He then began by soliciting the candid attention of the West Indians to what he was going to deliver to the House.  However others might have censured them indiscriminately, he had always himself made a distinction between them and their system.  It was the latter only, which he reprobated.  If aristocracy had been thought a worse form of government than monarchy, because the people had many tyrants instead of one, how objectionable must be that form of it, which existed in our colonies!  Arbitrary power could be bought there by any one, who could buy a slave.  The fierceness of it was doubtless restrained by an elevation of mind in many, as arising from a consciousness of superior rank and consequence:  but, alas! it was too often exercised there by the base and vulgar.  The more liberal too of the planters were not resident upon their estates.  Hence a promiscuous censure of them would be unjust, though their system would undoubtedly be odious.

As for the cure of this monstrous evil, he had shown, last year, that internal regulations would not produce it.  These could have no effect, while the evidence of slaves was inadmissible.  What would be the situation of the bulk of the people of this country, if only gentlemen of five hundred a-year were admitted as evidences in our courts of law?  Neither was the cure of it in the emancipation of the slaves.  He did not deny that he wished them this latter blessing.  But, alas, in their present degraded state, they were unfit for it!  Liberty was the child of reason and order.  It was indeed a plant of celestial growth, but the soil must be prepared for its reception.  He, who would see it flourish and bring forth its proper fruit, must not think it sufficient to let it shoot in unrestrained licentiousness.  But if this inestimable blessing was ever to be imparted to them, the cause must be removed, which obstructed its introduction.  In short, no effectual remedy could be found but in the abolition of the Slave-trade.

He then took a copious view of the advantages, which would arise both to the master and to the slave, if this traffic were done away; and having recapitulated and answered the different objections to such a measure, he went to that part of the subject, in which he described himself to be most interested.

He had shown, he said, last year, that Africa was exposed to all the horrors of war; and that most of these wars had their origin in the Slave-trade.  It was then said, in reply, that the natural barbarity of the natives was alone sufficient to render their country a scene of carnage.  This was triumphantly instanced in the king of Dahomey.  But his honourable friend Lord Muncaster, then in the House, had proved in his interesting publication, which had appeared since, called Historical Sketches of the Slave-trade and of its Effects in Africa, addressed to the People of Great Britain, that the very cruelties of this king, on which so much stress had been laid, were committed by him in a war, which had been undertaken expressly to punish an adjacent people for having stolen some of his subjects and sold them for slaves.