But against all, which justice and humanity could bring forward against the Slave Trade, it was still to be urged, that the continuance of it was necessary to the existence of our West Indian colonies. To put the argument in more specific form, it was objected, that the stock of Slaves then actually in the West Indies could not be maintained by natural generation, without being recruited from time to time by importations from Africa, and therefore, that the abolition of the Slave Trade would produce the sure, though gradual, ruin of our colonies, with all those effects on the wealth and strength of the mother country which must follow from the loss of so valuable a member of the empire. To the examination of this objection, let me intreat your most serious attention; for on it, in fact, the whole argument turns, so far as policy is in question. For my own part I hesitate not to say, that, let the apparent temptation of profit be what it may, it never can be the real interest of any nation to be unjust and inhuman; to suppose the contrary, would be almost to arraign the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty, as it would undoubtedly be, to admit a principle directly at war with his revealed will. Nor can I forbear taking occasion to congratulate my country, that in the discussions on this subject, the greatest of her statesmen, both dead and living, even those who have differed almost on every other question, have declared their concurrent assent to that grand and aweful truth, _that the principles of justice are immutable in their nature, and universal in their application; the duty at once, and the interest, of nations, no less than of individuals_.