But this is not all. The reporters enter into tedious calculations to shew how much higher the wages of the Negro Slave are than those of the Bengal peasant; but they omit to advert to one very material point of difference between them. The wages of the Bengal peasant are paid to himself: he labours for his own benefit solely. But it is to his master, and not to himself, that the wages of the Negro Slave are paid. From his thankless toil must be extracted, not only the means of his own subsistence, but the means of pampering the luxury, swelling the pomp, gratifying the avarice, or discharging the debts of his owner. And when the circumstances in which the planters are now placed have been considered, it cannot be expected that a very ample proportion of the Slave’s earnings should be applied to his own sustentation, especially as that proportion, whatever it may be, depends entirely on the will of an insolvent, or nearly insolvent master. The reporters complain that they were not permitted, in the session of 1804, to produce fresh evidence at the bar of the House of Commons in favour of their right to a continuance of the Slave trade. But would any evidence which they could produce contradict that statement of the nature of West Indian slavery which they themselves have already furnished, and by which its injustice and inhumanity are clearly demonstrated? And supposing they had been hardy enough to do this, would any credit have been due to such contradictory testimony? Besides, what confidence can the British Parliament or the British Public repose in the declarations of West Indians, even if they should sanction those declarations with all the solemnity of an oath; when it appears from the acknowledgment of Governor Prevost, and from the concurring testimony of their own records, that the most _honourable_ men among them could so far forget their high obligations as legislators, as to join in a combination to deceive the Government and the Legislature of this country, and to obtain credit to themselves for humanity, by passing laws which they meant at the time to be wholly inoperative?