It was in their nature not to remain passive and unemployed. They would
soon turn them into other channels. This they had done themselves during
the American war; for the Slave-trade was then almost wholly lost, and
yet they had their ships employed, either as transports in the service
of Government, or in other ways.

And as he now called upon the house not to allow any conjectural losses to
become impediments in the way of the abolition of the Slave-trade, so he
called upon them to beware how they suffered any representations of the
happiness of the state of slavery in our islands to influence them against
so glorious a measure. Admiral Barrington had said in his testimony, that
he had often envied the condition of the slaves there. But surely, the
honourable admiral must have meant, that, as he had often toiled like a
slave in the defence of his country, (as his many gallant actions had
proved,) so he envied the day, when he was to toil in a similar manner in
the same cause. If, however, his words to be taken literally, his
sensations could only be accounted for by his having seen the negros in the
hour of their sports, when a sense of the misery of their condition was
neither felt by themselves nor visible to others. But their appearance on
such occasions did by no means disprove their low and abject state. Nothing
made a happy slave but a degraded man. In proportion as the mind grows
callous to its degradation, and all sense of manly pride is lost, the slave
feels comfort. In fact, he is no longer a man. If he were to define a man,
he would say with Shakespeare,

"Man is a being holding large discourse, Looking before and after."

But a slave was incapable of looking before and after. He had no motive to
do it. He was a mere passive instrument in the hands of others, to be used
at their discretion. Though living, he was dead as to all voluntary agency.