Its naval strength would decay. Merchants,
manufacturers and others would come to beggary. But in this deplorable
situation they would expect to be indemnified for their losses.
Compensation indeed must follow. It could not be withheld. But what would
be the amount of it? The country would have no less than from eighty to a
hundred millions to pay the sufferers; and it would be driven to such
distress in paying this sum us it had never before experienced.
The last attempt was to show them that a regulation of the trade was all
that was now wanted. While this would remedy the evils complained of, it
would prevent the mischief which would assuredly follow the abolition. The
planters had already done their part. The assemblies of the different
islands had most of them made wholesome laws upon the subject. The very
bills passed for this purpose in Jamaica and Grenada had arrived in
England, and might be seen by the public: the great grievances had
been redressed: no slave could now be mutilated or wantonly killed
by his owner; one man could not now maltreat, or bruise, or wound
the slave of another; the aged could not now be turned off to perish
by hunger.
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