concerned their interests to do it. Such a measure,
also, would only be consistent with the principles of the British
constitution. It was surely strange that we, who were ourselves free,
should carry on a Slave Trade with Africa, and that we should never
think of introducing cultivation into the West Indies by free labourers.

That such a measure would tend to their interest he had no doubt. Did
not all of them agree with Mr. Long, that the great danger in the West
Indies arose from the importation of the African slaves there? Mr. Long
had asserted, that all the insurrections there arose from these. If this
statement was true, how directly it bore upon the present question! But
we were told, also, by the same author, that the Slave Trade gave rise
to robbery, murder, and all kinds of depredations on the coast of
Africa. Had this been answered? No: except indeed it had been said that
the slaves were such as had been condemned for crimes. Well, then, the
imported Africans consisted of all the convicts, rogues, thieves, and
vagabonds in Africa. But would the West Indians choose to depend on
fresh supplies of these for the cultivation of their lands, and the
security of their islands, when it was also found that every
insurrection had arisen from them? It was plain the safety of the
islands was concerned in this question. There would be danger so long as
the trade lasted. The planters were, by these importations, creating the
engines of their own destruction. Surely they would act more to their
own interest if they would concur in extinguishing the trade, than by
standing up for its continuance.

He would now ask them, what right they had to suppose that Africa would
for ever remain in a state of barbarism. If once an enlightened prince
were to rise up there, his first act would be to annihilate the Slave
Trade. If the light of heaven were ever to descend upon that continent,
it would directly occasion its downfall. It was their interest then to
contrive a mode of supplying labour, without trusting to precarious
importations from that quarter. They might rest assured that the trade
could not continue. He did not allude to the voice of the people in the
petitions then lying on the table of the House; but he knew certainly,
that an idea not only of the injustice, but of the impolicy, of this
trade had been long entertained by men of the most enlightened
understandings in this country. Was it then a prudent thing for them to