what has been _thought practicable_, and _even
desirable to be accomplished_. The Emancipation which I desire is such
an Emancipation only, as I firmly believe to be compatible not only with
the due subordination and happiness of the labourer, but with the
permanent interests of his employer.

I wish also to say, in case any thing like an undue warmth of feeling on
my part should be discovered in the course of the work, that I had no
intention of being warm against the West Indians as a body. I know that
there are many estimable men among them living in England, who deserve
every desirable praise for having sent over instructions to their Agents
in the West Indies from time to time in behalf of their wretched Slaves.
And yet, alas! even these, _the Masters themselves, have not had
influence enough to secure the fulfilment of their own instructions upon
their own estates_; nor will they, _so long as the present system
continues_. They will never be able to carry their meritorious designs
into effect against _Prejudice, Law, and Custom_. If this be not so, how
happens it that you cannot see the Slaves, belonging to such estimable
men, _without marks of the whip upon their backs_? The truth is, that
_so long as overseers, drivers, and others, are entrusted with the use
of arbitrary power_, and _so long as Negro-evidence is invalid against
the white oppressor_, and _so long as human nature continues to be what
it is_, _no order_ from the Master for the better personal treatment of
the Slave _will or can be obeyed_. It is against the _system_ then, and
not against the West Indians as a body, that I am warm, should I be
found so unintentionally, in the present work.

One word or two now on another part of the subject. A great noise will
be made, no doubt, when the question of Emancipation comes to be
agitated, about _the immense property at stake_, I mean the property of
the Planters;--and others connected with them. This is all well. Their
interests ought undoubtedly to be attended to. But I hope and trust,
that, if property is to be attended to _on one side_ of the question, it
will be equally attended to _on the other_. This is but common justice.
If you put into one scale _the gold_ and _jewels_ of the Planters, you
are bound to put into the other _the liberty_ of 800,000 of the African
race; for every man's liberty is _his own property_ by the laws of
_Nature_, _Reason_, _Justice_, and _Religion_? and, if it be not so w