The West Indian Slaves are in a state which calls for a course of treatment founded on similar principles. It would be the grossest violation and the merest mockery of justice and humanity, to emancipate them at once, in their present unhappy condition. God forbid (with most serious reverence I use the expression) that we should not desire to impart to the Negro Slaves the blessings of freedom. No man, I believe, estimates liberty more highly, or loves it better, than myself. True liberty, of course, I mean, the child of reason and law, the parent of order and happiness; such liberty, as that, of which they must be dull indeed who do not understand the nature and feel the value, who have lived in the enjoyment of the blessings which it dispenses under the form of a British Constitution; while they have beheld also its perfect contrast, both in nature and effects, in the wild licentiousness of a neighbouring kingdom. It is indeed a “plant of celestial growth,” but the soil and climate must be prepared for its reception, or it will not bring forth its proper fruits. These are fruits, alas! which our poor degraded Negro Slaves are as yet incapable of enjoying. To grant it to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters ruin, but their own. A certain previous course of discipline is necessary. They must be trained and educated for this most perfect state of manly maturity; and, by a singular felicity of coincidence, the stoppage of all further importations from Africa, with all the consequences which it introduces in its train, is the very shortest and safest path by which the Slaves can travel to the enjoyment of true liberty. [Sidenote: Other objections to Abolition.] Besides the great argument urged by the opponents of the abolition, that of not being able to maintain their stock of Slaves at its present number and force, without importation from Africa, a position which, I trust, has been now most satisfactorily refuted by decisive appeals both to speculation and experience; other allegations also were made concerning the injurious consequences of the abolition, and of these it may now be proper to take a brief review. It should however be borne in mind, that they all depend on the determination of the great question concerning the keeping up of the population, except so far only as the African Slave Trade is in question; and, with the exception before made, of persons connected with places whence this bloody traffic is carried on (now, to the honour of the kingdom, but two, London and Liverpool), none have been found such steady advocates for the Slave Trade, as to contend for its continuance merely for it’s own sake.