Mr. Matthew Montagu rose, and said a few words in support of the motion; and after condemning the trade in the strongest manner, he declared, that as long as he had life, he would use every faculty of his body and mind in endeavouring to promote its abolition.

Lord John Russell succeeded Mr. Montagu.  He said, that although slavery was repugnant to his feelings, he must vote against the abolition, as visionary and delusive.  It was a feeble attempt without the power to serve the cause of humanity.  Other nations would take up the trade.  Whenever a bill of wise regulation should be brought forward, no man would be more ready than himself to lend his support.  In this way the rights of humanity might be asserted without injury to others.  He hoped he should not incur censure by his vote; for, let his understanding be what it might, he did not know that he had, notwithstanding the assertions of Mr. Fox, an inaccessible heart.

Mr. Stanley (agent for the islands) rose next.  He felt himself called upon, he said, to refute the many calumnies, which had for years been propagated against the planters, (even through the medium of the pulpit, which should have been employed to better purposes,) and which had at length produced the mischievous measure, which was now under the discussion of the House.  A cry had been sounded forth, and from one end of the kingdom to the other; as if there had never been a slave from Adam to the present time.  But it appeared to him to have been the intention of Providence, from the very beginning, that one set of men should be slaves to another.  This truth was as old as it was universal.  It was recognized in every history, under every government, and in every religion.  Nor did the Christian religion itself, if the comments of Dr. Halifax, bishop of Gloucester, on a passage in St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians were true, show more repugnance to slavery than any other.

He denied that the slaves were procured in the manner which had been described.  It was the custom of all savages to kill their prisoners; and the Africans ought to be thankful that they had been carried safe into the British colonies.

As to the tales of misery in the Middle Passage, they were gross falsehoods; and as to their treatment in the West Indies, he knew personally that it was, in general, indulgent and humane.

With regard to promoting their increase by any better mode of treatment, he wished gentlemen would point it out to him.  As a planter he would thank them for it.  It was absurd to suppose that he and others were blind to their own interest.  It was well known that one Creole slave was worth two Africans:  and their interest therefore must suggest to them that the propagation of slaves was preferable to the purchase of imported Negros, of whom one half very frequently died in the seasoning.

He then argued the impossibility of beasts doing the work of the plantations.  He endeavoured to prove that the number of these, adequate to this purpose, could not be supplied with food; and after having made many other observations, which, on account of the lowness of his voice, could not be heard, he concluded by objecting to the motion.