this
respect were ill-founded. It was as healthy as the Newfoundland and many
other trades.

The debate having closed, during which nothing more was done than
filling up the blanks with the time when the bill was to begin to
operate, the committee was adjourned. But the bill after this dragged on
so heavily, that it would be tedious to detail the proceedings upon it
from day to day. I shall, therefore, satisfy myself with the following
observations concerning them:--The committee sat not less than five
different times, which consumed the space of eight days, before a final
decision took place. During this time, so much was it an object to throw
in obstacles which might occupy the little remaining time of the
session, that other petitions were presented against the bill, and leave
was asked, on new pretences contained in these, that counsel might be
heard again. Letters also were read from Jamaica, about the mutinous
disposition of the slaves there, in consequence of the stir which had
been made about the abolition; and also from merchants in France, by
which large offers were made to the British merchants to furnish them
with slaves. Several regulations also were proposed in this interval,
some of which were negatived by majorities of only one or two voices. Of
the regulations which were carried, the most remarkable were those
proposed by Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Liverpool); namely, that no
insurance should be made on the slaves, except against accidents by fire
and water; that persons should not be appointed as officers of vessels
transporting them, who had not been a certain number of such voyages
before; that a regular surgeon only should be capable of being employed
in them; and that both the captain and surgeon should have bounties, if,
in the course of the transportation, they had lost only two in a hundred
slaves. The Duke of Chandos again, and Lord Sydney, were the more
conspicuous among the opposers of the humane bill; and the Duke of
Richmond, the Marquis Townshend, the Earl of Carlisle, the Bishop of
London, and Earl Stanhope, among the most strenuous supporters of it. At
length it passed by a majority of nineteen to eleven votes.

On the 4th of July, when the bill had been returned to the Commons, it
was moved, that the amendments made in it by the Lords should be read;
but as it had become a money-bill in consequence of the bounties to be
granted, and as new regulations were to be incorporated in it, it