This miserable argument, if persevered
in, would be an eternal bar to the annihilation of the evil. How was it
ever to be eradicated, if every nation was thus prudentially to wait till
the concurrence of all the world should be obtained? But it applied a
thousand times more strongly in a contrary way. How much more justly would
other nations say, "Great Britain, free as she is, just and honourable as
she is, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish, the
Slave-trade. She has investigated it well. Her senate has deliberated upon
it. It is plain, then, that she sees no guilt in it." With this argument we
should furnish the other nations of Europe, if we were again to refuse to
put an end to this cruel traffic: and we should have from henceforth not
only to answer for our own, but for their crimes also. Already we had
suffered one year to pass away; and now, when the question was renewed, not
only had this wretched argument been revived, but a proposition had been
made for the gradual abolition of the trade. He knew indeed the difficulty
of reforming long established abuses: but in the present case, by proposing
some other period than the present, by prescribing some condition, by
waiting for some contingency, perhaps till we obtained the general
concurrence of Europe, (a concurrence which he believed never yet took
place at the commencement of any one improvement in policy or morals,) he
feared that this most enormous evil would never be redressed.
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