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PLANTERS AND SLAVES.
the introduction of negroes into America, to the present, there have been fewer servile insurrections in the Spanish colonies than have taken place in the British West Indies within the last thirty years*. Before I lay down my pen upon this interesting subject, I will venture to give a word of advice to the Planters. I speak with no assumption of superiority, in no tone of indifference to their difficulties, in no spirit of party whatever. I only wish them to view their case aright, and am only anxious that they should not ruin themselves and their dependents by a misconception of the strength and bearings of their position. They know that the unmeasured abuse of themselves, by their enemies in E n g land, has really operated to their advantage by of black men, in order to ease the shoulders of yellow men. The fact is, this bishop of Chiapa, like many well-meaning persons of the present day, having fixed his eyes intently on a good object in the distance, became blind to the obstacles which hindered its attainment. He perpetrated an atrocious present crime that a future good might come, and he was deceived as usual. There are also persons in these days, who are not well meaning, who have sold men, women, and children, at public outcry, put the money in their pockets, and then—mark me !—gone and set down their names to an anti-slavery society. The cause of course remains the same,—but the men, the men ! * I am rejoiced to be able to say, that, since the first edition of this work, Dominica has, to its honour, taken the lead in giving a legal right to the slaves of that colony to purchase their freedom by appraisement.