found transgressing the treaties of 1815; and having shewn what the West Indian system, operating for two centuries, has produced, we may now turn to the opposite example, and shew what has been effected in a few years by a system of liberal policy and religious instruction.

At Sierra Leone, then, instead of compulsory labour and incorrigible indolence, we behold 17,000 of our fellow-creatures rescued from Slavery, and living under a free government, rising rapidly from brute ignorance into an intelligent, a civilized, and an industrious population. The Gazette of the colony, appealing to facts within the cognizance of its readers, asserts, "that the superiority "of the mountain roads, the cleanness and respectable 66 appearance of the villages, the immense forests cleared

away, and the soil covered with the various productions ❝ of the climate, fully attest the unremitting industry, (we "are quoting the very words of the Gazette,) the unre"mitting industry of this interesting people."

With respect to morality and intelligence, we find the Chief-Justice of the colony observing, that ten years ago, when the population was only 4000, there were 40 cases on the calendar; and now that the population was upwards of 16,000, there were only six cases. We again find the same magistrate declaring, that many of the liberated Africans are perfectly qualified to serve upon juries, and that they have so served with perfect satisfaction to their fellow-jurors. We could easily multiply proofs, equally strong, of the industry, intelligence, and moral character of the liberated Negroes at Sierra Leone. What we have stated is fully sufficient to prove, not merely that the Negroes possess all the natural qualifications for liberty in common with their fellow-creatures of a different colour, but that they have made more rapid progress in the knowledge and practice of Christianity, and in the arts and duties of civilized live, t` an was ever before made by any barbarous people whatever.

It is upon these unquestioned facts that we ground the principles of our Association. Contrasting the present condition of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies with that to which we see that it is not only possible but easy to raise them, we feel that it is our duty, and we have made it our fixed determination, to use every lawful and prudent means to elevate them from the condition of brutes, in which they have been placed and retained by violence, to that of men, for which they are qualified by the possession of those intellectual and moral faculties which our common Creator has equally bestowed upon them and us.

But here we are stopped, on the very threshold of our proceedings, by the advocates for Slavery, who tell us that the subject is so full of delicacy and danger, that the bare mention of any proposed alteration in the system is enough to excite disaffection, rebellion and massacre in the West Indies. We will not stop to ask what must be the merits of that system to which examination is ruin. We will not ask why the Slaves, treated rather as children than as servants, should be so insensible of their blessings as to rise in fury against their be nefactors, merely because we in Britain are so ignorant or so stupid as to underrate the happiness of their lot. But we say, that whatever may be the weight of this argument, the advocates for Slavery have now brought it to the decisive test of experiment. If the violent and inflammatory resolutions which have lately been passed in the colonial meetings, and inserted in the colonial newspapers for the information of all whom it may concern,-if these resolutions, holding out (however falsely) to the Slaves the assistance of a large body of English fanatics, in the wildest schemes for overthrowing all law and property in the West Indies, and representing even the Government and Parliament of this country as concurring in these violent and destructive plans,-if these resolutions shall not be followed by rebellion and massacre, then certainly it must

be considered as satisfactorily proved, that no danger is to be apprehended from the most violent discussions. But if, on the other hand, it shall turn out, that the publication of these resolutions has been immediately followed by insurrectionary movements among the Negroes; much as we deplore the effect, we insist that it shall be attributed to its evident and immediate cause,-not to the resolutions of Mr Canning, nor to the speeches of Mr Wilberforce, nor to the pamphlets of Mr Clarkson, but to the unaccountable rashness of the colonists themselves: and while we admit the necessity of prudence and caution, we lament the conduct of our opponents should be diametrically opposed to the advice they have so frequently be stowed upon us.

But our opponents have also facts on their side to produce. They bid us look to St Domingo, and say, Whether it is our wish to produce in the British West India Islands those dreadful scenes of murder and desolation which Negro emancipation produced in that unfortunate colony. To this we answer, That it is very far from being our wish that the British Government should adopt, towards the British colonies, measures in any degree similar to those of the French Conventional Assembly towards St Domingo; nor, we conceive, can any two proceedings be more essentially different than the resolutions of Mr Canning, and the French decree of 1794, by which Slavery was abolished throughout the whole of the French colonies; the former only urging upon the colonists the necessity of a more liberal and Christian policy towards the slave population, as tending ultimately to qualify them for the enjoyment of freedom: the latter at once, and without any preparation, bestowing unconditional emancipation. But waving all consideration of the total difference of the two measures, we affirm, that the emancipation of the Negroes in St Domingo was productive of no massa

cres or insurrections whatever; and that those who maintain the contrary, manifest a great ignorance of one of the most interesting portions of modern history, or a still more blameable wish to pervert and conceal the truth.

From the year 1790 to 1793, St Domingo was indeed, like the mother country, a prey to contending factions; and royalists and republicans, whites and free men of colour, carried on the most sanguinary contests with each other. In these contests, however, the Slaves as a body took no part, though individuals, enticed by the offer of freedom, attached themselves to the different contending parties. From the declaration of freedom, in 1794, we have the authority of Malenfant, Lacroix, and Vincent, all Frenchmen of rank and character, for asserting that no commotions whatever occurred; and, what is more wonderful, that the Slaves continued to work as industriously and quietly as before. Lacroix informs us, that in the year 1797," the colony marched as by enchantment towards ❝ its ancient splendour: cultivation prospered; every day "produced perceptible proofs of its progress."

St Domingo was indeed again doomed to be the scene of rapine and bloodshed, when, in 1802, Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, sent out Leclerc with a large army to reduce the Negroes to their former bondage. Then indeed, a scene of horror was exhibited, unparalleled by any of the crimes of revolutionary France: but let the shame and the guilt of these be attributed to the invaders, not to the invaded;—to the French colonists who instigated, and to the French Government which attempted, the mad and wicked project of restoring Slavery ;-not to the persecuted Negroes, who shewed, by their valour and constancy in a defensive war, as well as by their former quietness and industry in a state of peace, that they were worthy of freedom. These being the facts of the case, we claim the benefit of the evidence thus brought forward by our opponents, as proving that emancipation, as it took

place in St Domingo, produced not idleness and insurrection, but industry and quiet.

Of the present state of St Domingo, or Hayti as it is commonly called, it is not easy to obtain a well authenti cated account. It is clear that it has not recovered from the dreadful effects of the French war in 1802; that is from the entire abstraction of all capital from the island, and the destruction of all the property which could not be removed. But on the other hand, it is equally clear, that the Haytians, the Free Negroes of St Domingo, are not indolent, and that their labour is not unproductive. The island abounds with provisions of all sorts, and the Haytian Negro, very different from the Slave Negroes of the other islands, has the means of indulging in ani mal food to the utmost extent of his wishes. The natural consequence of this plenty has been a rapid increase of the population, which, in spite of the dreadful wars which have desolated the island, is now considerably greater than it ever was at any former period.

But this is not all.-Hayti possesses a very considerable foreign trade in Coffee, Cotton, and Mahogany. The tonnage of the United States employed in the trade to Hayti, during the year ending September 1821, was 50,000 tons, and the value of the imports into the United States from Hayti, 2,246,237 dollars; the exports from the United States to Hayti being nearly to the same amount, and so rapidly has this trade increased, that the value of the imports from the United States into Hayti, during the last year, is stated in the Official Gazette of Hayti, to be upwards of six millions of dollars, and those from Great Britain upwards of three millions. The trade with France is also very considerable, probably exceeding that with Great Britain. If, therefore, we calculate the value of the annual imports into Hayti at twelve millions of dollars, we have a consumption of foreign merchandize twice as great as that of Jamaica, and for which payment must be made in the