given up the policy of the question. They had been
determined by the justice of it. Why were they then to be troubled again
with arguments of this nature? These, if admitted, would go to the
subversion of all public as well as private morality. Nations were as much
bound as individuals to a system of morals, though a breach in the former
could not be so easily punished. In private life morality took pretty good
care of itself. It was a kind of retail article, in which the returns were
speedy. If a man broke open his neighbour's house, he would feel the
consequences. There was an ally of virtue, who rendered it the interest of
individuals to be moral, and he was called the executioner. But as such
punishment did not always await us in our national concerns, we should
substitute honour as the guardian of our national conduct. He hoped the
West-Indians would consider the character of the mother-country, and the
obligations to national as well as individual justice. He hoped also they
would consider the sufferings, which they occasioned both in Africa, in the
passage, and in the West-Indies. In the passage indeed no one was capable
of describing them. The section of the slave-ship, however, made up the
deficiency of language, and did away all necessity of argument, on this
subject. Disease there had to struggle with the new affliction of chains
and punishment. At one view were the irksomeness of a gaol, and the
miseries of an hospital; so that the holds of these vessels put him in mind
of the regions of the damned. The trade, he said, ought immediately to be
abolished. On a comparison of the probable consequences of the abolition of
it, he saw on one side only doubtful contingencies, but on the other shame
and disgrace.

Sir James Johnstone contended for the immediate abolition of the trade. He
had introduced the plough into his own plantation in the West Indies, and
he found the land produced more sugar than when cultivated in the ordinary
way by slaves. Even for the sake of the planters, he hoped the abolition
would not be long delayed.

Mr. Dundas replied: after which a division took place. The number of votes
in favour of the original motion were one hundred and fifty-eight, and for
the amendment one hundred and nine.

On the 27th of April the House resumed the subject. Mr. Dundas moved, as
before, that the Slave-trade should cease in the year 1800; upon which Lord
Mornington moved, that the year 1795 should be substit