The feelings entertained by the government towards the colonies, were invoked by the intemperate advocates for the immediate abolition of slavery, as the justification of their unfounded representations of the tyranny and oppression with which the planters treated their slaves. Happily, that great act of atonement to humanity, the abolition of slavery, has been accomplished; but the faithful historian of our colonies, great as his detestation of slavery may and ought to be, will yet give a very different representation of the relation which subsisted between master and slave. He will represent the negroes on an estate to have considered themselves, and to have been considered by the proprietor, as part of his family; that this self-constituted relationship was accompanied by all the kindly feelings which dependence on the one hand, and protection on the other, could create; and that such was the confidence with which both classes regarded each other, that, with fearless security, the white man and his family retired to their beds, leaving the doors and windows of their houses unclosed. These kindly feelings, and that confidence, were at length impaired by the increasing attempts to render the employers the objects of hatred. At the latter end of 1831, a rebellion of the most appalling nature broke out amongst the slave population. A district of country, not less than forty miles in extent, was laid waste. Buildings and other property, to the amount of more than a million in value, exclusive of the crops, were destroyed.