With respect to
the cultivation of new lands, he would not allow a single Negro to be
imported for such a purpose; but he must have a regard to the old
plantations. When he found a sufficient increase in the Black population to
continue the cultivation already established there, then, but not till
then, he would agree to an abolition of the trade.
Earl Stanhope said he would not detain their lordships long. He could not,
however, help expressing his astonishment at what had fallen from the last
speaker; for he had evidently confessed that the Slave-trade was inhuman
and unjust, and then he had insinuated, that it was neither inhuman nor
unjust to continue it. A more paradoxical or whimsical opinion, he
believed, was never entertained, or more whimsically expressed in that
house. The noble viscount had talked of the interests of the planters: but
this was but a part of the subject; for surely the people of Africa were
not to be forgotten. He did not understand the practice of complimenting
the planters with the lives of men, women, and helpless children by
thousands for the sake of their pecuniary advantage; and they, who adopted
it, whatever they might think of the consistency of their own conduct,
offered an insult to the sacred names of humanity and justice.
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