Compulsory manumission, therefore, contains the worst principle of evil, a principle of growth. Each succeeding year will make more evident to the negroes the means with which they have been invested for self-depreciation; and each additional instance of its successful adoption by their fellows encourage numbers to resort to the same pernicious artifices. How miserable, then, is the expedient of _partially_ questioning certain individuals in the colonies, who, thus interrogated, may pronounce that in the _present_ condition of the slaves the measure would be inoperative, while the same persons, if questioned with a view to the _future_ effects of the measure after ten or fifteen years of its adoption, would predict a widely different result! The writer of the “Remarks” seems unwilling to contemplate the future, and condemns prospective arguments as speculative and merely matter of opinion. But if the negro prefer a state of idleness to one of constrained exertion, it follows that he must earnestly desire to obtain his freedom. If he have repugnance to labour, he will seek his freedom by those means which are easiest. If he possess common reason, he must perceive that the easiest of all methods lies in self-depreciation. Would it not, then, be contrary to all principles of equity or sound legislation, to subject what is thus a self-evident proposition to the test of experiment, since, ere the result of that experiment could be ascertained, irreparable injury must have been produced? * * * * * In reality, a part only of the subject has been treated of in Lord Bathurst’s despatch, and in the “Remarks,” inasmuch as they regard only those negroes who may be freed under the operation of the measure, and overlook those who, from inability to procure their freedom, still remain on the plantation. But it has been shown, that greater deterioration of property may occur from an improper feeling excited among the negroes who remain, than from the more direct loss of labour occasioned by the abstraction of those who become free. _Section 2._ LOSS ARISING, IF A NUMBER OF EFFECTIVE HANDS BE TAKEN FROM THE PLANTATION. The capital sunk in land, buildings and machinery is known to be very extensive in West India plantations. We have now to inquire whether, under the mode proposed, the proprietor will receive fair indemnification for this capital, from the slaves who may obtain their freedom. It is conceived that, in every point of view, loss is occasioned; and that while the plan of increasing the price of the slave according to his relative utility to the estate is calculated to engender the greatest discontent generally, it at the same time affords inadequate compensation to the proprietor, in regard to those who may purchase their manumission.