It has consequently been considered that, while the slave-trade was in active operation in the Spanish colonies, the practice of manumission was encouraged, as increasing the means of preventing insurrection. But it is surely unfair to hold up to the imitation of another colony the enactments and usages introduced by one whose laws were adapted to a state of things so different; and to require that the provisions of a code adapted to the existence of the slave-trade, should be engrafted upon other codes framed since its abolition. The order in council for Trinidad has not affected the principle of the Spanish law, or rather the practice in the Spanish colonies, which allows a slave to enfranchise himself by purchase. But the British law in our settlements gives no such right whatever to a slave. According to those codes, the interest of an owner in his slave is that of a fee-simple absolute: he purchased upon that tenure, he has continued to hold upon the same, and cannot be deprived of that legal title without a direct violation of property. In Trinidad it is otherwise: a person purchasing a slave in that colony, knows beforehand that he acquires only a precarious title in such a slave, which depends on the ability of the slave to purchase himself. Nor has sufficient time yet elapsed to make known the great difference in the working of the measure that must take place now that the slave-trade has ceased, contrasted with the period when it was in active prosecution. It ought also to be stated, that the hardship and evils of the law in Trinidad, even subsequent to the abolition of the slave-trade, had not been so much felt, from the nature of its laws not being generally known in this country: consequently, there was no extraneous excitement upon the subject given to the minds of the negroes. But now, when this excitement has been given, the brief experience already afforded, tends strongly to corroborate the arguments we have advanced; and it is credibly asserted, that the Secretary for the Colonies has received representations and appeals, proving evils to have proceeded from the operation of this law. Among these evils, theft is shown to have increased; and the proceedings before the local magistrates are said to evince a progressive demoralization amongst the negroes. It is further known, that instances have occurred where the sum assessed by the appraisers, as the price of manumission, has been higher than the negro was able, or considered himself entitled, to pay; and the being sent back under these circumstances has visibly produced in him a sullenness and discontent exactly as has been described, and in all probability as injurious to the interests of his master, as if he had obtained his discharge at his own valuation. From these circumstances, it is apparent that there is no analogy between the case of Trinidad and that of the other British Colonies, and that thus far no proper precedent is established.