Together with the merchants, I must except also that considerable body, often of respectable men, who have gone over to the West Indian islands in inferior capacities, and who mean to engage in planting undertakings. The stoppage of the importations from Africa would retard, at least, if not destroy these speculations. This is a class of men, in whose interests I confess I take a lively interest; but not an interest sufficient to induce me to sanction the destruction of thousands of my fellow creatures annually, for the sake of allowing them more convenient opportunities of rising in life. I confess their interest is a matter of much more concern to me than those of the greater and more adventurous speculators. I ought, perhaps, also to except the last-mentioned class of persons. Though, in common, to afford them the opportunity of engaging in these West Indian speculations, be only to afford them an occasion of accomplishing their own ruin; yet they conceive they have an interest in the continuance of the Slave Trade, and therefore they are not actuated only by party spirit. This class is likely to increase. The few great prizes in the West Indian lottery will tempt adventurers to engage in it; and it is in vain to hope that the colonists will ever concur in the abolition of the Slave Trade, so long as there is room left for new speculations; that is, so long as there remains, in the Western hemisphere, any unsettled land capable of cultivation, and as any Negroes can be brought from Africa to work it. So long as there is any scope left for new speculations, so long there will be a set of new speculators residing in the islands, who will form the real instigators of the opposition to the proposal for abolishing the Slave Trade; and these, joined by the great mercantile body at home, will carry along with them the bulk of their brethren, the colonial proprietors resident in this country. It is for the benefit of these classes, not for that of our old colonial proprietors, that the Slave Trade is in reality carried on. For it is undeniably true, nor will it, I presume, be contested, that by far the larger proportion of all the Slaves we import, have always been and will ever be destined to the formation of new settlements, not in maintaining and keeping up estates which had been already completed.