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