 However, both James Stephen (British politician) and Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux wrote that the slave trade could be abolished for the benefit of the British colonies, and the latter's pamphlet was often used in parliamentary debates in favour of abolition.William Pitt the Younger argued on the basis of these writings that the British colonies would be better off, in economics as well as security, if the trade was abolished.As a result, according to historian Christer Petley, abolitionists argued, and even some absentee plantation owners accepted, that the trade could be abolished "without substantial damage to the plantation economy".