But he was no advocate for the trade.

He wished it had never been begun; and that it might soon terminate.
But the means were not adequate to the end proposed.
Mr.Burke had said on a former occasion, "that in adopting the measure we must prepare to pay the price of our virtue." He was ready to pay his share of that price.

But the effect of the purchase must be first ascertained.

If they did not estimate this, it was not benevolence, but dissipation.
Effects were to be duly appreciated; and though statesmen might rest every thing on a plausible manifesto of cause, the humbler moralist, meditating peace and goodwill towards men, would venture to call such statesmen responsible for consequences.
In regard to the colonies, a sudden abolition would be oppression.

The legislatures there should be led, and not forced, upon this occasion.