Nor was it baneful only to the
objects, but to the promoters of it. The loss of British seamen in this
traffic was enormous. One fifth of all, who were employed in it, perished;
that is, they became the victims of a system, which was founded on fraud,
robbery, and murder; and which procured to the British nation nothing but
the execration of mankind. Nor had we yet done with the evils, which
attended it; for it brought in its train the worst of all moral effects,
not only as it respected the poor slaves, when transported to the colonies,
but as it respected those, who had concerns with them there. The arbitrary
power, which it conferred, afforded men of bad dispositions full scope for
the exercise of their passions; and it rendered men, constitutionally of
good dispositions, callous to the misery of others. Thus it depraved the
nature of all, who were connected with it. These considerations had made
him a friend to the abolition from the time he was capable of reasoning
upon it. They were considerations also, which determined the House in the
year 1782 to adopt a measure of the same kind as the present. Had any thing
happened to change the opinion of members since? On the contrary, they had
now the clearest evidence, that all the arguments then used against the
abolition were fallacious; being founded not upon truth, but on assertions
devoid of all truth, and derived from ignorance or prejudice.
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