ould never be by Englishmen. We ought no
longer to be concerned in such a crime.

An adversary, Mr. Baillie, had said, that it would not be fair to take the
character of this country from the records of the Old Bailey. He did not at
all wonder, when the subject of the Slave-trade was mentioned, that the Old
Bailey naturally occurred to his recollection. The facts which had been
described in the evidence, were associated in all our minds with the ideas
of criminal justice. But Mr. Baillie had forgot the essential difference
between the two cases. When we learnt from these records, that crimes were
committed in this country, we learnt also, that they were punished with
transportation and death. But the crimes committed in the Slave-trade were
passed over with impunity. Nay, the perpetrators were even sent out again
to commit others.

As to the mode of obtaining slaves, it had been suggested as the least
disreputable, that they became so in consequence of condemnation as
criminals. But he would judge of the probability of this mode by the
reasonableness of it. No less than eighty thousand Africans were exported
annually by the different nations of Europe from their own country. Was it
possible to believe, that this number could have been legally convicted of
crimes, for which they had justly forfeited their liberty? The supposition
was ridiculous. The truth was, that every enormity was practised to obtain
the persons of these unhappy people. He referred those present to the case
in the evidence of the African trader, who had kidnapped and sold a girl,
and who was afterwards kidnapped and sold himself. He desired them to
reason upon the conversation which had taken place between the trader and
the captain of the ship on this occasion. He desired them also to reason
upon the instance mentioned this evening, which had happened in the river
Cameroons, and they would infer all the rapine, all the desolation, and all
the bloodshed, which had been placed to the account of this execrable
trade.

An attempt had been made to impress the House with the horrible scenes
which had taken place in St. Domingo, as an argument against the abolition
of the Slave-trade; but could any more weighty argument be produced in its
favour? What were the causes of the insurrections there? They were two. The
first was the indecision of the National Assembly, who wished to compromise
between that which was right and that which was wrong on this subject