Four Essays: Colonial Slavery (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Four Essays

Even among the many important political questions to which at this moment public attention is drawn, that of West India Slavery has not diminished in interest. The large amount 'of property at stake, the warmth unfortunately dis played throughout the discussion, the positive manner in which parties who might be supposed equally well acquainted with the truth have contradicted each other on facts, have on the contrary contributed to increase that interest in a very high degree. Whilst so many persons have already appeared in the field, the writer of this tract would not have come forward, had he not had some Opportunity of forming a judgment, and had not his experience in some degree qualified him to express a decided Opinion. That Opinion is also so clear, and his conviction so confirmed, that he deems it a duty to those with whom he differed at an earlier stage of his experience, and to the many who with him have made a sacrifice of their early prepossessions, not to withhold his present sentiments from the public.