With respect to the inhumanity of the trade, he would observe, that if their lordships, sitting there as legislators, were to set their faces against everything which appeared to be inhuman, much of the security on which their lives and property depended might be shaken, if not totally destroyed. The question was, not whether there was not some evil attending the Slave Trade, but whether by the measure now before them they should increase or diminish the quantity of human misery in the world. He believed, for one, considering the internal state of Africa, and the impossibility of procuring the concurrence of foreign nations in the measure, that they would not be able to do any good by the adoption of it.
As to the impolicy of the trade, the policy of it, on the other hand, was so great, that he trembled at the consequences of its abolition. The property connected with this question amounted to a hundred millions. The annual produce of the islands was eighteen millions, and it yielded a revenue of four millions annually. How was this immense property and income to be preserved? Some had said it would be preserved, because the black population in the islands could be kept up without further supplies; but the planters denied this assertion, and they were the best judges of the subject.
He condemned the resolution as a libel upon the wisdom of the law of the land; and upon the conduct of their ancestors. He condemned it also, because, if followed up, it would lead to the abolition of the trade, and the abolition of the trade to the emancipation of the slaves in our colonies.
The Bishop of St. Asaph (Dr. Horsley) said, that, allowing the slaves in the West Indies even to be pampered with delicacies, or to be put to rest on a bed of roses, they could not be happy, for—a slave would be still a slave. The question, however, was not concerning the alteration of their condition, but whether we should abolish the practice, by which they were put in that condition? Whether it was humane, just, and politic in us so to place them? This question was easily answered; for he found it difficult to form any one notion of humanity, which did not include a desire of promoting the happiness of others; and he knew of no other justice than that, which was founded on the principle of doing to others, as we should wish they should do to us. And these principles of humanity and justice were so clear, that he found it difficult to make them clearer. Perhaps no difficulty was greater than that of arguing a self-evident proposition, and such he took to be the character of the proposition, that the Slave Trade was inhuman and unjust.
It had been said, that slavery had existed from the beginning of the world. He would allow it. But had such a trade as the Slave Trade ever existed before? Would the noble Earl, who had talked of the slavery of ancient Rome and Greece, assert, that in the course of his whole reading, however profound it might have been, he had found anything resembling such a traffic? Where did it appear in history, that ships were regularly fitted out to fetch away tens of thousands of persons annually, against their will, from their native land; that these were subject to personal indignities and arbitrary punishments during their transportation; and that a certain proportion of them, owing to suffocation and other cruel causes, uniformly perished? He averred, that nothing like the African Slave Trade was ever practised in any nation upon earth.
If the trade then was repugnant, as he maintained it was, to justice and humanity, he did not see how, without aiding and abetting injustice and inhumanity, any man could sanction it: and he thought that the noble baron (Hawkesbury) was peculiarly bound to support the resolution; for he had admitted that if it could be shown, that the trade was contrary to these principles, the question would be at an end. Now this contrariety had been made apparent, and his lordship had not even attempted to refute it.
He would say but little on the subject of revealed religion, as it related to this question, because the reverend prelate, near him, had spoken so fully upon it. He might observe, however, that at the end of the sixth year, when the Hebrew slave was emancipated, he was to be furnished liberally from the flock, the floor, and the wine-press of his master.
Lord Holland lamented the unfaithfulness of the noble baron (Hawkesbury) to his own principles, and the inflexible opposition of the noble earl (Westmoreland), from both which circumstances he despaired for ever of any assistance from them to this glorious cause. The latter wished to hear evidence on the subject, for the purpose, doubtless, of delay. He was sure, that the noble earl did not care what the evidence would say on either side; for his mind was made up, that the trade ought not to be abolished.
The noble earl had made a difference between humanity, justice, and sound policy. God forbid, that we should ever admit such distinctions in this country! But he had gone further, and said, that a thing might be inhuman, and yet not unjust; and he put the case of the execution of a criminal in support of it. Did he not by this position confound all notions of right and wrong in human institutions? When a criminal was justly executed, was not the execution justice to him who suffered, and humanity to the body of the people at large?
The noble earl had said also, that we should do no good by the abolition, because other nations would not concur in it. He did not know what other nations would do; but this he knew, that we ourselves ought not to be unjust because they should refuse to be honest. It was, however, self-obvious, that, if we admitted no more slaves into our colonies, the evil would be considerably diminished.