Importations for this
purpose were to be considered, not as carrying on the trade, but as setting
on foot a Slave-trade, a measure which he believed no one present would
then support. He therefore asked his honourable friend, whether the period
he had looked to was now arrived? whether the West Indies, at this hour,
were not in a state, in which they could maintain their population?
It had been argued, that one or other of these two assertions was false;
that either the population of the slaves must be decreasing, (which the
abolitionists denied,) or, if it was increasing, the slaves must have been
well treated. That their population was rather increasing than otherwise,
and also that their general treatment was by no means so good as it ought
to have been, were both points which had been proved by different
witnesses. Neither were they incompatible with each other. But he would see
whether the explanation of this seeming contradiction would not refute the
argument of expediency, as advanced by his honourable friend. Did the
slaves decrease in numbers?--Yes. Then ill usage must have been the cause
of it; but if so, the abolition was immediately necessary to restrain it.
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