As after events have shown, the report of this committee, though fair and impartial in its views of the case, was calculated grievously to mislead the planters as to the course which the Parliament of Great Britain was likely to pursue, in dealing with them and with their interests. They saw an admission recorded of the hardship of their case, coupled with a recognition of their right to some effectual remedy; and the natural consequence was, that they again took courage, and did every thing in their power to redeem past losses by renewed exertion and expenditure. It did seem that at last some portion of that sympathy, which had been so early promised, but so woefully neglected, was likely to be accorded to them by the mother country; and in that delusive belief they determined to struggle on. Had they at that time obtained the slightest inkling of what was to follow, their course would have been widely different. Whatever might have become of the estates, an enormous amount of new capital, embarked on the faith that Government would at least deal with them in a just and open manner, would have been saved, and the ruin which is now impending over many families, not only in the colonies but here, would have been averted. But with Parliament urging and stimulating them to fresh exertion, how was it possible to refuse? What possible grounds had they then for suspecting that the protection which had been accorded to them in the most solemn manner, and for which they were bound to give an equivalent, would be withdrawn; that Britain, who had forced the Emancipation Act upon her own colonies, and who had announced, in a voice of thunder, her future determined opposition to the existence of the traffic in slaves, would at once descend from that position and become the customer of less scrupulous countries, the largest encourager of that odious traffic in the world, and that to the detriment and ruin of her oldest and most valuable colonies, which she had forcibly deprived of their labour?