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"This above all. To your own selves be true,
And it will follow, as the night the day,
You cannot then be false to any man."

DR JAMES A. FROUDE.

THE SLAVE TRADE.

WHY ought the slave trade to be abolished? Because it is incurable injustice. How much stronger, then, is the argument for immediate than gradual abolition? By allowing it to continue even for one hour, do not my right honourable friends weaken-do not they desert their own argument of its injustice? If, on the ground of injustice, it ought to be abolished at last, why ought it not now? Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a single hour? From what I hear without doors, it is evident that there is a general conviction entertained of its being far from just; and from that very conviction of its injustice, some men have been led, I fear, to the supposition, that the slave trade never could have been permitted to begin, but from some strong and irresistible necessity; a necessity, however, which, if it was fancied to exist at first, I have shown cannot be thought by any man whatever to exist now. This plea of necessity, thus presumed-and presumed, as I suspect, from the circumstance of injustice itself,— has caused a sort of acquiescence in the continuance of this evil. Men have been led to place it among the rank of those necessary evils which are supposed to be the lot of human creatures, and to be permitted to fall upon some countries or individuals rather than upon others, by that Being whose ways are inscrutable to us, and whose dis

pensations, it is conceived, we ought not to look into. The origin of evil is indeed a subject beyond the reach of human understanding: and the permission of it by the Supreme Being, is a subject into which it belongs not to us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral evil, which a man can scrutinize, and where that evil has its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can clear our consciences by this general, not to say irreligious and impious, way of laying aside the question. If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be incurred, were it removed: I therefore desire to ask, what can be a greater evil, which can be stated to overbalance the one in question? I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of seventy or eighty thousand persons, annually, from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations, inhabiting the most enlightened part of the globe; but more especially, under the sanction of the laws of that nation which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all.

Reflect on these eighty thousand persons thus annually taken off! There is something in the horror of it, that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. Admitting that there exists in Africa something like to courts of justice, yet, what an office of humiliation and meanness is it in us, to take upon ourselves to carry into execution the partial, the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such courts, as if we also were strangers to all religion, and to the first principles of justice! But that country, it is said, has been in some degree civilized, and civilized by us. It is said, they have gained some knowledge of the principles of justice. What, Sir! Have they gained principles of justice from

us? Their civilization brought about by us!! Yes-we give them enough of our intercourse to convey to them the means, and to initiate them in the study of mutual destruction. We give them just enough of the forms of justice, to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other modes of perpetrating the most atrocious iniquity. We give them just enough of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness. Some evidences say, that the Africans are addicted to the practice of gambling; that they even sell their wives and children, and, ultimately, themselves. Are these, then, the legitimate source of slavery? Shall we pretend, that we can thus acquire an honest right to exact the labour of this people? Can we pretend that we have a right to carry away to distant regions, men of whom we know nothing by authentic inquiry, and of whom there is every reasonable presumption to think, that those who sell them to us have no right to do so? But the evil does not stop here. I feel that there is not time for me to make all the remarks which the subject deserves, and I refrain from attempting to enumerate half the dreadful consequences of this system. Do you think nothing of the ruin and the miseries in which so many other individuals, still remaining in Africa, are involved, in consequence of carrying off so many myriads of people? Do you think nothing of their families which are left behind of the connexions which are broken? of the friendships, attachments, and relationships, that are burst asunder? Do you think nothing of the miseries, in consequence, that are felt from generation to generation; of the privation of that happiness which might be communicated to them by the introduction of civilization, and of mental and moral improvement? LORD CHATHAM,

ON PREVENTING THE DELAYS OF JUSTICE BY PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT.

MY LORDS,-When I consider the importance of this bill to your Lordships, I am not surprised it has taken up so much of your consideration. It is a bill, indeed, of no common magnitude; it is no less than to take away from two-thirds of the legislative body of this great kingdom, certain privileges and immunities of which they have been long possessed. Perhaps there is no situation the human mind can be placed in, that is so difficult and trying, as when it is made a judge in its own cause. There is something in the breast of man, so attached to self, so tenacious of privileges once obtained, that, in such a situation, either to discuss with impartiality, or decide with justice, has ever been held as the summit of all human virtue. The bill now in question puts your Lordships in this very predicament; and I doubt not but the wisdom of your decision will convince the world, that where self-interest and justice are in opposite scales, the latter will ever preponderate with your Lordships.

This bill has been frequently proposed, and as frequently miscarried; but it was always lost in the lower house. Little did I think, when it had passed the Commons, that it possibly could have met with such opposition here. Shall it be said, that you, my Lords, the grand council of the nation, the highest judicial and legislative body of the realm, endeavour to evade, by privilege, those very laws which you enforce on your fellow-subjects? Forbid it, Justice! I am sure, were the noble Lords as well acquainted as I am with but half the difficulties and delays

occasioned in the courts of justice, under pretence of privilege, they would not, nay, they could not, oppose this bill.

I have waited with patience to hear what arguments might be urged against the bill, but I have waited in vain the truth is, there is no argument that can weigh against it. The justice and expediency of the bill are such. as render it self-evident. It is a proposition of that nature, that can neither be weakened by argument, nor entangled with sophistry. Much, indeed, has been said by some noble Lords on the wisdom of our ancestors, and how differently they thought from us. They not only decreed that privilege should prevent all civil suits from proceeding during the sitting of Parliament, but likewise granted protection to the very servants of members. I shall say nothing on the wisdom of our ancestors; it might perhaps appear invidious; that is not necessary in the present case. I shall only say, that the noble Lords who flatter themselves with the weight of that reflection, should remember, that, as circumstances alter, things themselves should alter. Formerly, it was not so fashionable either for masters or servants to run in debt as it is at present. Formerly, we were not the great commercial nation we are at present ; nor, formerly, were merchants and manufacturers members of Parliament, as at present. The case now is very different; both merchants and manufacturers are with great propriety elected members of the lower house. Commerce having thus got into the legislative body of the kingdom, privilege must be done away. We all know, that the very soul and essence of trade are regular payments; and sad experience teaches us that there are men who will not make their regular payments, without the compulsive powers of the law. The law, then, ought to be equally

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