safer guide of the public mind than the ever-varying sentiments of party politicians. If, indeed, it be true, that slavery has proved injurious to the morals both of bondmen themselves, and of those who have claimed a property in their fellow-creatures, it cannot be a question with any candid mind, whether the minister of Christ, in a free country, has a right to speak out his sentiments on the subject, and to exert his utmost influence for its speedy and complete extinction.

If it be urged, as indeed it is, that many are interested in the continuance of slavery, and that he who opposes it renders himself obnoxious to a large and respectable portion of his fellow-subjects; I would reply that there is no iniquity under the sun, that has not enlisted on its behalf a large portion of self-interest. For instance, if a minister of Christ enters his protest against the horrid crime of sabbath profanation, he is necessarily opposing himself to the interests and profitable gains of multitudes who live by the awful desecration of God's holy day. He is opposing himself to the publican, to the baker, to the coach-proprietor, and to an endless variety of persons, who, in an immoral and highly defective state of society, are making merchandise of the day of sacred rest.

If he ventures to reprove those who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, does he not draw upon himself the contempt and ridicule of those who have embarked property in support of the drama, or who are interested in ministering to the festive profligacies of those who are living without God and without hope in the world? My brethren, is there one sinful passion, or one acknowledged crime, that can be exposed by the minister of religion, without his opposing himself to the interests of his fellow men?

We are not then to be silent on the subject of slavery, because if we speak out we may be in danger of rousing the interested opposition of the human heart against ourselves and our doctrine. It were moral cowardice, unworthy of our office, to shrink from public duty by the force of such considerations. We grieve, indeed, to afflict or offend any; but if our bearing a public testimony against what we consider to be a great national sin, should be construed into a personal or public offence, we have no option left us, but to yield to the voice of conscience.

But it has been urged by some, that slavery has been the sin of the parliament and the nation. I deny it not. It has been the sin both of the parliament and the nation; and it has wrought itself into the whole texture of society; so that most families of respectability are in some way or other, directly or indirectly, connected with it. But does it follow, by any force of argument, that a guilty nation is

never to reform itself? Are we to go on, from generation to generation, practising the crimes of our forefathers? Is the day never to arrive when the wrongs of African bondmen are to be redressed;— when the auspicious work, so happily commenced by our great national philanthropist, shall reach a favourable termination? Why abolish the traffic in human flesh, if Afric's race, already landed on the shores of our British colonies, are to remain in perpetual bondage?

It may be said, if the proprietors of slaves in the West Indies and other colonies, could obtain compensation for the property they have embarked, they would willingly give up their interest in a system which they are as ready as others to disapprove and condemn. If this be true, and to a certain extent, perhaps, it is true,* let them make common cause with the enlightened and good, who are endeavouring to rid their country of the guilt and disgrace of slavery. A large proportion of those who feel that slavery is wrong, and who are determined that it shall be abolished, are by no means indifferent to the pecuniary interests of the planters. But as a body, the planters are so reckless of their own safety, that they place themselves too often in the attitude of contempt and defiance; as if such a procedure were fitted to call forth a feeling in favour of compensation, or to diminish the determination of the British public finally to abolish slavery. Should this posture of hostility be persevered in, on the part of the planters, I do apprehend that the time will at last come, when the warmest friends of compensation will say "Let these headstrong advocates of slavery pursue their own infatuated career; but the degraded and oppressed sons of Africa shall go free."

It should be remembered, that the same argument by which it could be shewn that the planters are entitled to any compensation, is an argument which proves the right of the British people to do away with slavery. If they are, and I think they are, entitled to some sort of compensation, it must be because slavery has in a measure been placed under the sanction of English law, and has thereby become the sin of the English nation. But, surely, if the people of Great Britain are under obligation to support government in any proposed measure of compensation, it must be on the principle, that they have a right to clear themselves of that great iniquity which now lies at their door. But I will suppose, that the planters will not hear, for a moment, of emancipation; that they continue equally

No thanks to the planters for their late conversion. The same reasons which induced them to embark in slavery have led some of them to desire to get rid of it. It is all a matter of profit and loss with them, and not of conscience.

deaf to the remonstrances of parliament, and to the loudly-expressed voice of the British people; that they persevere in dealing out their stale and often-refuted arguments in favour of colonial bondage;* that they exert their whole influence, at home and abroad, to throw obloquy and discomfiture in the path of those who would save their country from those judgments which await oppressors of every class; -I would suppose all this, and I would then ask, what must become of all the arguments for compensation? Are the people of Great Britain bound, in spite of insult and opposition, to study the interests of a class of men who defy the best wishes of the nation, and who oppose, in every possible way, the resistless tide of public opinion? It is not now a question, with wise and reflective men, whether or not slavery shall be abolished; with one voice they agree to say, that it cannot-shall not continue. But suppose the planters do not unite in the national feeling-suppose they stand out with hostile front against all concessions, how will any administration, bound to regard the determined voice of a free people, be able to carry a measure of compensation? The very hostility of the planters will fetter the hands of government, and will lead public men to think of certain objections (and they are many and weighty) to the doctrine of compensation, which, but for the hostility and recklessness of the planters, would never have entered into their minds.

Let it be remembered, that the argument for compensation is at best but one of a political character. As there can be no moral property in a human being, originally stolen from his native shores, the duty of emancipation must stand on infinitely higher ground than the duty of compensating the slave proprietor. In the one case, we are only restoring a fellow immortal to that place in society from which he ought never to have been degraded, and from which he has been degraded by the worst of all rapine and theft; in the other, we are merely, as a guilty people, aiding one another in escaping from the inconvenience and loss in which our own crimes have involved us. To emancipate the slave, is a duty which the law of nature and the law of God alike demand of us ;-to compensate the slave proprietor is a duty of a secondary character, which may depend on a variety of considerations; as, for instance, on a nation's resources, or on the conduct of the party claiming to be compensated. In the one instance, religion, humanity, and equi

It is disgusting, beyond expression, to hear Planters talking of the almost paradisiacal happiness of their slaves, as if God had so constituted the human mind, that it could be happy while at the entire disposal, for life, of a fellow-creature.

table government, call, with imperious voice, for the freedom of the enslaved African; but in the other, an appeal is made to the national sympathy on behalf of a class of men, who have become the pecuniary victims of an unlawful, because immoral, traffic. They are entitled, indeed, to compensation upon principles of national policy; but the oppressed and degraded slave is entitled to his freedom by the same divine law which forbade his fellow-creature to deprive him of his birthright, and which requires that every unlawful property should be resigned, however fatal and tremendous the sacrifice. Had a slave proprietor a right view of the nature of the property he holds, he would relinquish it instantly, if the alternative were that he should be compelled to beg his bread. I am, indeed, a friend to compensation; but if I saw that it were impossible to effect it, I should, nevertheless, say-away for ever with slavery. Important, indeed, it may be, to prevent that national suffering, which would be the necessary result of depressing the energies of one particular class of the community; but it is far more important that nearly one million of British subjects should be rescued from the degradation, the misery, and the crime of colonial bondage. Still I am a friend to compensation, upon the following grounds :

1. IT IS A MEASURE OF PEACE.

There are strong reasons for endeavouring to prevent any great chasm of feeling between the Planters and other British subjects. And the many humane and christian persons interested in the abolition of slavery, would be far happier in seeing their devout wishes carried into effect by peaceful than by turbulent measures. I wish to look on the planters as the direct abettors of a hideous system of iniquity; but I think it wrong to fan any feeling of unkindness towards them, or to be indifferent altogether to their pecuniary interests.

2. IT IS A MEASURE OF HUMANITY.

Many planters would be utterly ruined were their present unlawful possessions to be taken from them, without any compensation being awarded to them. And there are multitudes of most deserving persons who depend collaterally upon the present state of things, who would be plunged into utter misery and destitution, if unconditional emancipation were to take place.

3. IT IS A MEASURE, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, OF NATIONAL

JUSTICE.

The nation and the parliament have suffered slave property to be

Unlawful; I mean in a moral sense of the term.

acquired; and though they have done this in defiance of the laws of Heaven, yet it would seem most unreasonable, that one branch of society should be the only sufferers by an improved state of the law in reference to slavery. The truth is this; the public mind has come, of late years, to think and feel aright on the vital question of colonial bondage; but it does not follow that it is to turn round on the planters, from whom it has been deriving many advantages, and to say to them in the language of cruel defiance, "You shall at once relinquish your unjustly acquired property, but you shall be left unaided to bear your own burden." Let the nation, indeed, say to the Planters, "You shall relinquish your unrighteous possessions;" but let it not urge on their ruin.

4. IT IS A MEASURE THAT WILL PROVE THE REAL AMOUNT OF PRINCIPLE WHICH ANIMATES THE FRIENDS OF SLAVE ABOLITION.

Many who are zealous, and justly zealous, for the abolition of slavery, were once themselves involved in this abominable traffic. They have parted with their estates, and are living on their produce. They are surely bound, in order to consistency, to help the planters out of their present difficulties; for any argument that would go to prove that the planters should receive no compensation, would go very far to prove that they are living by unlawful gains, and that there would be little guilt or inconsistency, in rescuing from their hands a property stained with the infamy of colonial bondage. Such persons have escaped from their former unhappy situation; and they will act a selfish and suspicious part if they refuse, as a condition of emancipation, to aid their less happy brethren who have been shipwrecked by their perseverance in an unnatural and immoral traffic.

But there are multitudes who have never been directly implicated in slavery, and who have never derived any immediate benefit from its gains. They are greatly indignant against the horrid and unnatural system; they long intensely for its abolition; they are prepared to use all constitutional means for its utter extinction; they feel that Christianity demands of them that they should try to undo this heavy burden. Let them remember, that one of the best measures they can adopt is, to express their readiness to the British legislature, to contribute their part towards any parliamentary enactment, which shall propose reasonable compensation to the colonist deprived of his legalized property. For my own part I should doubt the true zeal of any individual for immediate abolition, who would not be prepared to suffer some temporary or partial inconvenience, in order to the accomplishment of the best and dearest wishes of the heart.