We, the emancipators of the slave-who have wearied every Court and Government in Europe and America with our protests and remonstrances, until we goaded them into at least ostensibly cooperating with us to prevent the enslaving of the negro-we, who for the last half century have spent annual sums, equal to the revenue of a small kingdom, in blockading the African coast, for a cause in which we not only had no interest, but which was contrary to our pecuniary interest, and which many believed would ruin, as many among us still, though erroneously, believe that it has ruined, our colonies."