at the trade thus carried on had a natural tendency to cause frequent
and cruel wars; to produce unjust convictions and aggravated punishments
for pretended crimes; to encourage fraud and oppression; and to obstruct
the natural course of civilization and improvement. He also showed that
an extensive commerce in articles peculiar to Africa and important
to our manufactures, might be substituted for this inhuman traffic; a
commerce which would at once equal the profits of the slave-trade, and
would probably increase with the civilization that would follow its
abolition. The orator dwelt very forcibly on the grievous sufferings
which the slaves endured on the passage from Africa to the West Indies,
and the horrid treatment they received on their arrival. He also dwelt
emphatically on the dissoluteness and other causes which prevailed among
them in the West Indies, and which prevented the natural increase of
population among them; arguing, that if the causes which had hitherto
obstructed the natural increase of negroes in our plantations, and if
good regulations were established among them, there would be no need
of an annual importation from Africa. At all events, he said, a trade
founded in iniquity, and carried on with so many circumstances
of horror, must be abolished, let its policy be what it will. The
wickedness of the trade was so enormous, so dreadful, and irremediable;
that he could stop at no alternative short of its abolition. His mind had
been harassed with the objections of the West India planters, who had
asserted that the ruin of their property would be involved in such a
step; but he could not help distrusting their arguments; he could not
believe that the Almighty, who forbade the practice of rapine and blood,
had made rapine and blood necessary to any part of his creation. He felt
a confidence in that persuasion; he took the resolution to act on it,
and light soon broke in upon his mind; his suspicion was daily confirmed
by increasing information; and the evidence he had now to offer on
this point was decisive and complete. He was prepared to prove that
the number of negroes in our colonies might be kept up without the
introduction of slaves from Africa. He added, in a fine spirit of
Christian philanthropy:--"Let us then make such amends as we can for
the mischief we have clone to that unhappy continent; let us put an end
at once to this inhuman traffic, and stop this effusion of human blood.
The true way t