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THOUGHTS ON THE NECESSITY OF IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE SLAVES IN
THE BRITISH COLONIES, WITH A VIEW TO THEIR ULTIMATE EMANCIPATION; AND ON
THE PRACTICABILITY, THE SAFETY, AND THE ADVANTAGES OF THE LATTER
MEASURE.


BY T. CLARKSON, ESQ.


1823.



PREFACE.


The following sheets first appeared in a periodical work called The
Inquirer. They are now republished without undergoing any substantial
alteration. The author however thinks it due to himself to state, that
_he would have materially qualified those parts of his essay which speak
of the improved Condition of the Slaves in the West Indies since the
abolition_, had he then been acquainted with the recent evidence
obtained upon that subject. His present conviction certainly is, that he
has overrated that improvement, and that in point of fact <DW64> Slavery
is, in its main and leading feature, the same system which it was when
the Abolition controversy first commenced.

It is possible there may be some, who, having glanced over the Title
Page of this little work, may be startled at the word _Emancipation_. I
wish to inform such, that Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, an acute
Man, and a Friend to the Planters, _proposed this very measure to
Parliament_ in the year 1792. We see, then, that the word Emancipation
cannot be charged with