BRITISH MORALITY: NEW INVESTMENTS IN THE SLAVE.TRADE, THE AFGHAN INVASION,
AND THE OPIUM WAR.
[From the Peroration of Lord Brougham's last Speech on the Slave-trade.] Cease to protect the slave, monger, by whatsoever name he may call himself, or his accomplice, under what mask soever he may lurk. Zealous in extir- pating vice and immorality and intemperance at home, don't patronize and propagate them abroad—anywhere abroad. Neither in the East nor in the West, neither towards the rising sun nor towards his going down, wage ex- ecrable wars with human happiness and virtue, for the lucre of gain,—wars against millions, feeble as they are unoffending,—wars such as those of the most sordid prince who ever filled that throne, and which his immortal historian likened to some base metal, glittering like steel, but really of brass,—monstrous wars, redeemed by no one virtue, nor graced by any triumph, save the triumph over public principle and national honour, in which Victory shorn of its glories leads on Peace stripped of its wonted blessings, nay clothed in a double curse— in them that gave it, whom it stains with the disgrace of guilty profits—in them that receive it, whom it corrupts with intemperance and cripples with disease.
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