at a distance be heard, even if interest, clearly proved, were to prompt another course.  But the chief cause of the evil is the spirit of speculation, and it affects and rules resident owners even more than absentees.  Let sugar rise in price, and all cold calculations of ultimate loss to the gang are lost in the vehement thirst of great present gain.  All, or nearly all, planters are in distressed circumstances.  They look to the next few years as their time; and if the sun shines they must make hay.  They are in the mine, toiling for a season, with every desire to escape and realize something to spend elsewhere.  Therefore they make haste to be rich, and care little, should the speculation answer and much sugar bring in great gain, what becomes of the gang ten years hence.  Add to all this, that any interference of the local legislatures to discourage sordid or cruel management, to clothe the slaves with rights, to prepare them for freedom by better education, to pave the way for emancipation by restraining the master’s power, to create an intermediate State of transition from slavery to freedom by partial liberty, as by attaching them to the soil, and placing them in the preparatory state through which our ancestors in Europe passed from bondage in gross to entire independence—­all such measures were in the absolute discretion; not of the planters, but of the resident agents, one of the worst communities in the world, who had little interest in preparing for an event which they deprecated, and whose feelings of party, as well as individually, were all ranged on the oppressor’s side.  All this Mr. Stephen, enlightened by experience, and wise by long reflection, clearly and alone foresaw; all this vision of the future was too surely realized by the event.  No improvement of treatment took place; no additional liberality in the supplies was shown; no abstinence in the exaction of labour appeared; no interference of the Colonial Legislature to check misconduct was witnessed; far less was the least disposition perceived to give any rights to the slaves, any security against oppression, any title independent of his Master, any intermediate state or condition which might prepare him for freedom.  It is enough to say, that a measure which every man, except Mr. Stephen, had regarded as the natural, almost the necessary effect of the abolition—­attaching the slaves to the soil—­was not so much as propounded, far less adopted; it may be even said, was never mentioned in any one local assembly of any of our numerous colonies, during the thirty years which elapsed between the abolition and the emancipation!  This is unquestionable, and it is decisive.