Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/60

52 that demand the legislature of England cannot be deaf. I have no fear of the effect of any of the arguments which have been used in this place; but I am aware that means of a different character have been put into requisition. All the machinery of private solicitation and intrigue has been at work, and a pressure almost intolerable has been exerted, it is probable, upon nearly every one of those who hear me. Yet I am fearless of the result. The threatened measure cannot pass here or elsewhere. You have been urged by demands, addressed to you not as members of the British Parliament, not as rational beings, but as if you were mere machines, intended simply to indicate the views of parties outside these walls. I have requested no vote, nor would I stoop to such a course; but when any gentleman has named the subject to me, I have said simply, hear the case. You are yet, in some sense, the mind and the deliberate wisdom of the nation, and you will act in the spirit of that high capacity, not in subservience to blind impulses from without, originating no doubt in benevolent motives, but founded upon information most partial, inadequate, and erroneous. If I have failed in proving that which I undertook, it has been my weakness and my shame, but it has been the misfortune of one of the strongest cases ever submitted to Parliament. I read but yesterday an article in a morning journal on this subject, with sentiments which I will not characterise, lest I should add one