Excerpt from The Importance of the British Colonies in the West Indies: The Danger of a General and Immediate Emancipation of the Negroes; And a Sketch of a Plan for a Safe and Gradual Emancipation, on Terms Favourable to All Parties, and Without Any Loan

The repugnance to the measure which he thus publicly and solemnly avowed, was not founded on the apprehension of pecuniary loss, but on a full conviction that it would inevitably be followed by violence and' outrage of the most lawless, and, to all parties, of the most ruinous character; and he would have deemed it but a sorry indication either of justice or of humanity, to fee the ten thousand whites (for that is about the number) with twenty millions, or 20001, each on the average, in order that theymight run the imminent risk, - the absolute certainty, of having their property de stroyed, and themselves massacred, in the most summary, wanton, and savage manner. Yet that is the bargain proposed at the present time, and with the recollection of the dreadful outrages com mitted during the late insurrection ln Jamaica still fresh in memory; and proposed, too, by those who, if they have one duty more solemnly, more awfully binding upon them than another, it is the duty of preservmg the lives and properties of their fellow-subjects in peace and security, wheresoever they may reside, and in what lawful calling soever they may be engaged. That is one of the most melancholy effects of that strange delusion, which, under the name Of Political Economy, la bours to reduce not only Justice and equity, but all the passions and feelings of human nature, to the one cold and narrow standard of pounds, shil lings and pence.

It may seem singular why Opinion (for it is mere opinion and not knowledge, or even reasoning) should have degenerated so strangely during a period when, as we are told, wisdom has been making advances so unprecedented. The only solution of the enigma is, that the opinion on the slave question has never been founded on the proper knowledge; and that consequently, it has become more erroneous, in proportion as it has been more widely extended. Its course has been like that of a river, the feeders of which rise in the hills, and which bring down fresh mud and rubbish at every stream, so that the river becomes more and more tainted as it runs, and the end of it is alternate inundation and marsh, equally unprofit able and equally pestilent.

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