Page:Substance of the speech of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, in the House of Lords.djvu/33

 legislation. On the ill-founded plea of humanity, they desire you to relinquish your colonial wealth, the sinews of our commercial existence, and sink into insignificance and contempt in the eyes of Europe and the world, by the adoption of their new system of philosophy and humanity! They call upon you to disfranchise the West India Merchants and Planters—to depopulate Liverpool—and to deprive some thousands of industrious and respectable men of their birth-right as British subjects. These are incontrovertible facts; but your Lordships penetration will easily discover the true aim of the petitioners, who labour so anxiously to destroy your former acts of Parliament. From principles of honour and justice to the West India Planters, I appeal to the protecting Clause alluded to. But do not, my Lords, take my ipse dixit—let the Clause speak for itself: