Other countries occasioned as much of the evil as we did; and if the abolition of it by us should prove only the transferring of it to those countries, very little benefit would result from the measure.
What then was the probability of our example being followed by foreign powers?
Five years had now elapsed since the question was first started, and what had any of them done?
The Portuguese continued the trade.

The Spaniards still gave a bounty to encourage it.

He believed there were agents from Holland in this country, who were then negotiating with persons concerned in it in order to secure its continuance.

The abolition also had been proposed in the National Assembly of France, and had been rejected there.

From these circumstances he had a right to infer, that if we gave up the trade, we should only transfer it to those countries: but this transfer would be entirely against the Africans.