It was but a small step from admitting
that there could be no justification for making a man a slave, to
asserting that there was an equal violation of all justice in keeping
one in slavery; and this conclusion was strengthened by tales, which
were continually reaching those most interested in the subject, of
oppression and cruelty practised by the masters, or oftener by their
agents and overseers, on the unfortunate beings over whom they claimed
power and right as absolute as any owner could pretend to over any
description of property. They made so general an impression that, ten
years before the time at which we have now arrived, a society had been
formed in London whose object was the immediate extinction of slavery in
every British settlement; and Canning, then Secretary of State, had
entered warmly into the general object of the society; not, indeed,
thinking the instant abolition practicable, but inducing Parliament to
pass a body of resolutions in favor of at once improving the condition
of the slaves, as the best and necessary preparation for their entire
enfranchisement;[226] and the next year, 1824, the subject was
recommended to the attention of the Houses in the King's speech, and an
Order in Council was issued enjoining the adoption of a series of
measures conceived in the spirit of those resolutions, among which one
was evidently meant as a precursor of the slaves' entire emancipation,
since it gave the "negro who had acquired sufficient property" a title
"to purchase his own freedom and that of his wife and family.
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