 He gave evidence to the committee of inquiry into the slave trade in 1790, arguing that abolition would ruin the West India interest, and stating that he annually imported produce worth between £200,000 and £250,000 and that he had heavily invested in Jamaica through loans to planters.As an M.P., from his maiden speech on 10 February 1807 onwards, he declared his utter hostility to the slave trade abolition bill on the grounds of the economic interest of English manufacturers