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.