at, if once such a measure was adopted, you could never
turn back from it. If it be found, when carried into operation, to act
ever so injuriously--if its tendency be found to be ever so destructive
to the peace and well-being of society--still you cannot fall back on
the point from which you started; for, if once granted, the measure must
be permanent.

_March 8, 1838._

* * * * *

_Short-sighted Conduct of the West Indian Colonists._

There is no man in this house, or in the country, who has been more
anxious than myself, that the measure passed for the abolition of
slavery should be entirely successful. I have, however, conceived from
the first, that the only chance of its success would arise from the
colonial legislatures acting with good faith, and carrying the measure,
after it had passed the imperial parliament, into strict execution; for
which measure they have received what they acknowledge, by their
adhesion to the principle of the bill, a competent compensation. It
appears, however, to be beyond doubt, that they have not carried the new
system into execution as they ought to have done; and some two or three
years ago, your lordships were under the necessity of consenting to a
bill, rendered necessary in consequence of the legislature of Jamaica
having refused, under not very creditable circumstances, to enact a law
which it had positively promised to pass. Under these circumstances,
considering that we are now approaching to within a couple of years of
the period when a new state of society is to be established in all the
British possessions where slavery has ever existed, I must say, I think
parliament ought not to hesitate about adopting some measure of the
description now proposed, for the purpose of carrying into full and
complete execution the object which the imperial legislature had in view
when the emancipation act was passed. It appears to me, that if the
legislatures of the colonies had acted as sensible men ought to have
done, in the circumstances in which they were placed four years ago,
they would have had before them, and the British parliament would have
had before it, a very different prospect from that which, I fear,
exists at the present moment.

_March_ 13, 1838.

_Lord Melbourne's Government Inimical to the Church._

It appears that the policy of her majesty's government is--I will use
the mildest term that can be employed--not to encourage the establ