e measure now before them
they should increase or diminish the quantity of human misery in the
world. He believed, for one, considering the internal state of Africa,
and the impossibility of procuring the concurrence of foreign nations in
the measure, that they would not be able to do any good by the adoption
of it.

As to the impolicy of the trade, the policy of it, on the other hand,
was so great, that he trembled at the consequences of its abolition. The
property connected with this question amounted to a hundred millions.
The annual produce of the islands was eighteen millions, and it yielded
a revenue of four millions annually. How was this immense property and
income to be preserved? Some had said it would be preserved, because the
black population in the islands could be kept up without further
supplies; but the planters denied this assertion, and they were the best
judges of the subject.

He condemned the resolution as a libel upon the wisdom of the law of the
land; and upon the conduct of their ancestors. He condemned it also,
because, if followed up, it would lead to the abolition of the trade,
and the abolition of the trade to the emancipation of the slaves in our
colonies.

The Bishop of St. Asaph (Dr. Horsley) said, that, allowing the slaves in
the West Indies even to be pampered with delicacies, or to be put to
rest on a bed of roses, they could not be happy, for--a slave would be
still a slave. The question, however, was not concerning the alteration
of their condition, but whether we should abolish the practice, by which
they were put in that condition? Whether it was humane, just, and
politic in us so to place them? This question was easily answered; for
he found it difficult to form any one notion of humanity, which did not
include a desire of promoting the happiness of others; and he knew of no
other justice than that, which was founded on the principle of doing to
others, as we should wish they should do to us. And these principles of
humanity and justice were so clear, that he found it difficult to make
them clearer. Perhaps no difficulty was greater than that of arguing a
self-evident proposition, and such he took to be the character of the
proposition, that the Slave Trade was inhuman and unjust.

It had been said, that slavery had existed from the beginning of the
world. He would allow it. But had such a trade as the Slave Trade ever
existed before? Would the noble Earl, who had talked of the