Consider if these enormities are too shocking to be seen and heard, what are they to be felt and suffered? When we are thoroughly acquainted with the abuses of the West Indian system, we may, perhaps, be able to mitigate, if we cannot cure them. If policy and interest are still to be admitted as a plea for injustice and cruelty, let us at least not take for granted, as if it were a self-evident truth, what I never can myself believe, that injustice and cruelty must forward the views of policy and interest. Let us scrutinize the evils point by point, and be sure of each individual particular of them which we leave in being, that on grounds of policy and interest it is indispensable. If we are to tolerate such enormous evils, let it be at least by weight and measure; let us deal them out, grain by grain, as absolute necessity shall require; and not in a wholesale way, give our sanction to such a mass of miseries, because the close inspection and scrupulous examination of them shock our delicacy, and wound our humanity. Let us remember what was beautifully said of this last virtue by one, than whom none possessed a larger share; “True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear. It consists not in starting or shrinking at such tales as these, but in a disposition of heart to relieve misery. True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and prompts men to use real and active endeavours to execute the actions which it suggests.” To this long catalogue of the vices of the West Indian system, there remain yet to be added two others, which tend powerfully to aggravate almost all its various evils. [Sidenote: Absenteeship.] The first is, Absenteeship, particularly of the more affluent Proprietor, who could afford to be liberal, whose presence among his Slaves would naturally produce a sort of parental feeling, and cause him habitually to interest himself in their comfort and improvement; and whose affluence might enable him to carry into effect the plans, whether in the way of exemption or beneficence, which his liberality should devise. I have not leisure to point out in detail the various bad consequences which follow from the Owner’s absence; but they will naturally occur to any one who will consider the peculiar circumstances of the West Indian Slaves, in connection with this subject.