must be voted. As to the mode of it, or how it should be effected, they
were not at present to discuss it; but he trusted it would be such, as
would not invite foreign powers to supply our islands with slaves by a
clandestine trade. After a debt, founded on the immutable principles of
justice, was found to be due, it was impossible but the country had means
to cause it to be paid. Should such an illicit proceeding be attempted, the
only language which it became us to adopt was, that Great Britain had
resources to enable her to protect her islands, and to prevent that traffic
from being clandestinely carried on by them, which she had thought fit from
a regard to her character to abandon. It was highly becoming Great Britain
to take the lead of other nations in such a virtuous and magnificent
measure, and he could not but have confidence, that they would be inclined
to share the honour with us, or be pleased to follow us as their example.
If we were disposed to set about this glorious work in earnest, they might
be invited to concur with us by a negotiation to be immediately opened for
that purpose. He would only now observe, before he sat down, in answer to
certain ideas thrown out, that he could by no means acquiesce in any
compensation for losses, which might be sustained by the people of
Liverpool, or by others in any other part of the kingdom, in the execution
of this just and necessary undertaking.

Sir William Yonge said, he wanted no inducement to concur with the
honourable mover of the propositions, provided the latter could be fairly
established, and no serious mischiefs were to arise from the abolition. But
he was apprehensive that many evils might follow, in the case of any sudden
or unlooked-for decrease in the slaves. They might be destroyed by
hurricanes. They might be swept off by many fatal disorders. In these
cases, the owners of them would not be able to fill up their places, and
they who had lent money upon the lands, where the losses had happened,
would foreclose their mortgages. He was fearful also that a clandestine