Page:Substance of the speech of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, in the House of Lords.djvu/31

 And here, my Lords, I have additional proof to offer concerning the protecting wisdom of the Parliament in favour of the British Trader to Africa. In another part of the same law is a Clause, expressly "securing the British Merchants to Africa from the operations of the Act." What am I, my Lords, to conclude from this protecting Clause, but that the wisdom of Parliament, penetrating into futurity, had resolved that all the former Acts of the Legislature should be respected and confirmed beyond the possibility of a doubt? If I am wrong in my conclusion, then why pass such a Clause in an Act of such vast importance to the interest of the Sierra Leone Company? Why attempt to fix a stigma upon their future conduct, by supposing that they would infringe upon the rights of the British Trader in the Slave Trade? Why introduce such a protecting Clause? If found requisite to check and control future avarice and ambition, my argument is fortified in an im-