ABSTRACT

Sir, there is not a man in the perfect exercise of his understanding, who can seriously believe that, if the Slave-Trade be abolished, any part of this great territory will ever come into cultivation.—Mr. Wilberforce is silent upon the subject.—The great aim of his Proportions is so demonstrate that we may, by various means, keep up our present cultivation: He does not venture to go a step farther. Every acre of uncultivated property must, therefore, on his own admission, remain an unexplored, unimproved, unproductive wilderness. But this is not the whole of the evil: The patented land? in this island are held by purchase: Many of the present proprietors have veiled large capitals in wood land, and even those who hold immediately from the Crown, have paid, and continue to pay, a quit-rent as a consideration for the grant. If I am rightly informed, the quit-rents and arrears collected this present year, and now in a train of settlement, amount to about 40,000l. Here then the loss is not, as Mr. Wilberforce supposes, mere matter of speculation, but of certainty. The injury is plain and palpable, and unless the public faith is mockery and derision, we have an unquestionable right to surrender back those lands to the Crown, and to be fully reimbursed the capitals veiled in them.