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Considerations on the present crisis of affairs, as it respects the West-India Colonies, and the probable Effects of the French Decree for emancipating the Negroes, pointing out a remedy for preventing the calamitous consequences in the British Islands

Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature, University of London

Caribbean Islands Abolition Reform Slavery France British West Indies Crisis

This anonymous abolitionist pamphlet considers the potential effects of the French Convention's February 1794 decree abolishing slavery on the British colonies. Critical of both the slave trade and slavery, the author sees the French decree as a potential source of violent unrest among slaves in the colonies and a threat to the British economy. This "contagion" can only be stopped, in the author's opinion, by reform of the slave system, "founded on the obligations of Religion, and in the rights and duties of Civil Society" (25-26).