no cross-examination; that it was unconstitutional; and that, if they admitted it, they would establish a dangerous precedent, and abandon their rights. It was urged on the other hand by Mr. Courtenay, that it could not be ex parte evidence, because it contained testimony on both sides of the question. The circumstance also of its being contradictory, which had been alleged against it, proved that it was the result of an impartial examination. Mr. Fox observed that it was perfectly admissible. He called upon those who took the other side of the question to say why, if it was really inadmissible, they had not opposed it at first. It had now been a long time on the table, and no fault had been found with it. The truth was, it did not suit them, and they were determined by a side wind as it were to put an end to the inquiry.
In the course of the debate much warmth of temper was manifest on both sides. The expression of Mr. Fox in a former debate, "that the slave-trade could not be regulated, because there could be no regulation of robbery and murder," was brought up, and construed by planters in the house as a charge of these crimes upon themselves. Mr. Fox, however, would not retract the expression. He repeated it. He had no notion, however, that any individual would have taken it to himself. If it contained any reflection at all, it was on the whole parliament who had sanctioned such a trade. Mr. Molyneux rose up, and animadverted severely on the character of Mr. Ramsay, one of the evidences in the privy council report, during his residence in the "West Indies. This called up Sir William Dolben and Sir Charles Middleton in his defense, the latter of whom bore honorable testimony to his virtues from an intimate acquaintance with him, and a residence in the same village with him for twenty years. Mr. Molyneux spoke also in angry terms of the measure of the abolition. To annihilate the trade, he said, and to make no compensation on account of it, was an act of swindling. Mr. Macnamara called the measure hypocritical, fanatic, and methodistical. Mr. Pitt was so irritated at the insidious attempt to set aside the privy council report, when no complaint had been alleged against it before, that he was quite off his guard, and he thought it right afterwards to apologize for the warmth into which he had been betrayed. The speaker, too, was obliged frequently to interfere. On this occasion no less than thirty members spoke. And there had probably been few seasons when so much disorder had been discoverable in that house.
The result of the debate was, a permission to those interested in the continuance of the slave-trade to bring counsel to the bar on the twenty-sixth of May, and then to introduce such witnesses as might throw further light on the propositions in the shortest time: for Mr. Pitt only acquiesced in this new measure on a supposition "that there would be no unnecessary delay, as he could by no means submit to the ultimate procrastination of so important a business." He even hoped (and in this hope he was joined by Mr. Fox) that those concerned would endeavor to bring the whole of the evidence they meant to offer at the first examination.
On the day appointed, the house met for the purpose now specified; when Alderman Newnham, thinking that such an important question should not be
