chap, v.] WEST INDIES. 363 
er treatment, and the Christian institutes, the man¬ 
ners of the slaves shall become softened, their 
vices corrected, and their dispositions gradually pre¬ 
pared for a total emancipation from that absolute 
slavery in which they are now held. Such is the 
language, and I doubt not, the fond expectation 
of many wise and excellent persons. They consi¬ 
der that all this will be the necessary effect of the in¬ 
terposition of parliament, in prohibiting the further 
importation of African slaves into our colonies. I 
have assigned such reasons as occur to me for be¬ 
lieving, that this conclusion is founded in error, and 
will terminate in disappointment. That I am no 
friend to slavery, in any shape, or under any modi¬ 
fication, I feel a conscious assurance in my own 
bosom. Yet, that the slavery of some part of the 
human species, in a very abject degree, has exist¬ 
ed in all ages of the world, among the most civi¬ 
lised, as well as the most barbarous nations, no 
man who has consulted the records of history dis¬ 
putes. Perhaps, like pain, poverty, sickness, and 
sorrow, and all the various other calamities of our 
condition, it may have been originally interwoven 
into the constitution of the world, for purposes in¬ 
scrutable to man. Of this I am certain, that an 
immediate emancipation of the slaves in the West 
Indies, would involve both master and slave in one 
common destruction.—Thus much however is al¬ 
lowed; the miseries we cannot wholly remove, we 
may in some cases mitigate. We may alleviate, 
though we cannot cure. I have shewn that this 
has been attempted, and in many instances effect- 
