He condemned the resolution as a libel upon the wisdom of the law of the land, and upon the conduct of their ancestors.  He condemned it also, because, if followed up, it would lead to the abolition of the trade, and the abolition of the trade to the emancipation of the slaves in our colonies.

The Bishop of St. Asaph (Dr. Horsley) said, that, allowing the slaves in the West Indies even to be pampered with delicacies, or to be put to rest on a bed of roses, they could not be happy, for—­a slave would be still a slave.  The question, however, was not concerning the alteration of their condition, but whether we should abolish the practice, by which they were put in that condition?  Whether it was humane, just, and politic in us so to place them?  This question was easily answered; for he found it difficult to form any one notion of humanity, which did not include a desire of promoting the happiness of others; and he knew of no other justice than that, which was founded on the principle of doing to others, as we should wish they should do to us.  And these principles of humanity and justice were so clear, that he found it difficult to make them clearer.  Perhaps no difficulty was greater than that of arguing a self-evident proposition, and such he took to be the character of the proposition, that the Slave-trade was inhuman and unjust.

It had been said, that slavery had existed from the beginning of the world.  He would allow it.  But had such a trade as the Slave-trade ever existed before?  Would the noble Earl, who had talked of the slavery of ancient Rome and Greece, assert, that in the course of his whole reading, however profound it might have been, he had found any thing resembling such a traffic?  Where did it appear in history, that ships were regularly fitted out to fetch away tens of thousands of persons annually, against their will, from their native land; that these were subject to personal indignities and arbitrary punishments during their transportation; and that a certain proportion of them, owing to suffocation and other cruel causes, uniformly perished?  He averred, that nothing like the African Slave-trade was ever practised in any nation upon earth.

If the trade then was repugnant, as he maintained it was, to justice and humanity, he did not see how, without aiding and abetting injustice and inhumanity, any man could sanction it:  and he thought that the noble baron (Hawkesbury) was peculiarly bound to support the resolution; for he had admitted that if it could be shown, that the trade was contrary to these principles, the question would be at an end.  Now this contrariety had been made apparent, and his lordship had not even attempted to refute it.

He would say but little on the subject of revealed religion, as it related to this question, because the reverend prelate, near him, had spoken so fully upon it.  He might observe, however, that at the end of the sixth year, when the Hebrew slave was emancipated, he was to be furnished liberally from the flock, the floor, and the wine-press of his master.