structure, must be startled at SO strange, yet so true, a position. The colonist, and we fearlessly state it, has, under these circumstances, a right to the same protection as that which is afforded to the property of any other of his Majesty's subjects-they have derived that protection from the faith of Parliament-which has ever been the oracle, as well as the guardian, of the British Constitution. But slavery is an exhaustless subject for declama tion the orator-the novelist-the poet, use the hacknied theme in all its degrading representations-they purposely avoid the rights of others while agitating the subject, in the hope that by exciting a fever they may become conspicuous in finding remedies for allaying its thirst; but they add incurableness to the disease. Let a just and equitable mode of Negro manumission be suggested and carried through; let a proper compensation be made to the unfortunate proprietor, and then reason will hallow their outcry; for no plain-no palpable wrong will be effected. Why should our white brethren be sacrificed for our black? Justice must be complete to be justice-she is no "halt or maimed" figure, who, on unequal gait, scatters benefit to one and inisery to another -she is, on the contrary, a fair and faithful spirit, which deals indiscriminately to all a true and benevolent right. There are those who view this pure principle through a distorted medium, who deem that no wrong, no sacrifice, is too appalling in the furtherance of a favourite object; and, provided that freedom answers their outrage, no matter that it is equally destructive to white and black. Let these sophists look at St. Domingo, and they will read there the consequences of an ill-judged and untimely liberty to those whose natural, because uncultivated, minds would point them to rapine and plunder, in preference to industry and toil, for the sustenance of animal life.

The mere speculator on fancied good, the theoretical observer of the claims of others, true to his imaginary creed, will ever be vain and empty, and loud in his exclamations; but could a few of these puny beings

overcome their dread of climate, and forego for a while their accustomed ease; and embracing the perils of a long voyage, visit our West India colonies, they would there see the proprietor curbing his own tastes, contracting his individual expenditure, in order that the slave may be well fed, and clothed, and cared for. He would find that their comforts are more regarded, that their wants are better supplied, than are those of the peasantry of his own country. He would moreover learn, that there is nothing more dreaded among the well-disposed and industrious portions of the black community, than the evils which would arise should their turbulent and refractory brethren be let loose on them. Even their contracted knowledge of the human mind and human actions has taught them to know that in a state of barbarous freedom the lazy and vicious will always batten on the stores of the active and careful. But the weak logician who deduces his worthless arguments from false premises is ever apt, like the common leveller, to advocate that system of generosity which is to emanate from the sacrifices of others, and to the support of which he is not called upon to contribute. Exaggeration is the natural precursor of calumny, and ignorance is the parent of both; we are not, therefore, astonished at the fabricated tales of violence and injury which are industriously propagated and credulously received, but we confess that we are surprised that some well-informed persons, even of our legislative body, should seize on them as the means of procuring that sort of popular fame, which, while it renders them the favourites of a mob, holds them up to the contempt and derision of the wise.

What would be effected, let us ask, by an immediate, or as the petitions run, "an early and utter extinction of slavery," without a complete and proper compensation to our colonial proprietors ?-Utter ruin to thousands both at home and abroad-starvation, imprisonment, death! And this is what is sought for by the benevolent and humane ! O monstrous absur

dity: Is the honour and guarantee of ENGLAND to be sacrificed, because the source from which that guarantee sprung is now deemed improper! The truth is, that slavery is made a bug-bear, by which it is hoped to divert the violence of faction, and to beguile into quiet the headstrong course of an outrageous and devastating mob. May England remember the dignity of her pledge-then will not her sons have to blush for her shifting faith! May justice, that high and noble principle which would shrink from wrong as from pollution, inspire the determinations of England's Senate-then will not her distant children have to lament over her perfidy!

Let a true and faithful inquiry be set on foot, and let the agency employed be something better than the cringing, time-serving mendicant, who protracts his services to increase his pay, and who fears to destroy the general impression by the evidences

of practical truth; and then will it be found that the calumnies now wantonly heaped upon the oppressed, will be hurled back, in tenfold accumulation of shame, on the heads of their calumniators.

Be it remembered that we advocate not slavery; but we contend that, when the colonist is deprived of that property by the mother country which she has previously guaranteed to him, he has a moral as well as legal right to a full compensation for the loss thereby incurred. And we contemn the vague suggestions of that blind, halfformed notion of justice which would engender wrong, in its mockery of right, and which would create ruin where it pretends to cure. The justice which is required in this case is twofold:-justice to the freeman-justice to the bondman; the maintenance of England's faith-the preservation of England's sons.

WM. M, JUN.