The opponents of abolition, and especially some of our great colonial antagonists, have confidently stated, that our measure would effect the speedy destruction of our West Indian colonies; and that in consequence of the loss of national capital which we should sustain, and from our no longer importing the productions of our Western colonies, the abolition would bring down utter ruin on the commercial, manufacturing, maritime, and financial interests of the empire. [Sidenote: Abolition injurious to our Commerce, Manufactures, &c., &c.] I am far from denying the political, commercial, and financial advantages we have derived from the West Indies, or the benefit resulting to us, as a maritime nation, from the distant situation of those possessions. Still it is impossible to admit the principles of calculation, any more than the reasoning, of our opponents, when they state the whole loss which the public will sustain by the abolition of the Slave Trade. They commonly begin by putting down as loss, very nearly the whole value of our exports to Africa, together with that of all the ships and sailors employed in that branch of commerce. They enlarge much also on the evils resulting from the suddenness of the shock, by so large a share of the national capital, as well as of our ships and seamen, being all at once thrown out of employment; they then pass over to the West Indies, and sum up the value of the West Indian estates of all kinds belonging to British subjects, with their buildings, Negroes, and other stock. To these they add the value of all the exports and imports, to and from the West Indies; with all the revenue derived from them, and the shipping and sailors which they employ; and then they tell us, that, adding the value of all these various articles together, we shall find the amount of our loss. With respect to the African branch of the foregoing statement, all who believe with me, that the Africans are not incapable of civilization, and that when the fatal barrier shall be broken down, which along the whole western frontier has shut out all the improvements to be derived from a bloodless intercourse with more polished nations, they may gradually advance to a state of social order, comfort, and abundance; all who entertain hopes like these, will anticipate the immense amount of the commercial transactions which Britons in future times may carry on with that vast continent; and surely our descendants will, at the same time, wonder that their forefathers, on principles even of mere commercial gain, could be blind to the advantages to be derived from diffusing our manufactures through a region which constitutes almost a third part of the habitable globe.