Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/188

( 154 ) circumstance of the slaves being in this case the growth of the estates, and not, as by the former system, purchased, no capital need be drawn from the mother country, to the hazard and detriment described. Secondly, because those estates mentioned in the evidence, upon which the breeding system has been most attended to, are almost universally noticed, with this remark, namely, that they had "got out of debt," or "were flourishing," or "were making money." Now, if estates get out of debt, or flourish, where the negroes are bred, while the reverse is the cafe, where they are purchased, it can only be because the system of cultivating by means of population must be cheaper than in the other way: hence the British planters would be enabled, without any destructive bounties from Government to meet their rivals on an equal or perhaps a more favourable footing in foreign markets. It is evident also from the expressions mentioned above to have been annexed to those estates where attention was paid to breeding, that the planters would cultivate, in this case, to their own certain emolument, and not, as in the present system to their equally certain embarrassment and ruin.

Opinion on the justice and policy of the slave-trade.

Having now mentioned the principal facts contained in the evidence offered to Parliament by the petitioners of Great Britain, in behalf of the abolition of the slave trade, we cannot close this compilation better than in the words of Mr. Hercules Ross: he says, "finally as the result of his observations and most serious reflection, he hesitates not to say, that the trade for slaves ought to be abolished, not only as contrary to sound policy, but to the laws of God and nature; and were it possible, by the present inquiry, to convey a just knowledge of the extensive misery it occasions, every kingdom of Europe must unite in calling on their Legislatures to abolish the inhuman traffick [sic]. This is not a hasty nor a new sentiment, formed on the present discussion, which has, in no respect, influenced his judgment. The same opinion he publickly [sic] delivered seventeen years ago in Kingston, Jamaica, in a society formed