*686 Letters on the West India Question. [DEC. 



better attained by changing their plans, and again turning their ener- 

 gies towards that direction in which they were first impelled." 



But we fear this appeal will be in vain, unless government assume a 

 more decisive attitude in the management of this question, than they 

 have hitherto done. 



In considering the necessity of reducing taxation on West India pro- 

 duce, the Doctor forcibly points out the impolicy and injustice of con- 

 tinuing the present high rates, which operate equally against the revenue 

 and the cause of humanity, and in conclusion he says 



" If I could flatter myself that my feeble voice would reach those influ- 

 ential individuals, who, by directing the destinies of this great empire, hold in 

 their hands the springs which move the civilized world, I would tell - them 

 respectfully, but plainly and honestly, that the interests, not of our colonies 

 only, but of Africa, and of Britain itself, are involved in the manner in which 

 they acquit themselves of the important duties which belong to the colonial 

 department that other administrations, by trifling with a subject of such 

 mighty importance, have treasured up for their present successors a responsi- 

 bility of no common magnitude that the time is arrived when the question, 

 in all its bearings, must force itself on the public attention, and that the 

 country looks confidently to their firmness and political sagacity for the sup- 

 pression of such overwhelming evils ; in the West Indies, by the restoration 

 of amity and confidence between master and slave, and between the white 

 inhabitants and the mother country in Africa, by the final abolition of that 

 traffic which has so long been the opprobrium of humanity and in Britain, 

 by the establishment of a wise and paternal system of government, which may 

 impart its blessings equally to all, and which may unite in the bands of mutual 

 sympathy every class of his Majesty's subjects in every quarter of his vast 

 dominions." 



We have at the present crisis, been so anxious to place these impor- 

 tant subjects before our readers, that we have left ourselves very little 

 space to notice Mr. Gladstone's (of Liverpool) very able statement of facts 

 connected with the present state of slavery in the British sugar and cof- 

 fee Colonies, and in the United States of America ; with which is con- 

 trasted a view of the present situation of the lower classes in the United 

 Kingdom a subject, which, partly in consequence of the disgraceful 

 clamours raised by the sectarians about negro slavery has been most 

 shamefully overlooked. " I think," says Mr. Gladstone, " it must be ad- 

 mitted, that in all countries situated within the tropics, where society is 

 formed of the aboriginal inhabitants, it has been found existing either 

 under a despotic form of government, where slavery has ever prevailed 

 in its worst forms and effects, or in a state of savage life." 



He very clearly points out the peculiarities of the negro character, and 

 the dreadful consequences of premature emancipation, which he ex- 

 emplifies by reference to what took place in Cayenne. 



" When freedom was given to the negroes there, during the most intemperate 

 period of the French revolution, and which state of freedom was afterwards 

 followed by the restoration of slavery under increased disadvantages, ' when 

 though the interval was short, their numbers were found to be reduced one-half 

 or more, by civil strife and dissension, degrading cruelties, unbounded licentious- 

 ness, and disease.' " 



Here is a picture for the contemplation of our violent abolitionists, 

 which with that exhibited in another French dependency (Haiti), as 

 well as the condition of the American slaves liberated during the late 

 war, and ^ ariously located should be their constant study. Mr. Glad- 

 stone demonstrates the absurdity of various plans of immediate eman- 

 cipation, and adds : 



