He admitted it was: nor was
it, whether it was in itself abstractedly an evil: he admitted this also:
but whether, under all the circumstances of the case, any considerable
advantage would arise to a number of our fellow-creatures from the
abolition of the trade in the manner in which it had been proposed.
He was ready to admit, that the Africans at home were made miserable by the
Slave-trade, and that, if it were universally abolished, great benefit
would arise to them. No one, however, would assert, that these miseries
arose from the trade as carried on by Great Britain only. Other countries
occasioned as much of the evil as we did; and if the abolition of it by us
should prove only the transferring of it to those countries, very little
benefit would result from the measure.
What then was the probability of our example being followed by foreign
powers? Five years had now elapsed since the question was first started,
and what had any of them done? The Portuguese continued the trade. The
Spaniards still gave a bounty to encourage it. He believed there were
agents from Holland in this country, who were then negotiating with persons
concerned in it in order to secure its continuance.
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