though she has endeavoured by negociation and remonstrance, to induce other nations to follow her example; yet she has not succeeded. But why has she not succeeded? Why has she employed her eloquence in vain? Why have her remonstrances been treated with contempt? Why have her negociations with the members of the HOLY ALLIANCE failed to bring about the entire abolition of a system of rapine, and plunder, and misery, which still rages in all its desolating violence through the interior of Africa, and along her ill-fated shores? Why is the genius of England still regarded as the Proteus of the moral world, who alternately excites the admiration and disgust of the best and the worst of men? Why? Because, like that fictitious animal, she changes her character, according to the dictates of her policy! She declaims against the injustice and cruelty of the slave-trade, and carries her remonstrances into the cabinets of princes, and into the forums of legislative debate ; but who will listen "to her pathetic declamations, while she rivets the chains upon her own slaves, and dooms them to perpetual slavery? Who will think her sincere, when advocating the cause of injured Africa, while she holds in a state of captivity those who have been stolen away from her shores? She says to the men-stealers of Europe, Steal no more; and then turns around, on the holders of the stolen property, and says, You may keep what you have got! Is this justice? She says, that

she abhors slavery, because it is unjust and cruel; and after shedding her crocodile tears over the poor wretches, who are groaning away a life of torture and of misery which exceeds all conception, she rises from her mournings, and says to the friends of humanity, "Do not press me to emancipate them! Oh! do not press me to emancipate them. The goods are so soiled and disfigured since they have been in the hands of the thieves, and the receivers, that they are not in a fit condition to be given up to their original proprietors. And besides all this, you must remember that the receivers paid the thieves for their trouble in stealing these goods, and they have a large property vested in this trade of iniquity, and therefore, some attention must be paid to their interest!" Oh! it is this crooked policy, this spirit of double-dealing, this division of sympathy between

the slave and his master; this habit of holding with the hare, and running with the hounds; this determination to prosecute the thief, and protect the receiver of the stolen property, that has been the cause of rendering all our efforts to bring about the entire emancipation of Africa unavailing, and which has made them no less ridiculous than contemptible.

"Before we can have any rational hope of prevailing on our guilty neighbours to abandon this atrocious commerce, to relinquish the gain of oppression,—the wealth obtained by rapine and violence, we must purge ourselves from these pollutions ;-we must break the iron yoke from off our own slaves,-and let the wretched captives in our own islands go free. Then, and not till then, we shall speak to the surrounding nations with the all-commanding eloquence of sincerity and truth,and our persuasions will be backed by the irresistible argument of consistent example. But to invite others to be just and merciful whilst we grasp in our own hands the rod of oppression,--to solicit others to relinquish the wages of iniquity whilst we are putting them in our own pockets-what is it but cant and hypocrisy? Do such preachers of justice and mercy ever make converts?"

*

I have already stated in the language of a powerful writer, what is intended by emancipation: I have given from the records of modern history, several examples of emancipation having been effected without any of the predicted evils resulting from it, which the prophets of slavery have delivered to terrify and alarm us; and I have proved, by giving a detailed account of an actual experiment which was tried by Mr. Steele,† a large slave-holder, that emancipation will prove no less a source of wealth to the merchant, than of improvement and of happiness to the slave; I will now proceed to enquire why any time should be suffered to elapse, before this great measure be adopted.

Necessity here compels me to say, that I think the friends of emancipation, have injured the cause which they have so warmly espoused, by advocating a gradual, instead of an immediate emancipation. ، This GRADUAL

See No. 73.

* See No. 73 of this series.

See No. 85.

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ABOLITION has been the grand marplot of human virtue and happiness;-the very master-piece of Satanic policy. By converting the cry for immediate, into gradual emancipation, the prince of slave-holders, "transformed himself, with astonishing dexterity, into an angel of light," and thereby deceived the very elect."He saw very clearly, that if public justice and humanity, especially if Christian justice and humanity, could be brought to demand only a gradual extermination of the enormities of the slave system;-if they could be brought to acquiesce but for one year, or for one month, in the slavery of our African brother,—in robbing him of all the rights of humanity,-and degrading him to a level with the brutes;-that then, they could imperceptibly be brought to acquiesce in all this for an unlimited duration. He saw very clearly that the time for the extermination of slavery, was precisely that, when its horrid impiety and enormity were first distinctly known and strongly felt. He knew, that every moment's unnecessary delay, between the discovery of an imperious duty and the setting earnestly about its accomplishment, was dangerous, if not fatal to success. He knew that strong excitement was necessary to strong effort;-that intense feeling was necessary to stimulate intense exertion;-that as strong excitement and intense feeling are generally transient, in proportion to their strength and intensity,-the most effectual way of crushing a great and virtuous enterprize, was, to gain time, to defer it to a more convenient season," when the zeal and ardour of the first convictions of duty had subsided;—when our sympathies had become languid;—when considerations of the difficulties and hazards of the enterprize, the solicitations of ease and indulgence should have chilled the warm glow of humanity,-quenched the fervid heroism of virtue; when familiarity with relations of violence and outrage, crimes and miseries, should have abated the horror of their first impression, and, at length, induced indifference.

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The father of lies, the grand artificer of fraud and imposture, transformed himself therefore, on this occasion, pre-eminently, "into an angel of light"-and deceived, not the unwary only, the unsuspecting mul

titude, but the wise and the good, by the plausibility, the apparent force, the justice, and above all, by the humanity of the arguments propounded for gradual emancipation. He is the subtlest of all reasoners, the most ingenious of all sophists, the most eloquent of all declaimers. He, above all other advocates, 66 can make the worse appear the better argument;" can most effectually pervert the judgment and blind the understanding, whilst they seem to be the most enlightened and rectified. Thus, by a train of most exquisite reasoning, has he brought the abolitionists to the conclusion, that the interest of the poor, degraded, and oppressed slave, as well as that of his master, will be best secured by his remaining in slavery.*

But if the slaves are still to be continued in a state of slavery; if they are still to be doomed to drag out a miserable existence under the lash of torture, and the oppression of cruelty, surely some cogent reasons ought to be assigned to justify such a measure. Allow me then to ask, if justice, pure and impartial justice, requires that they should still remain, for some indefinite time, in their present condition. When a man is detected in having in his possession, property which he knew was stolen property when he purchased it, is he allowed to retain it, till he has, by wear and tear, indemnified himself from the loss which he must sustain when called to restore it? No! He is regarded as equally criminal with the thief, and where pure justice reigns is equally amenable to punishment. His loss, by giving up his ill-gotten possessions, is not allowed to operate as a reason why he should be allowed to retain it, even for a moment. Restoration, when impartial justice is on the look out for offenders, is made to follow, and immediately to follow detection; and though a bribe may be offered her to connive at wrong, yet she would consider that an aggravation of the original offence, rather than an inducement to give it her sanction. Then why should the slave holder be

*The writer has obtained permission from the Authoress of Immediate, not Gradual Abolition, to quote as largely from it as he may choose; and he takes this opportunity, not only of acknowledging his obligations to her kindness, but also of expressing his gratitude.

allowed to retain his ill-gotten treasure? He knew it was stolen, when he made the purchase! Does his purchase give him an equitable title to this property? If it does, he ought not to be asked to restore it, without an adequate remuneration; if it does not, he ought not to be suffered to hold it, no, not for an hour! We say, it does not; and yet, strange to say, we do not wish him to give it up immediately. We say, he is acting an unjust part, in holding the slave in bondage, and yet say, we wish him to keep the poor creature a little longer! We bring our tears to shed over his hard fate; and yet, when he turns his eye towards us, we say, "We pity you, and wish you well, and really long to have you released, but yet, don't wish to have this work of mercy to be performed just yet. No, poor black, go on to labour, without an adequate recompence

go on to labour, without any full and certain hope of your emancipation, because we think-we, who are your best friends, your kindest friends-we, who have endured reproach and calumny in advocating your righteous cause, we think that the convenient season is not yet come." This is our language. Now I put it to the good sense of my readers, if this be not a positive compromise of the principle on which we rest the claims of the slaves to emancipation? Should we act such a part, if one of our own children were taken and thrust into prison, and detained there by the cupidity of his keeper? Should we say, "You are innocent, you suffer unjustly, and we have made an application for freedom; but we don't think your should come out just yet. You must lose your prison habits-your prison slang-your prison vices before you are liberated; and therefore we think you should stay yet longer, before you are fitted to return to your state of freedom!" What would a son think, if he were to hear a father talk like this? What? That his father was insincere when he wept and would he not have reason to think that his father was in league with his keeper? If, then, we should not act such an undecided and hypocritical part towards our own children, if they were kidnapped and held in bondage, why should we act this part towards the poor orphans of Africa? Why give the sanction of our approbation to slavery even for an

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