Upon the whole, he would give his opinion of this traffic in a few words.  He believed it to be impolitic—­he knew it to be inhuman—­he was certain it was unjust—­he thought it so inhuman and unjust, that, if the colonies could not be cultivated without it, they ought not to be cultivated at all.  It would be much better for us to be without them, than, not abolish the Slave Trade.  He hoped therefore that members would this night act the part which would do them honour.  He declared, that, whether he should vote in a large minority or a small one, he would never give up the cause.  Whether in Parliament or out of it, in whatever situation he might ever be, as long as he had a voice to speak, this question should never be at rest.  Believing the trade to be of the nature of crimes and pollutions, which stained the honour of the country, he would never relax his efforts.  It was his duty to prevent man from preying upon man; and if he and his friends should die before they had attained their glorious object, he hoped there would never be wanting men alive to their duty, who would continue to labour till the evil should be wholly done away.  If the situation of the Africans was as happy as servitude could make them, he could not consent to the enormous crime of selling man to man; nor permit a practice to continue, which put an entire bar to the civilization of one quarter of the globe.  He was sure that the nation would not much longer allow the continuance of enormities which shocked human nature.  The West Indians had no right to demand that crimes should be permitted by this country for their advantage; and, if they were wise, they would lend their cordial assistance to such measures, as would bring about, in the shortest possible time, the abolition of this execrable trade.

Mr. Dundas rose again, but it was only to move an amendment, namely, that the word “gradually” should be inserted before the words “to be abolished” in Mr. Wilberforce’s motion.

Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of Liverpool) said, that the opinions of those who were averse to the abolition had been unfairly stated.  They had been described as founded on policy, in opposition to humanity.  If it could be made out that humanity would be aided by the abolition, he would be the last person to oppose it.  The question was not, he apprehended, whether the trade was founded in injustice and oppression:  he admitted it was.  Nor was it, whether it was in itself abstractedly an evil:  he admitted this also; but whether, under all the circumstances of the case, any considerable advantage would arise to a number of our fellow-creatures from the abolition of the trade in the manner in which it had been proposed.

He was ready to admit, that the Africans at home were made miserable by the Slave Trade, and that, if it were universally abolished, great benefit would arise to them.  No one, however, would assert, that these miseries arose from the trade as carried on by Great Britain only.  Other countries occasioned as much of the evil as we did; and if the abolition of it by us should prove only the transferring of it to those countries, very little benefit would result from the measure.