It would be difficult to add up the different items, much less to discover the precise sum of the misery which may fairly be placed to the account of the Slave Trade in the West Indies. Here, however, let me first remark, and it ought to have been observed in the case of Africa likewise, the Slave Trade is justly chargeable with the prevention of all that domestic happiness and social comfort and prosperity which would follow from the introduction of the domestic system which it naturally supersedes. But when we proceed to the positive articles of this account; when we endeavour to sum up the total of the immense number of individual sufferers: Again, when to these we add the sufferings and the waste of our brave defenders, by sea and land, with the sorrows of their surviving relatives; and when we consider the unknown amount of evil, which, from the effect on the minds of our soldiers and sailors, may at some time or other result from this class of ravages, evil possibly commensurate with the ruin of our country: When we remember that it is the Slave Trade which prolongs the internal weakness of our West Indian colonies, that it is this weakness which invites attack, and thence creates the necessity of defence at such a profuse expenditure of the lives of our countrymen; and that the facility of conquering these possessions operates powerfully as a temptation to our enemies to commence war, with all its unknown miseries and dangers: By what new denomination shall we in any degree fairly express the real sum of these several items? There is still, however, another class of evils on which I have occasionally touched, which will appear of the highest amount to all considerate men, to whom the best interests of their country are dear, and who have been accustomed to trace the operation of those causes which have led to the decline and fall of nations.[55] These are the moral evils both of the Slave Trade, and even, still more, because of greater extent, of the system of West Indian slavery. It is the fashion of the present day to pay little attention to evils of this class; but they are not on this account less real or less efficient. Their nature and force have been acknowledged by all writers of eminence, whether ancient or modern, who have treated either of the prosperity or decay of the great nations of antiquity.