Excerpt from A Defence of the Bill for the Registration of Slaves

My dear Wilberforce,

The second of the four objections to your bill, under which the various arguments and clamours of our opponents were arranged, next demands our notice. They maintain,

"That the measure is unnecessary."

Here they had much to answer, before they could have any right to rail. The report which they undertook to refute, your speech introductory of the bill, their own evidence, speeches and colonial protests, during the abolition controversy, had all furnished arguments for the necessity of a Register Bill, which they were bound, in some way, to repel.

But they have one short answer to all, "The fact of illicit importation is not proved." They reason as if putting a stop to an existing Have trade, were the avowed and single object of the bill.

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