In these resolutions, the Committee describe the particular matter which they had under their consideration, _viz._ the supply of British goods. Not so in the previous resolution of the 9th of December (see page xxvi). In it a hope is expressed, that by the proceedings against Pedro de Zulueta, “a salutary check will be given to the notorious implication of British capital and commerce in that nefarious traffic.” How this implication takes place is not pointed out. Upon the merits of the matters contained in these resolutions, it is not, of course, my intention to enter; I take them as they are put forth, for the only purpose which perhaps gives them any value or importance, _viz._ as expressions of the sentiments and opinions of people who show every disposition to sanction, and have the pecuniary means required in order to encourage or to assist others in the use of that power of private prosecution which every one possesses, even if they themselves are not inclined to exercise it in their own persons. Now, although it is not distinctly stated in the resolution just quoted how this _notorious_ implication of British capital is supposed to take place--not to say any thing at present about a most unjustifiable use of the word _notorious_, which, in these matters, is constantly made--the mode in which the implication takes place must be supposed to be large enough to be notorious--large enough, when even a check to it is made the object of hope and the subject of a resolution, which, as it conveys a serious charge against fellow-citizens, nothing but a very overwhelming sense of the necessity of a _check_ could have induced the Committee to overcome the painfulness of publishing. The term could not properly apply to any direct concern in the slave trade; _that_ would be something more than _implication_. It cannot be confined to the supply of goods, since this is a subject treated in a separate set of resolutions. It must be taken to apply to other operations also, such as occur in the progress of a mercantile intercourse with other countries in which slavery, or the slave trade, are permitted to exist, and must apply to all or any transactions with those countries, at least, unless a clear and distinct separation can be made that will render it quite certain and quite capable of proof that neither the slave trade nor slavery can possibly be forwarded directly or indirectly by the transaction. This is the only certain way of avoiding _implication_. This sense of the charge against British merchants at large, is perhaps the only one which can render either intelligible or practicable the observation which was so emphatically delivered by the learned Serjeant Bompas in his opening speech at the trial, that “if merchants in this country would not accept bills drawn by slave traders, if they would not send goods from this country to be employed for the purpose--in fact, the trade could not be carried on at all.”