Instead of this wise, judicious, and really humane course, what have we done? Why, we first, by the act of 1834, abolished slavery altogether in the British dominions, upon giving a compensation to the proprietors, which, large as it was, was not, on an average, the fourth part of the value of the slave population set free, at the expiration of a prospective apprenticeship of seven years; and at the end of four years, deeming that first time too long, we set them free altogether! We thought, in our wisdom, that a nation required no longer time to serve the apprenticeship to freedom than a freeman did to become expert in a trade. We proposed to do in a few years what nature could only accomplish in centuries. The consequences, so often and so fatally predicted, immediately ensued. The emancipated black population either refused to work, or did so at such high wages, and in so desultory a manner, that the supply of sugar rapidly declined in the British islands. It, in consequence, rose considerably in price in the mother country; and upon that, partly under the influence of the free trade mania, partly from a desire to appease the clamorous multitude in the British towns, who had begun to feel, in the enhanced price of that article, the inevitable consequences of their own actions, we did a thing so unjust, so monstrous, so cruel, so inconsistent with all our former professions, that we believe the annals of the world may be searched in vain for its parallel. It was this:-- We first reduced to a half of its former amount the protective duty on foreign slave-grown sugar, and then, by the act of 1846, in pursuance of Sir R. Peel's principles, and with his approbation, passed an act for the progressive reduction, during three years, of the duties on foreign sugar, until, in 1849, those on foreign and colonial were to become equal to each other! That is, having first deprived our own colonies of their slave labour for less than a fourth of its value, we proceeded to admit foreign sugar RAISED BY SLAVES to the supply of the British markets, on terms which in two years will be those of perfect equality. We have seen what came of the attempt in the Mauritius, to compete with slave-labour by means of the labour of freemen. Even though the attempt was made under the most favourable auspices, with the colossal capital of Reid, Irving, and Company, and an ample supply of hill coolies to carry it on, the immense wealth of that house was swallowed up in the hopeless attempt, and it became bankrupt in consequence. Experience had long ago proved in St Domingo that the black population, when not compelled, will not raise sugar; for that noble island, which, anterior to the emancipation of its slaves by the Constituent Assembly of France, raised and exported 672,000,000 pounds of sugar, now _does not export a single pound_; and instead of consuming as then £9,890,000 worth of French manufactures, does