he pitied the
loyalty of that man, who imagined that any epithet could aggravate the
crime of treason. So he himself knew of no language which could aggravate
the crime of the Slave-trade. It was sufficient for every purpose of
crimination, to assert, that man thereby was bought and sold, or that he
was made subject to the despotism of man. But though he thus acknowledged
the justice due to a whole continent on the one side, he confessed there
were opposing claims of justice on the other. The case of the West Indians
deserved a tender consideration also.

He doubted, if we were to relinquish the Slave-trade alone, whether it
might not be carried on still more barbarously than at present; and
whether, if we were to stop it altogether, the islands could keep up their
present stocks. It had been asserted that they could. But he thought that
the stopping of the import