He would take
care, as far as he could, that none but young slaves should be brought from
the Coast of Africa. He would encourage establishments there for a new
species of traffic. Foreign nations should be invited to concur in the
abolition. He should propose a praedial rather than a personal service for
the West Indies, and institutions, by which the slaves there should be
instructed in religious duties. He concluded by reading several
resolutions, which he would leave to the future consideration of the House.
Mr. Pitt then rose. He deprecated the resolutions altogether. He denied
also the inferences, which Mr. Dundas had drawn from the West-Indian
documents relative to the Negro-population. He had looked over his own
calculations from the same documents again and again, and he would submit
them, with all their data, if it should be necessary, to the House.
Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Fox held the same language. They contended also,
that Mr. Dundas had now proved, a thousand times more strongly than ever,
the necessity of immediate abolition. All the resolutions he had read were
operative against his own reasoning. The latter observed, that the
Slave-traders were in future only to be allowed to steal innocent children
from their disconsolate parents.
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