rules to them for their management.  With respect to his own speculative opinion, as it regarded cultivation, he had no objection to give it.  He was sure that sugar could be raised cheaper by free-men than by slaves.  This the practice in China abundantly proved; but yet neither he, nor any other person, had a right to force a system upon others.  As to the trade itself, by which the present labourers were supplied, it had been considered by that House as so valuable that they had preferred it to all others, and had annually voted a considerable sum towards carrying it on.  They had hitherto deemed it an essential nursery for our seamen.  Had it really been such as had been represented, our ancestors would scarcely have encouraged it; and therefore, upon these and other considerations, he could not help thinking that they would be wanting in their duty if they abolished it altogether.

Mr. William Smith would not detain the House long at that late hour upon this important subject; but he could not help testifying the great satisfaction he felt at the manner, in which the honourable gentleman who opened the debate (if it could be so called) had treated it.  He approved of the propositions as the best mode of bringing the decision to a happy issue.  He gave Mr. Fox great credit for the open and manly way in which he had manifested his abhorrence of this trade, and for the support he meant to give to the total and unqualified abolition of it; for he was satisfied, that the more it was inquired into, the more it would be found that nothing short of abolition would cure the evil.  With respect to certain assertions of the members for Liverpool, and certain melancholy predictions about the consequences of such an event, which others had held out, he desired to lay in his claim for observation upon them when the great question should come before the House.

Soon after this the House broke up; and the discussion of the propositions, which was the next parliamentary measure intended, was postponed to a future day, which was sufficiently distant to give all the parties concerned, time to make the necessary preparations for it.

Of this interval the committee for the abolition availed themselves, to thank Mr. Wilberforce for the very able and satisfactory manner in which he had stated to the House his propositions for the abolition of the Slave Trade, and for the unparalleled assiduity and perseverance with which he had all along endeavoured to accomplish this object, as well as to take measures themselves for the further promotion of it.  Their opponents availed themselves of this interval also.  But that which now embarrassed them, was the evidence contained in the privy council report.  They had no idea, considering the number of witnesses they had sent to be examined, that this evidence, when duly weighed, could by right reasoning have given birth to the sentiments which had been displayed in the speeches of the most distinguished members of the House of Commons, or to the contents of the propositions which had been laid upon their table.  They were thunderstruck as it were by their own weakness; and from this time they were determined, if possible, to get rid of it as a standard for decision, or to interpose, every parliamentary delay in their power.