e clear and irrefragable calculations of Mr.
Pitt. The former had argued, that, because Jamaica and the ceded islands
had retained almost all the slaves which had been, imported into them,
they were therefore not yet in a situation to support their population
without further supplies from Africa. But the truth was, that the
slaves, so retained, were kept, not to maintain the population there,
but to clear new land. Now the House had determined, that the trade was
not to be continued for this purpose. The population, therefore, in the
islands was sufficient to continue the ordinary cultivation of them.

He deprecated the idea, that the Slave Trade had been so sanctioned by
the acts of former Parliaments, that the present could make no
alteration in it. Had not the House altered the import of foreign sugar
into our islands? a measure, which at the time affected the property of
many. Had they not prohibited the exports of provisions from America to
the same quarter; Again, as to compacts, had the Africans ever been
parties to these? It was rather curious also, when King James the Second
gave a charter to the slave-trader, that he should have given them a
right to all the south of Africa, and authority over every person born
therein! But, by doing this, it was clear that he gave them a right
which he never possessed himself. After many other observations, he
concluded by moving, "that the year 1793 be substituted in the place of
the year 1800."

In the course of the debate, which followed, Mr. Burdon stated his
conviction of the necessity of immediate abolition; but he would support
the amendment, as the shortest of the terms proposed.

Mr. Robert Thornton would support it also, as the only choice left him.
He dared not accede to a motion, by which we were to continue for seven
years to imbrue our hands in innocent blood.

Mr. Ryder (now Earl of Harrowby) would not support the trade for one
moment, if he could avoid it. He could not hold a balance with gold in
one scale, and blood in the other.

Mr. William Smith exposed the wickedness of restricting the trade to
certain ages. The original motion, he said, would only operate as a
transfer of cruelty from the aged and the guilty to the young and the
innocent. He entreated the House to consider, whether, if it related to
their own children, any one of them would vote for it.

Mr. Windham had hitherto felt a reluctance to speaking, not from the
abstruseness, but from the