The _cursory remarker_ insinuates, that Mr. Ramsay's account of the
treatment is greatly exaggerated, if not wholly false. To this I shall
make the following reply. I have the honour of knowing several
disinterested gentlemen, who have been acquainted with the West Indian
islands for years. I call them disinterested, because they have neither
had a concern in the _African_ trade, nor in the _colonial_
slavery: and I have heard these unanimously assert, that Mr.
_Ramsay's_ account is so far from being exaggerated, or taken from
the most dreary pictures that he could find, that it is absolutely below
the truth; that he must have omitted many instances of cruelty, which he
had seen himself; and that they only wondered, how he could have written
with so much moderation upon the subject. They allow the _Cursory
Remarks_ to be excellent as a composition, but declare that it is
perfectly devoid of truth.

But the _cursory remarker_ does not depend so much on the
circumstances which he has advanced, (nor can he, since they have no
other existence than in his own, brain) as on the instrument
_detraction_. This he has used with the utmost virulence through
the whole of his publication, artfully supposing, that if he could bring
Mr. _Ramsay's_ reputation into dispute, his work would fall of
course, as of no authenticity. I submit this simple question to the
reader. When a writer, in attempting to silence a publication, attacks
the character of its author, rather than the principles of the work
itself, is it not a proof that the work itself is unquestionable, and
that this writer is at a loss to find an argument against it?

But there is something so very ungenerous in this mode of replication,
as to require farther notice. For if this is the mode to be adopted in
literary disputes, what writer can be safe? Or who is there, that will