d to produce three hogsheads of sugar, which, when cultivated by
slaves, would only produce two. The division of work, which, in free and
civilized countries, was the grand source of wealth, and the reduction of
the number of domestic servants, of whom not less than from twenty to forty
were kept in ordinary families, afforded other resources for this purpose.
But, granting that all these suppositions should be unfounded, and that
every one of these substitutes should fail for a time, the planters would
be indemnified, as is the case in all transactions of commerce, by the
increased price of their produce in the British market. Thus, by contending
against the abolition, they were defeated in every part of the argument.
But he would never give up the point, that the number of the slaves could
be kept up by natural population, and without any dependence whatever on
the Slave-trade. He therefore called upon the house again to abolish it as
a criminal waste of life--it was utterly unnecessary--he had proved it so
by documents contained in the report. The merchants of Liverpool, indeed,
had thought otherwise, but he should be cautious how he assented to their
opinions. They declared last year that it was a losing trade at two slaves
to a ton, and yet they pursued it when restricted to five slaves to three
tons. He believed, however, that it was upon the whole a losing concern; in
the same manner as the lottery would be a losing adventure to any company
who should buy all the tickets. Here and there an individual gained a large
prize, but the majority of adventurers gained nothing. The same merchants,
too, had asserted that the town of Liverpool would be ruined by the
abolition. But Liverpool did not depend for its consequence upon the
Slave-trade. The whole export-tonnage from that place amounted to no less
than 170,000 tons; whereas the export part of it to Africa amounted only to
13,000. Liverpool, he was sure, owed its greatness to other and very
different causes; the Slave-trade bearing but a small proportion to its
other trades.

Having gone through that part of the subject which related to the slaves,
he would now answer two objections which he had frequently heard started.
The first of these was, that the abolition of the Slave-trade would operate
to the total ruin of our navy, and to the increase of that of our rivals.
For an answer to these assertions, he referred, to what he considered to be
the most valuable part of