Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/250

 Upon the whole, he would give his opinion of this traffic in a few words. He believed it to be impolitic, he knew it to be inhuman; he was certjan it was unjust; he thought it so inhuman and unjust that if the colonies could not be cultivated without it, they ought not to be cultivated at all. It would be much better for us to be without them, than not to abolish the slave-trade. He hoped therefore that the members would this night act the part which would do them honor. He declared, that whether he should vote in a large minority or a small one, he would never give up the cause. Whether in the house of parliament or out of it, in whatever situation he might ever be, as long as he had a voice to speak, this question should never be at rest. Believing the trade to be of the nature of crimes and pollutions, which stained the honor of the country, he would never relax his efforts. It was his duty to prevent man from preying upon man; and if he and his friends should die before they had attained their glorious object, he hoped there would never be wanting men alive to their duty, who would continue to labor till the evil should be wholly done away. If the situation of the Africans was as happy as servitude could make them, he could not consent to the enormous crime of selling man to man, nor permit a practice to continue, which put an entire bar to the civilization of one quarter of the globe. He was sure that the nation would not much longer allow the continuance of enormities which shocked human nature. The West Indies had no right to demand that crimes should be permitted by this country for their advantage; and if they were wise, they would lend their cordial assistance to such measures as would bring about in the shortest possible time the abolition of this execrable trade.

Mr. Jenkinson admitted that the slave-trade was an evil. He admitted also that the state of slavery was an evil; if the question was, not whether we should abolish, but whether we should establish these, he would be the first to oppose himself to their existence; but there were many evils which we should have thought it our duty to prevent, yet which, when they had once arisen, it was more dangerous to oppose than to submit to. The duty of a statesman was, not to consider abstractedly what was right or wrong, but to weigh the consequences which were likely to result from the abolition of an evil, against those which were likely to result from its continuance. Agreeing then most perfectly with the abolitionists in their end, he differed from them only in the means of accomplishing it. He was desirous of doing that gradually, which he conceived they were doing rashly. He had therefore drawn up two propositions. The first was, that an address be presented to his majesty, that he would recommend to the colonial assemblies to grant premiums to such planters and overseers as should distinguish themselves by promoting the annual increase of the slaves by birth; and likewise freedom to every female slave, who had reared five children to the age of seven years. The second was, that a bounty of five pounds per head be given to the master of every slave-ship, who should import in any cargo a greater number of lemales than males, not exceeding the age of twenty-five years. To bring for