being a nursery for British seamen, it was their grave.  It appeared that more seamen died in that trade in one year than in the whole remaining trade of the country in two.  Out of 910 sailors in it, 216 died in the year, while upon a fair average of the same number of men employed in the trades to the East and West Indies, Petersburgh, Newfoundland, and Greenland, no more than 87 died.  It appeared also, that out of 3170, who had left Liverpool in the slave-ships in the year 1787, only 1428 had returned.  And here, while he lamented the loss which the country thus annually sustained in her seamen, he had additionally to lament the barbarous usage which they experienced, and which this trade, by its natural tendency to harden the heart, exclusively produced.  He would just read an extract of a letter from Governor Parrey, of Barbadoes, to Lord Sydney, one of the secretaries of state.  The Governor declared he could no longer contain himself on account of the ill treatment, which the British sailors endured at the hands of their savage captains.  These were obliged to have their vessels strongly manned, not only on account of the unhealthiness of the climate of Africa, but of the necessity of guarding the slaves, and preventing and suppressing insurrections; and when they arrived in the West Indies, and were out of all danger from the latter, they quarrelled with their men on the most frivolous pretences, on purpose to discharge them, and thus save the payment of supernumerary wages home.  Thus many were left in a diseased and deplorable state; either to perish by sickness, or to enter into foreign service; great numbers of whom were for ever lost to their country.  The Governor concluded by declaring, that the enormities attendant on this trade were so great, as to demand the immediate interference of the legislature.

The next objection to the abolition was, that if we were to relinquish the Slave-trade, our rivals, the French, would take it up; so that, while we should suffer by the measure, the evil would still go on, and this even to its former extent.  This was, indeed, a very weak argument; and, if it would defend the continuance of the Slave-trade, might equally be urged in favour of robbery, murder, and every species of wickedness, which, if we did not practise, others would commit.  But suppose, for the sake of argument, that they were to take it up.  What good would it do them?  What advantages, for instance, would they derive from this pestilential commerce to their marine?  Should not we, on the other hand, be benefited by this change?  Would they not be obliged to come to us, in consequence of the cheapness of our manufactures, for what they wanted for the African market?  But he would not calumniate the French nation so much as to suppose that they would carry on the trade if we were to relinquish it.  He believed, on the other hand, that they would abolish it also.  Mr. Necker, the present minister of France, was a man of religious principle; and, in his work upon the