out strong enough to justify this monstrous traffic.  It was therefore the duty of the house to put an end to it, and this without further delay.  This conviction, that it became them to do it immediately, made him regret (and it was the only thing he regretted in the admirable speech he had heard) that his honourable friend should have introduced propositions on this subject.  He could have wished that the business had been brought to a conclusion at once, without voting the propositions, which had been read to them.  He was not over fond of abstract propositions.  They were seldom necessary; and often occasioned great difficulty, embarrassment, and delay.  There was besides no occasion whatever to assign detailed reasons for a vote, which Nature herself dictated, and which Religion enforced.  If it should happen, that the propositions were not carried in that house or the other, such a complication of mischiefs might follow, as might occasion them heartily to lament that they were ever introduced.  If the ultimate resolution should happen to be lost, he was afraid the propositions would pass as waste paper, if not be injurious to the cause at a future time.

And now, as the house must bring this matter to an issue, he would beg their attention to a particular point.  He entreated them to look further than the present moment, and to ask themselves, if they had fortified their minds sufficiently to bear the consequences, which might arise from the abolition of the Slave-trade, supposing they should decide upon it.  When they abandoned it, other foreign powers might take it up, and clandestinely supply our islands with slaves.  Had they virtue enough to see another country reaping profits, which they themselves had given up; and to abstain from that envy natural to rivals, and firmly to adhere to their determination?  If so, let them thankfully proceed to vote the immediate abolition of the Slave-trade.  But if they should repent of their virtue (and he had known miserable instances of such repentance), all hopes of future reformation of this enormous evil would be lost.  They would go back to a trade they had abandoned with redoubled attachment, and would adhere to it with a degree of avidity and shameless ardour, to their own humiliation, and to the degradation and disgrace of the nation in the eyes of all Europe.  These were considerations worth regarding, before they took a decisive step in a business, in which they ought not to move with any other determination than to abide by the consequences at all hazards.  The honourable gentleman (who to his eternal honour had introduced this great subject to their notice) had in his eloquent oration knocked at every door, and appealed to every passion, well knowing that mankind were governed by their sympathies.  But there were other passions to be regarded.  Men were always ready to obey their sympathies, when it cost them nothing.  But were they prepared to pay the price of their virtue on this great occasion?  This was the question.  If they were, they would do themselves immortal honour, and would have the satisfaction of having done away a commerce, which, while it was productive of misery not to be described, most of all hardened the heart, and vitiated the human character.