It will be said then (for my reasoning will consist principally in answering objections on the present occasion) that the three first cases are not strictly analogous to that of our West Indian slaves, whose emancipation we are seeking.  It will be contended, that the slaves in our West Indian colonies have been constantly in an abject and degraded state.  Their faculties are benumbed.  They have contracted all the vices of slavery.  They are become habitually thieves and liars.  Their bosoms burn with revenge against the whites.  How then can persons in such a state be fit to receive their freedom?  The slaves, on the other hand, who are comprehended in the three cases above mentioned, found in the British army a school as it were, which fitted them by degrees for making a good use of their liberty.  While they were there, they were never out of the reach of discipline, and yet were daily left to themselves to act as free men.  They obtained also in this preparatory school some knowledge of the customs of civilized life.  They were in the habit also of mixing familiarly with the white soldiers.  Hence, it will be said, they were in a state much more favourable for undergoing a change in their condition than the West Indian slaves before mentioned.  I admit all this.  I admit the difference between the two situations, and also the preference which I myself should give to the one above the other on account of its desirable tendencies.  But I never stated, that our West Indian slaves were to be emancipated suddenly, but by degrees.  I always, on the other hand, took it for granted, that they were to have their preparatory school also.  Nor must it be forgotten, as a comparison has been instituted, that if there was less danger in emancipating the other slaves, because they had received something like a preparatory education for the change, there was far more in another point of view, because they were all acquainted with the use of arms.  This is a consideration of great importance; but particularly when we consider the prejudices of the blacks against the whites; for would our West Indian planters be as much at their ease, as they now are, if their slaves had acquired a knowledge of the use of arms, or would they think them on this account more or less fit for emancipation?

It will be said again, that the fourth case, consisting of the Sierra Leone captured Negroes, is not strictly analogous to the one in point.  These had probably been slaves but for a short time,—­say a few months, including the time which elapsed between their reduction to slavery and their embarkation from Africa, and between this their embarkation and their capture upon the ocean.  They had scarcely been slaves when they were returned to the rank of free men.  Little or no change therefore could have been effected in so short an interim in their disposition