the main features in the statutes, regulating the freedom of
the emancipated population of Antigua. It will be seen that there is no
enactment which materially modifies, or unduly restrains, the liberty of
the subject. There are no secret reservations or postscript provisoes,
which nullify the boon of freedom. Not only is slavery utterly
abolished, but all its appendages are scattered to the winds; and a
system of impartial laws secures justice to all, of every color and
condition.

The measure of success which has crowned the experiment of emancipation
in Antigua--an experiment tried under so many adverse circumstances, and
with comparatively few local advantages--is highly encouraging to
slaveholders in our country. It must be evident that the balance of
advantages between the situation of Antigua and that of the South, _is
decidedly in favor of the latter_. The South has her resident
proprietors, her resources of wealth, talent, and enterprise, and her
preponderance of white population; she also enjoys a regularity of
seasons, but rarely disturbed by desolating droughts, a bracing climate,
which imparts energy and activity to her laboring population, and
comparatively numerous wants to stimulate and press the laborer up to
the _working mark_; she has close by her side the example of a free
country, whose superior progress in internal improvements, wealth, the
arts and sciences, morals and religion, all ocular demonstration to her
of her own wretched policy, and a moving appeal in favor of abolition;
and above all, site has the opportunity of choosing her own mode, and of
ensuring all the blessings of a _voluntary and peaceable manumission_,
while the energies, the resources, the sympathies, and the prayers of
the North, stand pledged to her assistance.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

FACTS AND TESTIMONY.

We have reserved the mass of facts and testimony, bearing immediately
upon slavery in America, in order that we might present them together in
a condensed furor, under distinct heads. These heads, it will be
perceived, consist chiefly of propositions which are warmly contested in
our country. Will the reader examine these principles in the light of
facts? Will the candid of our countrymen--whatever opinions they may
hitherto hate entertained on this subject--hear the concurrent testimony
of numerous planters, legislators, lawyers, physicians, and merchants,
who have until three yea