I 
chap, iv.] WEST INDIES. 317 
a master, who is not amenable to any law for his 
ill treatment of them, and who may slaughter them 
at his pleasure, Ele has in truth but very little in¬ 
terest in their preservation, having no means of 
employing them in profitable labour, and when 
provisions are scarce, he has even strong induce¬ 
ment to destroy them. 
The chief objection to the slave trade arises from 
the great encouragement which, I fear, it unavoid¬ 
ably holds forth to acts of violence, oppression and 
fraud, among the natives towards each other. 
Without doubt, this is the strong part of the pe¬ 
titioners case ^ and I admit it to be so, with that 
frankness which I trust no honest West Indian 
will condemn. At the same time it deserves very 
serious consideration, whether a direct and imme¬ 
diate discontinuance of the i^ade by the British na¬ 
tion only (the other nations of Europe continuing to 
purchase as usual) would afford a remedy to those 
miseries, the existence of which every enlightened 
mind cannot but admit, and every good mind must 
deplore; or rather, whether a partial and sudden 
abolition (so inveterate is the evil) would not ag¬ 
gravate them in a high degree. 
In considering this question, we must have in 
view not only the circumstances attending the 
slave trade on the coast, but also the situation of 
the enslaved negroes already in the Sugar colonies. 
On the first head it is to be inquired, whether, sup¬ 
posing Great Britain should abandon her share in 
