3/S POLITICS OF THE DAY. [1807. 



The following, relating to the slave trade, I wrote 

 to Lord Howick : - 



TO THE VISCOUNT HOWICK. 



"February 23, 1807. 



" MY DEAR LOED, The Jamaica newspapers are 

 nowhere to be found; but the fact stands thus on the 

 positive recollection of those who have read them 

 within a few months. 



" 1. The debates in Parliament on the abolition, 

 from 1792 to 1806 inclusive, were published regularly 

 in ' The Jamaica Gazette/ by the Assembly's printer. 

 Lord Stanhope's inflammatory speech in 1804 was 



given at length. 



" This fact Mr Wilberforce is ready to say on his 

 legs that he knows, but that he has lost the Jamaica 

 newspaper in which those debates were published. 



" 2. A memorial was prepared by a committee of 

 Assembly, and inserted in the same Gazette in 

 1802; but perhaps it may have been 1801. The 

 object of it was to show the danger of negro insurrec- 

 tion ; and this it made out by a detailed statement 

 of the means by which, and the ways in which, the 

 slaves might revolt. Mr Wilberforce recollects per- 

 fectly having read such an argument in the Jamaica 

 newspaper, but is not prepared to say on his legs 

 that it was in a memorial. Other persons, of West 

 Indian connections, assert distinctly that it was so. 

 Upon the whole, I should think there is no danger 

 whatever in stating the fact as above. 



