yield to the wish, the determination of their people; I pray, that, bending before the coming breeze, the gathering storm may not sweep them away! But of one thing I would warn that devoted race; let them not flatter themselves that by trampling upon liberty in France, they can escape either the abhorrence of man or the Divine wrath for the execrable traffic in Slaves, carried on under their flag, and flourishing under their sway in America. I will tell their ghostly councillors, in the language of a book with which they ought to be familiar-"Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." To what should they lend an ear? To the commands of a God who loves mercy, and will punish injustice, and abhors blood, and will surely avenge it upon their heads; nothing the less because their patronage of Slavery in distant climes is matched by their hatred of liberty at home. Sir, I have done. I trust that at length the time is come when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that Slave-owners are the best law-givers on slavery; no longer allow an appeal from the British public, to such communities as those in which the Smiths and the Grimsdalls are persecuted to death, for teaching the Gospel to the Negroes; and the Mosses holden in affectionate respect for torture and murder: no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings, and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the Planter in his Slaves. I deny the right-I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes-the same throughout the world, the same in all times -such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes ;-such it is at this day it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations: the covenants of the Almighty, whether the Old covenant or the New, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the Planters beware-let their Assemblies beware-let the Government at home bewarelet the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake,-awake to the condition of Negro Slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the Slave Trade; and, if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them: but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God! I therefore move you, "That this House do resolve, at the earliest practicable period of the next Session, to take into its serious consideration the state of the Slaves in the Colonies of Great Britain, in order to the mitigation and final abolition of their Slavery, and more especially in order to the amendment of the administration of justice within the same |