The following sheets first appeared in a periodical work called The Inquirer. They are now republished without undergoing any substantial alteration. The author however thinks it due to himself to state, that he would have materially qualified those parts of his essay which speak of the improved Condition of the Slaves in the West Indies since the abolition , had he then been acquainted with the recent evidence obtained upon that subject. His present conviction certainly is, that he has overrate

I know of no subject, where humanity and justice, as well as public and private interest, would be more intimately united than in that, which should recommend a mitigation of the slavery, with a view afterwards to the emancipation of the Negroes, wherever such may be held in bondage. This subject was taken up for consideration, so early as when the Abolition of the slave trade was first practically thought of, and by the very persons who first publicly embarked in that cause in England; but it w