The reporters are very indignant that any of the parliamentary orators should have dared to express an opinion that the Slave trade is “contrary to the principles of justice and humanity;” and they add, that “the particular accusations of oppression, without the means of redress; of avaricious and unfeeling rigour towards our Slaves, unrestrained by a sense of interest, or the dictates of humanity; heaped upon the inhabitants of the British West Indian colonies; _have been repelled and refuted by such irrefragable evidence, that they can now make little impression, except on the prejudiced and uninformed_.” Page 12. How far a sense of interest or the dictates of humanity are capable of preventing _unfeeling rigour_ from being exercised towards Negro Slaves, let the correspondence of Lord Seaforth, already referred to, testify. If farther evidence were required on this point, that of Governor Prevost might be adduced. He expressly declares (p. 34), that “the interest of the master in his Slaves’ well-being is _not_ always _a sufficient check_.” But even supposing that a sense of interest should operate with the _owners_ of Negro Slaves in restraining cruel treatment, yet what is likely to be the operation of this potent principle in cases where the management of the estates of absent proprietors is left to attornies, whose commissions are enlarged in proportion to the amount of the crops; and to overseers, who hold their office during the pleasure of those attornies, and whose reputation as planters depends not on the increase of Slaves, but on the increase of the yearly produce of the estate? It is the more necessary to make the inquiry, because by far the greater part of the sugar plantations of Jamaica are in this predicament. Allowing, therefore, that the principle of self-interest possesses all the force which is attributed to it, yet in the present circumstances of Jamaica its operation on the whole is more likely to be injurious than beneficial to the Negro Slaves[17].