over whom an unjust and unchristian law recognised the right of property.  But in the Mauritius there was not, nor is there now, one negro to whom a good title is clearly provable.  The atrocious conduct of Governors and other functionaries, in conniving at the Slave Trade of Eastern Africa, had filled that Colony with thousands of negroes, every one of whom was carried there by the commission of felony, long after Slave Trading had been declared a capital crime by the law of the land, as by the law of nature it always was.  Sir George Murray, when Colonial Secretary of State, had admitted, that at least thirty thousand of the negroes in the settlement were nominally slaves, but in reality free, having been carried thither contrary to law.  He understated it by twenty thousand or more:  yet on all these negroes, in respect of property, were two millions and more claimed:  for all these the compensation money was given and taken, which Parliament had lavishly bestowed.  How then was it possible to doubt, that every slave in the Mauritius should receive his freedom, when the only ground alleged for not singling out and liberating this fifty thousand, was the inability to distinguish them from the rest?  If ten men are tried for an offence, and it is clear that five are innocent, though you cannot distinguish them from their companions, what jury will hesitate in acquitting the whole, on the ordinary principle of its being better five guilty should escape than five guiltless suffer?  The same is still the state of the case in that most criminal settlement, which, having far surpassed all others in the enormity of its guilt, is now the only one where no attempt has been made to evince repentance by amendment of conduct.  But the Government which has the power of compelling justice will share the crime which they refuse to prevent, and the Legislature must compel the Government, if their guilty reluctance shall continue, or it will take that guilt upon itself[A].

[Footnote A:  It is truly gratifying to state, that the late Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg, has, since this was written, given the most satisfactory assurances of orders having been sent over for immediate emancipation, in case the former instructions to the Governor of Mauritius should have failed, to make the Colonists themselves adopt the measure.  Lord Glenelg’s conduct on this occasion is most creditable to him.]

The latest act of Thomas Clarkson’s life has been one which, or rather the occasion for which, it is truly painful to contemplate; but this too must be recorded, or the present historical sketch would be incomplete.  He whose days had all been spent in acts of kindness and of justice to others, was at last forced to exert his powers, supposed, by some, and erroneously supposed, to be enfeebled by age, in obtaining redress for his own wrongs.  He whose thoughts had all been devoted to the service of his fellow-creatures, was now obliged to think of himself.