TO THE READER.
The following pages 'form a part of a course of Lectures on Law and Police, delivered in the University of William and Mary, in this commonwealth. The Author considering the Abolition of Slavery in this State, as an object of the first importance, not only to our moral character and domestic peace, but even to our political salvation; and being persuaded that the accomplishment of so momentous and desirable an undertaking will in great measure depend upon the early adoption of fame plan for that purpose, with diffidence submits to the confederation of his countrymen his ideas on a subject of such consequence. He flatters himself that the plan, he ventures to suggest, is liable to fewer objections than most others that have been submitted to the confederation of the public, as it will be attended with a gradual change of condition in the blacks, and cannot possibly affect the interest either of creditors, or any other description of persons of the present generation: and posterity he makes no doubt will feel themselves relieved from a perilous and grievous burden by the timely adoption of a plan, whole operation may be felt by them, before they are relieved from a perilous borne down by a weight which threatens destruction to our happiness both public and private.
