" He denounced the trade as
"the most criminal that any country could be engaged in," and as one
that led to other crimes in the treatment of the slaves after they
reached the West Indies. He instanced "three most horrible and dreadful
murders of slaves" that had been committed in Barbadoes, and quoted the
report of Lord Seaforth, governor of the island, who, on investigation,
had found that by the law of the colony the punishment affixed to such
murders was a fine of eleven pounds. He was opposed by the Duke of
Clarence, who directed his remarks chiefly to a defence of the general
humanity of the planters; and by Lord Westmoreland, who, in a speech of
singular intemperance, denounced the principle of the measure, as one
after the passing of which "no property could be rendered safe which
could fall within the power of the Legislature." He even made it an
argument against the bill that its principle, if carried to its
legitimate logical end, must tend to the abolition of slavery as well as
of the slave-trade. He objected especially to the assertion in the
preamble that the trade was "contrary to justice and humanity,"
declaring that those words were only inserted in the hope that by them
"foreign powers might be humbugged into a concurrence with the
abolition," and wound up his harangue by a declaration that, though he
should "see the Presbyterian and the prelate, the Methodist and
pew-preacher, the Jacobin and the murderer, unite in support of it, he
would still raise his voice against it.
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