traffic, and this bill
as a prelude to emancipation, which would not only be dangerous in
itself, but would change the state of property in the islands.

Lord Henry Petty, after having commented on the speeches of Sir Samuel
Romilly and Lord Castlereagh, proceeded to state his own opinion on the
trade; which was, that it was contrary to justice, humanity, and sound
policy, all of which he considered to be inseparable. On its
commencement in Africa the wickedness began. It produced there fraud and
violence, robbery and murder. It gave birth to false accusations, and a
mockery of justice. It was the parent of every crime, which could at
once degrade and afflict the human race. After spreading vice and misery
all over this continent, it doomed its unhappy victims to hardships and
cruelties which were worse than death. The first of these was
conspicuous in their transportation. It was found there, that cruelty
begat cruelty; that the system, wicked in its beginning, was equally so
in its progress; and that it perpetuated its miseries wherever it was
carried on. Nor was it baneful only to the objects, but to the promoters
of it. The loss of British seamen in this traffic was enormous.
One-fifth of all, who were employed in it, perished; that is, they
became the victims of a system, which was founded on fraud, robbery, and
murder; and which procured to the British nation nothing but the
execration of mankind. Nor had we yet done with the evils which attended
it; for it brought in its train the worst of all moral effects, not only
as it respected the poor slaves, when transported to the colonies, but
as it respected those who had concerns with them there. The arbitrary
power, which it conferred, afforded men of bad dispositions full scope
for the exercise of their passions; and it rendered men,
constitutionally of good dispositions, callous to the misery of others.
Thus it depraved the nature of all who were connected with it. These
considerations had made him a friend to the abolition, from the time he
was capable of reasoning upon it. They were considerations, also, which
determined the House, in the year 1782, to adopt a measure of the same
kind as the present. Had anything happened to change the opinion of
members, since? On the contrary, they had now the clearest evidence,
that all the arguments then used against the abolition were fallacious;
being founded, not upon truth, but on assertions devoid of all truth,
and deriv