t when they _once
take up the cause_, they _will never abandon it till they have obtained
their object_. And what is it, after all, that I have been proposing in
the course of the preceding pages? two things only, viz. that the laws
relating to the slaves may be revised by the British parliament, so that
they, may be made (as it was always intended) _to accord with, and not
to be repugnant to_, the principles of the British constitution, and
that, when such a revision shall have taken place, the slaves may be put
into _a state of preparation for emancipation_; and for such an
emancipation only as may be compatible with the joint interests of the
master and the slave. Is there any thing unreasonable in this
proposition? Is it unreasonable to desire that those laws should be
repealed, which are contrary to the laws of God, or that the Africans
and their descendants, who have the shape, image, intellect, feelings,
and affections of men, should be treated as human beings?

The measure then, which I have been proposing, is _not unreasonable_. I
trust it _would not be injurious_ to the interests of the West Indians
themselves. These are at present, it is said, in great distress; and so
they have been for years; and so they will still be (and moreover they
will be getting worse and worse) _so long as they continue slavery_. How
can such a wicked, such an ill-framed system succeed? Has not the
Almighty in his moral government of the world stamped a character upon
human actions, and given such a turn to their operations, that the
balance should be ultimately in favour of virtue? Has he not taken from
those, who act wickedly, the power of discerning the right path? or has
he not so confounded their faculties, that they are for ever frustrating
their own schemes? It is only to know the practice of our planters to be
assured, that it will bring on difficulty after difficulty, and loss
after loss, till it will end in ruin. If a man were to sit down and to
try to invent a ruinous system of agriculture, could he devise one more
to his mind than that which they have been in the habit of using? Let us
look at some of the more striking parts of this system. The first that
stares us in the face, is the unnatural and destructive practice of
_forced labour_. Here we see men working without any rational stimulus
to elicit their exertions, and therefore they must be followed by
drivers with whips in their hands. Well might it be said by Mr. Bo