Dat. 9. “No private or publick advantage will ever justify the slave-trade, till it be proved essentially just and lawful in its nature.” Here we are sincerely agreed; and according to the distinction proposed for datum 8, he has only to set heartily to work, and prove the Leverpool slave-trade to be that particular sort of slave-trade, “which God hath commanded as being essentially just and lawful in its nature.” Dat. 10. “No argument drawn from abuse, can prove the intrinsic deformity of the slave-trade, unless it be proved essentially unjust.” These are words without meaning. We are not combating an ideal slavery; but slavery accompanied with robbery, oppression, misery, murder. Wherever we find slavery so attended, it becomes a horrid crime, be it intrinsically never so just. Dat. 11. “If abuses committed in the prosecution of a lawful pursuit can be prevented, then the advantages arising from it, ought to have a powerful influence against the abolition.” But if these abuses cannot possibly be prevented (for are we to oppress and murder according to law?) then the greatest advantages attending any practice must be abandoned, till a method shall be discovered, of separating them from iniquity and blood-shed. Dat. 12. “If the slave-trade is to be abolished, because of the abuses committed in it, then every other branch of trade, in which abuses are committed, ought to share the same fate.” Most certainly in turn, in proportion to the atrociousness of each. Let us once get this staring monster subdued, and we will be obliged to the author for pointing out any other iniquitous traffick that deserves to follow immediately in the train of the Leverpool slave-trade. The fallaciousness of this author’s reasoning, is exceedingly well exposed, in the Critical Review of April, 1788, to which I refer the reader. From this view of the author’s data, it will appear, that he has totally confounded times and circumstances. The law of Moses was enacted in aid of natural religion, till the perfect religion of Christ should be given to the world. The doctrines of this last, enjoin us to consider and treat all men as our brethren; and its effect was gradually to take away all burthensome ceremonies, all oppressive distinctions. Why are we then sent back to less perfect institutions for the rule of our practice? We are to go on to perfection, refine sentiment, and extend benevolence. What has raised Europe above the rest of the world, but the abolition of domestick slavery? What degrees of opulence and prosperity might it acquire, if the abominable, contracted, branch of trade in the bodies of our fellow creatures of Africa, were changed to a fair, equitable intercourse of productions and manufactures! J. R. EXAMINATION, &c.