worse than nothing in the case of their _emancipation_. In the year 1815
Mr. Wilberforce gave notice in the House of Commons of his intention to
introduce there a bill for the registration of slaves in the British
colonies. In the following year an insurrection broke out among some
slaves in Barbadoes. Now, though this insurrection originated, as there
was then reason to believe, in local or peculiar circumstances, or in
circumstances which had often produced insurrections before, the
planters chose to attribute it to the Registry Bill now mentioned. They
gave out also, that the slaves in Jamaica and in the other islands had
imbibed a notion, that this Bill was to lead to _their emancipation_;
that, while this notion existed, their minds would be in an unsettled
state; and therefore that it was necessary that _it should be done
away_. Accordingly on the 19th day of June 1816, they moved and procured
an address from the Commons to the Prince Regent, the substance of which
was (as relates to this particular) that "His Royal Highness would be
pleased to order all the governors of the West India islands to
proclaim, in the most public manner, His Royal Highness's concern and
surprise at the false and mischievous opinion, which appeared to have
prevailed in some of the British colonies,--that either His Royal
Highness or the British Parliament had sent out orders for _the
emancipation_ of the Negroes; and to direct the most effectual methods
to be adopted for discountenancing _these unfounded and dangerous
impressions_." Here then we have a proof "that in the month of June 1816
the planters _had no notion of altering the condition of their
Negroes_." It is also evident, that they have entertained _no such
notion since_; for emancipation implies a _preparation_ of the persons
who are to be the subjects of so great a change. It implies a previous
alteration of treatment for the better, and a previous alteration of
customs and even of circumstances, no one of which can however be really
and truly effected without _a previous change of the laws_. In fact, a