ABSTRACT
In 1828, in advocating, in the Manchester Times, the abolition of slavery, I had stated the great cost of our West India colonies to the mother country, and had expressed my regret that Mr. Cobbett had bestowed much abuse on the abolitionists, and attributed the then distress of the planters to the efforts of the abolition party, when he ought to have known that their embarrassments, proceeding from the gross mismanagement of their estates, had existed long before any strenuous effort had been made for the manumission of their human chattels. In a letter to the electors of Manchester, dated 1st October, 1828-for he was then a candidate for its representationhe said : " How shall I express my contempt of the man who could have put upon paper the falsehood, that I have branded as canters and hypocrites 'all who think that Englishmen ought not to be taxed in iorder to enable the owners of estates in the West Indies to hold their black brethren in thraldom.' There is no answer to a falsehood like this, other than that of calling the utterers by a name which need not be put on paper, but which will suggest itself to every man. But, gentlemen, the thing to admire here is, the profound, the gross, the worse than animal ignorance of this Mr. Prentice, who sets himself up as a teacher of politics to the enlightened people of Manchester. He does not know, then, that the old West India
4 WEST INDIA COLONIES.
