has overrated that improvement, and that in point of fact Negro Slavery
is, in its main and leading feature, the same system which it was when
the Abolition controversy first commenced.

It is possible there may be some, who, having glanced over the Title
Page of this little work, may be startled at the word _Emancipation_. I
wish to inform such, that Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, an acute
Man, and a Friend to the Planters, _proposed this very measure to
Parliament_ in the year 1792. We see, then, that the word Emancipation
cannot be charged with _Novelty_. It contains now _no new ideas_. It
contains now nothing but what has been _thought practicable_, and _even
desirable to be accomplished_. The Emancipation which I desire is such
an Emancipation only, as I firmly believe to be compatible not only with
the due subordination and happiness of the labourer, but with the
permanent interests of his employer.

I wish also to say, in case any thing like an undue warmth of feeling on
my part should be discovered in the course of the work, that I had no
intention of being warm against the West Indians as a body. I know that
there are many estimable men among them living in England, who deserve
every desirable praise for having sent over instructions to their Agents
in the West Indies from time to time in behalf of their wretched Slaves.
And yet, alas! even these, _the Masters themselves, have not had
influence enough to secure the fulfilment of their own instructions upon
their own estates_; nor will they, _so long as the present system
continues_. They will never be able to carry their meritorious designs
into effect against _Prejudice, Law, and Custom_. If this be not so, how
happens it that you cannot see the Slaves, belonging to such estimable
men, _without marks of the whip upon their backs_? The truth is, that
_so long as overseers, drivers, and others, are entrusted with the use