countries could be persuaded _to abstain from sugar till it were sent to them by free men_, might soon become the abodes of happiness and liberty. Slaves cannot breathe in the air of England: ‘They touch our country and their fetters fall.’ Who is there among you that is not proud of this distinction?—Yet this is not enough: the produce of the labour of slavery should be banished from our shores. Not anything, not an atom of anything, should enter an Englishman’s dwelling, on which the Genius of Liberty had not set his seal. What would become of slavery if there were no consumers of its produce? Yet I have seen a party of pretended philanthropists sitting round a tea-table, and while they dropped the sugar into their cups repeat some tale of the sufferings of a slave, and execrate the colonial planters, who are but their caterers and stewards—the obsequious ministers of their unfeeling sensuality! O my fair countrywomen! you who have such tender hearts, such affectionate spirits, such amiable and delicate feelings, do you consider the mass of mischief and cruelty to which you contribute, nay, of which you are among the primary causes, when you indulge yourselves in so paltry, so contemptible a gratification as results from the use of sugar? while to abstain from it entirely is a privation so trivial, that it is most wonderful to think that Justice and Charity should have such a boon to beg from Beauty in the name of the blood and the tears of human beings. Be not deterred by the idea that you will have few companions by the better way: so much the rather should it be strictly followed by amiable and benevolent minds.[74] Secure to yourselves at least the delightful consciousness of reflecting that you are in no way whatever accomplices in the cruelty and crime of slavery, and accomplices in it you certainly are, nay, its very original springs, as long as you are receivers and consumers of its iniquitous acquisitions.’