he did,) he should have ventured to
propose something concerning it himself. If it should be thought that the
Trade ought not to be entirely done away, the sooner it was regulated the
better. He had a plan for this purpose, which appeared to him to be likely
to produce some salutary effects. He wished to know if any such thing would
be permitted to be proposed in the course of the present session.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he should be happy, if he thought the
circumstances of the house were such as to enable them to proceed to an
immediate discussion of the question; but as that did not appear, from the
reasons he had before stated, to be the case, he could only assure the
honourable gentleman, that the same motives which had induced him to
propose an inquiry into the subject early in the next session of
parliament, would make him desirous of receiving any other light which
could be thrown upon it.

The question having been then put, the resolution was agreed to
unanimously. Thus ended the first debate that ever took place in the
commons, on this important subject. This debate, though many of the persons
concerned in it abstained cautiously from entering into the merits of the
general question, became interesting, in consequence of circumstances
attending it. Several rose up at once to give relief, as it were, to their
feelings by utterance; but by so doing they were prevented, many of them,
from being heard. They who were heard spoke with peculiar energy, as if
warmed in an extraordinary manner by the subject. There was an apparent
enthusiasm in behalf of the injured Africans. It was supposed by some, that
there was a moment, in which, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had moved
for an immediate abolition of the Trade, he would have carried it that
night; and both he and others, who professed an attachment to the cause,
were censured for not having taken a due advantage of the disposition which
was so apparent. But independently of the inconsistency of doing this on
the part of the ministry, while the privy council were in the midst of
their inquiries, and of the improbability that the other branches of the
legislature would have concurred in so hasty a measure; What good would
have accrued to the cause, if the abolition had been then carried? Those
concerned in the cruel system would never have rested quietly under the
stigma under which they then laboured. They would have urged, that they had
been cond