The first consideration which I shall mention is that of a danger of unspeakable amount, to which at length, though surely somewhat too late, even those who have been most blinded by prejudice begin to open their eyes. It seems at last to be discovered, that Negroes are men; that as men, they are subject to human passions; that they can feel when they are injured; that they can conceive, and meditate, and mature; can combine and concert, and at length proceed to execute with vigour what they have planned with policy. Such being the lesson which the Island of St. Domingo has taught to those most unwilling to receive it; the immense disproportion between the Blacks and Whites in our islands, perhaps ten or even fifteen to one, is a subject of most just and serious dread, and the danger is extremely aggravated, by the difference between the two descriptions being so plain and palpable, that the more numerous body is continually reminded of its own force. What but insanity would go on every year augmenting a disproportion already so great! But it is highly important also to consider, that the continuance of the Slave Trade not only aggravates the danger of the West Indian settlements, by increasing the disproportion between Blacks and Whites, but still more by introducing that very description of persons which has been acknowledged by the most approved West Indian writers to be most prone to insurrections. Here let us refer again to the historian of Jamaica. “The truth is,” says he, “that ever since the introduction of Africans into the West Indies, insurrections have occurred in every one of the colonies, British as well as foreign, at times.”[49] Again, “The vulgar opinion in England confounds all the Blacks in one class, and supposes them equally prompt for rebellion; an opinion that is grossly erroneous. The Negroes who have been chief actors in the seditions and mutinies which at different times have broken out here, were the imported Africans.”[50] Again; “If insurrections should happen oftener in Jamaica than in the smaller islands, it would not be at all surprising; since it has generally contained more Negroes than all the windward British islands taken together: its importations in some years have been very great: In 1764 imported, 10,223 And from January 1765 to July 1766, a year and a half, 16,760