In both cases therefore it
was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labour during the
whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labour. Hence the
Slave Trade and the colonial slavery were a violation of the very
principle, upon which all law for the protection of property was
founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade, to an individual,
it was derived from dishonour and dishonesty. He forced from the unhappy
victim of it that, which the latter did not wish to give him; and he
gave to the same victim that, which he in vain attempted to show was an
equivalent to the thing he took,--it being a thing for which there was
no equivalent; and which, if he had not obtained by force, he would not
have possessed at all. Nor could there be any answer to this reasoning,
unless it could be proved, that it had pleased God to give to the
inhabitants of Britain a property in the liberty and life of the natives
of Africa. But he would go further on this subject. The injustice
complained of was not confined to the bare circumstance of robbing them
of the right to their own labour. It was conspicuous throughout the
system. They, who bought them, became guilty of all the crimes which had
been committed in procuring them, and when they possessed them, of all
the crimes which belonged to their inhuman treatment. The injustice in
the latter case amounted frequently to murder. For what was it but
murder to pursue a practice, which produced untimely death to thousands
of innocent and helpless beings? It was a duty, which their lordships
owed to their Creator, if they hoped for mercy, to do away this
monstrous oppression.

With respect to the impolicy of the trade, (the third point in the
resolution,) he would say at once, that whatever was inhuman and unjust
must be, impolitic. He had, however, no objection to argue the point
upon its own particular merits: and, first, he would observe, that a
great man, Mr. Pitt, now no more, had exerted his vast powers on many
subjects, to the admiration of his hearers; but on none more
successfully than on the subject of the abolition of the Slave Trade. He
proved, after making an allowance for the price paid for the slaves in
the West Indies, for the loss of them in the seasoning, and for the
expense of maintaining them afterwards; and comparing these particulars
with the amount in value of their labour there, that the evils endured
by the victims of the traffic were no gain t