1830.] Letters on the West India Question. *685 



kept up between the colonists and their sectarian opponents, have 

 enabled the leaders of the latter to inflame their ungovernable zeal 

 and unite their strength, while the former have been irritated to a 

 degree, that has now rendered its adjustment to the entire satisfaction of 

 all parties, we fear, utterly impossible, and may yet create not only much 

 embarrassment at home, but materially affect the integrity of the 

 empire. 



The necessity of a full inquiry, on the part of government, into the 

 actual state of society in the Colonies is strongly insisted upon ; and it is 

 suggested that as many of the resident proprietors, managers and over- 

 seers are from Scotland, the protection of the Presbyterian Church, by 

 government, might be attended with good effects. Into this part of the 

 subject we do not, however, propose to enter ; neither is it necessary for 

 us to say much on the degree of responsibility which attaches to the 

 mother country for having originally instituted slavery in the Colonies, 

 that point being already, we believe, tolerably well understood, even by 

 the anti-slavery writers themselves, one of whom expressly admits that 

 " the crime of creating and upholding the slavery of the West Indies, is a 

 national crime, and not the crime of the slave-holders alone. For the loss, 

 therefore, which individuals may incur by its abolition, they have a claim 

 upon the public." 



We would here remark that the losses actually sustained by the 

 slave-holders through the measures of the abolitionists, call already, in 

 common justice, for serious investigation and remuneration. 



Dr. Duncan, in the able letters before us, takes much pains to explain 

 the past and present condition of the free-people of colour, and the means 

 which in his opinion should be adopted for their improvement. We are 

 not so certain of the accuracy of the Doctor's views of this part of the 

 question, which we conceive more likely to be regulated by the conduct 

 of the wealthy part of the brown people themselves, than by legislative 

 enactments, or the exertions of the whites ; but we give the Doctor 

 every credit for his benevolent intentions. 



On the extent and consequences of the Foreign Slave Trade, it is very 

 appositely pointed out, that a benevolent zeal is apt to over-reach its 

 mark by the too exclusive views which it takes of one object. 



" I do not say," observes Dr. Duncan, fc that those who, with such credit- 

 able ardour and ability, took the lead in the abolition of the slave-trade, have 

 withheld their efforts for putting down the evil in every other part of the civi- 

 lized world ; but I cannot help thinking that their vigilance and perseverance 

 have considerably relaxed ; and I must distinctly state, that, in the new direction 

 to which their philanthropy has been turned, they have in a great degree lost sight 

 of the unhappy effect that their attacks on the West India system are necessarily 

 calculated to produce, in perpetuating among other nations the traffic in human 

 flesh, which Britain has so honourably abandoned" 



And the unhappy consequences to Africa and Africans are very for- 

 cibly dwelt upon. 



" If it can be proved," says he, " that the difficulties under which these 

 West Indian dependencies labour are the chief cause of the commercial enter- 

 prise of other countries, which gives such encouragement to the foreign traffic 

 in slaves, it must follow, that, to relieve them from these difficulties, if not the 

 only means, must, at least be a very powerful means of repressing and of 

 finally extinguishing that traffic." 



And he concludes this part of the subject by a powerful appeal to our 

 abolitionists, entreating them " to pause in the course they are pursuing, 

 that they may consider whether their philanthropic object might not be 



