Dined yesterday with Fortunatus Dwarris, who was counsel to the Board of Health; one of those dinners that people in that class of society put themselves in an agony to give, and generally their guests in as great an agony to partake of. There were Goulburn, Serjeant ditto and his wife, Stephen, &c. Goulburn mentioned a curious thing _a propos_ of slavery. A slave ran away from his estate in Jamaica many years ago, and got to England. He (the man) called at his house when he was not at home, and Goulburn never could afterwards find out where he was. He remained in England, however, gaining his livelihood by some means, till after some years he returned to Jamaica and to the estate, and desired to be employed as a slave again. Stephen, who is one of the great apostles of emancipation, and who resigned a profession worth L3,000 a year at the Bar for a place of L1,500 in the Colonial Office, principally in order to advance that object, owned that he had never known so great a problem nor so difficult a question to settle. His notion is that compulsory labour may be substituted for slavery, and in some colonies (the new ones, as they are called--Demerara, &c.) he thinks it will not be difficult; in Jamaica he is doubtful, and admits that if this does not answer the slaves will relapse into barbarism, nor is he at all clear that _any_ disorders and evils may not be produced by the effect of desperation on one side and disappointment on the other; still he does not hesitate to go on, but fully admitting the right of the proprietors to ample compensation, and the duty incumbent on the country to give it. If the sentiments of justice and benevolence with which he is actuated were common to all who profess the same opinions, or if the same sagacity and resource which he possesses were likely to be applied to the practical operation of the scheme, the evils which are dreaded and foreseen might be mitigated and avoided; but this is very far from the case, and the evils will, in all probability, more than overbalance the good which humanity aims at effecting; nor is it possible to view the settlement (as it is called, for all changes are settlements now-a-days) of this question without a misgiving that it will only produce some other great topic for public agitation, some great interest to be overturned or mighty change to be accomplished. The public appetite for discussion and legislation has been whetted and is insatiable; the millions of orators and legislators who have sprung up like mushrooms all over the kingdom, the bellowers, the chatterers, the knaves, and the dupes, who make such an universal hubbub, must be fed with fresh victims and sacrifices. The Catholic question was speedily followed by Reform in Parliament, and this has opened a door to anything. [Page Head: ASPECT OF THE NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS.]