that they would agree to such a measure.”  He desired to add to this the declaration of General Prevost in his public letter from Dominica.  Did he not say, when asked what steps had been taken there in consequence of the resolution of the House in 1797, “that the act of the legislature, entitled an act for the encouragement, protection, and better government of slaves, appeared to him to have been considered, from the day it was passed until this hour, as a political measure to avert the interference of the mother-country in the management of the slaves.”

Sir William Yonge censured the harsh language of Sir Samuel Romilly, who had applied the terms rapine, robbery, and murder to those, who were connected with the Slave-trade.  He considered the resolution of Mr. Fox as a prelude to a bill for the abolition of that traffic, and this bill as a prelude to emancipation, which would not only be dangerous in itself, but would change the state of property in the islands.

Lord Henry Petty, after having commented on the speeches of Sir S. Romilly and Lord Castlereagh, proceeded to state his own opinion on the trade; which was, that it was contrary to justice, humanity, and sound policy, all of which he considered to be inseparable.  On its commencement in Africa the wickedness began.  It produced there fraud and violence, robbery and murder.  It gave birth to false accusations, and a mockery of justice.  It was the parent of every crime, which could at once degrade and afflict the human race.  After spreading vice and misery all over this continent, it doomed its unhappy victims to hardships and cruelties which were worse than death.  The first of these was conspicuous in their transportation.  It was found there, that cruelty begat cruelty; that the system, wicked in its beginning, was equally so in its progress; and that it perpetuated its miseries wherever it was carried on.  Nor was it baneful only to the objects, but to the promoters of it.  The loss of British seamen in this traffic was enormous.  One fifth of all, who were employed in it, perished; that is, they became the victims of a system, which was founded on fraud, robbery, and murder; and which procured to the British nation nothing but the execration of mankind.  Nor had we yet done with the evils, which attended it; for it brought in its train the worst of all moral effects, not only as it respected the poor slaves, when transported to the colonies, but as it respected those, who had concerns with them there.  The arbitrary power, which it conferred, afforded men of bad dispositions full scope for the exercise of their passions; and it rendered men, constitutionally of good dispositions, callous to the misery of others.  Thus it depraved the nature of all, who were connected with it.  These considerations had made him a friend to the abolition from the time he was capable of reasoning upon it.  They were considerations also, which determined the House in the year 1782 to adopt a measure of the same kind as the present.  Had any thing happened to change the opinion of members since?  On the contrary, they had now the clearest evidence, that all the arguments then used against the abolition were fallacious; being founded not upon truth, but on assertions devoid of all truth, and derived from ignorance or prejudice.