Domingo had been torn to pieces by insurrections. The most
dreadful barbarities had been perpetrated there. In the year 1789 the
imports into it exceeded five millions sterling. The exports from it in the
same year amounted to six millions; and the trade employed three hundred
thousand tons of shipping, and thirty thousand seamen. This fine island,
thus advantageously situated, had been lost in consequence of the agitation
of the question or the Slave-trade. Surely so much mischief ought to have
satisfied those who supported it; but they required the total destruction
of all the West Indian colonies, belonging to Great Britain, to complete
the ruin.
The honourable gentleman, who had just spoken, had dwelt, upon the
enormities of the Slave-trade. He was far from denying, that many acts of
inhumanity might accompany it; but as human nature was much the same every
where, it would be unreasonable to expect among African traders, or the
inhabitants of our islands, a degree of perfection in morals, which was not
to be found in Great Britain itself. Would any man estimate the character
of the English nation by what was to be read in the records of the Old
Bailey? He himself, however, had lived sixteen years in the West Indies,
and he could bear testimony to the general good usage of the slaves.
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