A mural depicting the sorrows of slavery in the Caribbean


declared the slave trade to be an abominable system of cruelty. Yet nothing effectual has been done.”


horrors of the Middle Passage. Tat bill, excellent though it was, these friends of the Slave Trade opposed most vehemently, alleging that it would be the inevitable ruin of the Slave Trade although we find, by experience, that it has had no such effect. And to pass by other instances, when it was proposed in this


very session to abolish the Foreign Slave Trade, and when some gentlemen connected with the West Indies gave us their support, the people of Liverpool said this was the worst measure that could be proposed. Tey told us: “What! Abolish this part of the Trade! Abolish the whole of it, at once! Tis is actual destruction! Deal fairly with us, and tell us that you are bent upon destroying the whole of the Trade, that we may understand you!” Tese Gentlemen will now tell us: “Do not think of doing


anything more – the Trade is actually abolished.” To this I say: “Gentlemen, since you know the thing is done, since you are aware that the deed is executed, give me leave to ask you just to set your name to it.” Tat would not be much for one member of this House to ask of another in any ordinary transaction. Now, with regard to what is stated of the ruin of the West In- dies by the abolition of the African Trade, it is a subject to which


“The whole of England has


great attention is due. But I am sure I cannot refute that assertion more effectually than by referring to a splendid speech which was delivered in this House, by a Right Honourable Gentleman [Mr Pitt] no longer among us – a speech which, although not successful in gaining the votes of a majority of this House, was nevertheless the most powerful and convincing eloquence that ever adorned these walls. [It was] a speech not of vague and showy ornament, but of


solid and indisputable facts, and unquestionable calculations, and conclusions drawn from premises as correctly as if they had been mathematical propositions, all tending to prove that instead of the West India plantations suffering an injury, they would derive a material benefit by the abolition of the African Slave Trade. I should have thought that what has taken place in North


America would have satisfied those who are most prone to doubt that, by good treatment, the Negro population may be kept up without importation. Within these 19 or 20 years, the black popu- lation of America has been nearly doubled. Sir, when I hear these calculations made, when I find them authenticated by facts, when I find the consequences of them so admirably illustrated by argu- ment, as I have done, I am driven to the conclusion that, with the same treatment, the Negro population would increase everywhere in the plantations, as it has done in some of them. And this is a proof, I must not say a damning but a blessed proof,


of the truth of the proposition, that there is no necessity for fresh importation to keep up the Negro population in our West India plantations; but that if you treat as well as they may be treated, they will increase every year; so that you would soon have, on the Islands, as many slaves as you would want.


New African | October 2011 | 37


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