This has not been done. The odium that attaches to the government is yours. The slave-holder would, ere now, have been driven from the market—he would have stood before the world blasted in character and worth, had you never descended from the high ground on which it is given the advocate of truth to stand—had you never pandered to political factions—had you never given to party “what was meant for mankind.” The Tory press have come to your aid; and if you have the least regard for the great cause of which you are the pledged supporters, you will scorn the envenomed slanderers who supply what they need in reasoning, by the most vulgar and disgusting abuse. {6} It would be well, too, if some of your own Committee who are connected with the public press, would pause ere they impute incompetency to consider the question to those who gave the verdict last Friday, at Exeter Hall. That they were beaten is no argument whatever why they should insult those who differed in opinion from themselves. The Editor of the _Patriot_ thought otherwise, else why were we told the question was too abstruse for us to settle? Are we to wait till his powerful intellect has made it clear? Does he not know that while the Committee were continuing in the old routine, the public mind had arrived at an opposite decision? Men have learned at last that slavery can only be destroyed by freedom; that given, the right to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest—and the employer of free men will soon be left alone in the field. With these few remarks, gentlemen, the writer would commend the Thoughts on Slavery and Cheap Sugar to your most attentive perusal. The subject is of no common importance. If you are wrong, you are altogether wrong, and are a curse instead of a blessing—a curse to the slaves abroad—a curse to the negro on the coast of Africa, who is now murdered when he was before sold as a slave, and whom we would civilise and christianise by transporting to the untilled fields of Jamaica {7}—a curse to the labourer at home, whose wretched existence you help to render more wretched still. Well may you shudder as you think of the responsibility you incur. Consider well your present course—momentous interests are at stake. Let your decision be calm and unprejudiced—not given in deference to well-meaning and respectable men—not from any uneasy sensation of annoyance or ill-will, but such as will be in accordance with the light you have. Your cause is a popular one, and you must be in a false position when you find yourselves opposed to the popular will. This one fact of itself ought to excite suspicion. Advocating as you do the rights and dignity of man, you and the creatures and champions of a fictitious aristocracy can have no common ground, and can never be found on a common side. To be amongst such men at all, you must have drifted from your moorings. Look well to it that you rectify this error in time.