Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/236

 up; and when these laborers should have the natural springs of human action afforded them, they would then rise to the natural level of human industry.

From Jamaica he would now go to the other islands. In Barbadoes the slaves had rather increased. In St. Kitts the decrease for fourteen years had been but three-fourths per cent., but here many of the observations would apply which he had used in the case of Jamaica. In Antigua many had died by a particular calamity. But for this, the decrease would have been trifling. In Nevis and Montserrat there was little or no disproportion of the sexes; so that it might well be hoped that the numbers would be kept up in these islands. In Dominica some controversy had arisen about the calculation; but Governor Orde had stated an increase of births above the deaths. From Grenada and St. Vincents no accurate accounts had been delivered in answer to the queries sent them; but they were probably not in circumstances less favorable than in the other islands.

On a full review, then, of the state of the negro population in the West Indies, was there any serious ground of alarm from the abolition of the slavetrade? Where was the impracticability on which alone so many had rested their objections? Must we not blush at pretending that it would distress our consciences to accede to this measure, as far as the question of the negro population was concerned?

Intolerable were the mischiefs of this trade, both in its origin and through every stage of its progress. To say that slaves could be furnished us by fair and commercial means was ridiculous. The trade sometimes ceased, as during the late war. The demand was more or less, according to circumstances. But how was it possible, that to a demand so exceedingly fluctuating, the supply should always exactly accommodate itself? Alas! we made human beings the subject of commerce; we talked of them as such; and yet we would not allow them the common principle of commerce, that the supply must accommodate itself to the consumption. It was not from wars, then, that the slaves were chiefly procured. They were obtained in proportion as they were wanted. If a demand for slaves arose, a supply was forced in one way or other; and it was in vain, overpowered as we then were with positive evidence, as well as the reasonableness of the supposition, to deny that by the slave-trade we occasioned all the enormities which had been alleged against it.

Mr. Fox again rose and observed, that some expressions which he had used had been complained of as too harsh and severe. He had since considered them; but he could not prevail upon himself to retract them; because, if any gentleman, after reading the evidence on the table, and attending to the debate, could avow himself au abettor of this shameful traffic in human flesh, it could only be either from some hardness of heart, or some difficulty of understanding, which he really knew not how to account for

Some had considered this question as a question of political, whereas it was a question of personal freedom. Political freedom was undoubtedly a great blessing; but, when it came to be compared with personal, it sunk to nothing To confound the two, served therefore to render all arguments on either