A Negro, if he worked for himself, could do double work. By an
improvement then in the mode of labour, the work in the islands could be
doubled. But if so, what would become of the argument of his honourable
friend? for then only half the number of the present labourers were
necessary.
He would now try this argument of expediency by other considerations. The
best informed writers on the subject had told us, that the purchase of new
Negros was injurious to the planters. But if this statement was just, would
not the abolition be beneficial to them? That it would, was the opinion of
Mr. Long, their own historian. "If the Slave-trade," says he, "was
prohibited for four or five years, it would enable them, to retrieve their
affairs by preventing them from running into debt, either by renting or
purchasing Negros." To this acknowledgment he would add a fact from the
evidence, which was, that a North American province, by such a prohibition
alone for a few years, from being deeply plunged in debt, had become
independent, rich, and flourishing.
The next consideration was the danger, to which the islands were exposed
from the newly imported slaves.
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