“For the sake of the community, indeed, such indiscriminate manumissions ought to be prevented; for, undoubtedly, if the purchase-money were obtained from any fund which may be formed for the liberation of slaves, there would be no test of previous habits of industry, of which there is presumptive evidence where the money is procured by the honest earnings of the slave. To supply this defect it may be provided, that in such cases a certificate of good conduct for five years should be required of the Protector of slaves, before the manumission should be completed.” It is not difficult to perceive, that this idea of a certificate is perfectly nugatory. Who is to give it? The Protector, it seems. How is it possible for the Protector to judge of the private character of the thousands under his charge? Mr. President Wray, sitting in the Court of Policy, in Demerara, admitted, “that in a population of more than 70,000 negroes, the protector could not be supposed to be acquainted with individual characters.” To the proposed amendment, that the existence of habits of industry and good conduct should be shown before the same tribunal which inquired into the manner in which the property was obtained, it was urged, that no such tribunal would have better information than the protector himself; and any certificate of good behaviour coming from incompetent judges, must prove altogether futile as regards protection to the proprietor. If the framers of the measure had interrogated managers or overseers as to the length of time and the close attention it requires to understand the character of the negroes, even of a moderately-sized gang, they would have little thought of expecting a single public officer to remedy the difficulty. But if the protectors were multiplied from one to a thousand, and did nothing else but watch over the individual character of the slaves, the remedy must be fallacious. On the broad principle of the measure itself, no system of appraisement, no reference to previous character, can meet the artifices which a slave may employ to depreciate his value; because many of such artifices, depending on the suppression of skill or zeal, being of a negative character, defy detection; and, even were they detected, detriment to the proprietor’s interests must ensue, since a willing has been changed into a discontented labourer. Upon the rising generation, too, of the negroes, the operation of the same baneful policy of self-deterioration must increase. The whole of the youthful class, whose faculties are just dawning, will be taught to suppress everything like acuteness, and to stifle every indication of future habits of industry.