such a measure was undeniable, with a view to secure the good treatment
of the negroes in the islands; but the extinction of the Slave Trade had
long before been effectually accomplished.

In the efforts to obtain Negro Emancipation, all the Abolitionists were
now prepared to join. The conduct of the Colonial Assemblies having long
shown the fallacy of those expectations which had been entertained of
the good work being done in the islands as soon as the supply of new
hands should be stopped by the Abolition, there remained no longer any
doubt whatever, that the mother country alone could abate a nuisance
hateful in the sight of God and man. Constant opportunities were
therefore offered to agitate this great question, which was taken up by
the enlightened, the humane, and the religious, all over the empire.

The magnitude of the subject was indeed worthy of all the interest it
excited. The destiny of nearly a million of human beings--nay, the
question whether they should be treated as men with rational souls, or
as the beasts which perish--should enjoy the liberty to which all God's
creatures are entitled, as of right, or be harassed, oppressed,
tormented, and stinted, both as regarded bodily food, and spiritual
instruction--whether the colonies should be peopled with tyrants and
barbarians, or inhabited by civilized and improving christian
communities--was one calculated to put in action all the best principles
of our nature, and to move all the noblest feelings of the human heart.

Thomas Clarkson, as far as his means extended, aided this great
excitement. He renewed his committees of correspondence all over the
country; aided by the Society of Friends, his early and steady
coadjutors in this pious work, he recommenced the epistolary intercourse
with the provinces, held for so many hopeless years on the Slave Trade,