Mr. James Martin succeeded Mr. Grosvenor. He said, he had been long aware,
how much self-interest could pervert the judgment; but he was not apprized
of the full power of it, till the Slave-trade became a subject of
discussion. He had always conceived, that the custom of trafficking in
human beings had been incautiously begun, and without any reflection upon
it; for he never could believe that any man, under the influence of moral
principles, could suffer himself knowingly to carry on a trade replete with
fraud, cruelty, and destruction; with destruction, indeed, of the worst
kind, because it subjected the sufferers to a lingering death. But he found
now, that even such a trade as this could be sanctioned.
It was well observed in the petition from the University of Cambridge
against the Slave-trade, "that a firm belief in the Providence of a
benevolent Creator assured them that no system, founded on the oppression
of one part of mankind, could be beneficial to another." He felt much
concern, that in an assembly of the representatives of a country, boasting
itself zealous not only for the preservation of its own liberties, but for
the general rights of mankind, it should be necessary to say a single word
upon such a subject; but the deceitfulness of the human heart was such, as
to change the appearances of truth, when it stood in opposition to
self-interest.
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