rdinary assertions: First, that the
trade was defensible on Scriptural ground.--"Both thy bondmen and thy
bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen, that are
round about thee; of them shall you have bondmen and bondmaids. And thou
shalt take them as an heritance for thy children after thee to inherit
them for a possession; they shall be thy bondmen for ever." Secondly,
that the trade had been so advantageous to this country, that it would
have been advisable even to institute a new one, if the old had not
existed.

Mr. Wilberforce replied to General Gascoyne. He then took a view of the
speech of Lord Castlereagh, which he answered point by point. In the
course of his observations he showed that the system of duties
progressively increasing, as proposed by the noble lord, would be one of
the most effectual modes of perpetuating the Slave Trade. He exposed,
also, the false foundation of the hope of any reliance on the
co-operation of the colonists. The House, he said, had, on the motion of
Mr. Ellis, in the year 1797, prayed his Majesty to consult with the
colonial legislatures to take such measures, as might conduce to the
gradual abolition of the African Slave Trade. This address was
transmitted to them by Lord Melville. It was received in some of the
islands with a declaration, "that they possibly might, in some
instances, endeavour to improve the condition of their slaves; but they
should do this, not with any view to the abolition of the Slave Trade;
for they considered that trade as their birth-right, which could not be
taken from them; and that we should deceive ourselves by supposing, that
they would agree to such a measure."

He desired to add to this the declaration of General Prevost in his
public letter from Dominica. Did he not say, when asked what steps had
been taken there in consequence of the resolution of the House in 1797,
"that the act of the legislature, entitled an act for the encouragement,
protection, and better government of slaves, appeared to him to have
been considered, from the day it was passed until this hour, as a
political measure to avert the interference of the mother country in the
management of the slaves."

Sir William Yonge censured the harsh language of Sir Samuel Romilly, who
had applied the terms rapine, robbery, and murder to those, who were
connected with the Slave Trade. He considered the resolution of Mr. Fox
as a prelude to a bill for the abolition of that