n characters of blood.

He would next consider the effects of the abolition on those places
where it was chiefly carried on. But would the committee believe, after
all the noise which had been made on this subject, that the Slave Trade
composed but a thirtieth part of the export trade of Liverpool, and that
of the trade of Bristol it constituted a still less proportion? For the
effects of the abolition on the general commerce of the kingdom, he
would refer them to Mr. Irving; from whose evidence it would appear,
that the medium value of the British manufactures, exported to Africa,
amounted only to between four and five hundred thousand pounds annually.
This was but a trifling sum. Surely the superior capital, ingenuity,
application, and integrity of the British manufacturer would command new
markets for the produce of his industry, to an equal amount, when this
should be no more. One branch, however, of our manufactures, he
confessed, would suffer from the abolition; and that was the manufacture
of gunpowder; of which the nature of our connexion with Africa drew from
us as much as we exported to all the rest of the world besides.

He hastened, however, to another part of the argument. Some had said,
"We wish to put an end to the Slave Trade, but we do not approve of your
mode. Allow more time. Do not displease the legislatures of the West
India islands. It is by them that those laws must be passed, and
enforced, which will secure your object." Now he was directly at issue
with these gentlemen. He could show, that the abolition was the only
certain mode of amending the treatment of the slaves, so as to secure
their increase: and that the mode which had been offered to him, was at
once inefficacious and unsafe. In the first place, how could any laws,
made by these legislatures, be effectual, whilst the evidence of Negroes
was in no case admitted against White men? What was the answer from
Grenada? Did it not state, "that they who were capable of cruelty, would
in general be artful enough to prevent any but slaves from being
witnesses of the fact?" Hence it had arisen, that when positive laws had
been made, in some of the islands, for the protection of the slaves,
they had been found almost a dead letter. Besides, by what law would you
enter into every man's domestic concerns, and regulate the interior
economy of his house and plantation? This would be something more than a
general excise. Who would endure such a law? And