We are bound to them by a tie more sacred, I had almost said more stern, than we are to the mere Negro.

They claim, and justly, to be considered as our kinsfolk and equals; and I believe, from what I have seen of them, that they will prove themselves such, whenever they are treated as they are in Trinidad.

What faults some of them have, proceed mainly from a not dishonourable ambition, mixed with uncertainty of their own position.

Let them be made to feel that they are now not a class; to forget, if possible, that they ever were one.

Let any allusion to the painful past be treated, not merely as an offence against good manners, but as what it practically is, an offence against the British Government; and that Government will find in them, I believe, loyal citizens and able servants.
But to go back to the forest.