change the nature of mankind. While arts, manufactures, commerce, and navigation exift, while one man is allowed to appropriate to himself a larger portion of land than is neceffary for his own fubfiftence, while one man's abilities of mind, or strength of body, is fuperior to that of another, fo long will be the diftinction of laborious and idle, rich and poor, oppreffor and oppreffed, lord and flave, mafter and fervant, freedom and flavery, or a fervitude full as fevere. Thefe things, and these conditions of life, must all exift or perish together.

I even do not think we should have much to congratulate ourselves upon, if we were to fee the return of thofe Saturnia Regna, that golden age, when people lived upon acorns and pig-nuts, and the other spontaneous productions of nature†.

But if, notwithstanding every thing which can be urged to the contrary, and the many claims on their humanity fo much nearer to them, thefe islands, and the flavery of the negroes, are still to continue what the Humane Society in the Old Jewry, and the other petitioners, chufe to attend to in the first place, it is not to be doubted but that persons, who poffefs fuch a fund of zeal and humanity, and are defirous of regulating other people's conduct, if not their own, by the dictates. of our holy religion, will not fhew themselves entirely devoid of every principle of justice. They muft, however, be fo, if the planters are to be deprived of their property, or have it deteriorated without a full compenfation being made them for whatever lofs or damage they may fuftain by the abolition of that trade, which has been promoted and encouraged by fo many different

acts

+ Aurea prima fata eft ætas, &c.- -Ovid's Meta. book ift.. V. 89 to 112.

acts of Parliament; under the sanction of which, and of Royal proclamations, and other public engagements, the inhabitants of the fugar colonies have been induced, from time to time, to rifque their fortunes, their lives, and their healths, under all the disadvantages of climate in the Torrid Zone. Thefe acts of Parliament, made by perfons who may, perhaps, with reafon, be confidered to have been as wife, as humane, and as religious, as the peers and gentlemen who at present compofe that auguft affembly, they confider as more than their chartered rights. They regard them as formal and indiffoluble contracts and engagements entered into with them; which Great Britain cannot, without the utmost injustice, infringe, or in any effential point alter, repeal, or abrogate, unless with their confent.Indeed fo fenfible has the British Parliament always. been of the juftice of preferving facred the property of individuals, when the public convenience was thought to make an invafion of it neceffary, that even when an alteration was made in the mode of carrying on the flave trade, by laying it entirely open, the flaves, forts, and effects of the African Company, were purchased by the public. The inhabitants of the fugar colonies, it is to be hoped, are as much entitled to the juftice of the nation as any other of his Majefty's fubjects. It has been the custom of late to depreciate the confequence of the fugar colonies, and speak of them, as of much lefs importance to the commercial interefts of the nation than they deserve. Amongst other people, a noble Lord, in his obfervations on the commerce of the American States, has been pleased to remark, "that the fame revenue would arife on the importation of the fame articles, as thofe which Great-Britain now receives from her Weft India iflands, if they should

come

come through the hands of the Danes, the Dutch, or the French;" he justly observes, at the fame time, "that the great, he fays, indeed the only national. benefit Great Britain derives from that commerce, is from her navigation, her manufactures, and agriculture." P. 152.

The very intimate knowledge, which in the course of the noble author's obfervations, he appears to poffefs of the nature of commerce in general, and the just notions which he has of the importance of the navigation of Great Britain, and the beft means to promote it, which enabled him fo fuccefsfully to oppofe the injudicious and ill-grounded apprehenfions of fome WestIndia planters and merchants, that they would be deprived of the commerce of America, unless it was permitted to the Americans to import the commodities the planters ftand in need of, in American bottoms, gives me fo high an opinion of his Lordship's judgment, that it is with much diffidence I venture to diffent from him, and to beg him to reflect, that the revenue would scarcely receive equal benefit in the latter, as in the former case, because in the former, these articles are purchased chiefly with the manufactures of Great Britain; in the latter, they must be paid for with money, which, perhaps, could not be found. At any rate the consumption would be very confiderably dimi nished, and the revenue be proportionably lefs-neither do I conceive his Lordship will contend, that such benefit to the revenue arifes folely from the duties paid on the productions of the iflands, upon their importa tion; but also on the duties paid on foap, candles, malt, beer, &c. confumed at home by the manufacturers who fabricate the commodities shipped to the colonies from

Great

Great Britain. Thus, if the confumer in Great Britain pays the duties charged on the commodities imported from the islands, the inhabitants of the islands, in like manner, pay the taxes charged on the landholder, peafant, manufacturer, or other artifan in Great Britain, as well for the produce of that country, as for fuch part of the produce of the Weft Indies, or any other part, which thofe perfons confume who manufacture, the merchandize fhipped to the planters, and not only fo, but the planter alfo pays the additional advance the manufacturer charges on his goods to indemnify him for the payment of fuch taxes and duties at home as he pays on what he confumes. Thus although, in fome degree, the duties on fugar and rum may be faid to be paid by the confumer, yet the whole muft, at last, be paid by the confumer of the manufactures fent in their ftead. In a word, it is land alone, or the produce of land, which must pay the whole of the taxes in every part of the globe. Thofe who culti

must receive fuch

vate the land, whether bond or free, part of the produce as is fufficient for their support and nourishment; more than that, they never do receive. -The public demands fo much in the next place, as is adjudged neceffary for the fupport of government; whether it is received in money, or in kind, matters The remainder is left to the owner of the foil, who must therewith pay the artifan, the manufacturer, or fuch other perfons as minister to his neceffities, his vanity, or his pleafures.

not.

In proportion, therefore, to the value of the produce of the land of any country, that land is advantageous to the community. The value, therefore, of the West India colonies, ought to be estimated upon that scale,

and

and the further additional value of them will appear from what the noble author himself says, p. 162.

The juftice of the obfervation laft quoted, will, probably, upon reflection, induce the noble author to fet a higher value on the fee fimple of the West India islands, and to confider the prodigious fums spent in forming fugar plantations, as well employed as they poffibly could have been at home. Page 154, "That confidering the bulk of West India commodities, fugar, molaffes and rum, particularly the former (his Lordship might have added cotton, coffee, and dye and cabinet woods, of various kinds) the univerfality of its extent and confumption, a confumption in its infancy, even in Europe, and still more fo in America, it is not impoffible that, in a few ages, the nation which may be in poffeffion of the most extenfive and beft cultivated fugar iflands, fubject to proper policy, will take the lead at fea*.”

Such a conviction, however, as his Lordship has, of the present real, and future probable, importance of the Weft India iflands, will furely give the West India planters room to flatter themfelves with the noble. Lord's affistance, in oppofition to the prefent attempt to reduce those islands to a state of abfolute infignificance, by preventing their employing negroes in their cultivation, as well as to procure them that relief which he fo judiciously points out the neceffity of, by giving the importers of fugar the fame advantages the importers of tobacco have by the late regulations; this, with the abolition of the patent offices, and fome other obvious neceffary arrangements, would do much towards enabling the British planters and merchants to fupport

* Page 154.

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