The Sun.
London, England, 1822-04-11 00:00:00

same time in the condition of our own complaining
colonists. Before our commercial efforts can
throw a damp upon the negro trade, so much
must have been done that our Islands will no
longer feel distress : the friends of the new po-
licy do not venture to assure us of its restoring
prosperity to the Islands, and yet we are ex-
pected to believe that it will discourage the
traffic in slaves !

Besides, if we rightly understand Mr. ROBIN-
SON'S argument, in sending the prodUce of our
Colonies to markets which are now, perhaps,
fully stocked, our hope must be that the fresh
supply will create further demand, and that, ac-
cording to the nature of commerce, room will be
found as well for the new commodities brought
in at the eleventh hour as for those which were
previously on the spot. But if the demand be
increased so as to take in all, how is the Slave-
trading colonist discouraged ? To attain this
object in the way proposed, we must not only find
admission to the market ourselves, but also turn
out our rivals. Now, upon what ground do we
expect, even if in the first instance we make good
our own footing, to obtain such a preference as
ultimately to displace our neighbours ? If the
trade be already in a great measure occupied, and
we contrive to force our way into it, much incon-
venience to all parties will very probably follow,
but why should the event be more ruinous to
others than to ourselves ?

It will be recollected, too, that we should en-
ter the held under peculiar disadvantage, from
the necessity of insisting on those duties which
are to be imposed on certain American merchan-
dizes for the protection of our own Continental
Colonies, and from the want of those resources
which our competitors at present derive from the
.Slave Trade.

It is a very natural subject of jealous indigna-
tion that other countries should profit by this
traffic at the expense of Britain, which has gene-
rously foregone it. But was not this consequence
likely to follow ? was not this among the evils
which we magnanimously resolved to risk when
we led the way in abolishing the trade ? And
does it now come upon us so suddenly and at
unawares, that we must needs fly precipitately
to such extreme courses as we should otherwise
have shrunk from adopting ? The truth is, our
own forbearance from the Slave Trade, while
other nations delay following the example, is a
disadvantage to our colonial commerce which
must have been felt under any system of mercan-
tile regulation, and, as we have endeavoured to
shew, will still be felt, notwithstanding the pro-
posed relaxations, till some decisive means are
found of annihilating the obnoxious traffic.
We think, then, that upon the present occa-
sion no sound argument can be, founded on the
topic of Negro slavery, and we suspect that the
subject has been merely introduced ad captan-
dam. But it is not only by their operation upon
the Slade Trade (supposing them capable of pro-
ducing any such effect) that we are to judge of
measures involving an abandonment of the Eng-
lish navigation system. We should indeed sin-
cerely rejoice in the universal suppression of
African negro-dealing, and we think that Britain
has performed no more than a duty in desisting
from the practice of that wickedness : but if the
surrender of our navigation laws were to be the
signal for an entire and everlasting extinction of
the Slave Trade, wherever existing, this benefit
conferred on Africa would in no degree justify
a British Government to posterity for tampering
with the welfare of their own country, by cutting
the main sinews of her maritime power.