abolition. It was also stated that the merchants would consent to any
regulation of the trade, which might be offered them.

In the course of the debate much warmth of temper was manifested on both
sides. The expression of Mr. Fox in a former debate, "that the Slave-trade
could not be regulated, because there could be no regulation of robbery and
murder," was brought up, and construed by planters in the house as a charge
of these crimes upon themselves. Mr. Fox, however, would not retract the
expression. He repeated it. He had no notion, however, that any individual
would have taken it to himself. If it contained any reflection at all, it
was on the whole parliament, who had sanctioned such a trade. Mr. Molyneux
rose up, and animadverted severely on the character of Mr. Ramsay, one of
the evidences in the privy council report, during his residence in the West
Indies. This called up Sir William Dolben and Sir Charles Middleton in his
defence, the latter of whom bore honourable testimony to his virtues from
an intimate acquaintance with him, and a residence in the same village with
him, for twenty years. Mr. Molyneux spoke also in angry terms of the
measure of abolition. To annihilate the trade, he said, and to make no
compensation on account of it, was an act of swindling. Mr. Macnamara
called the measure hypocritical, fanatic, and methodistical. Mr. Pitt was
so irritated at the insidious attempt to set aside the privy council
report, when no complaint had been alleged against it before, that he was
quite off his guard, and he thought it right afterwards to apologize for
the warmth into he had been betrayed. The Speaker too was obliged
frequently to interfere. On this occasion no less than thirty members
spoke. And there had probably been few seasons, when so much disorder had
been discoverable in that house.

The result of the debate was, a permission to those interested in the
continuance of the Slave-trade to bring counsel to the bar on the