Some had considered this question as a question of political, whereas, it was a question of personal, freedom.  Political freedom was undoubtedly a great blessing; but when it came to be compared with personal, it sunk to nothing.  To confound the two, served, therefore, to render all arguments on either perplexing and unintelligible.  Personal freedom was the first right of every human being.  It was a right, of which he who deprived a fellow-creature was absolutely criminal in so depriving him, and which he who withheld was no less criminal in withholding.  He could not, therefore, retract his words with respect to any, who (whatever respect he might otherwise have for them) should, by their vote of that night, deprive their fellow-creatures of so great a blessing.  Nay, he would go further.  He would say, that if the House, knowing what the trade was by the evidence, did not, by their vote, mark to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so savage, so enormous, so repugnant to all laws human and divine, they would consign their character to eternal infamy.

That the pretence of danger to our West Indian islands from the abolition of the Slave Trade was totally unfounded, Mr. Wilberforce had abundantly proved; but if there were they who had not been satisfied with that proof, was it possible to resist the arguments of Mr. Pitt on the same subject?  It had been shown, on a comparison of the births and deaths in Jamaica, that there was not now any decrease of the slaves.  But if there had been, it would have made no difference to him in his vote; for, had the mortality been ever so great there, he should have ascribed it to the system of importing Negroes, instead of that of encouraging their natural increase.  Was it not evident that the planters thought it more convenient to buy them fit for work, than to breed them?  Why, then, was this horrid trade to be kept up?—­To give the planters truly the liberty of misusing their slaves, so as to check population:  for it was from ill-usage only that, in a climate so natural to them, their numbers could diminish.  The very ground, therefore, on which the planters rested the necessity of fresh importations, namely, the destruction of lives in the West Indies, was itself the strongest argument that could be given, and furnished the most imperious call upon parliament for the abolition of the trade.

Against this trade innumerable were the charges.  An honourable member, Mr. Smith, had done well to introduce those tragical stories which had made such an impression upon the House.  No one of these had been yet controverted.  It had, indeed, been said; that the cruelty of the African captain to the child was too bad to be true; and we had been desired to look at the cross-examination of the witness, as if we should find traces of the falsehood in his testimony there.  But his cross-examination was peculiarly honourable to his character; for, after he had been pressed in the closest manner by some able members of the House, the only inconsistency they could fix upon him was, whether the fact had happened on the same day of the same month of the year 1764 or the year 1765.