Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/265

 justly executed, was not the execution justice to him who Buffered and humanity to the body of the people at large?

He wished most heartily for the total abolition of the trade. lie was convinced that it was both inhuman, unjust, and impolitic. This had always been his opinion as an individual since he was capable of forming one. It was his opinion then as a legislator. It was his opinion as a colonial proprietor; and it was his opinion as an Englishman, wishing for the prosperity of the British empire.

The Earl of Suffolk contended that the population of the slaves in the islands could be kept up by good treatment, so as to be sufficient for their cultivation. He entered into a detail of calculations from the year 1772 downwards in support of this statement. He believed all the miseries of St. Domingo arose from the vast importation of Africans. He had such a deep sense of the inhumanity and injustice of the slave-trade, that if he ever wished any action of his life to be recorded, it would be that of the vote he should then give in support of the resolution.

Lord Sidmouth said that he agreed to the substance of the resolution, but yet he could not support it. Could he be convinced that the trade would be injurious to the cause of humanity and justice, the question with him would be decided; for policy could not be opposed to humanity and justice. He had been of the opinion for the last twenty years that the interests of the country and those of numerous individuals were so deeply blended with this traffic that we should he very cautious how we proceeded. With respect to the cultivation of new lands, he would not allow a single negro to be imported for such a purpose; but he must have a regard for the old plantations. When he found a sufficient increase in the black population to continue the cultivation already established there, then, but net till then, he would agree to an abolition of the trade.

Earl Stanhope said he would not detain their lordships long. He could not, however, help expressing his astonishment at what had fallen from the last speaker; for he had evidently confessed that the slave-trade was inhuman and unjust, and then he had insinuated that it was neither inhuman nor unjust to continue it. A more paradoxical or whimsical opinion, he believed, was never entertained, or more whimsically expressed in that house. The noble viscount had talked of the interests of the planters; but this was but a part of the subject, for surely the people of Africa were not to be forgotten. He did not understand the practice of complimenting the planters with the lives of men, women, and helpless children by thousands for the sake of their pecuniary advantage; and they who adopted it, whatever they might think of the consistency of their own conduct, offered an insult to the sacred names of humanity and justice.

Earl Grosvenor could not but express the joy he felt at the hope, after all his disappointments, that this wicked trade would be done away. He hoped that his majesty's ministers were in earnest, and that they would, early in the next session, take this great question up with a determination to go through