The true reason, however, of this argument is to be found, not in the increased danger which will result to the island from abolishing the Slave trade, but in the constitution of the Jamaica Assembly. That Assembly (though containing a small proportion of wealthy planters) is chiefly composed of such adventurers as are alluded to in the Report, and for whose privileges so much solicitude is there manifested: viz. either merchants who are concerned in the sale of Slave cargoes, or agents employed to manage the estates of absent proprietors; to whom are added a few insolvent proprietors of sugar estates, largely indebted, perhaps, to those very merchants and agents. Now it is the voice of these adventurers which is heard on the present occasion, and not that of the real proprietors of Jamaica. The real proprietors, if their voice could be heard, might possibly speak a different language; and we see that in some cases they do so. Many of them are sensible, that, added to the fatal rivalry of Guiana, the true cause of their embarrassment (as their historian Long has well shewn), and the grand source of their danger also, is the continuance of the Slave trade: and if they were not influenced by prejudice or party connexions, or deterred by the threats of creditors, or duped by the misrepresentations of agents, they would follow the example which Mr. Barham has set them, and take that part which prudence and policy concur with justice and humanity in dictating; I mean the part of forwarding a legislative abolition of the Slave trade, as the only safe and practicable, and at the same time effectual remedy, which can be applied to the dreadful evils of our colonial system. Eighteen years have passed since this question was first agitated in Parliament; and since the public have been amused with tales of the amelioration of Colonial bondage. That every hope of this kind is completely blasted, the information contained in this pamphlet sufficiently proves. Nor can such a hope be otherwise than abortive, until Parliament shall consent to abolish the Slave trade. THE END. S. GOSNELL, Printer, Little Queen Street. FOOTNOTES: [1] Not of one or two, or of a few individuals, but of THE PEOPLE. [2] What can more expressively shew the dreadful state of society which prevails in this island, than that a Magistrate should find himself without the power even of commitment in the case of a man apprehended in the very act of perpetrating a most foul and wanton murder?