in our different Islands for the pretended purpose of bettering the condition of the slaves have been all of them most shamefully neglected; and they remain only a dead letter; or they are as much a nullity, as if they had never existed, at the present day. And as our planters have done nothing yet effectively by _law_ for ameliorating the condition of their slaves, so they have done nothing or worse than nothing in the case of their _emancipation_. In the year 1815 Mr. Wilberforce gave notice in the House of Commons of his intention to introduce there a bill for the registration of slaves in the British colonies. In the following year an insurrection broke out among some slaves in Barbadoes. Now, though this insurrection originated, as there was then reason to believe, in local or peculiar circumstances, or in circumstances which had often produced insurrections before, the planters chose to attribute it to the Registry Bill now mentioned. They gave out also, that the slaves in Jamaica and in the other islands had imbibed a notion, that this Bill was to lead to _their emancipation_; that, while this notion existed, their minds would be in an unsettled state; and therefore that it was necessary that _it should be done away_. Accordingly on the 19th day of June 1816, they moved and procured an address from the Commons to the Prince Regent, the substance of which was (as relates to this particular) that "His Royal Highness would be pleased to order all the governors of the West India islands to proclaim, in the most public manner, His Royal Highness's concern and surprise at the false and mischievous opinion, which appeared to have prevailed in some of the British colonies,--that either His Royal Highness or the British Parliament had sent out orders for _the emancipation_ of the Negroes; and to direct the most effectual methods to be adopted for discountenancing _these unfounded and dangerous impressions_." Here then we have a proof "that in the month of June 1816 the planters _had no notion of altering the condition of their Negroes_." It is also evident, that they have entertained _no such notion since_; for emancipation implies a _preparation_ of the persons who are to be the subjects of so great a change. It implies a previous alteration of treatment for the better, and a previous alteration of customs and even of circumstances, no one of which can however be really and truly effected without _a previous change of the laws_. In fact, a progressively better treatment _by law_ must have been settled as a preparatory and absolutely necessary work, had _emancipation been intended_. But as we have never heard of the introduction of any new laws to this effect, or with a view of producing this effect, in any of our colonies, we have an evidence, almost as clear as the sun at noonday, that our planters have no notion of altering the condition of their Negroes, though fifteen years have elapsed since the abolition of the slave trade.