1821 July 20

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Now then my friends if honour has any place /so it be that honour

has/ in your wishes, there it is for you: there it is for you as soon as between you

and the Slave-buying provinces the connection is dissolved. There it is for you and

of the purest kind.

Note well too that by so doing you will rid yourselves not only of

the abomination of Slave-buying, but of the abomination of Slave-holding and by so

doing you will thus in the scale of true honour place yourselves not only above the

French nation not only above the English nation but above the Anglo-American nation.

For with them /this young and virtuous nation/ though this least bad part of the

double system is matter of regret and shame, it is still theirs: for with them that

which /necessity/ in your mouths would be but pretence has for the present but too

incontestable an existence, has still that hold which with honesty and sincerity they

are continually employed in loosening to the utmost of their power.

You would rid yourselves I say of Slave-holding or I can /will/ not suppose /I see

no reason to suppose/ that is for your own use that you continue to do what you still

do towards keeping up that practice. It is no part of your new scheme of good

government to import Black men into Spain to serve as slaves in your own houses. But

It is only because if you did not in breach of your Constitutional Code suffer them

to keep Black men slaves in their houses /if you would not suffer them to treat

others as slaves/ and on their lands they would not (you fear) behave to you as

subjects - this is the cause and the only cause by which the connection you have with

the system of tyranny is continued.