were therefore not yet in a situation to
support their population without further supplies from Africa. But the
truth was, that the slaves, so retained, were kept, not to maintain the
population there, but to clear new land. Now the House had determined, that
the trade was not to be continued for this purpose. The population,
therefore, in the islands was sufficient to continue the ordinary
cultivation of them.

He deprecated the idea, that the Slave-trade had been so sanctioned by the
acts of former parliaments, that the present could make no alteration in
it. Had not the House altered the import of foreign sugar into our islands?
a measure, which at the time affected the property of many. Had they not
prohibited the exports of provisions from America to the same quarter?
Again, as to compacts, had the Africans ever been parties to these? It was
rather curious also, when King James the Second gave a charter to the
slave-traders, that he should have given them a right to all the south of
Africa, and authority over every person born therein! But, by doing this,
it was clear, that he gave them a right which he never possessed himself.
After many other observations, he concluded by moving, "that the year 1793
be substituted in the place of the year 1800."

In the course of the debate, which followed, Mr. Burdon stated his
conviction of the necessity of immediate abolition; but he would support
the amendment, as the shortest of the terms proposed.

Mr. Robert Thornton would support it also, as the only choice left him. He
dared not accede to a motion, by which we were to continue for seven years
to imbrue our hands in innocent blood.

Mr. Ryder would not support the trade for one moment, if he could avoid it.
He could not hold a balance with gold in one scale, and blood in the other.

Mr. William Smith exposed the wickedness of restricting the trade to
certain ages. The original motion, he said, would only operate as a
transfer of cruelty from the aged and the guilty to the young and the
innocent. He entreated the House to consider, whether, if it related to
their own children, any one of them would vote for it.

Mr. Windham had hitherto felt a reluctance to speaking, not from the
abstruseness, but from the simplicity, of the subject; but he could not
longer be silent, when he observed those arguments of policy creeping again
out of their lurking-places, which had fled before eloquence and truth. The
House had clearly