The imminent danger which at present threatens our West India Colonies; the vast importance of these possessions in the agricultural, commercial, and political scale; the dreadful misrepresentations scattered abroad against them; and the unmitigated, unmerited, and degrading charges heaped upon the character and the conduct of the whole class of West India proprietors, renders it an imperious duty on the part of every one who has any regard for the character or safety of his country, and who may be acquainted with the real state of affairs in the Colonies, to lay the truth before the public. Having no stake whatever in the West Indies, actuated only by a regard for truth, and love for my country, without any interest to serve, or resentment to gratify; but not shrinking from a subject for the present so unpopular, I have presumed to lay before the world the following sheets. With what success I have defended the cause of these valuable and much injured possessions, it is for the public to determine.

It was not my intention, and it is far from my thoughts, to hurt the personal feelings of any man, or any body of men, who on these subjects may differ from me in opinion. I deprecate and disclaim any such objects. On the subjects in dispute, because I feel strongly, I have spoken my sentiments freely, but not disrespectfully or offensively, nor in stronger language than the statements put forward by the anti-Colonists (more especially their anonymous writers) have appeared to warrant, or the importance of the subject to require.