had occasioned, they have precipitated Jamaica into massacre and conflagration; while, by their tyrannical and unconstitutional promulgation of an Order in Council, which is to be thrust down the throats of a local legislature like a royal ordinance, as the price of their receiving any relief from the Parliament of Great Britain, they have awakened in these colonies a spirit of resistance, which must ultimately, as in the case of the North American colonies, lead to the dismemberment of the empire.

The question on which the West Indies are now at issue with the mother country, is one of the utmost moment, and one in which the colonies are agitated by the most vital of all interests. It is substantially the same as that which, under Lord North, lost for this country the whole of its North American colonies; with this difference that, instead of its being an act of Parliament which is now sought to be imposed, it is an order of the King in Council, which the local Parliament are to be compelled to adopt literatim, as the price of their receiving the assistance, without which their existence would not be worth preserving. This is a stretch of power which has never yet been exhibited in this country, nor indeed by any other having the remotest regard for the preservation of its colonial possessions. The Crown colonies-that is, such of the islands as have no local legislature-are ordained at once to adopt this royal ordinance; and those which have Parliaments of their own, are ordered to do so under pain of receiving no relief whatever from the mother country, at the time when it is dealt out to the more obsequious colonies, which give to the royal proclamation the force of law.

We are aware that all statements of the ruin which is likely to ensue to our West India possessions, is a matter of no sort of concern either to our fanatics in religion or our zealots in reform; but possibly they may be somewhat more alive to the dangers which threaten themselves, the perils to the very existence of the British empire, in consequence of the measures which are now in progress in the West India islands. To such persons we cannot do better than earnestly recommend the consideration of the two first of the admirable resolutions of the great West India meeting, lately held in the City.

"2. That the value of the West India colonies to the revenue, manufacturing industry, and mercantile marine of Great Britain, may be at once ascertained by reference to Parliamentary documents, whereby it will appear that the duties annually collected from West India produce amount to seven millions sterling; that the annual official value of British manufactures exported to the colonies is about £5,500,000, and the amount of shipping employed in the direct trade, about 250,000 tons; altogether exhibiting a branch of commerce, almost unequalled in point of extent, and peculiarly important on account of its national character: the whole emanating from British capital, being conducted by British subjects in British vessels, and finally returning the whole value of cultivation in the colonies into the general resources of the mother country, while the cultivator is suffering the extremity of distress.

"3. That, in addition to the direct intercourse of Great Britain with her West India colonies, an extensive cross trade is maintained between those colonies and the British possessions in North America, which affords employment to upwards of 100,000 tons of British shipping; and, by furnishing a market for the fish, corn, salted provisions, and lumber of British America, contributes essentially to the prosperity of that other vast branch of colonial dominion on which, jointly with the West India trade, Great Britain depends for the employment of at least one-third of her whole mercantile marine, and, consequently, for her station amongst the nations of the world. "4. That the loss of the colonies, or the abandonment of interests thus powerfully contributing to the resources of the mother country, would inflict upon numerous branches of manufacturing industry, as well as upon the revenue, an injury of incalculable magnitude, which would never be compensated by foreign trade. So great a destruction of commerce, essentially domestic in all its relations, must not only entail ruin upon numberless private families, but would withdraw from the manufacturers of copper, iron, mill-work, hardware, woollen and cotton goods, the fisheries, the collieries, the salt provision trade of Ireland, and all the various trades connected with shipping, a source of employment on which these industrious classes have been accustomed to rely in war as well as in peace. A great commercial convulsion must follow this loss of employment; while, at the same time, the revenue would be seriously affected by a great diminution of consumption, arising out of the diminished ability of the people to purchase taxable commodities, and the enormous advance of price of all colonial articles which must attend the abstraction of the produce of the British West Indies from the general market of Europe."

These facts speak volumes. It is evident that a great proportion of our revenue, a large part of our export trade, the best nursery for our seamen, is on the point of being lost. And lost for what? for more arbitrary stretches of power than lighted the fire of North American independence, and more reckless innovations than kindled the flames of the St Domingo revolt. The thirteen provinces of America were lost to Britain in consequence of adopting one part of this system; St Domingo was lost to France, and has been precipitated into the lowest stage of misery and barbarity, by adopting another: our present rulers have combined at the same time both!

While the shipping employed to Canada, with a popula

tion little exceeding a million, is 400,000 tons, or a sixth of the whole British tonnage, that to the United States, with a population of twelve millions, is only a seventh part of that amount, or 59,000 tons. It is the same with the exports of Britain to these distant dependencies.

The exports to the West Indies are
Those to Canada,

Together,

£5,500,000

2,400,000

£7,900,000

So that two millions of souls, in our own colonies, take off nearly £8,000,000 worth of manufacture; whereas the twelve millions in North America only take off £6,000,000. The reason obviously is, that independent nations early adopt the system of encouraging their own fabrics, and loading with heavy duties all imports from foreign states. The Americans have vigorously commenced this system of self-defence; while we, proceeding on the vague idea of free trade with nations who will give us no corresponding return, are daily losing our exports to independent states, and saved from complete stagnation at home, only by the rapid growth and increasing wants of our colonial dependencies.

But this is not all. A most important fact, as regards the shipping interests, was stated by Mr Palmer, at the meeting to which we have referred, which demonstrates how necessary practical knowledge is to correct the conclusions drawn from mere custom-house returns. As a shipowner, and conversant with shipping business from his earliest years, he was probably able to say as much upon the importance of that subject as any other man.

"He meant to draw the attention of the meeting particularly to the comparative importance of the West India shipping with that of the shipping of the country to every other part. Upon this he would refer to the returns which had been made lately to the House of Lords-returns in themselves requiring a great deal of explanation to render them at all intelligible to the community at large. By those returns it appeared that the whole amount of tonnage which had entered the various ports of the United Kingdom in the course of last year was 2,367,322 tons; of which that from the British West India ports was 249,079-in this way appearing to be little more than a tenth part of the tonnage

engaged in the foreign trade. This was not accurate; because the two millions and a fraction of a tonnage included the entry of every vessel, from whatever port in the world. she might have arrived. To the East Indies a ship could scarcely make one voyage within the twelve months, whilst from the ports in Belgium she was able to make no less than from six to eight in the course of the year. In each case the vessel was entered as many times as she made voyages. Therefore, an entry of 700 tons from Belgium, by a ship making seven voyages in the course of the year, gives, in reality, but the employment of 100 tons, and six or seven men; whereas, a vessel from the East Indies employs 700 tons during the year, and 50 seamen. Upon this principle, he had dissected the whole of the returns made to Parliament, and the result was, as regarded the West India trade, that instead of their being 2,367,322 tons of British shipping employed in the foreign trade, the whole did not exceed 1,324,780 tons, of which the West India trade composed one-sixth part, and which undoubtedly was a most important consideration. Whatever political economists might say, no one attending this meeting would deny that such a difference in viewing the returns was of importance to this country. In the time of war, it was to the foreign trade the country had to look for seamen. It was the foreign trade and long voyages which alone made perfect seamen.'

Thus, it is a sixth part of the whole tonnage engaged in foreign trade which is at stake in the West Indies another sixth is at stake in Canada; in other words, one-third of the whole foreign trade is involved in the intercourse with these two colonies alone. And it is the whole of this immense branch of our wealth and strength which Ministers have brought into jeopardy; first by their absurd proposal to ruin the staple trade to Canada by the timber duties, then by their rash and despotic acts in regard to the West India colonies.

When Mr Canning, in 1823, undertook to legislate for the West India colonies, his Resolutions, which breathe the cautious spirit of a British statesman, were as follows:

"That it is expedient to adopt effectual and decisive measures for ameliorating the condition of the slave population in his Majesty's colonies.

"That through a determined and persevering, but at the same time judicious and temperate, enforcement of such measures, this House looks to a progressive improvement in the character of the slave population, such as

may prepare them for a participation in those civil rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects.

"That this house is anxious for the accomplishment of this purpose at the earliest period that shall be compatible with the wellbeing of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideratiou of the interests of private property.

Such were the principles on which Parliament proceeded, such the faith to which they were pledged, in the most liberal days of Lord Liverpool's administration. Contrast this with the despotic act of our Whig rulers, forcing an Order in Council at once on the Crown Colonies, and leaving to starvation and ruin all those possessed of a local legislature, which would not adopt this royal proclamation as equivalent to an act of Parliament !

The general error on the subject of the West India Negroes, emanating from amiable and Christian feelings, may be traced to the same source as the political errors which are now shaking the empire to the foundation; a disregard of experience, an inattention to the lessons of history, and an ignorance of the past progress of freedom in other parts of the world. The time, however, has now arrived, when good intentions will not justify insane actions; nor men be permitted to toss about firebrands, and say it was in sport. When men mingle in political concerns, we require from them not only benevolent wishes, but rational conduct and information on the subjects which they agitate; we hold no excuse for a physician, who has sacrificed his patient by his ignorance, that he meant only to do him good. If the boasted spread of knowledge has effected anything, it should teach men distrust of their opinions, if not fortified by the lessons of experience; and it must prove worse than useless, if it does not inspire a rooted aversion for every project which is not founded on the deductions of history, and a determination to resist every innovation which does not imitate the gradual changes of nature.