prietors of West India properties, how many are there who are absent from their own eftates, refiding in this country, or in other parts of Europe? They fend across the Atlantic, declarations and directions dictated by the humanity of their own minds; but the execution of these, must be left to perfons of a description altogether different. This forms a very leading feature in the delineation of the present system, and I wish every Gentleman to confider it in its various bearings and relations. It is not I only that make this remark, or the friends of the Abolition of the Slave Trade; it was long ago ftrongly infifted on by Mr. Long, the hiftorian of Jamaica; he pointed out the abuse; he specified the many evils which flowed from it; he stated that the infurrections had chiefly been found to break out among the Slaves of Abfentee proprietors; he regretted that often the Manager had an intereft altogether distinct from that of the Owner; that it was frequently his object to make large crops of fugar, regardless of the cruelties to be exercised on the Slaves, or of the ruinous load of expence to be incurred, in purchasing new Slaves, to replace fuch as should be worn out by exceffive labour; and then at laft, fays he, they retreat like a rat from a house in flames, and go with the credit of large crops on their backs to another part of the ifland. The truth of these animadverfions has been confirmed by the pofitive teftimony of many refpectable witnesses; they conversed on the spot with the Managers, and it was eafily to be collected, nay, fometimes it was frankly confessed that this was their main principle. This alone would be fufficient to fhew that the orders of the abfentee Planters, however good, will not be executed, and will be conftantly operating to defeat the effects of their benevolence. But it would not be neceffary to fhew this distinction of intereft, many causes concur to produce a difference of feelings; the very circumftances of these poor people being distinguished by their colour from the reft of the community, prevents their calling forth the feelings of fympathy; they are a marked species, they are looked upon as a different race of Beings, and are not confidered as being entitled entitled to the fame humanity and tenderness, which the worst of men would allow to be the right of those whom they acknowledge to be their fellow creatures. Confider how in the cafe of minds originally tender, the feelings will be blunted by habit; reckon up all thefe various circumftances and eftimate their amount, and you will naturally conclude, that the fituation of the Slaves in the Weft Indies, muft indeed be deplorable. I fhall not here detail the particulars of their fate, having done fo minutely on a former occafion: I then proved my affertions by the pofitive teftimony of our own witneffes; by various circumftances and confiderations arifing out of the very nature of the cafe, or fuggefted by fcrutinizing and laying together different affertions from our Opponents. I them fpecified many general evils refulting from the nature of the fyftem, and fhewed its tendency to render the state of the Slave to be lamented in what regards his food, cloathing, lodging &c. Legal protection I fhewed he had none, and fhould be again ready to bring indifputable proof of the affertion, if it fhould be denied; but I would gladly spare myself the painful recital. I willingly pafs over the detail of all thofe circumstances of degradation to which they are subjected, their being worked in the fields under the whip like cattle, instead of being treated like moral agents, capable of forecaft and reflection; their being often branded; their being excepted out of the system of decency, and a thoufand other difgraceful and humiliating particulars. Surely I must believe, when all these things are confidered, that the gentiemen of the Weft Indies themselves will eagerly join with us in endeavouring to do away these grievances, and put an end to miferies fo complicated and intolerable. I will do them the juftice to believe that they have looked after a remedy, but they have looked in vain ; they have not found it; nor will they ever find it but in the Propofition which I bring forward. I deliver it as my decided opinion, the refult of a careful investigation of the whole of this great fubject, that the only practicable remedy is ftopping the further importation of Slaves from Africa. What What other remedy has been fuggefted? Colonial regulations! Into this fubject I went at large when the Question of Abolition was laft before the Houfe, and I could now only repeat the arguments I urged on that occafion; the hinge on which it all turned was the inadmiffibility of Negro evidence; the effects of this have been frankly avowed by many of our Opponents themselves, and are indeed fo obvious as to render it fuperfluous to infift on them. What would be the fituation of the bulk of the people in this country if Gentlemen of 4.500 per annum were alone admitted as witneffes? But the cafe in the Weft Indies is much worfe: for where, two or three White Men being on a plantation, it might be hoped one would come forward against the other (provided the perpetrator of any enormity had been fo imprudent as to commit it in his presence, instead of taking the opportunity of his being out of the way) he would be kept back by a thousand confiderations of mutual connivance, of fimilarity of fituation, of intimate connection-They are fellow-managers, brother, overfeers, whom even the efprit de corps would prevent from undertaking fo invidious an office, as that of criminating each other. But colonial regulations, if futile and ineffectual for the protection of the Slave, would be abundantly operative in another way, if it were attempted to carry them into execution. If you were to give them the protection of laws, not nominally but really, not the fhadow but the fubftance of Civil Rights, you would awake in their minds a confciousness of freedom which would only turn alike to their ruin and that of their masters. It is in vain to attempt to reconcile impoffibilities, freedom and flavery cannot be made to coalefce: instead of being satisfied with what they should get, they would only more feel the want of what should be with-held from them; the privileges which fhould be granted them would only ferve to render the galling and ignominious diftinations under which they should still be kept more irritating and vexatious; infurrec tions would too foon follow, and the whole be one scene of confufion and flaughter. Look to the hiftory of paf infurrec tions, and you will find these affertions confirmed by actual experience. Let Gentlemen recollect the immenfe difproportion of the Blacks and Whites in our Islands, and confider it in conjunction with the pofitions I have been laying down, and It is impoffible we can differ in the conclufion: but if such is their present wretched and degraded ftate, furely there is no man who must not long for that happy moment when they can be rescued from it without danger. What I have faid fuggests the great cause which tends to continue them in their state of degradation, and even almoft to render it neceffary for their own no less than for their mafter's comfort and fecurity; this is no other than the conftant influx of flaves from Africa; torn from their homes for ever, refenting the wrongs they have fufferred; looking on their mafters and on all around them not as friends and protectors, but as enemies and tyrants, they are ever ready to rife and wreak their vengeance on their enemies. This was acknowledged long before I brought forward the Question of Abolition; Mr. Long has argued at great length on the danger of importing fuch numbers of Africans, "27,000 flaves imported in 2 years, and our importations are now still greater, are alone fufficient to account for mutinies, infurrections, &c." and the rebellions in 1755 and 6 he states to have been occafioned by the imported natives of the Gold Coast. This is not only Mr. Long's doctrine, but that of every reasonable and obferving man. I met with a curious proof of it the other day in a pamphlet lately published in Carolina, by a planter, who was endeavouring, not apparently actuated by motives of justice and humanity, but of policy, to continue the prohibition of African Slaves, which had already fubfifted for some years; he urges various arguments, but that on which he chiefly infifts is the danger of an infurrection; he reminds his countrymen of a former rebellion in South Carolina, occafioned by the rifing of the Angola Slaves, thence vulgarly called the Gulla war; he points to the island of St. Domingo, where fays he, you have a ftriking exemplification of the truth of my pofition. And this leads me, Sir, to fay a few words on the late unhappy unhappy transactions in that unfortunate Island; I shall not, however, go at large into them at present, but must reserve to myself the right of doing fo, if it should be rendered neceffary by any thing urged in the course of the debate. I felt it my duty to investigate the causes of the difturbances in queftion, and I do declare myself decidedly convinced, and will enter if required into proof of the affertion, that they did not arife from any attempts to abolish the Slave Trade, or from the efforts of Societies eftablished in France for that purpose. The cafe was fimply this; the free people of colour, though the privileges of citizens were beftowed on them by law a century ago, had never in fact been admitted to the enjoyment of them, but had been treated, though many of them men of property and of education, as beings of an inferior order; the animofities had almost grown to their height, and had nearly broken out into actual hoftilities before the period of the French Revolution; what paffed then and fince, the violence with which the white inhabitants of the Island afferted their own rights, whilst with equal warmth they were denying them to the men of colour, the contradictory decrees of the National Affembly, fometimes granting the defired immunities, fometimes retracting the grants, and thus trifling with their feelings, and working them up into a rage too big to be fuppreffed; agreements in the Island made and broken as convenience suggested! What wonder if the ferment occafioned by all these circumftances, and the favourable opportunity afforded by thefe divifions in which their mafters were occupied, produced a general rifing of the flaves, who had rebelled before in conjunctures less suited to their purpose? They did rife, and dreadful was the confequence. No man, I am fure, deplores more than myself thofe cruel and humiliating tranfactions, and I make this very Motion because I deplore them, and would in our own Islands prevent the repetition. Confider the immense disproportion of numbers; there are now in Jamaica near 300,000 flaves, and but about 20,000 whites of all ages and defcriptions: We are every year importing into that Island a greater ftrength of blacks than there C 2 is |