This is neither just nor liberal, and we cannot be surprized that the colonists should require some guarantee before they deliver themselves and their properties to the wild and visionary schemes of speculative individuals. If the measure is a public measure, let its consequences rest upon public responsibility. As a great national work, every one must admit that it is worthy of the age in which we live, and of the country which it is our pride to call our own; but as it is a measure surrounded with difficulties it must be approached with caution. That it is practicable I firmly believe, and if undertaken by the Government, and conducted with temperance and prudence, it is perfectly reconcileable with the interests of the planters, and the security of the islands. That colonial property, unhampered by the continual agitation of this question, retains its fair value in the estimation of European capitalists, is evident from the facility with which, we are told, the Commissioners of Hayti have negociated a loan for their government, to pay the indemnity agreed upon to the ancient proprietors of the island for the recognition of its independence. This payment denotes the feeling entertained by the blacks—that indemnity was due. Now this feeling, which has been acted upon, after a long lapse of years, by self-emancipated slaves, should be the ground-work of our own proceedings in the manumission of our negroes, and, before we commence any operations, we should seek an ample guarantee for the property of the planters and the safety of the colonies. The one is blended with the other. The dominion of Great Britain would fall with the annihilation of the whites: and the possession of our West-India Islands is now become of paramount importance. The establishment of so many new governments in the American hemisphere has rendered them absolutely necessary for the protection of our commerce and the extension of our trade. The United States of America have long felt the inconveniency of having no harbour subject to their flag in the European seas, and frequent intrigues have been afloat to obtain one of the islands in the Mediterranean, but hitherto without success. The same difficulties would attend our American commerce, if we suffered ourselves to lose our Trans-Atlantic possessions, either by the dissaffection of the whites, or the insurrection of the slaves.

Experience has taught us the evils which arise from the present mode of conducting this question.. The blacks have been excited to tumult, and the whites, no longer feeling the security of their property, have resolved to vest no more where they are uncertain who may reap. All confidence has been destroyed; and though the markets are favourable, and the prospects of future prices fair and cheering, yet such is the panic arising from the injudicious and intemperate discussions which are daily pressed upon the public, that estates are in vain put to the hammer-no purchaser appears. In vain is application made to the capitalist for the advance even of the necessary supplies. The planter is referred to the speech of Mr. Buxton, or the pamphlet of Mr. Cooper. To this lamentable pitch of ruin has the mistaken zeal of a few, perhaps well-meaning individuals, brought the whole of our WestIndia property; and still unsatisfied, they continue to declaim, and yet produce no settled plan for the completion of their object, no organized system for its attempt. It is in the absence of all other schemes, I venture to suggest one which, though it may at first appear gigantic and chimerical, would be, I am persuaded, easy in its operation, and effec

tual in its result. It will relieve the planter from apprehension, and, whilst it offers nothing immediate to the slave, it will eventually give him liberty, after he has been rendered capable of appreciating its value, by a knowledge of civilization and the blessings of religion.

I propose that commissioners should be appointed to value all colonial property, the half of these commissioners to be nominated by the Government, the other by the respective legislatures of the different colonies; and it shall be imperative upon all colonists to dispose of their property to Government, at the valuation determined by these commissioners. To effect this purchase, Government should guarantee the whole sum to be paid in thirty years, by instalments, at intervals of three years, bearing an interest of 4 per cent. till finally liquidated. To render the operation more easy and profitable, the Government should avail itself of the sinking fund to pay down one-sixth of the whole; and, from the date of this arrangement, agents should be appointed to receive the consignments, at fixed salaries, instead of commissions; and the whole proceeds of all colonial produce should go annually to the credit of the Government. The revenue would be considerably augmented by the measure: for all duties being remitted on the various imports, such an impulse would thereby be given to the consumption of colonial produce, as would always insure a fair price and a ready market, and thousands would enjoy luxuries, and indeed necessaries (for sugar is but second to salt), which now they scarcely dare dream of, by which the annual return from the sale of colonial produce would so greatly exceed the annual interest, and the sum laid by to meet the triennial instalment, as to leave in the Exchequer a much more considerable sum than is now raised in the shape of duty. By the adoption of such a scheme as this, the Government would acquire the right of enforcing whatever measures it might desire, either for the immediate improvement, or the ultimate emancipation of the slaves. The Anti-Slavery Society would lose its venom, and the slaves themselves, no longer agitated and acted upon by false hopes, but seeing their condition in the hands of Government, would rest satisfied with the measures taken for the amelioration of their lot, till they should be declared by law no longer slaves. And the whole time thus employed in emancipating the negro race, without violence and without injustice-without risk to the Government -without ruin to the planters, and all the dreadful excesses of insurrection, would not exceed the period I have pointed out. A shorter probation the negroes have no right to expect. To a life of labour they have been born, and in that state, to which it has pleased God to call them, they must be content to abide, till it shall please him, in his mercy, to grant them a better. They must endure the same hardships which fall to the share of all labouring communities, and let them recognize in their fate the hand of a bountiful and all-seeing Providence; to their slavery they are indebted for the benefits of instruction and the knowledge of the Christian redemption. It was the state of utter ignorance and savage stupidity in which the Africans were found in their own country, that induced the whites to render them subservient to their own speculative views of colonization in the West, whilst the American Indians were absolved from slavery and labour of every kind -doubtless there were peculiarities in the situation of each, which may account for this apparent preference; but it is not a little curious to observe how the favoured race in North America has been almost

wholly exterminated, whilst the descendants of the poor contemned Africans are the peculiar objects of our care. Let us still continue to nurture and to cherish, without inflaming and exciting them. It is with this view I call upon the Anti-Slavery Association to aid and assist in their amelioration, their civilization, and their emancipation. I call upon them to do so upon a basis at once just, honourable, and effectual. Let us have no more idle declamation or heated invective. If the planters are cruel and severe, let us put it out of their power to be so any longer-let us purchase the slaves, and silence the complaints of the master when we relieve the sorrows of the servant.

The slave question has been preached for years, and though eyes may have wept, and hearts may have bled, no purse-strings have been unloosed; not such was the conduct of our forefathers, when the crusade was preached to redeem the Christian from the Saracen. There was no lack then of men or money; but in those days men spoke by their actions, and gave vent to their philanthropy in deeds, not words. Let us now put the abolitionists to the test, and see what exertions they will make, when it is proposed to purchase, not ravish the property of the planter. I have shewn it to be possible, and I subjoin a rough calculation, drawn indeed from uncertain data, but sufficient to form some judgment of the operation of the measure.

I estimate the value of our colonies at £120,000,000 sterling:

If this statement be in any way correct, the whole sum would be paid in the time specified, without taking into consideration the annual reductions of interest, which would remain a surplus in the Exchequer, and enable the Chancellor to diminish other taxes. The fee would eventually belong unencumbered to the nation, and remain at the disposal of Parliament. Though the minor details of this scheme may at first strike us as difficult, or insurmountable, a little reflection will convince us that they are less complex than we have been led to imagine. I shall refrain from entering more minutely into the investigation, as I might exceed the limits fairly allotted to one article in a periodical journal, but conclude by observing, that if the lawful redemption of the negroes is undertaken with half the zeal and half the energy which has been exercised in an unjust attempt to divest the colonists of their property, the final issue will be gratifying to those interested, and glorious to the nation; and I recommend it to Mr. Wilberforce, as his life has been devoted to the cause of suffering humanity, to close his career in behalf of the slaves, by an act of justice to their masters, and then he will have completed a work, which will carry his name blest and honoured to posterity.

LETTERS FROM THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA.

No. I.

Habits of the People-Inconsistency-Scraps of their Speech-Master and Servant Helps-Emigrants-Tricks in Trade.

DEAR P.-THE relationship of master and servant is absolutely unknown here; that relationship, I should say, which is understood in Europe, and every where else, it may be, except in this part of North America, where the word master is made use of, or the word servant.

I mean to speak freely of these haughty republicans, who, while they keep about 1,500,000 of their fellow creatures in a state of pure slavery, will not acknowledge the relationship of master and servant among the free whites, and will not even make use of the word master, except in the way mentioned hereafter, nor of the word servant, except while speaking of a class-never while speaking of or to a member of that class. They are, indeed, a very consistent people these Americans. They abolish titles, and yet are fond of titles to a proverb. They keep slaves, and yet are notorious for talking more and bragging more about liberty and equality, than all the rest of the nations of all the rest of the earth,-not excepting your's. They publish a manifesto, in which they appeal to the Governor of the Universe for the truth of what they say, when they declare that "all men are created equal" (they do not say born equal), and yet, while they are publishing that manifesto, while they are putting it forth in the name of God himself, their governor and judge, while they are making as much uproar about liberty and equality, as if neither had ever been heard of or understood at all before the United States of North America uprose from the solitude of ages, among the rubbish and wreck of another world; now talking about their beloved country, as if it were, indeed, what a sorry writer of theirs took the liberty of calling it some years ago, in the simplicity of his heart-" the Home of the FREE!" as if it were, indeed, what most of their Fourth of July orators are in the habit of calling it, now about once every year, a last refuge and hope, if not for the universe-if not for the world-if not for all the nations thereof-at least for Europe, afflicted Europe, and for a multitude of "empires yet unborn"-if you please; now rejecting from their very language, or avoiding with especial care most of the words which imply either subordination or inferiority, as if they could not bear so much as a word in their way, if it smacked, I do not say of common servileness, such as we have in Europe-I do not say of bondage without measure, and without hope-hereditary bondage, but of inferiority: now claiming to be thought a wise people, a great people, free from the chief prejudices of the age; and yet, as I have said before, while they are doing this, my dear P., and all this—a plague on their system of equality I say, a plague on such liberty-they hold 1,500,000 of their fellow creatures all native-born Americans too-in a state of pure slavery; and look upon those who have a drop of negro blood in their veins, or a

In the New England circle, a part of the United States where slavery is not permitted, and where black children are educated at the public charge, to be a coloured man, or a mulatto, is to be of another caste, with which it is infamy for the white to intermarry, and a great reproach for a poor white man to associate. Even at freeschools, the coloured and white poor children are kept asunder.

shade of the negro race in their complexions, or a vestige of the negro shape in their bodily structure, even though such individuals may be, not only native-born Americans, but free native-born Americans—the free children of other children, whose fathers were free-as if by reason of that particular drop, or shade, or shape, they were accursed for ever, and set apart and sealed for bondage, they and theirs-for perfect real bondage too; stamped in their foreheads with a mark of inextinguishable inferiority, a mark which nothing would ever wash away, nothing ever conceal overshadowed with a sort of indestructible shadow-the everlasting hereditary shadow of subjection.

Every syllable of this, my dear P., whatever you may now think of the matter, is true. The very name of master is done with here; the very word servant is rejected, or discarded rather, from the every day language of this people. You never hear the multitude make use of the words, except in the way of reproach, or derision, or sport; nor even a lawyer, if he can possibly avoid it before the sovereign people. The children, to be sure, through a large part of New England, where they are all educated, or may be, at the public charge, are in the habit of calling their teachers Masters and Mistresses, not only while speaking of them, but while speaking to them; and I have heard a country school-master, and a village attorney introduced here to each other by their respective titles, much in the following way: "Master A. B. here's lawyer C. D.; lawyer C. D., that'ere's our new representative (long i) master A. B.; youv'e heard o' him afore, I guess?" Recollect, my dear P. that every man here has a title of some sort, either corporal, or squire, sé-lect man, major, general, or deacon; but, whatever it is, the party is never spoken to without being called by it; and here I may as well mention a fact, which appears to have led many travellers into a mistake-a very natural one I admit. Go where they will, throughout these United States, they find all the tavern-keepers, whatever else they may be, either colonels or majors. Having observed this, they take it for granted, either that colonels and majors are very common-that "they grow on every bush," or that, in some way or other, some sort of connexion or other is kept afoot between the military office and that of the publican; or perhaps they look upon these people who "keep taverns" as the better sort of people in this country. All this would be natural enough, and yet neither would be a correct conclusion: for, although it is no very rare thing to see a real major keeping a public-house, or a true colonel waiting at the door of his own stable, with a pipe in his mouth, to see that your horse and "baggage," or "plunder," as they call it in the west, are well taken care of, while two or three of his handsome daughters are laying the cloth for you, very much as if you were a part of his family, or at least of their neighbour's, whom they were able to see any day of the week it is altogether more common to fall in with, or, as the case may be, to fall out with colonels and majors, who have obtained a title, nobody knows how-not in the militia, not in the regular army, of that you may be very sure, but, forty-nine times out of fifty in the way of trade; either by dealing in horses, or keeping a shop, or keeping a tavern, or keeping a store, and being surrounded by people who cannot or will not remember the real name of a party, and for that reason adopt a familiar way of speaking to them-a sort of cheekby-jowl method of expressing their ideas of good fellowship. Here,