220
ANGUILLA.
comfortably. Now this seems to me a simple speech; a very small quantity of political, or even domestic economy, might have taught a man of so much sense better. Without crossing the Atlantic Ocean, in Freemason's Hall itself, (and it is not easy to remove oneself farther from light of every description,) a person might have reasoned, that if the planters, being, as they are written down in the Reports of the African Institution, a cruel and selfish race of men, could no longer feed themselves, their wives and their children in the manner they were wont, they would be little likely to take much trouble about feeding their despised slaves at all. If the slaves were rendered useless, they would not and could not be maintained at the expense of their masters; and if they were not so maintained, the slaves would of course maintain themselves by open violence. Now if any one wishes this last to be the case, I will be bold enough to say that he wishes in reality, not only the entire destruction of the colonies as sources of commerce, but also the demolition of every imaginable chance of ultimately converting the slaves into good citizens and enlightened men. But if Mr. Buxton, as a great and heroic act of devotion to the cause of humanity, would go across this ocean-stream and see what he is so often talking about, (and upon my word I believe the planters would receive him with civility,) he would then know, as