“These two vices of avarice and sensuality, the most powerful and predominant in nature thus corrupt, we tempt, we stimulate in all these African princes, and we depend upon these vices for the very maintenance of the slave trade. Does the king of Barbessin want brandy? He has only to send his troops, in the nighttime, to burn and desolate a village; the captives will serve as commodities, that may be bartered with the British trader.”
From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.