(b.) Insurrec

The suppres trade, there reng but great se

sion of the

no hazard,

curity to the

ported. This, sir, like the observation which | well as foreign enemies, is among the most promI lately made, is no mere speculation inent and most forcible. And here let tions to be dread of ours; for here, again, I refer you me apply to my two right honorable ed chiefly from imported ne- to Mr. Long, the historian of Jamai- friends, and ask them, whether in this groes, not those born in the isl ca. He treats particularly of the part of the argument they do not see ands. dangers to be dreaded from the intro- reason for immediate abolition? Why West Indies duction of Coromantine negroes; an appellation should you any longer import into those coununder which are comprised several descriptions tries that which is the very seed of insurrection of Africans obtained on the Gold Coast, whose and rebellion? Why should you persist in innative country is not exactly known, and who troducing those latent principles of conflagraare purchased in a variety of markets, having tion, which if they should once burst forth, may been brought from some distance inland. With annihilate in a single day the industry of a hunda view of preventing insurrections, he advises red years? Why will you subject yourselves, that, "by laying a duty equal to a prohibition, no with open eyes, to the evident and imminent more of these Coromantines should be bought;" risk of a calamity which may throw you back and, after noticing one insurrection which hap- a whole century in your profits, in your cultivapened through their means, he tells you of an- tion, in your progress to the emancipation of other in the following year, in which thirty-three your slaves; and disappointing at once every Coromantines, most of whom had been newly one of these golden expectations, may retard, imported, suddenly rose, and in the space of an not only the accomplishment of that happy syshour murdered and wounded no less than nine- tem which I have attempted to describe, but teen white persons. may cut off even your opportunity of taking any one introductory step? Let us begin from this time! Let us not commit these important interests to any further hazard! Let us prosecute this great object from this very hour! Let us vote that the abolition of the slave trade shall be immediate, and not left to I know not what future time or contingency! Will my right honorable friends answer for the safety of the islands during any imaginable intervening period? Or do they think that any little advantages of the kind which they state, can have any weight in that scale of expediency in which this great question ought undoubtedly to be tried.

To the authority of Mr. Long, both in this and other parts of his work, I may add the recorded opinion of the committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica itself; who, in consequence of a rebellion among the slaves, were appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing future insurrections. The committee reported, "that the rebellion had originated (like most or all others) with the Coromantines ;" and they proposed that a bill should be brought in "for laying a higher duty on the importation of these particular negroes," which was intended to operate as a prohibition.

Thus stated, and thus alone, sir, can it be truly stated, to what does the whole of Argument summed up. my right honorable friend's argument, on the head of expediency, amount? It amounts but to this: The colonies, on the one hand, would have to struggle with some few difficulties and disadvantages at the first, for the sake of obtaining on the other hand immediate security to their leading interests; of insuring, sir, even their own political existence; and for the sake also of immediately commencing that system of

But the danger is not confined to the importation of Coromantines. Mr. Long, carefully investigating as he does the causes of such frequent insurrections, particularly at Jamaica, accounts for them from the greatness of its general importations. "In two years and a half," says he, "twenty-seven thousand negroes have been imported." "No wonder we have rebellions! Twenty-seven thousand in two years and a half!" Why, sir, I believe that in some late years there have been as many imported into the same island within the same period! Sure-progressive improvement in the condition of ly, sir, when gentlemen talk so vehemently of the safety of the islands, and charge us with being so indifferent to it; when they speak of the calamities of St. Domingo, and of similar dangers impending over their own heads at the present hour, it ill becomes them to be the persons who are crying out for further importations. It ill becomes them to charge upon us the crime of stirring up insurrections-upon us who are only adopting the very principles which Mr. Long-which in part even the Legislature of Jamaica itself laid down in the time of danger, with an avowed view to the prevention of any such calamity.

The House, I am sure, will easily believe it is no small satisfaction to me, that among the many arguments for prohibiting the slave trade which crowd upon my mind, the security of our West India possessions against internal commotions, as

slaves, which is necessary to raise them from the state of brutes to that of rational beings, but which never can begin until the introduction of these new, disaffected, and dangerous Africans into the same gangs shall have been stopped. If any argument can in the slightest degree justify the severity that is now so generally practiced in the treatment of the slaves, it must be the introduction of these Africans. It is the introduction of these Africans that renders all idea of emancipation for the present so chimerical, and the very mention of it so dreadful. It is the introduction of these Africans that keeps down the condition of all plantation negroes. Whatever system of treatment is deemed necessary by the planters to be adopted toward these new Africans, extends itself to the other slaves also; instead, therefore, of deferring the hour when you will finally put an end to importations, vainly pur

II. Being now done with this question of expeClaim of Patri. diency as affecting the islands, I come next to a proposition advanced by my right honorable friend [Mr. Dundas], which appeared to intimate that, on account of some patrimonial rights of the West Indies, the prohibi-petual continuance, I will venture to say, there tion of the slave trade might be considered as an invasion of their legal inheritance.

enormities which incontrovertibly bid defiance | served for calm consideration, as a matter dis not only to this clause, but to every regulation tinct from the present question. which our ingenuity can devise and our power carry into effect. Nothing can accomplish the object of this clause but an extinction of the trade itself.

Motive for these en

That is

I beg pardon for dwelling so long on the argument of expediency, and on the manner in which it affects the West Indies. I have been carried away by my own feelings on some of But, sir, let us see what was the motive for these points into a greater length than I intendcarrying on the trade at all. The pre-ed, especially considering how fully the subject amble of the act states it: "Whereas, has been already argued. The result of all I actments. the trade to and from Africa is very ad- have said is, that there exists no impediment, no vantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for obstacle, no shadow of reasonable objection on the supplying the plantations and colonies there- the ground of pledged faith, or even on that of unto belonging with a sufficient number of ne- national expediency, to the abolition of this trade. groes at reasonable rates, and for that purpose On the contrary, all the arguments drawn from the said trade should be carried on," &c. Here, those sources plead for it, and they plead much then, we see what the Parliament had in view more loudly, and much more strongly in every when it passed this act; and I have clearly shown part of the question, for an immediate than for that not one of the occasions on which it grounded a gradual abolition. its proceedings now exists. I may then plead, I think, the very act itself as an argument for the abolition. If it is shown that, instead of being "very advantageous" to Great Britain, this trade is the most destructive that can well be imagined to her interests; that it is the ruin of our seamen; that it stops the extension of our manufactures; if it is proved, in the second place, that it is not now necessary for the "supplying our plantations with negroes;" if it is further established that this traffic was from the very beginning contrary to the first principles of justice, and consequently that a pledge for its continuance, had one been attempted to be given, must have been completely and absolutely void; where then, in this act of Parliament, is the contract to be found by which Britain is bound, as she is said to be, never to listen to her own true interests, and to the cries of the natives of Africa?

The same motive justifies the suppres Bion of the slave trade.

Is it not clear that all argument, founded on the supposed pledged faith of Parliament, makes against those who employ it? I refer you to the principles which obtain in other cases. Every trade act shows undoubtedly that the Legislature is used to pay a tender regard to all classes of the community. But if for the sake of moral duty, of national honor, or even of great political advantage, it is thought right, by authority of Parliament, to alter any long-established system, Parliament is competent to do it. The Legislature will undoubtedly be careful to subject individuals to as little inconvenience as possible; and if any peculiar hardship should arise that can be distinctly stated and fairly pleaded, there will ever, I am sure, be a liberal feeling toward them in the Legislature of this country, which is the guardian of all who live under its protection. On the present occasion, the most powerful considerations call upon us to abolish the slave trade; and if we refuse to attend to them on the alleged ground of pledged faith and contract, we shall depart as widely from the practice of Parliament as from the path of moral duty. If, indeed, there is any case of hardship which comes within the proper cognizance of Parliament, and calls for the exercise of its liberality well! But such a case must be re

founded.

III. But now, sir, I come to Africa. the ground on which I rest, and here it justice of is that I say my right honorable friends the trade." do not carry their principles to their full extent. Why ought the slave trade to be abolished? Because it is incurable INJUSTICE! How much stronger, then, is the argument for immediate than gradual abolition! By allowing it to continue even for one hour, do not my right honorable friends weaken-do not they desert, their own argument of its injustice? If on the ground of injustice it ought to be abolished at last, why ought it not now? Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a single hour? From what I hear without doors, it is evident that there is a general conviction entertained of its being far from just, and from that very conviction of its injustice some men have been led, I fear, to the supposition that the slave trade never could have been permitted to begin, but from some strong and irresistible necessity; a necessity, Plea of ne however, which, if it was fancied to cessity unexist at first, I have shown can not be thought by any man whatever to exist at present. This plea of necessity, thus presumed, and presumed, as I suspect, from the circumstance of injustice itself, has caused a sort of acquiescence in the continuance of this evil. Men have been led to place it in the rank of those necessary evils which are supposed to be the lot of human creatures, and to be permitted to fall upon some countries or individuals, rather than upon others, by that Being whose ways are inscrutable to us, and whose dispensations, it is conceived, we ought not to look into. The origin of evil is, indeed, a subject beyond the reach of the human understanding; and the permission of it by the Supreme Being, is a subject into which it belongs not to us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral evil which a man can scrutinize, and where that moral evil has its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can clear our consciences by this general, not to say irreligious and impious way of laying aside the question. If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be incurred were it removed. I therefore desire to ask, what can

intercourse to convey to them the means, and to initiate them in the study of mutual destruction. We give them just enough of the forms of jus

als to their other modes of perpetrating the most atrocious iniquity. We give them just enough of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness. Some evidences say that the Africans are addicted to the practice of gambling; that they even sell their wives and children, and ul

be that greater evil which can be stated to overbalance the one in question? I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of EIGHTY THOU-tice to enable them to add the pretext of legal triSAND PERSONS annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations in the most enlightened quarter of the globe; but more especially by that nation which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all. Even if these miserable beings were proved Guilt and dis guilty of every crime before you take trade, even if them off, of which however not a sin-timately themselves. Are these, then, the lewere crimin- gle proof is adduced, ought we to take upon ourselves the office of executionAnd even if we condescend so far, still can we be justified in taking them, unless we have clear proof that they are criminals?

honor of the

the slaves

als.

ers?

and arms directly used in kidnapping.

But if we go much farther; if we ourselves English capital tempt them to sell their fellow creatures to us, we may rest assured that they will take care to provide by every method, by kidnapping, by village-breaking, by unjust wars, by iniquitous condemnations, by rendering Africa a scene of bloodshed and misery, a supply of victims increasing in proportion to our demand. Can we, then, hesitate in deciding whether the wars in Africa are their wars or ours? It was our arms in the River Cameroon, put into the hands of the trader, that furnished him with the means of pushing his trade; and I have no more doubt that they are British arms, put into the hands of Africans, which promote universal war and desolation, than I can doubt their having done so in that individual in

stance.

result.

I have shown how great is the enormity of Horrors of the this evil, even on the supposition that we take only convicts and prisoners of war. But take the subject in the other way; take it on the grounds stated by the right honorable gentleman over the way; and how does it stand? Think of EIGHTY THOUSAND persons carried away out of their country, by we know not what means; for crimes imputed; for light or inconsiderable faults; for debt, perhaps; for the crime of witchcraft; or a thousand other weak and scandalous pretexts! Besides all the fraud and kidnapping, the villainies and perfidy, by which the slave trade is supplied. Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually taken off! There is something in the horror of it, that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that there exists in Africa something like to courts of justice; yet what an office of humiliation and meanness is it in us, to take upon ourselves to carry into execution the partial, the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such courts, as if we also were strangers to all religion, and to the first principles of justice. But that country, it is said, has been in some degree civilized, and civilized by us. glish civilization It is said they have gained some knowledge of the principles of justice. What, sir, have they gained the principles of justice from us? Is their civilization brought about by us! Yes, we give them enough of our

Effects of En

upon Africa.

gitimate sources of slavery? Shall we pretend
that we can thus acquire an honest right to ex-
act the labor of these people? Can we pretend
that we have a right to carry away to distant
regions men of whom we know nothing by au
thentic inquiry, and of whom there is every rea-
sonable presumption to think that those who sell
them to us have no right to do so? But the evil
does not stop here. I feel that there is not time
for me to make all the remarks which the subject
deserves, and I refrain from attempting to enu-
merate half the dreadful consequences of this sys-
tem. Do you think nothing of the ruin and the
miseries in which so many other individuals, still
remaining in Africa, are involved in consequence
of carrying off so many myriads of people? Do
you think nothing of their families which are
left behind; of the connections which are bro-
ken; of the friendships, attachments, and rela-
tionships that are burst asunder? Do you think
nothing of the miseries in consequence, that are
felt from generation to generation; of the priva-
tion of that happiness which might be commu-
nicated to them by the introduction of civiliza-
tion, and of mental and moral improvement? A
happiness which you withhold from them so long
as you permit the slave trade to continue. What
do you yet know of the internal state of Africa?
You have carried on a trade to that quarter of
the globe from this civilized and enlightened
country; but such a trade, that, instead of diffus-
ing either knowledge or wealth, it has been the
check to every laudable pursuit. Instead of any
fair interchange of commodities; instead of con-
veying to them, from this highly favored land,
any means of improvement, you carry with you
that noxious plant by which every thing is with-
ered and blasted; under whose shade nothing
that is useful or profitable to Africa will ever
flourish or take root. Long as that continent
has been known to navigators, the extreme line
and boundaries of its coasts is all with which
Europe has yet become acquainted; while other
countries in the same parallel of latitude, through
a happier system of intercourse, have reaped the
blessings of a mutually beneficial commerce.
But as to the whole interior of that continent,
you are, by your own principles of commerce,
as yet entirely shut out.
Africa is known to you
only in its skirts. Yet even there you are able
to infuse a poison that spreads its contagious ef-
fects from one end of it to the other; which pen-
etrates to its very center, corrupting every part
to which it reaches. You there subvert the

whole order of nature; you aggravate every natural barbarity, and furnish to every man living on that continent, motives for committing, under the name and pretext of commerce, acts of perpetual violence and perfidy against his neighbor.

be eager to remove the guilt

plea, refuse to desist from bearing our part in the system which produces it. You are not sure, it is said, that other nations will give up the trade, if you should renounce it. I answer, if this trade is as criminal as it is asserted to be, or if it has in it a thousandth part of the crimThus, sir, has the perversion of British com- inality, which I and others, after thorough invesEngland should merce carried misery instead of hap-tigation of the subject, charge upon it, God forpiness to one whole quarter of the bid that we should hesitate in determining to globe. False to the very principles relinquish so iniquitous a traffic, even though it of trade, misguided in our policy, and should be retained by other countries. God forunmindful of our duty, what aston-bid, however, that we should fail to do our utmost toward inducing other countries to abandon a bloody commerce, which they have probably been, in a good measure, led by our example to pursue. God forbid that we should be capable of wishing to arrogate to ourselves the glory of being singular in renouncing it!

and shame of

this perversion of her commerce.

ishing I had almost said, what irreparable mischief, have we brought upon that continent! How shall we hope to obtain, if it be possible, forgiveness from Heaven for those enormous evils we have committed, if we refuse to make use of those means which the mercy of Providence hath still reserved to us, for wiping away the guilt and shame with which we are now covered. If we refuse even this degree of compensation; if, knowing the miseries we have caused, we refuse even now to put a stop to them, how greatly aggravated will be the guilt of Great Britain! and what a blot will these transactions forever be in the history of this country! Shall we, then, delay to repair these injuries, and to begin rendering justice to Africa? Shall we not count the days and hours that are suffered to intervene, and to delay the accomplishment of such a work? Reflect what an immense object is before you; what an object for a nation to have in view, and to have a prospect, under the favor of Providence, of being now permitted to attain! I think the House will agree with me in cherishing the ardent wish to enter without delay upon the measures necessary for these great ends; and I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of duty, and of justice, that the Legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects to which I have alluded, and which we are bound to pursue by the most solemn obligations.

We are second to

I tremble at the thought of gentlemen's indulging themselves in this argument; an argument as pernicious as it is futile. "We are friends," say they, "to humanity. none of you in our zeal for the good of Africa; but the French will not abolish—the Dutch will not abolish. We wait, therefore, on prudential principles, till they join us, or set us an example."

most guilty,

How, sir, is this enormous evil ever to be eradicated, if every nation is thus pru- England, as dentially to wait till the concurrence of ought to lead all the world shall have been obtained? the way. Let me remark, too, that there is no nation in Europe that has, on the one hand, plunged so deeply into this guilt as Britain; or that is so likely, on the other, to be looked up to as an example, if she should have the manliness to be the first in decidedly renouncing it. But, sir, does not this argument apply a thousand times more strongly in a contrary way 25 How much more justly may other nations point to us, and say, Why should we abolish the slave trade, when Great Britain has not abolished? Britain, free as she is, just and honorable as she is, and deeply, also, involved as she is in this commerce above all nations, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish. She has investigated it well; There is, however, one argument set up as a she has gained the completest insight into its nauniversal answer to every thing that ture and effects; she has collected volumes of ev(1.) That other can be urged on our side; whether idence on every branch of the subject. Her Senunite in abolish we address ourselves to the under-ate has deliberated-has deliberated again and

Refutation of

objections.

nations will not

ing the trade.

66

again; and what is the result? She has gravely and solemnly determined to sanction the slave trade. She sanctions it at least for a while-her Legislature, therefore, it is plain, sees no guilt in it, and has thus furnished us with the strongest evidence that she can furnish-of the justice unquestionably-and of the policy also, in a certain measure, and in certain cases at least, of permitting this traffic to continue."

standings of our opponents, or to their hearts and consciences. It is necessary I should remove this formidable objection; for, though not often stated in distinct terms, I fear it is one which has a very wide influence. The slave trade system, it is supposed, has taken so deep root in Africa, that it is absurd to think of its being eradicated; and the abolition of that share of trade carried on by Great Britain, and especially if her example is not followed by other This, sir, is the argument with which we furpowers, is likely to be of very little service.nish the other nations of Europe, if Other nationa Give me leave to say, in reply to so dangerous we again refuse to put an end to the may be expect an argument, that we ought to be extremely sure, slave trade. Instead, therefore, of indeed, of the assumption on which it rests, be-imagining, that by choosing to presume on their fore we venture to rely on its validity; before we decide that an evil which we ourselves contribute to inflict is incurable. and on that very

ed to follow.

This taking an opponent's argument "in the contrary way," is one of Mr. Pitt's most characteristic modes of confuting an antagonist.