These acts[A], he apprehended, ought
to satisfy every person of the legality and usefulness of these trades.
They were enacted in reigns distinguished for the production of great and
enlightened characters. We heard then of no wild and destructive doctrines
like the present. These were reserved for this age of novelty and
innovation. But he must remind the House, that the inhabitants of our
islands had as good a right to the protection of their property, as the
inhabitants of Great Britain. Nor could it be diminished in any shape
without full compensation. The proprietors of lands in the ceded islands,
which were purchased of government under specific conditions of settlement,
ought to be indemnified. They also (of whom he was one) who had purchased
the territory granted by the crown to General Monkton in the Island of St.
Vincent, ought to be indemnified also. The sale of this had gone on
briskly, till it was known, that a plan was in agitation for the abolition
of the Slave-trade. Since that period the original purchasers had done
little or nothing, and they had many hundred acres on hand, which would be
of no value, if the present question was carried.
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