Accordingly on the 19th day of June 1816, they moved and procured
an address from the Commons to the Prince Regent, the substance of which
was (as relates to this particular) that "His Royal Highness would be
pleased to order all the governors of the West India islands to
proclaim, in the most public manner, His Royal Highness's concern and
surprise at the false and mischievous opinion, which appeared to have
prevailed in some of the British colonies,--that either His Royal
Highness or the British Parliament had sent out orders for _the
emancipation_ of the Negroes; and to direct the most effectual methods
to be adopted for discountenancing _these unfounded and dangerous
impressions_." Here then we have a proof "that in the month of June 1816
the planters _had no notion of altering the condition of their
Negroes_." It is also evident, that they have entertained _no such
notion since_; for emancipation implies a _preparation_ of the persons
who are to be the subjects of so great a change. It implies a previous
alteration of treatment for the better, and a previous alteration of
customs and even of circumstances, no one of which can however be really
and truly effected without _a previous change of the laws_. In fact, a
progressively better treatment _by law_ must have been settled as a
preparatory and absolutely necessary work, had _emancipation been
intended_. But as we have never heard of the introduction of any new
laws to this effect, or with a view of producing this effect, in any of
our colonies, we have an evidence, almost as clear as the sun at
noonday, that our planters have no notion of altering the condition of
their Negroes, though fifteen years have elapsed since the abolition of
the slave trade.
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