mortality was among the newly imported slaves. The diseases
they contracted on the passage, and their deaths in the seasoning, all
made for the same doctrine. Add to this, that slaves bred in the islands
were more expert at colonial labour, more reconciled to their situation,
and better disposed towards their masters than those who were brought
from Africa.

But it had been said, that the births and deaths in the islands were now
equal; and that therefore no further supply was wanted. He denied the
propriety of this inference. The slaves were subject to peculiar
diseases. They were exposed also to hurricanes and consequent famines.
That the day, however, would come, when the stock there would be
sufficient, no person who attended to the former part of his argument
could doubt. That they had gradually increased, were gradually
increasing, and would, by certain regulations, increase more and more,
must be equally obvious. But these were all considerations for
continuing the traffic a little longer.

He then desired the House to reflect upon the state of St. Domingo. Had
not its calamities been imputed by its own deputies to the advocates for
the abolition? Were ever any scenes of horror equal to those which had
passed there? And should we, when principles of the same sort were
lurking in our own islands, expose our fellow-subjects to the same
miseries, who, if guilty of promoting this trade, had, at least, been
encouraged in it by ourselves?

That the Slave Trade was an evil, he admitted. That the state of slavery
itself was likewise an evil, he admitted; and if the question was, not
whether we should abolish, but whether we should establish these, he
would be the first to oppose himself to their existence; but there were
many evils, which we should have thought it our duty to prevent, yet
which, when they had once arisen, it was more dangerous to oppose than
to submit to,--The duty of a statesman was, not to consider abstractedly
what was right or wrong, but to weigh the consequences which were likely
to result from the abolition of an evil, against those which were likely
to result from its continuance. Agreeing then most perfectly with the
abolitionists in their end, he differed from them only in the means of
accomplishing it. He was desirous of doing that gradually, which he
conceived they were doing rashly. He had therefore drawn up two
propositions. The first was, That an address be presented to His
Majesty, tha