That the day, however, would come, when the stock there would be sufficient, no person who attended to the former part of his argument could doubt.

That they had gradually increased, were gradually, increasing, and would, by certain regulations, increase more and more, must be equally obvious.

But these were all considerations for continuing the traffic a little longer.
He then desired the House to reflect upon the state of St.Domingo.Had not its calamities been imputed by its own deputies to the advocates for the abolition?
Were ever any scenes of horror equal to those which had passed there?
And should we, when principles of the same sort were lurking in our own islands, expose our fellow-subjects to the same miseries, who, if guilty of promoting this trade, had, at least, been encouraged in it by ourselves?
That the Slave-trade was an evil, he admitted.

That the state of slavery itself was likewise an evil, he admitted; and if the question was, not whether we should abolish, but whether we should establish these, he would be the first to oppose himself to their existence; but there were many evils, which we should have thought it our duty to prevent, yet which, when they had once arisen, it was more dangerous to oppose than to submit to.
The duty of a statesman was, to consider abstractedly what was right or wrong, but to weigh the consequences which were likely to result from the abolition of an evil, against those, which were likely to result from its continuance.

Agreeing then most perfectly with the abolitionists in their end, he differed from them only in the means of accomplishing it.