portation of others, only under a duty of 20 and even 30 per cent. But the articles which the colonies furnish to the mother country, ought to have no protection from the competition of foreigners. Such is the justice which the Reviewers would give to the colonists!

To conclude: the language which this impartial journal would have the people of the mother country make use of to their fellow subjects and brethren, living in, or owning property in the West India colonies, is in substance as follows.

You form, it is true, an integral and constituent part of the empire,' p. 282; but we 'shall gain greatly by lopping you off from it.' p. 302. The monopoly of your consumption, ' and the carriage of your produce, is no advan'tage to us*, p. 283. We have no greater 'certainty of maintaining our trade with you, ' than our trade with foreign states; because the 'whole navy of Great Britain, if it were doubled, 'could not prevent you from buying from foreigners, if they could sell you cheaper.' Cheap goods, (cargoes of flour and lumber for instance,) are sure to make their way through every bar'rier; per medios ire satellites amant.' p. 285. 'We are not, and never have been, in the least dependent upon you for colonial productions; 'Prussia and Germany, though they have neither

* Monopoly and altogether, the colony trade, even as it is carried on at present, is advantageous, and greatly advantageous to Great Britain. Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book iv. Chap. vii.

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ships nor colonies are, and have been, as regularly supplied as England.' p. 286.

'It is true that we have made your trade subservient to the interest of our merchants, manufacturers, and ship-owners; that we imposed galling and vexatious restrictions upon your ' commerce,' p. 281; 'that we did not allow you, during the late war, to sell your sugar and coffee to neutrals: that since the independence ' of your neighbours in the United States of 'America was acknowledged, we have either wholly prohibited their having any intercourse with you, or clogged it with the most vexatious ⚫ restrictions; in order, as far as possible, to keep 'the monopoly of your trade and consumption to ' ourselves,' p. 311.; that in struggling to support our shipping interest, we have compelled you to purchase your American supplies at a ransom; and that we have guided the stream of your trade so exclusively into our own ports, 'that you scarcely know, even the name of a 'merchant in Trieste, Amsterdam, or Hamburgh. But now, having estranged you from the rest of the world; having got the most of your estates mortgaged to merchants in this country; and having rendered you as helpless as caged birds, we propose to set you free from 'the monopoly grasp. Your wings are clipped, you cannot fly far; if there is still any benefit 'to be derived from you, we are sure of having ' it.'

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!

'Do you think hard of this? We tell you the compact or understanding that we should buy from you and you from us, was meant to be 'binding, only so long as it suited our interest We passed certain acts regulating the colony trade, but it was not stipulated that these acts. 'should continue in force any longer, than suited 'our purpose,' p. 293; to consider such so' lemn contracts,' (as Mr. Fox absurdly enough termed this,) to be any longer binding; would be to eternise the worst errors,' p. 294; 'it 'would be as ridiculous to suppose that we have not a right to annul, without your consent, those acts of parliament on which the con'nexion or compact is founded, as to suppose, that we have not a right to alter our corn 'law of 1815, or any other law, which we, by ' our representatives may make for our own go'vernment; your not being represented in parlia'ment, and the many ages that we have forced 'the system upon you, and that you have acted ' on the faith of it, not making the slightest difference in the case,' p. 293.

You allege that the abolition of the slave trade has placed you under a relative disadvantage as compared with the planters of Bra'zil and Cuba, having raised the price of slaves,

or in other words of labour, much above what it is in the colonies of those powers who still carry it on; and that justice requires, we should 'force those powers to abolish the slave trade be

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fore we open our markets to their sugars. But this argument is destitute of any real weight; 'for, however strange it may appear that the African race should improve under your brutalizing system of management (as Mr. Stephen so well describes it), a slave who has been bred in the 'West Indies and trained to habits of subordina⚫tion and industry, is much more valuable than one who has been newly imported from Africa '(where, according to the same authority, slaves 6 are so much better treated); consequently, though he costs more money, he is not dearer; ' and therefore it follows that labour is as cheap 'with you as in Cuba.' p. 294. *

'It is indeed most probably true, that the 'granting of liberty freely to import colonial pro'ducts from foreign markets would be ruinous to you; but that is no reason why it should not 'be granted,' p. 300. Is it not a well known

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* Does a Smithfield drover care for the love or the hatred of his oxen? And ' yet his oxen, since the passing of Mr. Martin's meliorating act, are scarcely ⚫ in a more unprotected condition than the slaves in our islands.' Edinburgh Review, No. 82. p. 475. The terror, the degradation, stunted intellects, and premature decay of the frame, resulting from protracted tyranny, and 'continued through successive generations, make up a greater sum of human 'misery, than was ever witnessed in the paroxysm of any revolution!' Id. p. 485.

Such is the truly wretched condition of the negroes in our islands, with little more protection than oxen in Smithfield market: their intellects are becoming stunted, their frames are hastening into premature decay; and yet they are improving and becoming more valuable ! 'A slave who has been bred in the West Indies, who has been trained to habits of subordination and industry, is ⚫ much more valuable than one who has been newly imported from Africa.' No. 84. p. 294.

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'fact, that the price of sugar in this country for 'seven years past, raised by the enormous bounty and the monopoly which you have of our market, ' has averaged little less than 60s. the cwt. in the London market? Can you deny, that after deducting therefrom 27s. to the treasury for duty, '5s. to the ship-owner for freight, and 5s. to the merchant for insurance, commission, brokerage, ' &c. there remained to you no less than 23s., or nearly 2d. per pound to repay the cost and 'freight of the annual supplies you imported from England, Ireland, and America, the cost of 'cultivation, and the interest of capital invested 6 in your estates? Is not this paying you a great ' deal too much money? and has it not been repeatedly shewn, that a reduction of the duties 'on sugar from the East Indies and South America 'to the same level with those laid on West India sugars, would enable us to obtain as good sugar ' at a penny or a penny half-penny the pound, as we must pay you 24d. the pound for?' p. 289.

It may be, that depending on foreign countries for sugar, which is now become a necessary with the poor as well as the rich, we may be obliged to admit it in foreign vessels. That signifies nothing; for, (though our foolish forefathers thought otherwise, and our ambitious rivals the United States of America have imbibed the error from them), it is unquestionably true that a great mercantile is not at all necessary to 'the possession of a great warlike navy; the navy