British pro-slavery thinkers defended slavery on the basis of the Bible. Army officer Isaac Gascoyne gave a speech to the House of Commons on 10 June 1806 in which he argued that slavery was authorised by Leviticus 25:44-46. Similarly, on 23 February 1807, George Hibbert gave a speech to the House of Commons defending slavery on the basis of the Old Testament and the Epistle to Philemon. Dumas notes that attempts to directly defend slavery on the basis of the Bible largely disappeared following the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, but its defenders still drew on religious arguments, such that the institution of slavery (allegedly) benefited slaves by encouraging them to convert to Christianity.