consanguinity with the whites. Hence the West Indian feels an
unwillingness to elevate the condition of the Negro, or to do any thing
for him as a human being. I have no doubt, that this prejudice has been
one of the great causes why the improvement of our slave population _by
law_ has been so long retarded, and that the same prejudice will
continue to have a similar operation, so long as it shall continue to
exist. Not that there are wanting men of humanity among our West Indian
legislators. Their humanity is discernible enough when it is to be
applied to the _whites_; but such is the system of slavery, and the
degradation attached to this system, that their humanity seems to be
lost or gone, when it is to be applied to the _blacks_. Not again that
there are wanting men of sense among the same body. They are shrewd and
clever enough in the affairs of life, where they maintain an intercourse
with the _whites_; but in their intercourse with the _blacks_ their
sense appears to be shrivelled and not of its ordinary size. Look at the
laws of their own making, as far as the Negroes are concerned, and they
are a collection of any thing but--wisdom.

It appears then, that if a new code of laws is indispensably necessary
in our Colonies in order to secure a better treatment of the slaves
there, we are not to look to the West Indian Legislatures for it. To
whom then are we to turn our eyes for help on this occasion? We answer,
To the British Parliament, the source of all legitimate power; to that
Parliament, _which has already heard and redressed in part the wrongs of
Africa_. The West Indian Legislatures must be called upon to send their
respective codes to this Parliament for revision. Here they will be well
and impartially examined; some of the laws will be struck out, others
amended, and others added; and at length they will be returned to the
Colonies, means having been previously devised for their execution
there.