Britain
to take the lead of other nations in such a virtuous and magnificent
measure, and he could not but have confidence, that they would be inclined
to share the honour with us, or be pleased to follow us as their example.
If we were disposed to set about this glorious work in earnest, they might
be invited to concur with us by a negotiation to be immediately opened for
that purpose. He would only now observe, before he sat down, in answer to
certain ideas thrown out, that he could by no means acquiesce in any
compensation for losses, which might be sustained by the people of
Liverpool, or by others in any other part of the kingdom, in the execution
of this just and necessary undertaking.

Sir William Yonge said, he wanted no inducement to concur with the
honourable mover of the propositions, provided the latter could be fairly
established, and no serious mischiefs were to arise from the abolition. But
he was apprehensive that many evils might follow, in the case of any sudden
or unlooked-for decrease in the slaves. They might be destroyed by
hurricanes. They might be swept off by many fatal disorders. In these
cases, the owners of them would not be able to fill up their places, and
they who had lent money upon the lands, where the losses had happened,
would foreclose their mortgages. He was fearful also that a clandestine
trade would be carried on, and then the sufferings of the Africans, crammed
up in small vessels, which would be obliged to be hovering about from day
to day, to watch an opportunity of landing, would be ten times greater than
any which they now experienced in the legal trade. He was glad, however, as
the matter was to be discussed, that it had been brought forward in the
shape of distinct propositions, to be grounded upon the evidence in the
privy council report.

Mr. Fox observed, that he did not like, where he agreed as to the substance
of a measure, to differ with respect to the form of it. If, however, he
differed in any thing in the present case, it was with a view rather to
forward the business than to injure it, or to throw any thing like an
obstacle in its way. Nothing like either should come from him. What he
thought was, that all the propositions were not necessary to be voted
previously to the ultimate decision, though some of them undoubtedly were.
He considered them as of two classes: the one, alleging the grounds upon
which it was proper to proceed to the abolition; such as that the t