Note 19 — Chapter XIV

This miserable pretext, of the profitableness of the traffic to the merchants [robbers] concerned, was resorted to till the last, in the British parliamentary discussions relative to abolition, and unfortunately was allowed to exert considerable influence. The last time we recollect to have seen this seriously urged as an argument in favour of the continuance of the slave-trade, was by that prig Boswell, in his life of Dr. Johnson.—T.