The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume IIClarkson, Thomas
History
The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume II
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa
Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Fox held the same language. They contended also,
that Mr. Dundas had now proved, a thousand times more strongly than ever,
the necessity of immediate abolition. All the resolutions he had read were
operative against his own reasoning. The latter observed, that the
Slave-traders were in future only to be allowed to steal innocent children
from their disconsolate parents.
After a few observations by Lord Sheffield, Mr. Drake, Colonel Tarleton,
and Mr. Rolle, the House adjourned.
On the twenty-fifth of April it resumed the consideration of the subject.
Mr. Dundas then went over his former resolutions, and concluded by moving,
"that it should not be lawful to import any African Negros into any British
colonies, in ships owned or navigated by British subjects, at any time
after the first of January 1800."
Lord Mornington (now Marquis Wellesley) rose to propose an amendment. He
congratulated his countrymen, that the Slave-trade had received its
death-wound. This traffic was founded in injustice; and between right and
wrong there could be no compromise. Africa was not to be sacrificed to the
apparent good of the West-Indies. He would not repeat those enormities out
of the evidence, which had made such a deep impression upon the House. It
had been resolved, that the trade should be abolished. The question then
was, how long they were to persevere in the crime of its continuance. One
had said, that they might be unjust for ten years longer; another, only
till the beginning of the next century. But this diversity of opinion had
proceeded from an erroneous statement of Mr. Dundas against the clear and
irrefragable calculations of Mr. Pitt. The former had argued, that, because
Jamaica and the ceded islands had retained almost all the slaves which had
been imported into them, they were therefore not yet in a situation to
support their population without further supplies from Africa. But the
truth was, that the slaves, so retained, were kept, not to maintain the
population there, but to clear new land. Now the House had determined, that
the trade was not to be continued for this purpose. The population,
therefore, in the islands was sufficient to continue the ordinary
cultivation of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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