236 HISTORY OF THE [book iv, 
■whom—I will not say the major part, but—great 
numbers assuredly, have been torn from their na¬ 
tive country and dearest connections, by means 
on which no good mind can reflect but with sen¬ 
timents of disgust, commiseration, and sorrow 7 ! 
I am not unapprized of the danger I incur at 
this juncture,* in treating on the subject of African 
slavery, and the stave trade. By endeavouring to 
remove those wild and ill founded notions which 
have been long encouraged by misinformed writers 
in Great Britain, to the prejudice of the inhabitants 
of the British Sugar Islands, I am conscious, that 
I shall be exposed to all that bitterness and 
wrath, and anger and clamour, and evil-speaking 
and malice,” with which it has long been popular 
to load the unfortunate slave-holder: yet nothing is 
more certain than that the slave trade may be very 
wicked, and the planters in general very innocent. 
By far the greatest part of the present inhabitants 
of the British West Indies came into possession of 
their plantations by inheritance or accident. Many 
persons there are, in Great Britain itself, who, 
amidst the continual fluctuation of human affairs, 
and the changes incident to property, find them¬ 
selves possessed of estates in the West Indies, 
which they have never seen, and invested with 
powers over their fellow creatures there, which, 
however extensively odious, they have never abu~ 
* Alluding to the petitions depending in parliament (1791) for an 
abolition of the Slave trade. 
