It has appeared, I hope, by this time, that what I have been proposing is not unreasonable, and that, so far from being injurious to the interests of the planters, it would be highly advantageous to them. I shall now show, that I do not ask for the introduction of a more humane system into our Colonies _at a time when it would be improper to grant it_; or that no fair objection can be raised against the _present moment_, as _the fit era_ from whence the measures in contemplation should commence. There was, indeed, a time when the planters might have offered something like an excuse for the severity of their conduct towards their slaves, on the plea that the greater part of them then in the colonies were _African-born_ or _strangers_, and that cargoes were constantly pouring in, one after the other, consisting of the same sort of beings; or of _stubborn ferocious people, never accustomed to work, whose spirits it was necessary to break_, and _whose necks to force down to the yoke_; and that this could only be effected by the whip, the chain, the iron collar, and other instruments of the kind. But _now_ no such plea can be offered. It is now sixteen years since the slave trade was abolished by England, and it is therefore to be presumed, that no new slaves have been imported into the British colonies within that period. The slaves, therefore, who are there at this day, must consist either of Africans, whose spirits must have been long ago broken, or of Creoles born in the cradle and brought up in the trammels of slavery. What argument then can be produced for the continuation of a barbarous discipline there? And we are very glad to find that two gentlemen, both of whom we have had occasion to quote before, bear us out in this remark. Mr. Steele, speaking of some of the old cruel laws of Barbadoes, applies them to the case before us in these words:--"As, according to Ligon's account, there were not above two-thirds of the island in plantations in the year 1650, we must suppose that in the year 1688 the great number of _African-born_ slaves brought into the plantations in chains, and compelled to labour by the terrors of corporal punishment, might have made it appear necessary to enact a temporary law so harsh as the statute No. 82; but when the _great majority_ of the Negroes were become _vernacular, born in the island, naturalized by language_, and _familiarised by custom_, did not _policy_ as well as humanity require: them _to be put under milder conditions_, such as were granted to the slaves of our Saxon ancestors?" Colonel Malenfant speaks the same sentiments. In defending his plan, which he offered to the French Government for St. Domingo in 1814, against the vulgar prejudice, that "where you employ Negroes you must of necessity use slavery," he delivers himself thus:--"[18]If all the Negroes on a plantation had not been more than six months out of Africa, or if they had the same ideas