he had evidently confessed that the Slave Trade
was inhuman and unjust, and then he had insinuated, that it was neither
inhuman nor unjust to continue it. A more paradoxical or whimsical
opinion, he believed, was never entertained, or more whimsically
expressed in that house. The noble viscount had talked of the interests
of the planters; but this was but a part of the subject; for surely the
people of Africa were not to be forgotten. He did not understand the
practice of complimenting the planters with the lives of men, women, and
helpless children by thousands, for the sake of their pecuniary
advantage; and they, who adopted it, whatever they might think of the
consistency of their own conduct, offered an insult to the sacred names
of humanity and justice.

The noble Earl (Westmoreland) had asked what would be the practical
effect of the abolition of the Slave Trade. He would inform him. It
would do away the infamous practices which took place in Africa; it
would put an end to the horrors of the passage; it would save many
thousands of our fellow-creatures from the miseries of eternal slavery;
it would oblige the planters to treat those better, who were already in
that unnatural state; it would increase the population of our islands;
it would give a death-blow to the diabolical calculations, whether it
was cheaper to work the Negroes to death and recruit the gangs by fresh
importations, or to work them moderately and to treat them kindly. He
knew of no event, which would be attended with so many blessings.

There was but one other matter, which he would notice. The noble baron
(Hawkesbury) had asserted, that all the horrors of St. Domingo were the
consequence of the speculative opinions which were current in a
neighbouring kingdom on the subject at liberty. They had, he said, no
such origin. They were owing to two causes; first, to the vast number of
Negroes recently imported into that island; and, secondly, to a
scandalous breach of faith by the French legislature. This legislature
held out the idea not only of the abolition of the Slave Trade, but also
of all slavery; but it broke its word. It held forth the rights of man
to the whole human race, and then, in practice, it most infamously
abandoned every article in these rights; so that it became the scorn of
all the enlightened and virtuous part of mankind. These were the great
causes of the miseries of St. Domingo, and not the speculative opinions
of France.

Ea