cious
Majesty, in your high wisdom, will never allow such violation of
justice as emancipation without compensation would be; such a
thing has never anywhere occurred."

The Dutch government has declared that it will not abolish
slavery without indemnifying the owners, and for this reason it
has not given any formal sanction to the liberty which the Dutch
governor of St. Martin's (with the consent of the planters) found
himself compelled to concede to the negroes, when emancipation
was proclaimed in the French part of the same island, but left
matters in _statu quo_. Once, however, there existed an instance
of emancipation without compensation. The National Convention of
France, in the year 1793, did, disregarding the sacred rights of
property, proclaim the abolition of slavery; but ten years
afterwards, on the 28th of May, 1802, that act was declared by
the corps legislatif, to be an act of spoliation, and as such
illegal; consequently slavery was re-established by decree of the
First Consul, and continued for half a century, and would in all
probability be still in full vigor, at least for some time, had
it not been for the revolution of February. For us, we have the
most implicit reliance on the honor of the Danish Government, and
the Danish people, and we feel persuaded that they will not
follow the example of the National Convention. In Denmark, love
of justice and respect for the sacredness of the rights of
property are too deeply implanted in the soil to be easily rooted
out. The proverbial honesty of Denmark is as firm as the courage,
loyalty, and gallantry of which her sons have so lately given
such signal proof.

The Rigsdag of Denmark will not on account of the burden, shrink
from the demands of justice; it will not allow it to be said that
it refused to satisfy a claim, the justness of which has never
been doubted by any civilized nation, nor will it suffer a number
of its fellow citizens to be illegally bereft of their property
without compensation. The Rigsdag of Denmark will not leave it in
the power of the world to say, that it was liberal at the expense
of others, or that it denied compensation to the weak, because
they had only the right, but not the power to enforce it. In
reviewing the means that present themselves,