1B2G.] Negro Slavery : Plan fur Us Abolition. 3 



tuiil in its result. It will relieve the planter from apprehension, and, 

 whilst it offers nothing immediate to the sla%e, if will eventually give 

 him liherty, after he has been rendered capable of appreciating its value, 

 by a knowledge of civilization and the blessings of religion. 



1 ])r(>posc that commissioners should be appointed to value all colonial 

 property, the half of these commissioners to be nominated by the (Jovern- 

 jnent, the other by the respective legislatures of the different colonics ; 

 and it shall be imj)erative upon all colonists to dispose of their |)roperty to 

 (rovernment, at the valuation determined by these commissioners. To 

 effect this purchase. Government should guarantee the whole sum to be 

 paid in thirtj' years, by instalments, at intervals of three years, bearing 

 an interest of 4 per cent, till finally liquidated. To render the operation 

 more easy and profitable, the Government should avail itself of the 

 sinking fund to pay down one-sixth of the whole ; and, from the date of 

 this arrangement, agents should be appointed to receive the consign- 

 ments, at fixed salaries, instead of conmiissions ; and the whole proceeds 

 of all colonial produce should go annually to the credit of the Ciovern- 

 ment. The revenue would be considerably augmented by the measure : 

 for all duties being remitted on the various imports, such an impulse 

 would thereby be given to the consumption of colonial produce, as 

 would always insure a fair price and a ready market, and thousands 

 would enjoy luxuries, and indeed necessaries (for sugar is but second 

 to salt), which now the}' scarcely dare dream of, by which the annual 

 return from the sale of colonial produce would so greatly exceed the 

 annual interest, and the sum laid by to meet the triennial instalment, as 

 to leave in the Exchequer a much more considerable sum than is now 

 raised in the shape of duty. By the adoption of such a scheme as this, 

 the Government would acquire the right of enforcing whatever mea- 

 sures it might desire, either for the immediate improvement, or the 

 ultimate emancipation of the slaves. The Anti-Slavery Society would 

 lose its venom, and the slaves themselves, no longer agitated and acted 

 upon by false liopes, but seeing their condition in the hands of Govern- 

 ment, would rest satisfied with the measures taken for the amelioration 

 of their lot, till they should be declared by law no longer slaves. 

 And the whole time thus employed in emancipating the negro race, 

 without violence and without injustice — without risk to the Government 

 -T-without ruin to the planters, and all the dreadful excesses of insur- 

 rection, would not exceed the period I have pointed out. A shorter 

 probation the negroes have no right to expect. To a life of labour they 

 have been born, and in that state, to which it has pleased (iod to call 

 them, they must be content to abide, till it shall please him, in his 

 mercy, to grant them a better. They must endure the same hardships 

 which fall to the share of all labouring communities, and let them re- 

 cognize in their fate the hand of a bountiful and all-seeing Providence ; 

 to their slaverj' they are indebted for the benefits of instruction and the 

 knowledge of the Christian redemption. It was the state of utter igno- 

 rance and savage stupidity in which the Africans were found in their 

 own country, that induced the whites to render them subservient to 

 their own speculative views of colonization in the West, whilst the 

 American Indians were absolved from slavery and labour of every kind 

 — doubtless there were peculiarities in the situation of each, which may 

 account for this apparent preference ; but it is not a little curious to 

 observe how the favoured race in North America has been almost 



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