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    of abolition through the other House . In this House , from a regard to the consistency of its own proceedings , we can indeed expect no great resistance ; but the impediments that may be opposed to it in another , would not leave sufficient time to accomplish iU No alternative is therefore now left , but to let it pass over the present session . 3 and it is to afford no ground for a suspicion thnt we have aboudone » i it altogether , that we have recourse to the

    measure I am now about to propose The motion will not mention any limitation , either as to the time or manner of abolishing the trade . There have been some hints indeed thrown out in some quarters , that it would

    be a better measure to adopt something that must inevitably lead to an abolition ; but after eighteen years of close attention which I have paid to the subject , I cannot think any thing so effectual as a direct law for that purpose .

    The next point is , as to the time when the abolition shall take place ; for the same reasons or objections which led to the gradual measure of 1792 , may here occur again . That also I leave open ; but I have no hesitation to state , that with respect to that , my opinion is the same as it is with regard to the manner , and that I think it ought to be abolished immediately . As the motion , therefore , which I have to make , will leave to the House the time and manner of abolition , I cannot but confidently express my hope , and expectation , that it will be unanimously carried ; and I implore gentlemen not to listen to that sort of flattery which they have sometimes heard—and

    particularly from one of the members for Liverpool—that they have abolished it already . When the regulations were adopted , touching the space to be allowed for each negro in a slave ship , the same gentleman opposed it as being destructive , and exclaimed , " Oh , if you do that you may as well abolish it at once , for it cannot be done . ' Yet , when we propose an abolition altogether , they use , as arguments against us , the ^ reat good already done by regulating the slave ships , ami betteriug the condition of negroes in the colonies . In the same way , when we first

    proposed the abolition of the foreign trade , they told us it would have the effect of a general and total abolition ; and I beg of them not to forget that declaration now ; and having made it once , I must use to them a phrase . common life , " Sir , if that

    be the case , 1 must pray you to put your hand to it , " As to the stale argument of the ruin the measure would bring upon the West India islands , I would refer gentlemen to perhaps the most brilliant and convincing speech that ever was , I believe , delivered in this or any other

    place , by a consummate master of eloquence ( Mr-Burke ) , and of which , I believe , there remains in some publications a report that will convey an inadequate idea of the substance , though it would be impossible to represent the manner 5 the voice , the gesture , the manner , were not to be described . " Ol si ilium

    vidisse , si ilium audivisseJ" If all the members of this House could but have seen and heard the great orator in the delivery of that speech , 011 that day , there would not now be one who could for a moment longer suppose that the abolition of the slave trade could injuriously affect the interests of the West Tndian

    colonies . I am aware that a calculation was once made , and pretty generally circulated , by which it would appear , that were the importation of negroes into the island put an end to , the stock of slaves could not be kept up y and , if I recollect right , the calculation was made with reference to

    the Island of Jamaica . Fortunately , however , for our argument , the experiment has been already tried in North America , where the trade has been abolished : and the effect of it

    shews , that the population of the negroes is nearly equal to that of the whites . As that is the part of the world where population proceeds more rapidly than any other , and as we know that within the last twenty

    years the population of the whites iiuis doubled , and that of negroes very nearl y so , without importation , it affords , I will not say a damning ,

    but a blessed proof that the adoption of a similar course would ultimately produce , gradual emancipation ana an increasing population , and that . it would enable the negroes to acquire

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    7 ^ 6 Charles James Fox .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 736, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/8/