ent for Jamaica. The third from J. Dawson,
Esq., a slave-merchant at Liverpool. And the fourth from the merchants,
planters, mortgagees, annuitants, and others concerned in the West
Indian colonies. Taking in all these statements, the account stood
thus:--for regulation there was one; against all abolition there were
four; and for the total abolition of the trade five hundred and
nineteen.

On the 2nd of April Mr. Wilberforce moved the order of the day; which
having been agreed to, Sir William Dolben was put into the chair.

He then began by soliciting the candid attention of the West Indians to
what he was going to deliver to the House. However others might have
censured them indiscriminately, he had always himself made a distinction
between them and their system. It was the latter only which he
reprobated. If aristocracy had been thought a worse form of government
than monarchy, because the people had many tyrants instead of one, how
objectionable must be that form of it, which existed in our colonies!
Arbitrary power could be bought there by any one, who could buy a slave.
The fierceness of it was doubtless restrained by an elevation of mind in
many, as arising from a consciousness of superior rank and consequence:
but, alas! it was too often exercised there by the base and vulgar. The
more liberal, too, of the planters were not resident upon their estates.
Hence a promiscuous censure of them would be unjust, though their system
would undoubtedly be odious.

As for the cure of this monstrous evil, he had shown, last year, that
internal regulations would not produce it. These could have no effect,
while the evidence of slaves was inadmissible. What would be the
situation of the bulk of the people of this country, if only gentlemen
of five hundred a-year were admitted as evidences in our courts of law?
Neither was the cure of it in the emancipation of the slaves. He did not
deny that he wished them this latter blessing. But, alas, in their
present degraded state, they were unfit for it! Liberty was the child of
reason and order. It was, indeed, a plant of celestial growth, but the
soil must be prepared for its reception. He, who would see it flourish
and bring forth its proper fruit, must not think it sufficient to let it
shoot in unrestrained licentiousness. But if this inestimable blessing
was ever to be imparted to them, the cause must be removed, which
obstructed its introduction. In short, no effectual remedy co