But why had the trade ever been permitted at all? The preamble of the act
would show: "Whereas the trade to and from Africa is very advantageous to
Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the Plantations and Colonies
thereunto belonging with a sufficient number of Negros at reasonable rates,
and for that purpose the said trade should be carried on"--Here then we
might see what the Parliament had in view, when it passed this act. But no
one of the occasions, on which it grounded its proceedings, now existed. He
would plead, then, the act itself as an argument for the abolition. If it
had been proved that, instead of being very advantageous to Great Britain,
it was the most destructive to her interests--that it was the ruin of her
seamen--that it stopped the extension of her manufactures;--if it had been
proved, in the second place, that it was not now necessary for the supply
of our Plantations with Negros;--if it had been further established, that
it was from the beginning contrary to the first principles of justice, and
consequently that a pledge for its continuance, had one been attempted to
be given, must have been absolutely void--where in this act of parliament
was the contract to be found, by which Britain was bound, as she was said
to be, never to listen to her own true interests and to the cries of the
natives of Africa? Was it not clear, that all argument, founded on the
supposed pledge of Parliament, made against those who employed it?
But if we were not bound by existing laws to the support of this trade, we
were doubly criminal in pursuing it: for why ought it to be abolished at
all? Because it was incurable injustice.
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