Let it not be said, that the West Indians themselves can best judge of the reality of the danger, and that they do not greatly regard it. It might, indeed, have been expected, that the necessity of compulsion would here be superseded by every man’s concern for his own interest and safety. But that takes place in this case, which often happens where danger is apprehended to the whole community, from practices in which men engage for their own individual advantage. Each particular instance of this practice seems to add but little to the amount of the general danger, or but little in proportion to the advantage which the individual expects to derive from it. The danger besides is uncertain, however probable; and he shares it in common with the whole community. The benefit he conceives certain, and the gain is all his own. Is not this then precisely the state of circumstances in which the legislature should interfere as the general guardian of the whole community, and prevent the interest and happiness of all from being endangered by individual avarice, obstinacy, or foolhardiness. But it would not be wonderful if the resident West Indians themselves were not conscious on what hollow ground they stand. It is nothing new that they who are most exposed to a great danger are the least aware of it; that, like the short-sighted inhabitants of Puzzoli, or Terra del Gréco, they alone are insensible to the approaching lava which is about to desolate their dwellings. It happens in this, as in other instances, familiarity with the danger naturally generates insensibility to it, and the very persons who are most exposed to its evils, are most blind to its reality and magnitude. But the legislature, as a provident guardian of the whole community, should exercise its watchful superintendence, and take that step which is the natural preliminary to all radical reform, and to all effectual measures for the future safety of the islands. But, to state the truth, it is not merely by familiarity with the great danger which we have been describing, that the resident colonists are rendered insensible to it. This insensibility results in no small degree from the extreme degradation of the Negro race. The resident White is so accustomed to regard them as of an inferior species, that he is no more apprehensive lest they should learn the fatal secret of their own strength, and combine for their own deliverance, than lest such a combination should take place among the horses or cattle, or any other inferior animals, which may therefore, without danger, be suffered to increase their numbers to any amount.[52] Is it possible to see men thus lulled into a fatal insensibility to such a great and obvious danger, without recognizing once more that righteous ordination of the Almighty, by which, when human laws are inactive, he provides natural punishment of our infringement on the rights and happiness of our fellow creatures.