Page:Thorpe (1819) A commentary on the treaties.pdf/60

56 pledged to aid Great Britain in effecting its accomplishment without delay.

Portugal in February 1810, by treaty promised gradually to abolish the slave trade, and she has regularly ever since gradually increased it : in 1815 she agrees to appoint a time for the total abolition, and in 1817 she engages to do the same; yet by a separate article in this last treaty, we are led to expect its continuance for fifteen years at least: it has been proved that the slave trade is a thousand times more proﬁtable than any other traffic, ever nation but Portugal has relinquished it from the conviction of its injustice and inhumanity, and is she to be allowed a monopoly, because she is devoid of those feelings of justice and humanity, and of those moral and religious obligations, which have actuated all other states, and caused them to abandon the trade?

I have shewn that any one power being allowed to carry on the slave trade, will agitate Africa from the circumference to the centre, and continue every mischief and misery now experienced by her inhabitants: one leper will infect a community, until the very air breathes contagion l, If, exorbitant profit is to be made in this trade, it had better be equitably divided amongst all the