in debate, "prepared to abandon a system to which you owe so precious a possession, not only the foundation of your glory, the bulwark of your strength, but the protection of your very existence as a nation?"
"The Bill," continued Lord Brougham, "contained the seeds of fresh agitation and new demand." The coasting trade, as well as the manning clauses, "would excite new agitation by other Ricardos and other Cobdens." In framing his judgment on this great question he had listened but to one voice, the voice of public duty, sinking all party, all personal considerations. He did not on any account, personal or public, desire any change in the government. But he was prepared to encounter that, rather than see the highest interests of the empire exposed to ruin. This measure he could not bear, because our national defence could not bear it. To sweeten the bitter cup which it would fill, we are told, and he firmly believed it, that it would encourage slavery and stimulate the infernal slave-trade; since, whatever cheapened navigation between this country and the mart for slave-grown sugar—whatever lets in the Americans, the Swedes, the Danes, the Dutch, to bring over the sugars of Cuba and the Brazils—must of necessity increase the African slave-trade, by which the increase of those sugars was promoted. "When this new ingredient is poured into the chalice commended to my lips to-night I can no longer hesitate, even if I felt doubts before. All lesser considerations of party policy or Parliamentary tactics at once give way; and I have a question before me on which I cannot pause or falter, or treat or compromise; and, regard-
