He would now notice the objection, that other nations would not give up the Slave-trade, if we were to renounce it. But if the trade were stained but by a thousandth part of the criminality, which he and others, after a thorough investigation of the subject, charged upon it, the House ought immediately to vote its abolition. This miserable argument, if persevered in, would be an eternal bar to the annihilation of the evil. How was it ever to be eradicated, if every nation was thus prudentially to wait till the concurrence of all the world should be obtained? But it applied a thousand times more strongly in a contrary way. How much more justly would other nations say, "Great Britain, free as she is, just and honourable as she is, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish, the Slave-trade. She has investigated it well. Her senate has deliberated upon it. It is plain, then, that she sees no guilt in it." With this argument we should furnish the other nations of Europe, if we were again to refuse to put an end to this cruel traffic: and we should have from henceforth not only to answer for our own, but for their crimes also. Already we had suffered one year to pass away; and now, when the question was renewed, not only had this wretched argument been revived, but a proposition had been made for the gradual abolition of the trade. He knew indeed the difficulty of reforming long established abuses: but in the present case, by proposing some other period than the present, by prescribing some condition, by waiting for some contingency, perhaps till we obtained the general concurrence of Europe, (a concurrence which he believed never yet took place at the commencement of any one improvement in policy or morals,) he feared that this most enormous evil would never be redressed. Was it not folly to wait for the stream to run down before we crossed the bed of its channel? Alas! we might wait for ever. The river would still flow on. We should be no nearer the object, which we had in view, so long as the step, which could alone bring us to it, was not taken.