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SEKM
LETTER


ਦਾ ਆਧਾਰ ਦੀ


।





د: من
SEKM


اردنية (( أند زا! - زعلت من - متا 5
1
British
E.P
AH


Letters
1
ON THE
NECESSITY OF A PROMPT EXTINCTION
OF
BRITISH COLONIAL SLAVERY;
CHIEFLY ADDRESSED
TO THE MORE INFLUENTIAL CLASSES.
“WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH TO DO, DO IT WITH
ALL THY MIGHT."
TO WHICH ARE ADDED,
THOUGHTS ON COMPENSATION.
LONDON:
SOLD BY HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY,
AND BY
T. COMBE AND SON, LEICESTER.
MDCCCXXVI.


T? ?**? 17.3K
POOL, RY
237848A
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1928 L
ADVERTISEMENT.
Since the prospectus of the following work was issued, its
title and contents have undergone considerable alter-
ation, consequent upon the change produced in some
of the writer's views of the subject, by a correspondence
with one of the most able and devoted leaders of the
Anti-slavery Society. From this privilege however, it
is feared that the following pages will evince that the
writer has profited but very partially.
Printed by Combe and Sor, Leicester.


TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LETTER I.
To the Great Leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society.
West Indian slavery essentially the same at the present
moment as before the issue of the Orders in Council, &c.
p. 2... Inadequacy of the remedy proposed by gradual eman-
cipation. 6... Fundamental principle lost in the proposition of
gradual emancipation. 14... Injurious effects of delay. 20...
Wretched consequences of the admission of just principles
without a prompt conformity to their requisitions illustrated in
the conduct of France respecting the slave-trade. 21. . Investi-
gation of the conduct of emancipated slaves in America, &c. 26.
In St. Domingo. 32... Safety and expediency of immediate
emancipation the inevitable result of this investigation. 42..
Preparatory school of discipline unnecessary and impracti-
cable. 44.
LETTER II.
To those who are tired of the subject of West Indian
Slavery. - p. 55.
Declension of Anti-slavery zeal where least to be expected.
55... Necessity of pressing this “trite and hackened subject"
still more closely on the public attention. 61... Awful respon-
sibility incurred by acquaintance with its nature and conse-
quences. 62... Danger of trifling with known duty. 63...
Dives and Lazarus. 70.
LETTER III.
To the more Infuential Classes of the Christian Public...p. 79.
Necessity of bringing christian sympathy and principle into
more vigourous operation 80... Reproachful disproportion
between the evil of slavery and the efforts hitherto made for
its destruction. 82...Folly of expecting its destruction with-
out the strenuous exertion of rational means. 86...Tropical
Free Labour Company. 88. . Immediate emancipation required
on the ground of Divine command. 90.. As explicit in the case
of the Negro slave as in that of the Israelites under Egyptian
bondage. 93... Inconsistency and hypocrisy of reprobating the
slave trade whilst we uphold slavery. 96. .Objections to the
substitution of East for West Indian sugar. 106..Process of
West Indian sugar cultivation. 107.. Its destructive con-
sequences. 114.. Criminality of West India sugar consump-
tion. 116.


CONTENTS.
p. 117.
LETTER IV.
On the most efficient meuns of deepening and extending
the public interest in the speedy extinction of West
Indian Slavery.
Strict propriety and great importance of employing the
christian pulpit in the anti-slavery cause. 117..Peter the
Hermit. 123. . Picture of West Indian slavery drawn by the
Colonists themselves. 125. . The malignant hostility of slavery
to christianity. 135.. Influence of slavery upon Missionaries.
138..Moravians. 141.. Duty of denouncing from the chris-
tian pulpit this anti-christian tyranny. 146.
LETTER V.
On the importance of Associations for the purpose of obtaining
the cooperation of the humbler classes. p. 149.
Successful result of personal visits for the purpose of dif-
fusing wider information on the nature of slavery. 149.. Ad-
vantage of this general extension.—Their probahle influence
on the next General Election. 153. .Resolutions of the Calne
Meeting. 162.
LETTER. VI.
To the Friends of Immediate Emancipation. p. 165.
Incitements to zeal and courage. 165..Cautions against spu-
rious candour. 166.. . Necessity of more numerous and urgent
petitions to Parliament. 170..Caution against the imposition
of slave-cultivated sugar for the produce of free labour.-
Strongly marked discouragement of the sale of West India
sugar recommended. 171.. Encouragement to perseverance
in the work of emancipation from the certain evidence of its
accordance with the Divine Will. 174... Miraculous inter-
vention not to be expected. 175.. Emancipation not to be
suspended on the successful issue of commercial speculations,
it may be effected by a speedier process. 179. .Force of public
opinion.
THOUGHTS ON COMPENSATION, p. 183.
Misapplication of public sympathy. 188. Its Injurious
effects. 190.. Claims of the slave - holders to compen-
sation groundless and audacious. 194.. On civil and poli-
tical as well as moral principles. 197.. Passions of the Colo-
nists exasperated by all attempts at conciliation and conces-
sion. 198.. Origin of West Indian slavery. 207.. Original
grants and permissions founded in fraud and falsehood. 208..
Charters all forfeited. 209.. Ultimate advantage resulting to
the Planter from emancipation. 216..Superior profitableness
of free to slave labour. 216.. Compensation justly due to the
SLAVE not to the slave-holder. 219.


LETTER I.
AN
EARNEST APPEAL
TO THE
Great Leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society.
In appealing to the great leaders of the Anti-
Slavery Society, we appeal to the concentrated
wisdom and virtue of the nation - consequently
the language of great deference and respect is
justly due.
None can appreciate more justly than we do,
the talents and virtues of those whom we thus
presume to address; their disinterested, perse-
vering exertions, in the great cause of humanity
and justice are beyond all praise; but no emi-
nence in virtue or talent exclude a liability to
error; imperfection is inseparable from humanity:
the ablest, the wisest, the best men, who in
different ages have been an ornament and a bles-
sing to society, have been partially wise, imper-
fectly good; on some important point of opinion
B


2
or practice, the most enlightened have been in the
dark; the most acute and discerning, deceived ;
the most sincere and upright, opposed to the truth.
In the great conflict of right against might,
you
have borne the heat and burden of the day ;
you have stemmed the strong torrent of West-
Indian interest and prejudice; you have rowed
hard against wind and tide, “ toiled all the night
and (have, as yet) taken nothing.” Ask your-
selves why the persevering exertion of so much
zeal, of so much talent, in a cause so just and so
righteous, should have been so little availing.
The appalling “ view of Negro slavery exist-
ing in the British Colonies,” drawn up and cir-
culated by your Committee, in April, 1823, is
circulated again in 1825! Had any important
change, any change worth noticing taken place in
the system, it would, of course, as a matter of
justice, have been recorded. But notwithstanding
the petitions to parliament, for its mitigation and
gradual abolition; notwithstanding the Orders in
Council, and meliorating measures, recommended
two years ago, to the colonial legislators ; still, the
“view of Negro slavery,” as it exists in 1825, is
precisely the same as it existed in 1823 --and
such, without miraculous invention, will it, in all
human probability, remain to the end of the cen-
tury unless some important change be effected
in the sentiments and measures of the abolition-
ists ;--unless there be a greater agreement between


3
the evil they have exposed, and the remedy they
propose for it.
The evil they have exposed is of the most
enormous and flagitious nature; it involves, ac-
cording to their own statement, the worst crimes
which can disgrace, and the severest sufferings
which can afflict our fellow-creatures ;-" It out-
rages every feeling of humanity, every recognised
principle both of the British Constitution and of the
Christian religion.” The Abolitionists have in-
formed us that the objects of their sympathy, have,
“ themselves or their parents, been the victims of
the Slave-trade. They were obtained by no LAW-
FUL MEANS, but by the most undisguised rapine,
the most atrocious fraud. Torn from their homes,
from every dear relation in life, barbarously mana-
cled, or driven like herds of cattle to the sea-shore,
crowded into the pestilential holds of slave-ships,
transported to our colonies, where they are branded
like cattle with hot irons ;-separated and sold with-
out regard to family ties, to the highest bidder ;-am
compelled to labour, night as well as the day, for
the sole benefit of their owners, from whom they re-
ceive no wages ;
subjected, for any, or for no
offence, at the caprice of their master or his dele-
gate, to have their persons shamefully exposed and
barbarously tortured, with the Cart Whip, an in-
strumeut of dreadful severity, which cruelly lace-
rates the flesh of the sufferer ;-denied the means of
legal redress, even in cases of the most atrocious


4
barbarity, by the rejection of their evidence in the
Colonial Courts,” &c. &c.—Therefore, this sys-
tem of barefaced injustice and merciless oppres-
sion, is only to be mitigated and gradually abo-
lished!! What agreement we ask, is there
between such promises and such conclusions ?
An impenetrable veil of mystery and delusion
seems to envelope and screen this enormity from
merited and prompt destruction. The wisest and
the best seem to be withheld from applying to it,
not their own superior wisdom and exalted prin-
ciples merely, but that common sense and common
justice which govern common mortals in their
ordinary transactions. On the subject of West-
Indian slavery, a theme in the abstract, so inex-
haustibly fruitful of eloquent declamation and
powerful argument, the wisest and the best, when
they come to the practical application of their
own cogent reasonings, seem to reverse their
ordinary every day conclusions.
“ No effectual
steps (the Abolitionists inform us) have yet been
taken, since the extinction of the slave trade
(eighteen years ago) either by this country or the
colonists for softening the rigour of Negro bondage"
-or for putting an end to “ a condition of society,
which outrages every feeling of humanity.-every re-
cognized principle both of the British constitution
and the christian religion.”—And therefore they
See
a
Brief view of the nature and effects of Negro
slavery," published by the Anti-Slai ery Society.


5
still propose only to mitigate and gradually to
abolish it!!
Suffer, we entreat you, the word of serious
and earnest remonstrance. Compel yourselves
to examine afresh, the ground you have taken
as Gradual Abolitionists,—and see whether it be
such as affords any rational hope of success ;-see
whether it be not hollow and treacherous ground,
which it is high time to abandon. Hollow and
treacherous we are confident that it is--and dan-
gerous also,—dangerous to your own principles,
as well as treacherous to the cause you have em-
braced. The proposition for Gradual emancipa-
tion is, we are confident, secretly sapping the
foundation of public virtue, paralizing its resolu-
tion, familiarizing and reconciling us to crime;
rendering us a Nation of hypocrites---empty
preluders to humanity and justice, who expose
and reprobate crime, not to extirpate but to
tolerate and foster it;-who plead, for the op-
pressed and miserable, not to rescue, but to
abandon them. This pusillanimous proposition
is operating like a powerful opiate on our feel-
ings and principles ;—it is neutralizing our sym-
pathy, palsying our exertion, and benumbing our
charity in behalf of the poor Negro like the touch
of the torpedo. Without the spirit of prophecy
we confidently predict that the mitigation and
gradual abolition of West-India slavery will,
humanly speaking, never be obtained; and


6
moreover, that if the great leaders of the Anti-
slavery Society, remain satisfied with no higher
aim, they themselves, the most enlightened and
humane, will find their feelings and their prin-
ciples gradually, imperceptibly accommodated,
like those of the Planters, to the existing state
of things ;--the wisest and the best, on this trite
and hackneyed subject, will come to have “ eyes
that see not-ears that hear not-hearts that un-
derstand not.” Such is the inevitable conse-
quence of tampering with conviction ; of familiar
knowledge of abuses, long acquaintance with
oppression and cruelty which are only partially
and feebly resisted.
If West-India slavery be the monstrous in-
justice and atrocity which you have represented
it, with what consistency can the friends of
humanity and justice tolerate and tamper with it?
We wish to be temperate,--to reason rather
than declaim on a business so momentous,--but
the mysterious incongruity in the language and
conduct of the Gradual Abolitionists, seems to
justify some warmth of remonstrance. Their
language has been in the highest degree, calculated
to rouse, and stimulate, general indignation against
slavery. They have represented it as involving
crimes of the deepest die, as a concentration,
the very focal point of all crimes. Consistency
requires that the disclosure of its enormity should
be followed up, by determined and unremitting


7
exertions for its speedy and utter extinction.-It
had been better never to have known the horrors
of the system than having known, to tolerate
and cherish it. The exposure of its iniquity, so
long as it is suffered to exist, only occasions an
increase of crime and suffering ;-an increase of
crime in those, who passively sanction, as well
as those who actively support it, in as much as
sins against light and knowledge are greater than
those of ignorance:--the sufferings of the slaves
will be aggravated by the bitter disappointment of
those hopes of redress which the public ex position
of their wrongs excited, and the rigours of their
bondage will be increased, so long as Gradual
emancipation, is hanging, in terrorem, over the
heads of the planters, who, exasperated by
British interference and fearing more decided
hostility, will determine to make the most of their
slave property whilst they have it in possession,
by extracting all the advantage they possibly can
out of it.
The work of emancipation, if it be not
vigourously pursued, had better never have been
meddled with. Insurrections have increased in
consequence of the knowledge obtained by the
slaves of the public sympathy and of the inter-
position of the British Government in their
favour ;-they claimed the benefit of that inter-
position-and have been massacred or executed,
or doomed to endure the protracted torture of a


8
thousand lashes—and to labour in chains during
the residue of their lives, for their audacity.!!!b
After all that has been said and written about
the shameful degradation, the enormous wrongs
of the poor Negro, what has he gained by all
our declamation against the atrocious injustice
and cruelty of which he is the victim? Worse
than nothing. His Tyrants have only strength-
ened their fortifications and entrenched themselves
deeper against future attacks, by organizing a
powerful body of supporters in this country,
backed with a capital of two millions, whereby
the ramifications of the slave-holding interest are
greatly extended and the chains of the slave more
strongly rivetted.
" But there must be time allowed for the seed
sown in the cause of emancipation to take root.”
Yes, but it has had time to take root-and to
bring forth abundantly, - and its produce has
been suffered unprofitably to perish. By the
information which has been so copiously diffused
on the nature and effects of West Indian slavery,
the public sympathy and indignation have been
powerfully awakened—to no purpose—no right
direction has been given to them and they are
rapidly subsiding into the most torpid insen-
sibility.
“ But great moral revolutions must be effected
F
See the sentences passed on the insurgents at Demerara,


9
by slow degree.” Why must they? There is a
warmth of feeling and an energy of principle
awakened by the first powerful conviction of the
duty and necessity of such revolutions which
would facilitate and expedite their accomplish-
ment. But this warmth of feeling and energy of
principle will gradually subside if not kept alive
by those vigourous exertions to which they in-
stinctively prompt; and when they have sub-
sided, the work of reformation will indeed be
effected by slow degrees. Reason, humanity,
justice, religion in such a case as this, all unite
in calling for dispatch, not delay.
To keep up
the spirit of an enterprise it must advance,- if it
be a just and righteous one, the more rapidly,
the better.
“ But deeply rooted prejudices are not hastily
eradicated ;-long established interests, however
unjust in their origin, are not violently to be de-
stroyed.” Why are they not? Deeply rooted
prejudices, the longer they are suffered to grow,
will strike their roots the deeper; and long es-
tablished corrupt interests, ill-gotten, or ill-re-
tained possessions, are never voluntarily relin-
quished. The futile and audacious claims of the
slave-holders to the detention of their captives,
or to remuneration for their loss, have been often
exposed and indignantly repelled. It has been
proved that the labour of the slave, on the lowest
calculation of its value, replaces his cost, sup-


10
posing it to have been so high as £140, in seven
years. This consideration however, let it ever
be remembered, has no bearing whatever on the
justice of the question. The slave did not sell
himself;—consequently his purchaser has no right
to an equivalent out of his labour.
“ But the Planter will be ruined by the im-
mediate liberation of his slaves.” If, by the ruin
of the Planter, is meant only his temporary em-
barrassment and humiliation ;-we candidly say
-"'tis a consumation devoutly to be wished.”-
'tis the natural, the necessary means of his cor-
rection, and improvement, the only cure for his
pride and his insolence, his sordid selfishness and
hardheartness. — When were long established
habits of robbery, oppression and cruelty aban-
doned without humiliation and suffering ?-when
was vice cured without punishment ?-On the
petty robber it falls with unsparing hand. Is
theft criminal only in the poor? Is the crime
cancelled when committed by the rich on the
persons of the poor? Shall the poor man, who
steals a sheep, forfeit his life for it? And shall
the rich man who steals his Brother, or (which
is the same thing) detains him in unjust and
cruel bondage (being stolen) shall he be held
guiltless ? Shall he be required to make no
restitution till restitution be attended with no loss
c See “ The West-Indies as they are," by the Rev. R.
Bickell, p. 245.


or inconvenience? Shall “ the stolen captive”
never be reclaimed, -the helpless prey never
taken out of the hands of the robber,—till an
equivalent be provided, till no loss accompany
the restitution ?
“ But the Planters purchased their slaves, or
they obtained them by inheritance, and therefore
consider them as their rightful property.” And
CAN THE PAYMENT OF ANY SUM, FOR AN
ARTICLE OVER WHICH THE SELLER HAD NO
RIGHT, IMPART ANY RIGHT TO THE PUR-
CHASER ? IMPOSSIBLE! IF JUSTICE BE ANY
THING MORE THAN
AN EMPTY NAME, -A
MERE NOSE OF WAX, WHICH MAY BE MOULD-
ED AND FITTED TO ANY FACE, THE HOLDER
OF THE SLA E, WHETHER HE OBTAINED HIM
BY PURCHASE, OR BY INHERITANCE, IS AS
GUILTY AS THE ORIGINAL THIEF. THE
RIGHT OF THE SLAVE TO HIS OWN FREEDOM
IS INHERENT IN HIMSELF;HE DOES
NOT
LOSE HIS RIGHT BECAUSE A ROBBER AND A
TYRANT WREST IT FROM HIM.
GOD MADE
HIM FREE-AND APPOINTED THE BOUNDS OF
HIS HABITATION IN THE WILD REGIONS OF
AFRICA. THE WRETCH WHO STOLE HIM
THENCE, COULD, BY NO POSSIBLE MEANS,
EITHER ACQUIRE, OR TRANSMIT, THE RIGHT
TO MAKE A SLAVE OF HIM, OR TO KEEP HIM
IN SLAVERY. HE HAS A RIGHT TO HIS
LIBERTY; THROUGH WHATEVER NUMBER OF


12
TRANSFERS THE USURPATION
OF IT MAY
HAVE PASSED HIS RIGHT IS UNDIMINSHED
1
AND SO IS THE CRIME OF WITHOLDING IT.
“ But of what advantage is it to contend for
his right, if he cannot obtain it? His possessor
will not voluntarily restore it; — the law will not
compel him,—and the slave himself has no power
of reclaiming it.” But though his possessor re-
fuses voluntarily to liberate him ;- though he be
unable to assert his own liberty; though British
law has hitherto declined to award it because it
has never yet been demanded ; - it may yet be
had for asking. It could not be withheld by the
British Government from the united claims of
humanity, justice and religion, if boldly and per-
severingly urged. The Abolitionists have hi-
therto gained nothing for their poor clients, be-
cause they have asked too little.
“ But immediate emancipation is regarded by
the sober and dispassionate, as a wild and imprac-
ticable theory, scarcely entitled to a serious
thought.” - Wild and extravagant as it may ap-
pear in some quarters, in others, it is rapidly
gaining ground- and we trust the time is not far
distant when this startling proposition will cease
to alarm the most sober and dispassionate, and be
unanimously adopted by every friend of justice
and humanity.
Negro slavery, being, (according to the declared
convictions of the gradual abolitionists) “ un out-
1


13
rage of every feeling of humanity, every recog-
nized principle both of the British Constitution and
of the Christian Religion”—its existence on Bri-
tish ground, must be regarded by them as an
open mockery of her laws, -an impious defiance
of her religion ;—they must see it pointing with
the finger of scorn and derision to her pretended
equal administration of justice, — her high chris-
tian profession ;--- writing on her criminal courts
Tyranny,”-on her christian temples “ Hypo-
crisy;" — displaying with insulting triumph, its
broad license to commit injustice, robbery and
sacrilege, in comparison of which the crimes
which crowd our prisons and furnish the execu-
tioner with ceaseless occupation are slight and
venial. For a long season the public were unac-
quainted with the real nature of this abomination;
-- it is an infernal birth, which has for ages,
thriven in darkness ;-at length it has been dragged
to light ;--- rather, it has with blind and frantic
infatuation, obtruded and forced itself into light.
The frightful monster, with hideous hissings, has
darted into public view, unfolded its enormous
coils, stretched the full length of its horrid de-
formity in broad day-light. It has reared its
brazen front, displayed its poisoned fangs—and
has menaced and defied both earth and heaven."
d
Witness, the late transactions in Barbadoes and Demerara :
Trial of the Missionary Smith ; Language of the Colonists
on the receipt of the Orders in Counsel, &c. &c.


14
And shall we suffer it to live to continue its ra-
vages, - to taint the moral atmosphere around it
with poisonous infection, - to blast with pesti-
ferous breath every principle of justice, humanity
and religion within its reach? Or shall we with
cruel and imbecile lenity, instead of crushing it at
once, condemn it to die by inches, doom it to
gradual destruction, — to lingering torments ?
You admit that it is worthy of death, — that its
protracted existence is protracted crime and mi-
sery, disgrace and infamy. And can crime and
misery be too soon arrested? - can disgrace and
infamy be too soon obliterated ? Slavery is the
one grand impediment to the moral renovation
both of the Negro and his master. If the slaves
are kept in bondage for another generation, they
will not be at all better prepared for freedom
than they now
now are,
are, - nor will their tyrants
be at all more willing to relinquish their pre-
tended right to them. No good reason can be
given for suffering slavery in the British colonies
to exist for another year which cannot be given
for its existence for interminable ages.
In the proposition for Gradual emancipation
there is a manifest dereliction of the fundamental
principle on which emancipation is grounded, a
tacit denial of that unqualified right of the slave
to freedom on which rests all the justice of his
enfranchisement.
By acceding to his remaining
in slavery until he shall be better qualified for


15
freedom, or until, by a stipulated quantity of
labour he shall, in a course of years, have worked
out or purchased his own freedom,—the right of
his possessor is recognised to hold him in bondage ;
and the same sort of reasoning which can justify
the withstanding his liberty for a year or a day,
will justify the witholding it for ever.
“But Gradual emancipation, is defended on the
ground of expediency rather than that of strict ·
justice.” But by quitting the high ground of
justice, for that of expediency, the impregnable
bulwarks of the cause are surrounded, and its
advocates, instead of struggling for eternal prin-
ciples of right,-contend for a delusive phantom,
-an ignis-fatuus which will perpetually elude
. For Gradual emancipation, what-
ever may be said of its expediency, will be
found utterly unattainable. The proposition has
done nothing, and will do nothing but deceive
and betray ;-deceive its individual advocates
with vain imaginations of the utility of their la-
bours and betray the cause of emancipation into
the hands of its enemies. An emancipation so
gradual as would have been attained by a law se-
curing the freedom of all Negro children born
after a specific time has been solicited in vain.
We are bold enough to predict that the solici-
tation of a law for the prompt and complete ex-
tinction of slavery would meet a more successful
issue. By the last discussion of the question in
their grasp


16
Parliament, the Planters are said to have gained a
complete triumph. With insolent audacity they
· resist the authority of the British Legislature, and
set at nought both its recommendations, and its
laws. They assume the control of absolute mo-
narchs, lawless tyrants,—they hold no party with
justice,-make no concession to humanity. They
have the power and are determined to surrender
no modicum of it to treaty or remonstrance.
Had the best concerted measures for the mi-
tigation and gradual abolition of colonial slavery
been fully acceded to by the British Government,
-and the Colonists, instead of openly resisting,
had, from motives of policy, appeared to acquiesce;
-still they would have contrived to evade their
operation. No plans of melioration or gradual
emancipation have any chance of taking effect in
such a soil. What says the report of Mr. Cooper
after a residence of three years on the estate of a
Planter who invested him with full authority to
improve the condition of his slaves ? “HE COULD
DO NOTHING.--The habits and prejudices of
the Colonists, independently of their laws, ren-
dered IMPROVEMENT IMPRACTICABLE.” What
says the journal of the martyred missionary
Smith ? " THE (slave) SYSTEM IS INCAPABLE
OF IMPROVEMENT, IT MUST BE ABOLISHED
ALTOGETHER.'
The proposition of gradual instead of imme-
diate emancipation has utterly failed as far as
1
1
4


17
rgards the conciliation of the Planters, they hav-
ing as vehemently protested against the one as
the other. The exercise of unlimited power
having so completely blinded their understand-
ings, hardened their hearts and subjected them to
the tyranny of their own lawless passions, that it
will be found far more difficult to subject them,
than their slaves, to the restraints of reason and
justice. If conduct is ever to be regarded as the
surest test of principle, how high, in the scale of
morals does the poor Negro mount above his
master! Patience, fortitude, magnanimity, bound-
less gratitude to his benefactor, - forgiveness of
injuries ;-are his ordinary characteristics:'-and
• The following anecdote is selected, from many others
of a similar character, from the “ West Indies as they are."
“In the city of Kingston, where there are eight or ten
thousand slaves, and a greater number of free Blacks and
free people of colour, there was a strong guard kept all the
holidays, and fearful rumours were afloat, of the horrid and
diabolical intentions of the slaves. It was said that they
were all to rise on a certain night, to set fire to the city in
ten places, and murder all the white people as they should
come out of their dwellings. The free blacks and people of
colour were also suspected of being inclined to join them.
But an incident happened, just before the commencement of
the holidays, which completely satisfied my mind that all
those fears were idle dreams. A fire occurred within fifty
yards of my own residence; it broke out about ten o'clock
at night, and as I was retiring to my bed-chamber, I heard
the exclamations of the mistress of the house, crying Fire! Fire!
Soon after the drums beat, and the church bell struckout, giving
the alarm. I ran up stairs, and from a back gallery could
clearly perceive the fire, which was very alarming. Though
с


18
if in spite of the brutal ignorance, the heathen
darkness in which his task-master would bind
him, — he should happily hear and embrace the
glad tidings of the Gospel—then might the high-
est professor of religion look to the slave for prac-
tical illustrations of its transforming efficacy.
What though, whilst forcibly withheld, (as the far
I never gave full credit to the rumours of the horrid inten-
tions of the Negroes, yet I was somewhat staggered, and
hardly knew what to do, being the only white person in the
house. I considered, however, that if the fire was not got
under in half an hour, it would reach us, and we should be
burnt out or perish in the flames; so that if a conspiracy
were taking place I might as well be murdered as burnt;
and that moreover, I should have some chance of my life by
fighting for it; so I resolved to go out and do my best.
Calling therefore my own black servant, and arming myself,
I proceeded to the conflagration, and found very few whites
indeed, but many people of colour and blacks, free
persons
as well as slaves, who were all busily employed in carrying
water, and otherwise assisting to extinguish the burning
mass, I remained there till the fire was got under, and I
never saw people behave better than the free people of colour
and the slaves did. It may be truly said, that they saved the
city from much damage, for it was in great danger. They
prevented the flames spreading before the firemen or soldiers
arrived at the spot; for as to the few whites who were there,
they did little or nothing. Had the slaves and people of
colour then been inclined to mischief, they had an excellent
opportunity, for there were no armed men to prevent their
extending the fire. On the contrary, however, they and they
only, put a stop to it, and by so doing, completely shewed
that they were not deserving of the infamous insinuations
spread abroad to the injury of their character.”
The following anecdote was inserted in a respectable pro-
vincial paper, published a few weeks since. “When the late


19
A THEFT UPON
HOLDING
greater proportion of them are) from all know-
ledge of the true religion, he be justly charged
with propensities to theft and idleness,-how can
such propensities, in his circumstances, be re-
garded as crime?
THE MASTER COMMITS
THE PERSON OF THE SLAVE, IN
HIM IN UNJUST AND CRUEL BONDAGE, COM-
PARED TO THE ENORMITY OF WHICH, ALL
OTHER THEFTS ARE SLIGHT AND VENIAL;-
and it is preposterous to accuse a human being of
idleness, from whom every stimulant to labour is
withheld, but that of the cart-whip! It is the
slave-owners (generally speaking) far more than
the slaves, who have proved themselves unqua-
lified for liberty who stand most in need of coer-
cion — who are most deficient in religion and
morals. The great majority not only reject reli-
gion themselves, but, like the dog in the manger,
exclude their poor captives from all participation
in its blessing. With a few honourable excep-
Edward Rushton, of Liverpool, early in life, was engaged in
the sea service, he was one day detached with a boat's crew,
of which Quimina, a negro, for whom he had contracted a
friendship, and whom he had taught to read, was one, The
boat upset, and Rushton attempted to reach a small water
cask, a point of safety which Quimina had already attained.
The poor African, with a warmth of generosity to which tu-
tored minds would probably have been strangers, seeing that
his benefactor was too much exhausted to reach the cask,
pushed it from himself towards m, bade him 'Good bye,'
and sunk to rise no more."
21
C2


20
tions, the evidences are so palpable of the pro-
fligacy and impiety of slave-holders ;--in Barba-
does and Demerara these evidences have recently
been so infamously marked, in their outrage of all
law and justice,—their malignant hostility to reli-
gion,—their bitter persecution of its ministers,
their
savage and relentless barbarity towards the
wretched victims of their lawless power, when
feebly struggling, not for the recovery of their
rightful possession, but merely for that little dole
of charity, that modicum of mercy, which the
British Government had dealt out to them,-
that there can be no question, in the estimation
of impartial justice, which of the two parties, the
slave or his master, may be most safely entrusted
with liberty.
We may as well close our ears and our hearts
for ever to the deep groans of these 800,000 of
our oppressed and abused fellow-creatures, as
persist in pleading for their gradual emancipation.
FROM THE FIRST MOMENT WHEN THE JUS-
THEIR EMANCIPATION WAS A D-
MITTED, EVERY DAY'S DELAY IS DEDUCTING
TICE OF
SOMETHING FROM THE CONVICTION OF ITS
ADDING
SOMETHING TO
THE
DUTY, AND
DIFFICULTY OF ITS ACCOMPLISHMENT. Had
the Colonists acceded to the meliorating measures
recommended by the British Government, eman-
cipation (humanly speaking) might for ever have
been despaired of. For what is the present grand


21
opposing plea of the West Indians and their nu-
merous partizans? That their slaves are more
contented and happy than the British peasantry;
-that emancipation would be cruelty instead of
kindness! - How then would they exclaim
against the aggravated barbarity of emancipation
had the condition of slavery, by the adoption of
the proposed improvements, been rendered still
more felicitous ? The true Friends of emancipa-
tion
may congratulate themselves that the
Colonists have resisted and scouted these same
meliorating propositions, since their adoption
would, in all human probability, have been fatal
to their object. At all events, they would greatly
have retarded it by rendering the duty less
obviously urgent.
We have seen in the conduct of France, what
has been the result of the proposition of gradual
abolition, as applied to the slave trade ;—what
consequences have followed a full recognition of
the principles of justice without their immediate
adoption,-a distinct avowal of guilt without its
instant abandonment. The late King of France,
in the definitive treaty of peace signed in 1814,
(after the first fall of Bonaparte) admitted that the
slave trade was " repugnant to the principles of
natural justice”-and agreed to relinquish it in
five years from the date of this admission !! The
five years demanded by France, and granted by
the British Ambassador to continue (or rather to


22
create a new slave trade; for France had not, at
that time, a foot of ground on the habitable globe
to be cultivated by the toil and blood of a single
Negro:-she had no property embarked in that
commerce of human misery; all her colonies had
been conquered ; and in them all, the slave trade
had been abolished by the irreversible decree of
Great Britain, the absolute possessor of them):
the five years granted to France to pursue this
new created traffic in the bones and muscles of
living men, has long since expired, yet it is still
pursued in full vigour. The fiend-like cruelty,
with which it is carried on by that country is lit-
tle known and less regarded by our own. Look
at the 15th and 18th Reports of the African Insti-
tution, to see in what manner his most Christian
Majesty carries on this merchandize in slaves
and souls of men'-years after their sovereign
had stipulated to abandon it!
Does the example of France in illustration
of the principle of gradual abolition, as applied
to the slave trade, afford no warning to us against
its application to slavery? His late“ Most
Christian Majesty,” in 1814, admitted the slave
trade to be “ repugnant to the principles of natural
justice,” and agreed to relinquish it in five years ::
-yet still it is carried on by France, with in-
creased avidity and aggravated cruelty. Mr.
f
+ See Montgomery's “ Voyage of the Blind."


23
rating
Canning, in 1823, admitted, “ That it is expedient
to adopt effectual and decisive measures, for melio-
g the condition of the slave population in His
Majesty's Colonies, and preparing them for a par-
ticipation in those civil rights and privileges, which
are enjoyed by other classes of His Majesty's sub-
jects." -Yet slavery, in unmitigated rigour still
exists in the British Colonies. The Abolitionists
are said to have gained something, by these con-
cessions of France and of the British Minister.
What have they gained—but the conviction that
all their labours to disclose the enormities both
of the slave trade and of slavery, have been utterly
fruitless-worse than lost labour? The trade has
been carried on with keener avidity, with more
relentless barbarity since the concession of France
than before. And may not similar results be
anticipated from all the labours of the Anti-slavery
Society, to disclose the enormities of slavery in
the British Colonies, so long as they aim only at
its gradual abolition ? An action had better never
have been proved and admitted to be criminal, if
after having been so proved and admitted it is
still to be publicly sanctioned and legalized. It
is better to sin in ignorance, or by secret conni-
vance, than to sin against conviction by public
licence-better for the criminal--better for society
since by the latter course, the culprit is em-
boldened and rendered irreclaimable, and crime


24
instead of being winked at, is publicly authorized
as crime.
Are we not fully warranted in the conclusion
that gradual emancipation has no ground either
of justice or expediency, to stand upon ? May
we not reasonably call for its abandonment on
this ground, if on no other, (viz.) that it is making
no progress, that it is literally standing still, that
its supporters however earnest, however indefati-
gable, are labouring in vain,-spending precious
time and precious talents to no purpose. From
this delusion,--this « baseless fabric of a vision,”
it is devoutly to be hoped they will speedily
awake.
The restoration of the poor Negroes' liberty
must be the beginning of our colonial reform, the
first act of justice, the pledge of our sincerity. It
is the only solid foundation, on which the refor-
mation of the slave, and the still more needful
reformation of his usurping owner, can be built.
Recent transactions prove incontestibly, that
slavery has a far more malignant influence upon
the latter,-in as much as moral degradation is
worse than physical. The perversion of mind,
hardness of heart, and moral depravity consequent
on slave-holding ;- its shocking effects on the
higher and cultivated classes ;-" on men of edu-
cation and liberal attainments”;--and even upon
the softer sex, in obliterating their natural tender-


25
ness, and substituting in its place a disgusting
and ferocious cruelty ;-is delineated with tempe-
rate, yet dreadful accuracy, by the very intelligent
and benevolent Adam Hodgson in his “ Letters
from North America.
But the grand objection to immediate eman-
cipation, that, which with the great leaders of the
Anti-slavery society is said to outweigh all the
rest, is the interest of the slave himself. Were he
in a fit state to be intrusted with the full posses-
sion of his liberty, it is freely admitted that we
have no right to withhold' it a day-no, “not a
single hour, on account of any intermediate ad-
vantage to be derived from his labour.” That
he is in a fit state to be intrusted with the full
possession of his liberty has been abundantly pro-
ved by the laborious investigations of one of the
most cautious and dispassionate of your own body.
It is true indeed, that the avowed object of his
indefatigable labours is to recommend gradual
emancipation, but the facts which he has brought
forward and the powerful reasoning which he has
built upon them, fully establish the conviction
that all apprehensions of danger from immediate
6 See Letter 11th, pages 189 and 191.
h Such at least, is the declared conviction of the Member for
Norwich.
i See “ Thoughts on the necessity of improving the con-
dition of the slave in the British Colonies, with a view to their
ultimate emancipation," by T. Clarkson, Esq.


26
emancipation are groundless and futile. Familiar
as his important “ Thoughts" upon the subject
must be to every well informed Abolitionist,
some passages present such irrefragable proof of
the safety with which the slave may be entrusted
with liberty, both as it regards himself and his
master, that we cannot withhold their insertion.
“ In examining a period comprehending the
last forty years, I find no less than six or seven in-
stances of the emancipation of African slaves in
bodies. The first occurred at the close of the
first American war. A number of slaves had
run away from their North American masters and
joined the British army. When peace arrived,
their services were no longer wanted. To leave
them behind to fall again into the hands of their
former masters would have been great cruelty as
well as injustice. It was therefore determined to
give them their liberty, to disband them in Nova
Scotia, and to settle them there upon grants of
land as British subjects and as free men. The
Nova Scotians on learning their destination were
alarmed. They could not bear the thought of
having such a number of free blacks among them,
particularly as they understood the use of arms.
Government however, persevering in its intention,
distributed them into the country,' to the amount
of two thousand and upwards. To gain their
livelihood, some worked upon little portions of
land of their own; others worked as carpenters;


27
others became fishermen. In process of time they
raised places of worship of their own, and had
ministers of their own from their own body.
They lead a harmless life, and gained the charac-
ter of an industrious and honest people, from their
white neighbours. A few years afterwards the
climate being found too cold for their consti-
tutions, a number of them, to the amount of
between thirteen and fourteen hundred, volun-
teered to form a new colony, which was then first
thought of, at Sierra Leone. And they are to be
found there, they or their descendants, most of
them in independent, and some in affluent cir-
cumstances, at the present day.”
« The second case may be taken from what
occurred at the close of the second, or last Ame-
rican war. Some hundreds of slaves joined the
British standard, by invitation, in the southern
states of America.
When the campaign was
over, the same difficulty occurred about disposing
of these as in the former case. It was determined
at length to ship them to Trinidad as free la-
bourers. But here, an objection was started against
receiving them, on a different ground from that
which had been started in Nova Scotia. The
Planters of Trinidad were sure that no free Negroes
would ever work, and therefore that the slaves in
question would, if made free and settled among
them, support themselves by plunder. Sir Ralph
Woodford, however, the Governor of the island,


28
resisted the outcry of these prejudices. He re-
ceived them into the island and settled them
where he supposed the experiment would be most
safely made. The result has shewn his discern-
ment. These very men, formerly slaves in the
Southern States of America and afterwards
emancipated in a body at Trinidad, are now earn-
ing their own livelihood, and with so much
industry and good conduct, that the calumnies
originally spread against them have entirely died
away.”
“ A third case comprehends those Negroes
which composed our West-Indian black regiments.
Certain of these regiments were transported to
Sierra Leone and disbanded there, and the indivi-
duals composing them received their discharge as
free men. This happened in the spring of 1819.
Many hundreds of them were set at liberty at once
upon this occasion. Some of these were after-
wards marched into the interior, where they
founded Waterloo, Hastings, and other villages.
They were all settled by grants given them by
Government. It appears from accounts received
from Sir Charles M.Carthy, the Governor of
Sierra Leone, that they have conducted themselves
to his satisfaction, and that they will prove a
valuable addition to that colony.'
“ A fourth case may comprehend what we
call the captured Negroes in the colony last men-
tioned. These are totally distinct from those


99
either in the first or last cases which have been
mentioned. These were taken out of slave ships
captured at different times from the commence-
ment of the abolition of the slave trade to the
present moment, and on being landed they were
made free. After having been recruited in their
health they were marched in bodies into the in-
terior, where they were taught to form villages
and to cultivate land for themselves. They were
made freeas they were landed from the vessels, from
fifty to two or three hundred at a time. They oc-
cupy at present twelve towns, in which they have
both their churches and their schools. Regent's
Town having been one of the first established,
has become a pattern for industry and good exam-
ple. “The people there have now fallen entirely
into the habits of English society. They are de-
cently and respectably dressed. They attend
divine worship regularly. They exhibit an orderly
and moral conduct. Many of them after having
supplied their own wants for the year, have a
surplus produce in hand for the purchase of com-
forts or superfluities.”
“Here then are four cases of slaves, either
Africans or descendants of Africans, emancipated
in considerable bodies at a time. I have kept them
by themselves, because they are of a different
complexion from those which I intend should
follow. It will be said that the three first cases
are not strictly analogous to that of our West


90
Indian slaves, whose emancipation we are seeking
It will be contended that the slaves in our West
Indian colonies have been constantly in an abject
and degraded state. Their faculties are benumbed.
They have contracted all the vices of slavery.
They are become habitually thieves and liars.
Their bosoms burn with revenge against the
Whites. How then can persons in such a state
be fit to receive their freedom? The slaves,
comprehended in the three cases above mentioned,
found in the British army a school which fitted
them by degrees for making a good use of their
liberty. While there, they were never out of the
reach of discipline, and yet were daily left to act
as free men. They obtained also in this prepara-
tory school some knowledge of the custoñs of
civilized life. Hence it will be said, they were
in a state much more favourable for undergoing
a change in their condition than the West Indian
slaves. I admit the difference between the two
situations. But as a comparison has been insti-
tuted it must not be forgotten, that if there was
less danger in emancipating the other slaves,
because they had received something like a pre-
paratory education for the change, there was far
more in another point of view, because they were
all acquainted with the use of arms. This is a con-
sideration of great importance.
Would our
West Indian Planters be as much at their ease as
they now are, if their slaves had acquired a know-
T
T


31
ledge of the use of arms? Would they think
them on this account more or less fit for eman-
cipation?”
" It will be said again, that the fourth case,
consisting of the Sierra Leone captured negroes,
is not strictly analogous to the one in point.
These had probably been slaves but a short time,
when they were returned to the rank of free men.
Little or no change therefore could have been
effected in their disposition and character; and as
they were never carried to the West Indies, they
never contracted the bad habits, or degrading vices
of slavery there. It will therefore be contended,
that they were better, or less hazardous subjects
for emancipation, than the slaves in our colonies.
I admit this objection, I give it its full weight.
I admit it to be less hazardous to emancipate a
new than an old slave. Yet the case of the Sierra
Leone captured negroes is a very strong one.
They were all Africans. They were all slaves.
They must have contracted as mortal a hatred of
the Whites from their sufferings on board ship,
by fetters, whips, and suffocation in the hold, as
the West Indian slaves from those severities which
are attached to their bondage upon shore. Under
these circumstamces then we find them made
free; ;- not after any preparatory disicipline, but
almost suddenly, - not singly, but in bodies at a
time. We find them also settled or made to live
under the unnatural government of the whites;


32
OF THIS.
and what is more extraordinary, we find their present
number as compared with that of the whites in
the same colony, nearly as one hundred and fifty
to one."
“ It will be said, lastly, that all the four cases
put together prove nothing. They give us
nothing like a positive assurance, that the negro
slaves in our colonies would pass through the
ordeal of emancipation without danger to their
masters or the community at large, Certainly
not. Nor if these instances had been far more
numerous than they are, could they, in this world
of accidents, have given us a MORAL CERTAINTY
They afford however a HOPE, that
emancipation is practicable without danger. They
afford ground for believing, that there is a pecu-
liar softness, plasticity, and pliability in the
African character."
“ The fifth case may comprehend the slaves
of St. Domingo, as they were made free at differ-
ent intervals in the course of the French revolu-
tion. To do justice to this case I must give a
brief history of the circumstances connected with
it. When the French Revolution which decreed
equality of rights to all citizens, had taken place,
the free people of colour in St. Domingo, many
of whom were persons of large property and
liberal education, petitioned the national as-
sembly, that they might enjoy the same privileges
as the whites there. At length their petition was


33
granted, but in terms so ambiguous as to occasion
disturbances and bloodshed between the whites
and people of colour. In 1791, the people of
colour petitioned the assembly again, the result
of which was a more explicit decree, determining
that the people of colour in all the French Islands
were entitled to all the rights of citizenship, pro-
vided they were born of free parents. The news
of this decree had no sooner arrived at the Cape,
than it produced an indignation almost amounting
to phrenzy among the whites. They trampled
under foot the national cockade, and with difficulty.
were prevented from seizing all the French mer-
chant-ships in the roads. The two parties armed
against each other. Horrible massacres and con-
flagrations followed, the reports of which, when
brought to the mother country, were so terrible,
that the Assembly abolished the decree in favour
of the free people of colour in the same year..
The news of the rescinding of this decree pro-
duced as much irritation among the people of
colour, as the news of the passing of it had done
among the whites, and hostilities were renewed
between them. New battles, massacres, and
burnings, took place. When these events be-
came known in France, the Conventional As-
sembly knew not what other course to take than
to do justice, whatever might be the consequences.
They resolved accordingly that the decree of
1791, which had been both made and reversed
D.


34
by the preceding Assembly in the same year,
should stand good, and appointed Santhonax and
Polverel to repair in person to St. Domingo, to
act as commissioners, to enforce the decree, and
to keep the peace. In 1793, the same divisions
and bad blood continuing, the commissioners,
who had little more power than the authority
which their commission gave them, resolved to
call in the Negro slaves in the neighbourhood to
their assistance, and issued a proclamation, pro-
mising freedom to all the blacks who were willing
to range themselves under the banners of the Re-
public. The result was, that a considerable num-
ber of slaves came in and were en franchised.
Soon after this transaction Polverel left his col-
league at the Cape, and visited the capital of the
South, where, finding the minds of the slaves to
be in an unsettled state, in consequence of their
having become acquainted with the riots at the
Cape, and the proclamation of Santhonax, and
being convinced that emancipation could neither
be stopped nor retarded, and that it was absolutely
necessary for the personal safety of the white
Planters, that it should be extended to the whole
island, drew up a proclamation to that effect, and
exhorted the planters to patronize it, they having
become pretty generally convinced by this time
that their own personal safety was concerned in
the measure.
In 1794, the Conventional As-
sembly of France passed a decree for the abolition


35
of slavery throughout the whole of the French
Colonies.”
“ I shall now inquire how those who were li-
berated on these several occasions conducted
themselves after this change in their situation,
whether they used their freedom properly, or
whether they abused it. With respect to those
emancipated in the North, we have nothing to
communicate. They were made free for military
purposes only; and we have no clue whereby to
find what became of them afterwards. Respecting
those emancipated in the South, and those di-
rectly afterwards in the West, by the proclamation
of Polverel, we are able to give a very pleasing
account. Fortunately for our views, Colonel
Malenfant, who was resident in the island at the
time, has made us acquainted with their general
conduct and character. His account, though
short, is quite sufficient for our purpose. After
this public act of emancipation (says he) by Pol-
verel, the Negroes remained quiet both in the
South and the West, and they continued to work
upon all the plantations. There were estates,
indeed, which had neither owners nor managers
residing upon them, for some had been put in
prison, and others, fearing the same fate, had fled.
Yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the
| Negroes continued their labours, where there
were any inferior agents to guide them; and on
those estates where no white men were left to
D 2


36
direct them they planted provisions; but upon
all the plantations where the whites resided, the
blacks continued to labour as quietly as before.'
Ridiculing the notion entertained in France, that
the Negroes would not work without compulsion,
he alludes to others who had been liberated by
the same proclamation, more immediately under
his own cognizance. • If (says he) you will take
care not to speak to them of their return to sla-
very, but talk to them about their liberty, you
may with this little word chain them down to
their labour. How did Toussaint succeed?
How did I succeed before his time in the plain of
the Cul de Sac, and on the plantation Gourand,
more than eight months after liberty had been
granted by Polverel to the slaves ? Let those
who knew me at that time be asked. They will
all reply, that not a single Negro' upon that plan-
tation, consisting of more than four hundred and
fifty Jabourers, refused to work; and yet this
plantation was thought to be under the worst dis-
cipline, and the slaves the most idle of any in the
plain. I, myself, inspired the same activity into
three other plantations, of which I had the ma-
nagement.'. Such was the conduct of the Negroes
for the first nine months after their liberation, or
up to the middle of 1794. Let us pursue the
subject, and see how they conducted themselves
after this period.”


57
During the year 1795 and part of 1796, I
learn nothing about them, good, bad, or indif-
ferent, though I have ransacked the French his-
torians for this purpose.
Had there, however,
been any thing in the way of outrage, I should
have heard of it: and let me take this opportunity
of setting my readers right, if, for want of knowing
the dates of occurrences, they should have con-
nected certain outrages, which assuredly took
place in St. Domingo, with the emancipation of the
slaves. The great massacres and conflagrations,
which have made so frightful a picture in the his-
	ory or this unhappy island, had been all effected
before the proclamations of Santhonax and Pol-
verel. They had all taken place in the days of
slavery. They had been occasioned, too, not
originally by the slaves, but by quarrels between
t e white and coloured planters, and between the
royalist and the revolutionists, who, for the
pur-
pose of reeking their vengeance upon each other,
called in the aid of their respective slaves. I re-
peat, then, that during the years 1795 and 1796, I
find nothing wherewith to reproach the emanci-
pated Negroes in the way of outrage. There is
every reason to believe, that they conducted them-
selves, during this period, in as orderly a manner
as before."
“ I come now to the latter part of the year
1796; here, happily, a clue is furnished, by which
I have an opportunity of pursuing my inquiry


98
with pleasure. We shall find, that from this time
there was no want of industry in those who had
been emancipated, no want of obedience in them
as hired servants: they maintained a respectable
character. Let us first appeal to Malenfant.
• The colony (says he) was flourishing under
Toussaint. The whites lived happily and in peace
on their estates, and the Negroes continued to
work for them.' Now, Toussaint became General-
in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, a little
before the end of 1796, and remained in power
till 1802, or till the invasion of the island by the
French expedition of Buonaparte, under Le Clerc.
Malenfant means therefore to state, that from the
latter end of 1796 to 1802, a period of six years,
the planters kept possession of their estates; that
they lived upon them peaceably; and finally,
that the Negroes, though they had been all set
free, continued to be their labourers. Can there
be any account more favourable to our views than
this, after so sudden an emancipation ?”
“I appeal next to General Lacroix, who pub-
lished his Memoirs for a History of St. Do-
mingo,' at Paris, in 1819. He informs us, that
when Santhonax, who had been recalled to France,
returned to the colony in 1796, he was as-
tonished at the state in which he found it on his
return. The same author tells us, that in the
next year (1797) the most wonderful progress
had been made in agriculture. • The colony


39
(says he) marched, as by enchantment, towards
its ancient splendour; cultivation prospered ;
every day produced perceptible proofs of its pro-
gress. The city of the Cape, and the plantations
of the North, rose up again visibly to the eye!'
Now I am far from wishing to attribute all this
wonderful improvement to the mere act of the
emancipation of the slaves. But I must be al-
lowed to maintain, that unless the Negroes, who
were made free, had done their part as labourers,
both by working regularly and industriously, and
by obeying the directions of their superintendants,
the colony could never have gone on, as relates
to cultivation, with the rapidity described.”
“ The next witness to whom I shall appeal, is
the estimable General Vincent, who lives now at
Paris, though at an advanced age. He was sta-
tioned in St. Domingo during the time both of
Santhonax and Toussaint. He was also a pro-
prietor of estates in the island. He was the man
who planned the renovation of its agriculture after
the abolition of slavery, and one of the great in-
struments in bringing it to the perfection men-
tioned by. Lacroix. In the year 1801, he was
called upon by Toussaint to repair to Paris, to lay
before the Directory the new constitution, which
had been agreed upon in St. Domingo. He
obeyed the summons. He arrived in France just
at the moment of the peace of Amiens, and found,
to his inexpressible surprise and grief, that Buo-


40
naparte was preparing an immense armament, to
be commanded by Le Clerc, for the purpose of
restoring slavery in St. Domingo. He lost no
time in seeing the First Consul, and he had the
courage to say at this interview, what, perhaps
no other man in France would have dared to say
at this particular moment. He remonstrated
against the expedition ;-he told him to his face,
that though the army destined for this purpose
was composed of the brilliant conquerors of
Europe, it could do nothing in the Antilles. He
stated that the expedition was totally unnecessary,
and therefore criminal; for every thing was going
on well in St. Domingo. The proprietors were
in peaceable possession of their estates; cultivation
was making rapid progress; the blacks were indus-
trious, and beyond example happy. He conjured
him therefore in the name of humanity, not to
reverse this beautiful state of things. But, alas !
his efforts were ineffectual. The die had been
cast: and the only reward which he received from
Buonaparte for his manly and faithful represen-
tations, was banishment to the Isle of Elba.”
“ Having carried my examination into the
conduct of the Negroes after their liberation to
1802, or to the invasion of the island by Le Clerc,
I must leave a blank of nearly two years. It
cannot be expected during a war, in which every
man was called to arms to defend his own per-
sonal liberty, and that of every individual of his


41
MASTERS.
SLAVERY OBTAINS.
family, that he should see plantations cultivated
as quietly as before, or even cultivated at all.
But this was not the fault of the emancipated
Negroes, but of THEIR FORMER
It was owing to the prejudices of the latter, that
this frightful, invasion took place; prejudices,
indeed, COMMON TO ALL PLANTERS WHERE
Accustomed to the use of
arbitrary power, they could no longer brook the
loss of their whips. Accustomed to look down
upon the Negroes as an inferior race of beings, or
as the reptiles of the earth, they could not bear,
peaceably as these had conducted themselves, to
come into that familiar contact with them; as
free labourers, which the change of their situation
required. They considered them, too, as pro-
perty lost, but which was to be recovered. In an
evil hour, they prevailed upon Buonaparte, by
false representations and promises of pecuniary
support, to restore things to their former state.
The hellish expedition at length arrived upon
the shores of St. Domingo:-a scene of blood
and torture followed, such as history had never
before disclosed ;
EXECUTED BY THE WHITES. But the French
were not the authors of tearing to pieces the
Negroes alive by bloodhounds,-or of suffocating
them by hundreds at a time in the holds of
ships,—or of drowning them, whole cargoes, by
scuttling and sinking the vessels ;- but the
THOUGH 'PLANNED
AND


42
THEIR ALL.
Planters. Till THAT TIME THE PLANTERS
RETAINED THEIR PROPERTY, AND THEN IT
WAS,-BUT NOT TILL THEN, THAT THEY LOST
In fine, the French were driven
from the island, and in 1804, Dessalines was
proclaimed emperor of this fine territory. In
process of time; the Negro troops were disbanded
except such as were retained for the peace-estab-
lishment of the army. They who were disbanded,
returned to cultivation. As they were free when
they became soldiers, so they continued to be free
when they became labourers again. From that
time to this, there has been no want of subordi-
nation or industry among them. They or their
descendants are still the persons, by whom the
plains and valleys of St. Domingo are still culti-
vated, and they are reported to follow their occupa-
tions still, and with as fair a character as other
free labourers in any other quarter of the globe.
We have now seen, that the emancipated Negroes
never abused their liberty, from the
year 1793,
(the era of their general emancipation) to the pre-
sent day,-a period of THIRTY YEARS.
Let the conviction which this brief narrative
must force upon every unprejudiced reader be
carefully cherished, let it be honestly and boldly
avowed. Let every tongue give expression to
the judgment of his understanding and the feel-
ings of his heart, and declare that the oppressed
and calumniated Negroes in our own colonies,


43
are not only entitled to present liberty ;
-may
not only be safely entrusted with ;---but that it is in-
justice and cruelty (not prudence and humanity)
to withhold it for a day, or, (to use the ex-
pression of the worthy member for Norwich),
for “a single hour.”
We do not follow our author in the statement
of his two succeeding cases because they do not
directly bear upon the subject in question---that
of complete emancipation. We make no apo-
logy for these long, though somewhat abreviated
quotations from these important “ Thoughts.”
Much as they have been read and applauded for
the strong sense, powerful argument and striking
facts which they exhibit, it is evident they have
been read and applauded too superficially. We
cannot but believe that their benevolent author
intended them to produce convictions in the minds
of his readers far beyond those which he pro-
fesses to establish. When they were first pub-
lished the public mind would have revolted at
the avowed project of immediate emancipation;
but subsequent events have been preparing the
way for its reception-have been forcing the
conviction of its expediency and necessity. The
writer of the work from which we have made
these large extracts, must, we doubt not, have
designed to bring the public indirectly and un-
suspectingly to this conviction. He must have
cast these lucubrations like “bread upon the


44
waters,” trusting that it would be “found after
many days;” trusting that his occult meaning
would, in time, be developed ;--that the evi-
dence of his facts and the force of his reasoning
would, at length, be fully admitted,—and that
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION would,
be
to be both SAFE AND EXPEDIENT AND NECES-
seen
SARY.
Let such as still contend for a preparatory
school of moral discipline, enquire who are to be
its superintendents ;-where is to be found the
requisite authority for carrying its provisions into
execution ? The persons to whose absolute con-
troul the pupils must be intrusted, during the in-
terval of their probation, have proved themselves
NOT TRUST-worthy. Judging from experience,
we may, without breach of charity, expect as a
matter of course, that the slave masters would do
their utmost to defeat the object of this prepara-
tory discipline, and to render it abortive. They
have, it is now apparent, THEMSELVES DEVISED
PLOTS AND INSTIGATED INSURRECTIONS FOR
THE PURPOSE OF EVADING THE ORDERS IN
COUNCIL AND MELIORATING MEASURES RE-
COMMENDED BY THE BRITISH GOVERN-
MENT. And may they not reasonably be ex-
pected to devise fresh plots, to instigate fresh in-
surrections for the purpose of defeating a measure
k See the article Jamaica, in the pamphlet entitled “ The
Slave Colonies of Great Britain."
k


45
still more abhorrent to their prejudices and sup-
posed interests--that of forth with preparing their
captives for liberty? Are men who can perse-
cute to the death the disinterested and devoted
ministers of religion ;-who can, in open day,
pull down places of worship ;--who TRAMPLE
BIBLES UNDER FOOT;' who defy and menace
all authority ; - who triumph and exult, like
maniacs, in their devastations and outrages ;-
who punish in their slaves, the most exalted vir-
tụes, as the most atrocious crimes ;>who immure
in dungeons the noble minded Negroes, who, in
despite both of bribes and threatnings, firmly re-
fuse to bear false witness—to criminate the guilt-
less ;” are such men proper superintendants of a
system of moral and religious education designed
to prepare their slaves for freedom? We need
not enumerate all the frightful items in the long
catalogue of crimes with which the slave-masters
stand accused and convicted. We only protest
against the farther delegation of absolute power
to hands which have so tremendously abused it.
But were it otherwise. Did slave-holding pro-
duce fruits of a less malignant, less virulently
poisonous quality ;--- did it present no decided
hostility to this preparatory school for slave eman-
1
See an authentic report of the Debate on Mr. Buxton's
motion relative to the demolition of the Methodist Chapel.”
page 25.
m See the “ Anti-Slavery Reporter.", No, 4. page 31.


46
cipation ; did it even accede to, and shew a dis-
position to favour the design--still
, must we pro-
test against it, as a farther violation of the rights
of justice ;-- as a farther protraction of our cruel
aggressions ; — as an arbitrary assumption, or
rather retention of power, which we have no right
to exercise.
But, if we have reason to believe that the
liberated slave would abuse the sudden restoration
of his liberty, it would surely be right and just
and humane not to restore it to him suddenly.”
No, we cannot accede to the justice even of this
assumption. It leads to the invasion of a pro-
vince which does not belong to us,—that of futu-
rity. Prescience is no human attribute. Man is
a very limited, short-sighted creature, and it is well
both for individuals and for society, that very
precise and explicit laws have been promulgated
for the regulation of his conduct;-- that the lan-
guage of the Decalogue is express and imperative,
and that the christian exposition of it is express
and imperative also. - Thou shalt not steal,"
includes a prohibition of all kinds and degrees of
injustice, however modified, by whatever pretexts
recommended. It does not admit the suspension
of a clearly defined obligation, until we can ascer-
tain what will be its precise consequences ;—it
does not admit of our withholding from a fellow-
creature his just right, until we can positively
assure ourselves what use he will make of it; it


47
does not admit of our detaining a fellow-creature
in slavery who has once had the calamity to be
unjustly deprived of his liberty, until we are sure
that he will not abuse its restoration. It requires
us to do our own duty and to leave the conse-
quences, --guarding of course, as carefully as we
can, against anticipated evil, --but not suspending
the discharge of our own obligation on any un-
certain contingencies involved in its performance.
The indefatigable Philanthropist from whose
“Thoughts” we have made such copious extracts,
has (happily for our views) so arranged his own
powerful arguments as to make them prove (as we
have already observed) much more than he pro-
fesses to establish. He has proved, as far as
reasoning from facts and experience can prove,
that the injured creatures whose cause he so ably
advocates, may not only be safely intrusted with
liberty after passing through a preparatory school
of discipline, but that they may be safely intrusted
with it before.
In short, he has proved too much for gradual
Abolitionists—he has proved that the slaves in
our own colonies may now safely be intrusted with
liberty,--consequently that they ought now to
be intrusted with it,--and that every additional
day and hour that it is withheld, aggravates the
guilt of those who have the power to restore it,
and refuse its exertion. Nevertheless, had all
these very important and satisfactory proofs been


48
withheld of the safety with which immediate
emancipation may be effected; still we should
have contended with equal confidence for the jus-
tice and urgent necessity of the measure. The
power we possess to hold them in slavery having
been unjustly acquired, must of necessity be
unjustly retained.
The public understanding has been sufficiently
enlightened to see the impolicy of slavery ; - the
public feeling has been sufficiently awakened to
revolt at its barbarity; public virtue has admitted
that it stands impiously opposed to the laws of
God-insolently defying the laws of the land :-
it has been arraigned and condemned at the bar of
justice and policy, of humanity and religion.
What is it then which upholds and cherishes the
pest? It is gradual abolition. But for this pro-
position, sentence of death would, long since, have
been executed. Neither the Government nor the
people of England could have endured its exist-
ence, after having been so tried and so convicted,
had not HUMANITY TO THE SLAVE,-HIS PRE-
SENT SUPPOSED INCAPACITY FOR FREEDOM,
been admitted in bar of speedy-instant exe-
cution.
We never for a moment suspected the sin-
cerity with which the Abolitionists have advanced
this plea ;-We believe them to be most sincere,
but on this one point, most mistaken. We be-
lieve them to be most upright and earnest in the


49
+
cause they have so disinterestedly and nobly es-
poused, — but most deluded as to the means of
obtaining a successful issue.
We do not forget who they are to whom we
have the temerity to apply this language; - that
they are, many of them, persons of exalted rank,
preeminent talent, distinguished virtue ; – that
they are the wise and the good ; - the wisest and
the best : and we are aware that by applying
such language to such characters we must incur
the charge of extreme ignorance and extreme ar-
rogance ;
nevertheless, we dare not withhold it.
Happily for the world, the laws of humanity
and justice are clearly defined ;---the requisitions
of religion and conscience are intelligible to the
simplest understanding. “ The way-faring man
though a fool” need not “err therein.” Such,
may
be less liable to err on the subject in ques-
tion, than those who are accustomed to deep
reasoning and subtile argumentation, to look at all
the bearings aud connexions of a simple propo-
sition, till the plainest truths become invovled in
intricate mazes of uncertainty, and the most ob-
vious duties suspended or evaded by doubtful
casuistry.
The Gradual Abolitionists, though perfectly
sincere in the belief that our West Indian slaves
are not in a fit state for immediate emancipation,
may, nevertheless, have been unconsciously mis-
led by the prejudices, the misrepresentations, the


50
artful glosses, the palpable falshoods of the West
Indian party. Our readers, we trust, will not
forget, in the short sketch with which we have
presented them of the invasion, by Leclerc, of
St. Domingo, to what tremendous mistakes and
destructive consequences the prejudices of slave-
holders may lead. Many of the leading Abo-
litionists are personally acquainted with West-
Indian proprietors who are “men of education
and liberal attainments”-of humanity-and re-
ligion ; by which means their judgments are in-
sensibly biassed. These accomplished, humane,
and pious slave-holders assert that their slaves are
incapable of making a right use of their freedom;
- that immediate emancipation would be de-
structive of their own happiness, as well as the
property and lives of their masters ;--and men of
such high character must be believed ;-those who
are in habits of intimacy with them cannot with-
hold their assent:-
but we can and we do,
withhold ours.
We would neither assert nor insinuate that
thiese gentlemen are aware of the falsehood of
their own representations. Many of them, we
have no doubt, are themselves deceived ; - they
believe the lie which they so industriously propa-
gate. Prejudice and interest have so blinded
their understandings and perverted their judg-
ment as to render their minds, on this subject,
inaccessible to truth. They are not impartial


$1
witnesses --consequently their evidence is not to
be relied upon ;-the evidence we have quoted
above, PROVES THAT IT IS NOT.
“ We owe these poor vietims of our rapacious
avarice and cruel injustice a debt,” - truly, the
debt is an appalling one;-and every year, every
month, every day, that we delay to do our utmost
to discharge this debt, we are adding largely to
its extent.
The righteous law of our Creator has not been
impressed on our hearts ;-promulgated in thun-
der and flame from Mount Sinai;--illustrated and
enforced by the express word, the solemn injunc-
tions of the Son of God himself, to be cast be
hind the back, or trifled with, with impunity.
We may neglect the warnings, forget the denun-
ciations of Divine justice ;--we may lull our con-
sciences asleep, and say in our infidel hearts, be-
cause judgment is not speedily executed upon the
oppressor, “God doth not regard.” But the
decree has passed the lip of Truth_WITH
WHAT MEASURE YE METE IT
MEASURED TO YOU AGAIN.” And He hath
solemnly pronounced Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Though we forget or neglect the warning, its exe-
èution will not be thereby rendered the less
certain.
Who then, who believes in Divine Revelation,
-who that is convinced that the globe we inhabit
?)
SHALL BE
E 2


52
is constantly subject to Omniscient inspection ;-
that all the varied actors in its busy fluctuating
scenes, will individually appear at the tribunal of
Divine justice, there to “ give account of their
stewardship;"- to receive everlastingly “ accord-
ing to the deeds done in the body;"—to await the
fulfilment of the unchangeable decree, above cited ;
who, that really believes these solemn truths, but
must tremble at the dreadful individual responsi-
bility which every one of us is incurring by with-
holding our utmost exertions for the immediate
emancipation of our West-Indian slaves ?
“What, : (says the objector) would you let
them loose upon their masters ?-turn them adrift
upon society without resources, - without any
means of support but depredation and plunder ?”
No, certainly. The measure we 'so earnestly
urge would most effectually obviate a catastrophe
so dreadful — the near approach of which, from a
general insurrection of the slaves, should they
much longer be suffered to remain such, cannot
but be anticipated. It is not a violent but a legal
emancipation, for which we contend ; accompa-
nied, as it would be, by wise and effectual pro-
visional restraints and regulations. The requi-
sitions of justice on behalf of our West-Indian
Negroes would not be satisfied by the simple act
of immediate emancipation. We owe them a
deep debt, for having so long withheld from them
their just rights, for subjecting them to so long a


53
course of shameful degradation and bitter suffer-
ing. We owe them GUARDIANHIP, PROTEC-
TION, AND PROVISION, (where necessary) as
well as LIBERTY. “ As some compensation for
injuries committed, we owe them the attempt to
confer upon them every benefit in our power.
We owe them especially, instruction in the doc-
trines and morals of christianity.
But still,
should we fail to bring one single slave to the pro-
fession of the truths of christianity, or to the en-
joyment of its blessings,-not one iota the less do
we owe freedom to every slave we possess. His
right to himself does not depend on his con-
version ; nor although he should continue a Hea-
then to the day of his death, would the injustice
of our detaining him in slavery be at all dimi-
nished.”n
The liberty of the slave being his UNQUA-
LIFIED RIGHT,-it must, of necessity, be an
UNQUALIFIED WRONG to withold it. Let this
simple obvious inference of common sense and
common justice unite all the friends of humanity
in one common object—that of a SPEEDY and
COMPLETE EMANCIPATION.
$
* See the Speech of W. Smith, Esq. at the General Meet-
ing of the Anti-Slavery Society, June, 25, 1824.


S


LETTER II.
To those who are tired of the subject of West-
Indian Slavery.
THOSE, to whom the following appeal is particu-
larly directed, are not, we lament to say, exclu-
sively confined to the selfish unfeeling multitude,
nor to the heterogeneous mass of mere nominal
christians. Many who stand high in general
estimation for benevolence and piety ;--many
who have joined the Anti-slavery standard; who
have pleaded with such forcible eloquence the
cause of the oppressed Negro as to have blown
the slumbering embers of pity, in other bosoms,
into a fervid glow,--have suffered them to be
extinguished in their own.
Many who have been awakened to the enor-
mous guilt of human slavery,--who have been
roused into a just sense of the disgraceful hypo-
crisy of suffering it to exist in a christian country,
-who have been alarmed by fearful anticipations
of the retributive justice, the righteous vengeance
impending over a nation whose practice, in this
respect, so impiously opposes and mocks its pro-


56
fession--appear to have sunk into a deep slum-
ber of selfish insensibility, of cruel apathy to
crimes and sufferings in which they imagine they
have no immediate share. From this slumber so
reproachful to their hearts, their understandings
and their principles, we must endeavour to rouse
them.
You are tired of the subject of West Indian-
slavery ;- you are wearied and disgusted with
reiterated details of atrocities and miseries which
you imagine you have no power to redress ; un-
expected difficulties and delays have arisen in the
way of emancipation-and its attainment appears so
remote and uncertain that you abandon it in de-
spair ;-it ceases to interest--and is at length
become an object of disgust.
West Indian slavery, is, it is true, a trite and
hackneyed subject, but it must become more trite
and hackneyed before it can be suffered to rest.
After all the disclosures of the enormity of the
system, of its wretched impolicy as well as wick-
edness—the crime and disgrace of suffering it to
continue are inexpressibly aggravated. The know-
ledge obtained of this execrable tyranny, would,
one should have imagined, in a civilized and
christian country, have been followed up by
earnest enquiries after the most certain means of
putting a speedy end to it. If one expedient
failed, another, we might confidently have expect-
ed, would have been promptly resorted to;


57
acquiescence or indifference under such an ac-
cumulation of guilty. responsibility-one would
have imagined impossible ;—but that we should
not only continue passively to acquiesce in this
atrocious system- but actively to support it at
an enormous expense out of our own pockets of
upwards 2,000,000, annually,!! is an unsolvable
paradox.
What a humiliating picture of apathy and
imbecility, of inconsistency and hypocrisy does
such conduct exhibit! We have exhausted all
the powers of language in expressions of abhor-
rence of slavery-we petition Parliament for its
abolition--whilst we are actively as well as pas-
sively supporting it at the expense of our money,
our character and our principles. We pretend to
commisserate the wretched condition of the en-
slaved Negro, whilst by our daily habits we are
riveting his chains ;-gratifying our appetite with
the very luxury, the cultivation of which constitu-
tes the most barbarous severity of his oppression.
After all that has been said and written upon
this inhuman business, it is evident that the
public mind has never yet been properly impress-
ed with it. Our understandings have been
informed and our feelings excited--but the crime
of making or of holding slaves in an enlightened,
a free and a christian country has never yet been
properly felt-has never yet sufficiently penetrated
our hearts or taken hold of our consciences. We


58
acknowledge it to be a national crime, but have
not felt it to be an individual crime ;--though its
shame and its guilt rest with all who suffer them-
selves to be indifferent or supine ;
-with all who
employ not their best exertions to put a speedy
end to it. We execrate the injustice and cruelty
of West Indian slave-holders, but perceive not
that we are in fact more guilty than they-be-
cause, with less temptation, with less excuse,
we are confederates in the crime. The West
Indians have large property embarked in slavery,
they imagine that its destruction would involve
them in ruin ;--but we, who consume its produce,
are its chief abettors and supporters.
We must remind you who are tired of the sub-
ject of West Indian slavery, that the emancipation
of its wretched victims is not a matter of option in
which a christian may engage or decline, and be
equally innocent. By withdrawing his interest
from this arduous work, he betrays a solemn trust,
disgraces his christian principles, and deserts a
cause peculiarly his own.
“THE LORD EXECUTETH RIGHTEOUS-
NESS AND JUDGMENT FOR ALL THAT ARE
OPPRESSED ". He invited you to become some
of the honoured instruments of executing His
righteousness and judgment for the most oppress-
ed of His creatures. He caused you to become
acquainted with their oppression, their hard and
cruel bondage. He touched your hearts with


59
sympathy for their bitter sufferings. He gave
you zeal and ability to plead their cause,--to stir
up
the hearts of the people, to excite a general
insurrection of feeling and principle in their be-
half,--which, had it been kept alive, must shortly
have insured their deliverance. But you have
suffered the very considerations which should
have braced your resolution and stimulated your
exertion to relax and infeeble them. You have
allowed your familiarity with West Indian enor-
mities to end in indifference; your confirmed
knowledge of the most barbarous oppression, to
extinguish your sympathy for its helpless victims.
No longer urged on by impetuous feeling, by the
ardour of a new enterprize, you have grown
languid and weary. You have been so effeminately
delicate, so fastidiously selfish, as to shut your
ears to the enormous wrongs and sufferings of
800,000, of your fellow creatures, because there
is no novelty in the relation, because the sound
has become monotonous. But we must, in spite
of your weariness and disgust, do our utmost to
force back your attention and to fix it upon
the crimes and miseries of slavery, until the means
are not only discovered, but vigourously applied,
for putting an end to them. We must, to the ut-
most of our power, ring changes upon this subject
of weariness and disgust, until the sound and the
sense sha]l have reached every ear and every under-
standing-penetrated all hearts, made of “penetra-


60
ble stuff,”--all consciences, but such as are "seared,
as with a hot iron ;"—till the duty of immediate
emancipation, is not only admitted in general
terms, but its promotion, by every means in our
power, is felt, individually, to be of imperative and
urgent obligation ;-in short, until all who have
any pretensions to religion and humanity are ac-
tually engaged in it, with all their heart and with
all their soul. By so doing, we are confident we
shall render essential service to our country ;-we
shall give practical efficacy to its best principles,
exalt its moral character and thereby enlarge and
secure its prosperity and happiness.
By fixing general and individual attention
upon this great and righteous work, until it be
finally accomplished, we are persuaded that we
shall be doing more for the cause of morality and
religion, more for the best interests of society,
than was ever effected by the most impressive dis-
sertations on abstract principles of virtue. One
instance of practical righteousness outweighs all
the mere speculative knowledge in the world.
It is better to do one good action, than merely to
admit the propriety of a thousand. It is better
thoroughly to discharge one paramount obligation
of christian charity, than to be superficially occu-
pied with the whole range.
" Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.”
Thus the way of duty will be cleared, the path
farther opened, -increased light will shine upon


61
upon their
it-greater strength and alacrity will be found in
pursuing it.
For want of such a method, many “disquiet
themselves in vain,”-“toil all the night (and
day also) and take nothing ;"_build
high christian profession “hay and stubble”-
abortive schemes, unsubstantial purposes of good,
instead of those solid works of righteousness, of
justice and mercy, which would follow them to
that tribunal where they will be “judged ac-
cording to their works.”
And therefore, on this trite and hackneyed
subject of slavery, though we want no more
knowledge, we want a great deal more convic-
tion, to prevent our being the worse for our know-
ledge. : We are the worse for our knowledge, so
long as it urges us to condemn this inhuman
system in words only, and leaves us at liberty
practically to encourage it. All our fine reason-
ing and pathetic declamation against slavery in
the abstract, whilst we decline to put forth a finger
to liberate the slave,---only prove us to be eloquent
hypocrites. With christians, whose hearts are
true to their principles, their acquaintance with
the nature of West-Indian slavery would have
been immediately succeeded by earnest inquiries
for the most speedy and effectual means of its
extinction ;—the discovery of those means would
have been instantly followed up by their vigorous


62
application :- this would be the natural - the
necessary consequence.
There is a lesson of deep and solemn import
in that emphatic injunction, “ Take heed how ye
hear; for unto him that hath shall be given, but,
from him that hath not, shall be taken away that
which he hath.” This admonitory warning ap-
plies to every perception of truth, every convic-
tion of duty, every glow of benevolence, every
pleading of compassion. These are not imparted
as graceful embellishments of our nature, to kindle
self-complacent satisfaction, but to stimulate to
useful and beneficent exertion, -- to render us
willing agents of the Divine purposes,— fellow
workers with God.” They are implanted for use,
not for ornament; - if their purpose be not an-
swered they will be withdrawn:=-the mind once
divinely illuminated will become darkened, -- the
heart once divinely tendered, will become insen-
sibly obdurated;-from those who trifle with con-
victions of duty, --- who suffer their compassion
for sufferings which they have the power to
redress, to evaporate in useless declamation ;-
who, when empowered to arrest the arm of injus-
tice, to rescue the victims of oppression, decline
to interpose ;- from these, on whom the evi-
dences of truth, the convictions of duty, the re-
quisitions of justice and the pleadings of humanity
have operated in vain ; - from these will be
“taken away that which they have.”


63
There are times and seasons in the moral as
well as natural world of which it is our wisdom
and our interest to take advantage, which it is
dangerous—often fatal to neglect. As surely as
suffering the appointed season for ploughing and
sowing to pass idly over, will be followed by
famine, so surely will the neglect of the appointed
season and prescribed means of moral renovation
be followed by corresponding consequences. “To
him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to
him it is sin,”-sin, for which he must suffer the
just punishment, — punishment proportioned to
the magnitude of the evil which his cruel indif-
ference or procrastination is the means of per-
petuating.
For all the information which has been so
widely diffused on the subject of colonial slavery;
-for all the sympathy which its wretched vic-
tims have excited we are accountable. It is at
our own peril that we trifle with our knowledge
and convictions respecting it.
For sins of ignorance there is mercy; - for
patient suffering there is rich recompense. A glo-
rious redemption in eternity, if not in time, may
await the meek and unresisting victims of oppres-
sion. But upon sins against light and knowledge
punishment will fall in heavy inflictions.
66 He
who knew his Lord's will and did it not, will be
beaten with many stripes.” That it is the
DIVINE WILL that this abomination should be


64
swept away, that the time is fully come for its
utter extirpation, may be clearly ascertained by
the full blaze of truth which has been made to
shine upon it;— by the strong evidence which
has been forced upon the public mind of its mise-
rable impolicy and wasteful prodigality, as well as
horrid injustice. It was not without design that
so many great and good men have been called to
devote their time and talents to the detection and
exposure of that “refuge of lies'( behind which
it has endeavoured to screen itself from public in-
dignation ;) — to drag it forth from all its dark,
hiding places of fraud and artifice, to strip it of
every disguise, and to expose every feature of its
horrid deformity to the broad day-light of truth;-
it was not merely to gratify curiosity, to fill the
imagination with horrid images, to appal and over-
whelm every feeling mind with unavailing grief
and shame and indignation, that the real nature
of West-Indian slavery has been so clearly ex-
posed.-No,-it was to excite our abhorrence for
the purpose of rousing and stimulating our best
exertions for its speedy and utter extinction.
But though our eyes have been wide opened
to this enormity ;-though we have revolted with
horror at the frightful mass of crime and misery
which it has presented ;—though we have shud-
dered at the dreadful extremes of depravity at
which human nature has arrived under its malign
influence ;-though we have admitted that it is as


65
impolitic as wicked—as repugnant to every
maxim
of enlightened interest as to every feeling of
compassion, every principle of religion and justice;
—though we have the means put into our own
hands of expelling from our country this scourge
of humanity, of obliterating this foul blot, this
brand of infamy from our national character,
--there it still remains, deepened and aggravated
a hundred-fold by our empty professions of guilt,
our fruitless professions of repentance. On this
appalling subject, the convictions of judgment,
the compunctions of conscience, the tender feel-
ings of pity, the stern requisitions of justice, the
solemn obligations of religion-have hitherto been
admitted in vain. Surely, no force of language
can justly portray the odious combination of vices,
the imbecility, cruelty and hypocricy which must
stamp our character, if we continue supinely
to suffer the 800,000, victims of West Indian
injustice, to remain in slavery-in aggravated
slavery-tantalized with hope, which is to be
extinguished in despair.
“ There is a time (a right time) for every thing
under the sun.” We believe that the right time
is fully come for the extinction of British slavery.
We believe, moreover, that the present moments
are critical,--that the right time being come for the
execution of this righteous work-it is dangerous
to trifle with it. We believe it must be now, or
never, as far as our agency is concerned. The


66
work lies straight before us, - we are invited, but
not compelled to it. The purposes of Divine
mercy towards the despised outcasts of the great
family will not be frustrated, but other means may
be employed in their accomplishment, --and we
may be left to abide the fate of unprofitable, dis-
obedient servants. We are invited by every ar-
gument which can convince, every motive which
can persuade, every consideration which can sti-
mulate the exertion of moral agents, accountable
creatures--Christians, most especially, -- but we
are not forced upon the work. We may know
our obligations, and feel their weight-yet refuse
to discharge them--but it is at our peril that we
do so.
That an institution so repugnant to every prin-
ciple of humanity, and justice, --so impiously op-
posed both to natural and revealed religion, should
have been suffered to exist for so many ages,
unknown or disregarded by the christian world,
is an; inscrutable mystery ;- but the long-con-
tinued existence of every other moral and physical
evil is an inscrutable mystery also. Infinite
power, wisdom and goodness, could, doubtless,
hy the simple volition of His will, expel from the
universe, evil, of every description--and this we
are assured will be the final issue of His dispen,
sations. In the mean time, the permission of
evil is essentially connected with our present
probationary state and instead of inquiring


67
why Almighty power and goodness are not mira-
culously exerted in extirpating slavery and every
other species of oppression and suffering from the
face of the earth, let us rather inquire into our
own duties, and learn how we ourselves are re-
quired to act in relation to that mighty mass of
moral and physical evil withi which we are sur-
rounded ;-especially towards that which is con-
centrated with such dreadful force in the British
West Indies. 66 Woe unto the world because of
offences; for offences must come; but woe unto
“them by whom they come”-and by whom they
are perpetuated.
Some well-meaning persons have not scrupled
to declare, that the evil in question, is too gigantic
for human encounter,--that it can be vanquished
by no power but that of Omnipotence; -- the
hitherto unsuccessful issue of the Anti-slavery
exertions has been presumptuously referred to the
Divine will;
; - the time for accomplishing their
object, it has been said, has not yet arrived-and
instead of ascribing their failure to a deficiency of
general interest and co-operation, impiously call
in question the Divine goodness-and expect the
intervention of miracles to supply the place of the
right exertion of the various talents and capacities
with which we have been entrusted. What great
reformations were ever effected without the stren-
uous exertion of human means? Though it be
true, that “the good that is done in the earth,
F 2


68
“the Lord doeth it," - He doeth it nevertheless,
through human instrumentality,~by enlightening
the understanding and influencing the will of His
intelligent creatures. To supply the millions of
the human race with food produced from the
ground on which we tread, is, we are sure, the
work of Omnipotence; but we do not therefore
conclude that the puny labours of man, the ope-
rations of ploughing and sowing, may therefore
be dispensed with. Rich harvests in the moral
as in the natural world, are the result of diligent,
well-directed, persevering exertion,—though it be
God alone, in both, who "giveth the increase.”
The difficulties which obstruct the work of
emancipation furnish no just cause of discourage-
ment; they ought rather to be considered as tests
of sincerity. Abhorrence of slavery is an involun-
tary consequence of its exposure; but its ex-
tinction must be a work of labour and difficulty
proportioned to its strength and deeply-rooted te-
nacity. Shall we therefore abandon it, because it
is connected with no present interest of our own?
-because there is nothing to bind us to it but the
generous sympathies of nature, the tender plead-
ings of pity, the strong ties of christian obligation?
Why the Divine image, in these oppressed
Africans, has been so long suffered to be trodden
under foot,-_why their sufferings have been hi-
therto so little known and so little regarded—is no
concern of ours. The veil of ignorance being


69
now withdrawn--the horrid "secrets of their prison
house” being now disclosed - it is at our peril
that we make light of them. The arm that go-
verns the universe, let us remember, is an Al-
mighty arm;- it lifteth up and casteth down
nations as well as individuals. The Father of all
the families of the earth. “will do right”—He is
a God of justice and judgment as well as mercy.
All the powers of nature are His obedient mi-
nisters. — “He speaketh, and it is done; He
commandeth and it standeth fast.”
How soon
may our vaunted pre-eminence among the nations
be lost. How soon may we exchange the proud
station of command for that of subserviency,—the
character of masters for that of slaves. From a
quarter the most unexpected at a moment the
least thought of, the instruments of our humilia-
tion and punishment may arrive. To dispel our
infatuated dreams of endless prosperity and secu-
rity, Divine judgments may be commissioned to
break in upon us, (as formerly upon the secure
and voluptuous Chaldeans) in a moment, without
warning ;--- or they may proceed by silent, un-
perceived, yet unerring progress towards the cer-
tain accomplishment of their unsuspected purpose.
But though national judgments may be long
suspended or averted, - not an individual can
escape the visitations of retributive justice in that
eternal world to which we are hastening. There,
“ Judgment will be laid to the line, and justice to
the . plummet;"'--there, if not here-we must ex-
.
2


70
perience the strict fulfilment of the Divine warn-
ing With what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.” And from the awful
parable of Dives and Lazarus, we may derivep ro-
fitable notice of the kind and degree of punish-
ment which will hereafter fall, not on the tyrant
and the oppressor alone, but on such as have
been regardless or negligent of the sufferings of
the afflicted and destitute. This parable may have
a much wider application than we are generally
aware. It may unfold the future destiny not
only of the slave and the slave-holder, - but its
design may not be at all distorted by supposing,
it may also indicate the separate abodes of the
cultivator and the careless unfeeling consumer. of
West-Indian produce. The first idea may be
offensive and revolting, but a little reflection will
prove that there is nothing fanatical or extravagant
in the supposition. For what were the different
characteristics of Dives and Lazarus, which placed
such an impassable gulph between them? No
greater crime, no more palpable offence is charged
or insinuated against the former, but those of
selfish indulgence, thoughtless insensibility, or
unfeeling neglect of a fellow creature's priva-
tions and sufferings; nor is any virtue exhibited
in the latter, but that of patient endurance of
those privations and sufferings :-yet is Divine
Justice represented as placing these two charac-
ters, in the next life, at an infinite distance from
each other,--the one in torments--the other, in


71
blessedness. The Omniscient Arbiter, judgeth
not as man judgeth. “ Man looketh on the
outward appearance, but the Lord looketh at the
heart."
-Tliat which is highly esteemed among
men, is abomination in the sight of God." He
acquits where man condemns,--He condemns
where man acquits. A poor outcast from soci-
ety;-a loathsome beggar,—(whom modern re-
finement regards as a public nuisance;-whom
modern justice suffers not to beg at the rich
man's gate, for the crumbs which fall from his
table, but sentences to prison as a criminal)-js
carried by angels into Abraham's bosom ;-the
rich man, on the contrary, -respected, applauded,
probably, by his contemporaries for his hospi-
tality, his generosity,—his splendid and costly
entertainment of his rich friends and neigh-
bours ;—who had a conscience, it might be too
scrupulously tender to encourage beggars, who
was too observant of his social duties to suffer even
the crumbs which fell from his table to be given a
poor Lazarus-he lifts up his eyes in torments!
That Omniscient eye, which, with ineffable
tenderness, and compassion, wept over Jerusalem,
foreseeing the awful impending consequence of
her obdurate impenitence-taking into account
the eternal duration of human existence, the
transitory nature of time, the comparatively short
duration of the most protracted corporeal suffer-
ings,—the strict responsibility of man for every
talent entrusted to him ;=for light and knowledge,


72
for mental, moral, and christian cultivation ;- for
all the discoveries of duty, all the capacities and
means of doing good ;-ordaining that to whom
much is given, of him will much be required :-
that Omniscient eye, may discern in the free-born,
illuminated, highly favoured sons of Britain, more
than in the enslaved, benighted, afflicted children
of Africa, to call for compassion, for mourning
and lamentation.
Possibly, those to whom this appeal is parti-
cularly directed may regard it in no other light
than that of a declamatory invective, uncalled for
and unmerited by the parties addressed, who,
having expressed their abhorrence of slavery, and
petitioned Parliament for its mitigation and gra-
dual abolition, imagine that they have fully dis-
charged their consciences and done all respecting
it which duty requires of them.
But the slavery against which they have
petitioned still exists in unmitigated rigour. The
voice of the people has, as yet been very partially
and feebly exerted against this enormity ;--SO
partially and so feebly, that its supporters have
argued from thence, that the sense of the country
is with, and not against them.
“But the people (it may be said) the great
mass of society, admitting they have the power,
by the reiterated and more unanimous expression
of their abhorrence of slavery, to put an end to it,
have not the principle to exert that power ;--they
are not to be wrought upon by abstract con-


73
siderations of humanity and justice; they are
governed by custom and interest.” The great
mass of society inherit the same intelligent nature,
the same capacities and feelings with the more en-
lightened and conscientious—and may be wrought
upon by the same motives and principles of action.
The people, the great mass of society, who appear
so inert, so little accessible to any appeals but
those of passion or interest, are nevertheless ca-
pable of a much higher and better influence.
They may be moved, powerfully moved, by a
sense of justice, by feelings of compassion, by
motives of moral and religious obligation-were
proper means employed to bring these feelings
and motives into exercise. Were persons of
ability and influence, such as we are now ad-
dressing --who have been qualified to labour in
the great vineyard,--to enlighten the ignorant, to
teach the thoughtless to reflect ;-were such as
these faithfully occupying the five and ten talents
with which they have been entrusted, such a
general and deep abhorrence of this baneful insti-
tution might soon be excited and expressed, as
could not fail to be decisive with the British
Legislature. Such is the preponderating weight
of West Indian influence, that without such a
strong expression of public feeling and public
principle, no radical change of Colonial policy
is to be expected. But besides the incitement
of more general and earnest petitions and re-
monstrances to Parliament against slavery, there


74
is one simple and obvious means of discounte-
nancing it which lies within the reach of every
individual, which every individual of common
humanity is bound to adopt and to urge upon
all within the reach of his influence, (viz) the sub-
stitution of the produce of free for that of slave
labour. But whilst this simple and obvious
means of undermining and extirpating slavery is
so generally neglected by the more influential
class, and so little exertion is made, éven by such
as adopt it themselves, to bring it into general
operation - We believe they are incurring a heavy
weight of guilty responsibility.
How much of the bitter sufferings of their
enslaved fellow creatures, they will have to
answer for, who have the power thus to excite:
and to keep alive the public feeling in their behalf
and neglect to exert it, is not for us to ascertain;
but we are forewarned that we are in the strict-
est sense responsible for neglected as well as abused
talents, for the good which we have ability to
do, and leave undone, as well as for the positive
evil which we do.
Sloth and infidelity often assume the guise of
humility. “How little (they exclaim) can human
effort accomplish with regard to the wide extent
and appalling magnitude of crime and misery
which have from age to age deformed and afflicted
the world! How perplexing is the attempt to
reconcile the present state of things with the Dis
vine attributes --- with the infinite goodness and


75
love, as well as wisdom and power of the great
Governor of the universe! He hath all power in
Heaven and in earth. He doeth his own plea,
sure-none can resist His will: 66 He turneth
the hearts of the people like rivers of water.'
But what can the puny efforts of man effect with
regard to that mighty mass of sin and suffering
which seems to cover the earth as the waters
cover the sea ? To the few whose hearts have
been in some degree softened by the tendering
influences of religion, that sin and that suffering
are the occasion of mourning and painful sym-
pathy :-they are anxiously solicitous to restrain
the one and to heal the other. A love of recti-
tude, the awakened sensibilities of humanity, as
well as a sense of duty, stimulate their exertions;
-but alas ! what do they atchieve? Here and
there, they do a little -- a very little ; — the refor-
mation theye ffect, the relief they administer, is but
deducting, drops as it were, from the overwhelming
flood of moral and physical evil :—and yet, a single
effort of the Divine will a word, from the mouth
of him, who “speaks and it is done,” would re-
store virtue and happiness through all the bounds
of the creation! We stand appalled at the fright-
ful accumulation of crime on the one hand, we
weep over the heart-rending extent and variety
of suffering on the other, yet it is little, almost no-
thing which human effort can do towards the dimi-
nution of either! In reference to this terrible
evil of slavery, the most prolific source of crime


76
and misery ; -- what has been accomplished by
years of persevering unremitted labour? Our
compassion for the wretched slave can bear no
proportion to that of his Heavenly Father, - his
Divine Redeemer ;-yet still he is suffered to re-
main in hopeless bondage still he is suffered to
be disinherited of his birthright, and degraded
below the level of the brute!”
Probably there are few minds, accustomed to
reflection, in which thoughts like these do not occa-
sionally pass—and what is their practical tendency?
A folding of the hands in slothful apathy, or in
hopeless despair. But what will the humble-
minded believing Christian say to such reason-
ings? He will say,
“Get thee behind me Satan,”
- he will resist them. He sees that their ten-
dency is to negligence, to unbelief, to atheism.
He knows that “here we see through a glass
darkly”—that the dispensations of Providence are
to us, in our present state, veiled in clouds and
darkness, - nevertheless, he has the fullest assu-
rance that “the Judge of all the earth will do
right,” -- and a ray of Heavenly light clearly
points out his own path of duty. The course he
is to follow has been illuminated by the footsteps
of his Lord and Master ;- pursuing that radiant
track, he is certain to join the triumphs of his
glorious Leader, who, though invisible, is "going
on conquering and to conquer;"—who “ reigns
King of Kings and Lord of Lords,—who “must
reign, until all things are subdued under Him,”-


77
until “all things that offend” are gathered out of
his kingdom ;-till sin is vanquished, and “ death
swallowed up of life." In the mean time, for
purposes inscrutable to finite comprehension, the
tares are suffered to grow with the wheat,— sin
and suffering are both permitted ;-- and the busi-
ness of His humble followers is, to “ eschew evil
and to do good ;" — their duty and high privilege
is to become “co-workers with God.” To in-
struct the ignorant—to reform the vicious-to feed
the hungry- to clothe the naked to relieve the
stranger-to visit the prisoner-and to redeem the
captive, are, according to their ability, their chosen
and happiest employments. They will not with-
hold their hand because they can do so little, but
will faithfully employ their one, or their ten talents
in promoting the cause of righteousness upon
earth ;-and however slow its apparent progress-
whatever powers of earth or hell may resist it
they will go right onward in the path of duty,
well knowing, that whilst they are so engaged
stronger is He that is for them than all which can
combine against them.
Those whom we are now especially addressing,
may still object to the particular exertions which
we so earnestly recommend, that they are confi-
dently persuaded their great object will never be
by such means accomplished. Certainly it will
not; — if those means are not brought into ope-
ration ;-if the exertion of them continues to be
generally discouraged. But we rejoice in the


78
conviction that this will not be the case, for should
the more influential classes remain inert or opposed
to the measures in questions; others, we doubt not,
will be raised up to supply their “ lack of ser-
vice;"_" if they hold their peace, the very stones
will cry out:"-humbler, but more devoted and
laborious agents will take the places which they
ought to occupy.
Uncertainty, must, of necessity, ever attach to
human efforts;-nevertheless, in the great work
of emancipation we are bound to exert them to
the uttermost, in dependence on that power which
alone can render them successful. To use the
fervid language of one of the most able and de-
voted Leaders in this righteous cause ;-" EVERY
HEART AND HAND AND TONGUE AND PEN
SHOULD UNITE IN PROMOTING PUBLIC MEET-
INGS;-IN EXHIBITING BEFORE THEM SLA-
VERY IN ITS TRUE AND HORRIFIC COLOURS;
AND IN MULTIPLYING PETITIONS TO BOTH
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, UNTIL PARLIA-
MENT AND GOVERNMENT ARE CONVINCED,
WHICH THEY ARE NOT AT PRESENT, THAT
THE PUBLIC VOICE IS DECIDEDLY IN FAVOR
OF EXTINGUISHING SLAVERY:"We must
add-of extinguishing it PROMPTLY.
1
1


(
LETTER III.
To the more influential Classes of the
Christian Public.
1
In appealing to the christian public on the
subject of West Indian slavery, we have no
adequate medium through which to convey our
convictions of its urgent claims to a deeper atten-
tion in this quarter than has hitherto been bestow-
ed upon it. Argument and eloquence. have
been employed to exhaustion.” in the exposure
of its impolicy and wickedness,—its hostility to
every recognised principle of the British Consti-
tution, its impious violation of the laws of
nature and of God. Yet the crime and disgrace
so broadly exposed, so eloquently deplored, so
generally execrated ; against which we have
protested and petitioned-still exists. And we
believe it will continue to exist until christian
feeling is more deeply interested, until christian
principle is more earnestly exerted for its: extinc-


80
tion. If slavery in the British colonies be ever
eradicated without violence and blood-shed, it
must be through the awakened energy, the con-
straining force of christian obligation; through
the authority of Laws which have been long 'since
promulgated ;-which are as old as the world ;-
which were impressed upon the very frame and
constitution of man, written on “fleshly tables of
the heart” by thc Supreme Lawgiver, before they
were written on tables of stone. In the christian
code, their obligations are extended and enforced
by considerations the most persuasive and solemn
by which the human mind can be affected.
These laws are uncompromising and peremptory.
This is their explicit imperative language
“Thou SHALT NOT KILL.,'"Thou SHALT
NOT STEAL.”—And how are these prohibitions
interpreted to the christian? “THOU SHALT
NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF.
“BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YE
ARE MY DISCIPLES. IF YE LOVE ONE ANO-
THER."
Of what kind and of what degree is
the love which constitutes this infallible criterion ?
It is no other in kind, -no other in degree, than
that which thou bearest thyself. “ALL THINGS
WHATSOEVER YE WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD
DO UNTO YOU, DO YE, EVEN SO UNTO THEM,
Must it not follow then, of necessity, that the
Christian, -he to whom the name truly belongs,
he who would be acknowledged as such on the
LOVE THY


81
great day of distinction, of final separation be-
tween the sheep and the goats, must take a
deeper interest than he has hitherto done, in the
cause of the enslaved African ?- must, in short,
make it is own? :-keep alive his compassionate
sympathy,-exert himself in his behalf, with such
zeal and perseverance as he would implore for
himself were he to exchange places with the slave?
With the nature of his slavery we are but too
familiarly acquainted. We have heard of his
cruel wrongs and bitter sufferings till we cease to
be affected by them. The numberless well au-
thenticated details of West Indian barbarity may
produce upon their hearers similar results to those
which a long residence in the country almost
invariably effects,-a lowering of the standard
both of feeling and of principle, –a searing of the
conscience and a hardening of the heart. But
no such consequence would ensue were the
knowledge of these enormities followed up by
determined and persevering exertions to destroy
their prolific root.
Our interest in the arduous
work would deepen in proportion to the earnest-
ness of our labours. We are become so cold and
heartless in the cause of emancipation because
we are so idle. Having once been awakened to
a just sense of the enormity of the individual as
well as national crime of slavery ;-having seen
the complicated injury, the dreadful extent of
suffering which it entails on one party, the appal-
G


82
ling depth of guilt into which it plunges the
other ;—that it degrades the image of God on one
hand into a brute animal-transforms it on the
other, into a fiend ;—that it obliterates in the more
immediate agents of this infernal system, every
vestige of humanity, extirpates every feeling of
compassion, --converts the “milk of human kind-
ness” into gall and wormwood-into corrosive
and deadly moral poison-and renders man to his
fellow man a monster of cruelty more fell and
remorseless than the tiger or hyena :-having
seen that it dooms hundreds of thousands to hope-
less misery in the present life;—that it plunges
countless multitudes into final perdition :-it might
have been expected as a matter of course-of ne-
cessity, that every christian would combine his
best exertions to put the speediest termination to
a system so terribly destructive of human virtue
and happiness. But hitherto they seem only to
have contemplated the evil as a frightful phantas-
magoria, a scenic representation of horrors exhibi-
ted for stage effect,—for the mere purpose of
strong and transient excitement. At most, they
seem to have consideration the pictures presented
by it of human degradation, crime and misery, as
a history of past enormities, of scarcely credible
brutalities which marked the long gone by ages
of ignorance and barbarism. They never yet
seem to have beheld them as faithful representa-
tions of the present actually existing state of


89
things in the British Empire, in the very heart
of Christendom ;-much less, do they seem ever
to have suspected that they are all individually
implicated in their wilful encouragement and
support ;-otherwise, how could so profound an
apathy have prevaded the more conscientious por-
tion of the community on a subject so calculated
to rouse and to keep alive its intense interest?
Where their own interest is at stake, they can
reason wisely, act consistently, vigourously, per-
severingly, --consequently, with the reasonable
prospect of a successful issue. But, where the
interest temporal and eternal, of 800,000 of their
enslaved fellow creatures, whom they are bound
by their christian profession to love as themselves,
is at issue-then, though they have most elo-
quently pleaded their cause in public meetings,
described them as degraded below the brutes,
subjected to a tyranny so severe, to outrages só
barbarous, that every feeling of humanity has re-
coiled at the relation,—the heart has sickened at
the horrid catalogue “of ills which man inflicts
upon his fellow man”-and the listener has blush-
ed and hung his head, to think himself a man.”
Yet, when from declamation, they come to ac-
tion, - when from appaling descriptions of op-
pression and cruelty-duty calls to administer
relief-then, what a reproachful contrast do their
reasonings and actions present to those of which
self-interest is the object. Instead of pursuing
G 2


84
the natural, obvious, and certain method of de-
stroying this inhuman tyranny, by ceasing to en-
courage it themselves, and by using their best
exertions to engage all within the reach of their
influence in the same resolution of withdrawing
its support by refusing its produce;- instead of
striving by every possible means to keep alive and
to increase the public interest in the cause of
emancipation, by inciting the people to renewed
and more earnest petitions to Parliament, for jus-
tice, strict, impartial justice, to all the subjects of
British Government, without distinction of co-
lour ;-to rescue, as it becomes a christian Le-
gislature, the weak and helpless from the grasp of
oppression ;--instead of this, too many, even of
the high professing christian world, seem to have
closed their eyes, and gone to sleep over the dread-
ful history of West-Indian barbarity, and left its
wretched victims carelessly to their fate. Alas !
how grossly may we flatter ourselves with the
imaginary possession of virtues to which we have
no real pretension, by mistaking feeling for prin-
ciple— transient impulses of humanity for the
virtue of charity.
We know that human nature is versatile,
selfish, indolent; - that however eagerly it may
start in the cause of suffering humanity, when
spurred on by indignant abhorrence of oppression
and involuntary sympathy with the oppressed,
that it will soon relax when those impulses are


85
withdrawn. We know how powerfully it is
wrought upon by novelty, and how difficult it is
to prevent familiarity with crime and suffering
from begetting indifference: and we also know
that no important good can be secured without
thwarting and overcoming this natural instability.
We know that all the great momentous objects of
our regard - death, judgment, eternity, are fami-
liar themes, and that neither our own true in-
terest nor that of our fellow-creatures, can be pro-
moted, unless principle be made to supply the
transient ebullitions of passion and feeling. And
we know that the poor Negro, after all the elo-
quent commiseration which his enormous wrongs
have called forth, --will, notwithstanding, be left,
from generation to generation, in the grasp of his
ruthless
oppressor,
unless violence be done to this
selfish supineness ;- unless christian principle re-
kindle our zeal in his cause, and quicken our
tardy humanity.
The enfranchisement of eight hundred thou-
sand of our fellow-creatures from the galling yoke
of West-Indian bondage will be found no easy
atchievement. All who are really in earnest in
the cause of these defenceless outcasts, will prove
it by their conduct as well as their language. We
have no rational ground to expect that their dea
liverance will ever be accomplished, without la-
borious persevering effort. The double chair
which binds them in moral and corporeal slavery,


86
will not fall off of itself-its strong rivets will not
be loosened by declamatory invectives. The great
and difficult work of emancipation must be ef-
fected, like all other great and difficult works, by
the diligent application of rational and appropriate
means.
By the conduct and language of some pro-
fessed enemies of slavery, one would imagine they
expected this mighty revolution would be effected
without effort,—by magic, - by some self-moving
mysterious process in direct contradiction to the
established order of things. “ The work (they
tell us) is in progress, and will be accomplished
by the gradual advance of knowledge and moral
improvement.” Though they take no active in-
terest in it themselves, but, on the contrary, do
their utmost to retard it, by continuing to con-
sume the productions of slavery, and to discourage
those who are using their utmost exertious to pre-
vent that consumption, The same mode of rea-
soning and acting applied to the common business
of life, would lead the farmer to sit still in the
confident expectation of a plentiful harvest, though
he neither ploughed his fields, nor sowed them
with grain ; - they would lead the sick man to
presume on the recovery of his health by per-
sisting in those very courses which had engen-
dered his disease ; — they would lead the man
whose house was on fire to expect the confla-
gration would be stopped by fanning, instead of


87
throwing water on the flame. It is vain to urge
in their excuse that they are not convinced that
abstinence from the productions of slavery will
ever effect its destruction. It is one important
means which it is the duty of every man of com-
mon humanity to exert to the uttermost as a tes-
timony of his own abhorrence of the system, and
his determination to do all in his own power to
destroy it. And though the operation of this
single means, however generally exerted, might
fail in itself, to effect its speedy and complete de-
struction, yet, in conjunction with stronger remon-
strances, more earnest petitions to the Legislature,
we may reasonably hope that another session of
Parliament would not be suffered to pass without
its accomplishment.
We have heard the insolent contempt with
which the orders in council, the recommendations
and the commands of Government, have been re-
ceived by the colonists ;— and we have seen that
their language of insult and threatened rebellion,
instead of meeting with its deserved chastisement,
has, on the contrary, been succeeded by additional
concessions in their favour, and by a reduction of
the duties on West Indian produce!!!
By what other means then, but the rejection
of that produce, and by earnest appeal to Par-
liament for the assertion of its own dignity ; for
the establishment of national honour and security,
by the administration of equal law and equal jus-


88
tice through all the bounds of the British Empire,
-can we expect that West Indian slavery will
ever be extinguished ? Is it by commercial spe-
culations ? - By more enlightened and accurate
calculations of interest ? - By the establishment
of a “Tropical free labour company”?“Are we
to leave 800,000, of our fellow creatures in the
hands of their merciless task-masters, until their
liberation becomes the inevitable result of mercan-
tile competition ?- Would this be to do justice
and to love mercy, on christian principles ?-Spe-
culations on the comparative profitableness of free
and slave labour, may ultimately effect the de-
struction of slavery,—but christian charity will
not wait the tardy uncertain result ;-she will
employ the best means in her power for its spee-
diest destruction,-and as abstinence from slave
produce is the only means over which the people
have absolute control, this, she will use her utmost
exertions to bring into prompt and vigorous ope-
ration. The formation of a Society which in-
lists the all controling principle of interest on
the side of humanity, shews something, it is true,
of "the wisdom of the serpent,”-but true chris-
tian charity will far outstrip even the rapid motion
of self-interest, and secure its object by a more
direct course. She will hail such establishments as
that of the “Tropical free labour company” as
auxiliaries and secondaries, but will not suffer
them to usurp the place, or supersede the exer-


89
tion of moral and religious principle. The laws
which guide her operations are quick and spon-
taneous, and prompt to the same exertions for the
relief of others sufferings as for her own. She
regards the dreadful disclosures of the real nature
of colonial bondage as affording a test, a certain
test of the sincerity or spuriousness of christian
profession. “If a man love me (said our Lord)
he will keep my commandments.”
What com-
mandments? How readest thou ? What was the
reply to the enquiry—“which is the first and great
commandment”? -"Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. (But mark the sequel.) The
second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. On these two command-
ments hang all the Law and Prophets.”
“If we love not our Brother whom we have
seen, how can we love God whom we have not
If we so love not our degraded and
oppressed fellow creatures, of whose nature we
so intimately partake, and with whom the spon-
taneous sympathies of humanity compel us to feel ;
if we so love them not as to exert every means
in our power of rescuing them, from the merciless
thieves among whom they are fallen ;-how can
we love God, their Father as well as ours ? By
the fruit alone is the nature of the tree ascertained.
By “works of mercy and labours of love" are
seen ? "


90
genuine christians to be distinguished from the
promiscuous throng of empty professors. “ Here-
in, is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit”.
-Do we ask, what fruit? Let us turn to the di-
vine sermon on the mount,-to the awful disclo-
sures of the day of Judgment, and see, what are
the fruits, the different course of life, which
mark the difference between the ransomed and
the reprobate.
Can it possibly be imagined after the affecting
enumeration of acts of kindness and mercy re-
corded in the close of the 25th chapter of St.
Matthew, which our Lord represents himself as
accepting and rewarding as done unto Himself,
because done unto one of the least of his family ;
-can we possibly imagine that acts of justice and
mercy to those wretched captives who stand so
much in need of our sympathy and assistance,
will not be equally accepted ?
Let such as have not yet ascertained the pre-
cise line of duty between the two propositions of
immediate and gradual emancipation, refer their
doubts to the divine records for solution.
66 ALL
THINGS, whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do EVEN so unto them”. Mark
the precision, the commanding force of the lan-
g uag. Here is no room for evasions or excep-
tions; - no admission for cold procrastinating
delays. The rule is short, intelligible and decisive
-and requires us to pursue that precise line of


91
small compass.
conduct towards all men, which we ourselves
would reasonably desire were we in their circum-
stances. The enquiry therefore, what line of
conduct a christian should pursue respecting the
subject in question, resolves itself into a very
He must put himself in the
place of the slave-think of the torture of his gal-
ling chains, his ulcerated wounds ;—the premature
exhaustion of his powers, from over-strained ex-
ertions, under the most barbarous coercion ;-the
painful consumption of his life in hopeless des-
pair. He must remember, that the poor Negro, has
no one in the land of his oppression, to plead his
cause or to avenge his wrongs ;-he must re-
member the strong arm of power with which every
feeble struggle for his own relief is borne down;
--the inhuman chastisement with which his una-
vailing complaints are silenced ;--then, let him
ask his own heart if he would not, above all earthly
blessings, above life itself, desire, groan, for imme-
diate liberation from the horrors of such a bon-
dagem
We have then the express authority of a
DIVINE COMMAND, to stimulate and combine all
our exertions for his prompt emancipation. Then,
let all who humbly hope for Divine approval, en-
m Let it ever be remembered that emancipation from
slavery is not emancipation from law,- does not preclude such
wise provisional regulations and restraints as so sudden a
change of condition might render expedient.


92
gage without delay, and with all their hearts, in
the arduous work. Let them no longer deal
treacherously with their own principles, and keep
back any of the price which they demand. Let
those who have leisure and influence make it
their business to diffuse more general information
of the horrors of West Indian slavery ; to incite
a deeper and more general sympathy for its
wretched victims, and (as the British legislature
can alone effect their speedy and complete eman-
cipation) to incite throughout the nation the
most earnest and pressing appeals to Parliament
no longer to withhold from these despised out-
casts their FULL RIGHTS, because they are them-
selves too feeble to demand them, because they
are so crushed by oppression that they dare not
even beg for them ;- no longer to listen to the
cruel suggestions, which procrastinating selfish-
ness is ever insinuating, --that because they have
been so long the victims of lawless power, -be-
cause their necks have so long been accustomed
to the yoke, - because they have never partici-
pated in the rights of humanity and justice,-be-
cause the image of their Creator has, in these His
abused creatures, been so long trampled under-
foot, that therefore there need be no haste to
rescue their bodies from lacerating whips and
galling chains—and their minds from brutish ig-
norance and Pagan darkness. And let none of us
any longer mock the sacred name of truth by


93
calling those slow reluctant feeble concessions,
implied in the principle of gradual emancipation,
just, reasonable, merciful, — when, in fact, they
are only new modifications, more disguised and
subtile modes of oppression.
“LET MY PEOPLE GO,”-is the authoritative
language of the great Parent of the Universe, to
all who have ears to hear the voice of reason, of
conscience, of revelation ;--to all who keep aloof
from the confused Babel of sordid interest and
political expediency ;- who turn a deaf ear to
those artful glosses, those selfish evasions, those
“ vain traditions,” whereby the Divine command
is rendered “ of none effect.” “LET MY PEO-
PLE Go,”-is as clearly the Divine command
respecting these poor despised outcasts, as it was
respecting the oppressed Israelites. In their
case, it is true, the command was express and
audible,-enforced by great signs and wonders-
and its resistance attended by immediate and
supernatural punishments. But in the case of
the poor Negro, the command is not less intel-
ligible, in a Christian's ear, because conveyed by
the spirit, instead of the letter, of the Divine in-
junction—and the punishment of disobedience,
though it do not immediately follow, will, he is
sufficiently warned, fall in heavier inflictions upon
Christian, than upon Egyptian slave-holders.
And who are so emphatically slave-holders as the
consumers of slave produce? Is not he who


94
1
bribes another to commit a robbery or a murder,
the greater criminal of the two, though he shed
no blood and commit no violence ?
He who kidnaps and forces away the defence-
less Negro from his friends and country, and puts
him in irons on board a slave-ship;-he who buys
him of the slave merchant, -- who stamps brand
marks into his flesh with hot irons; who com-
pels him to labour all the days of his wretched
existence, without wages, under the lash of the
cart-whip ;-who, if he attempt to escape, or make
any resistance, hunts him down like a beast of
prey, - chains and flogs him without mercy,
shoots and gibbets him at his pleasure ;-who
seizes upon his children also, from generation to
generation, as his lawful prey ;-all these,--he
who steals and makes merchandize of his fellow
man;-he who buys the stolen merchandize,
and he, who inheriting such ill-gotten property,
lays impious claim to it as a rightful possession ;-
all these, guilty as they are, are not the most
guilty parties in these transactions of iniquity ;
they have employers, who make it worth
their while,—who bribe them to commit these
atrocities.
It is a true adage,-“if there were no receivers
of stolen goods, there would be no thieves.”
For what are those poor Negroes stolen away
from their native country? For what are they
bought and sold like cattle? For what are they


95
LIGHTENED
A
PROFITABLE
chained and branded and forced to labour, night
as well as day under the most brutal coercion ?-
BECAUSE THE PRODUCE OF ALL THIS OP-
PRESSION AND CRUELTY-FINDS WITH EN-
CHRISTIANS,
MARKET!!
Heretofore, we sinned in thoughtless igno-
rance ;-we knew little of the dreadful price at
which our West Indian luxuries were procured ;
-now, the veil of ignorance is removed. The
enormous crimes and sufferings inseparable from
the system of slave cultivation, have at length,
been fully exposed ;-- henceforth the guilty re-
sponsibility of slave holding rests with the consu
· mers of slave produce. Let conscience therefore
do her office and fix the conviction of blood-guilti-
ness in our own bosoms. Let us seek no inge-
nious palliations or self justifying evasions, but
confess that “we are verely guilty concerning our
(captive) Brother,”—and determine to make all
possible atonement for past criminal carelessness
of his wrongs, not only by conscientiously
abstaining from all farther consumption of the
produce of his inhuman oppression, but by deter-
mining, henceforward, to make his cause our own,
and resolving never to desert it until the rights of
humanity are restored to him,-till he is raised
from the condition of a brute to that of a man
and a Christian.
Henceforward, let us - remember those that


96
are in bonds, as bound with them.” Let the
speedy redemption of the captive Negro be the
object of our fervent prayers, of our earnest per-
severing labours,—of prayers so fervent, of labours
so earnest and persevering as may bear some
resemblance to those which we ourselves should
desire, were our own enfranchisement suspended
on their issue. Our prayers will then be heard;
the Divine blessing will crown our exertions--
and British slavery will be annihilated. And
though our power to liberate the captive sons of
Africa, be restrained within the bounds of our
own territory – our example, when it becomes
CONSISTENT, will not be so limited. It is con-
SISTENCY alone which gives force either to indi-
vidual or national example. Why has no greater
efficacy hitherto attended our tardy example in
the relinquishment of the African slave trade?-
Because it has wanted this essential virtue;-
because when we relinquished the traffic, we re-
tained its guilty perquisites ; – because we not
only detained the living victims of the slave trade
in cruel bondage, but doomed their children also,
and their children's children to the same dreadful
inheritance ;-because, whilst we persist in so
doing, we appear to surrounding nations, with
polluted hands, and a Janus face, consequently
disqualified for successful pleaders against a
system of iniquity which we have so reluctantly
and partially renounced.


97
Had christians continued to adorn the doc-
trine they profess with those living fruits, those
works of mercy and labours of love with which
it was at first ornamented ;-had the extended
knowledge and profession of the Gospel been
accompanied by a practical conformity to its
righteous precepts,--slavery, with all its attendant
crimes and miseries, must long since have been
abolished throughout the world. But the separa-
ting the profession of christianity from its righteous
and beneficent practice, has rendered it, compa-
ratively, of none effect; — has occasioned its
glorious light to be “hid under a bushel,”—the
salt,” given to counteract moral corruption, to
“lose its savour,”—to be, in great measure, “trod-
den under foot,”--calumniated and despised, as
a thing of little worth.
Yet this Gospel, whose lustre has been so
tarnished by modern professors, is the only means
appointed for salvation, to the ends of the earth.
No new revelation is to be expected;—by no other
power will that grand prophetic renovation be
accomplished which shall “fill the earth with the
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea.” The stone, “cut without hands,” seen in
the vision of Daniel, which “brake in pieces the
iron, the clay, the silver and the gold ;”- which
subdued every opposing power and “became a
great Mountain which filled the whole earth,”-
H


98
is no other than that Gospel which, with us is
held in such unprofitableness and unrighteousness.
The world around us does not retain its pre-
sent disordered miserable condition for want of
light and information, for want of the means of
its restoration to order and happiness. No, am-
ple provision has been made for recovering the
lost harmony of this discordant world. It would
not remain as it is, waste and deserted of good,
fruitful and rank in evil, were those who have
been called to work in this great vineyard, dili-
gently labouring in their respective allotments”;
were “the children of light as wise (and as ac-
tive) in their generation as the children of this
world.”
We can imagine nothing better calculated to
rouse their slumbering zeal, to give new life and
vigour to their torpid principles, than the conside-
ration of the dreadful state of moral and physical
wretchedness in which 800,000, immortal beings
are held on British ground, chiefly by the thought-
less consumption of the produce of their slavery
by professing christians; who, from the time when
the real condition of slavery was first made known,
must be accountable for every day's unnecessary
prolongation of so inhuman an institution-and
for all the crimes and miseries from which it is
inseparable, whilst they neglect the use of any
means in their power for its speedy and complete
destruction.


99
Time flies swiftlyso does conviction of duty,
So does the inclination and the power to obey
it, from those who trifle or procrastinate. Neg-
lected capacities and opportunities of doing good,
are not only withdrawn, but avenged, by leaving
in their place the curse of increased insensibility,
and those who have been most abhorrent of
slavery, may, by remaining quiescent, impercep-
tibly become as reckless of its sufferings as the
West Indians themselves.
Then let us “work whilst it is yet day”
remembering that it is a short one,--that, with
many of us, “it is far spent;”-and therefore
“whatsoever our hand findeth to do (whereby the
double bonds of these our oppressed and benight-
ed fellow creatures may be broken) let us do it
with all our might. ”- Let our zeal and diligence
bear some proportion to the magnitude of the
work and the strength and resolution of its oppo-
sers. The interests of slavery have hitherto stood
firm, have, thus far, resisted and defied all attack,
because they have been supported with pertina-
cious and determined courage--and when the in-
terests of humanity and justice are supported with
equal zeal and resolution, they will not only prevail,
but triumph gloriously. There is in their nature a
spirit of ascendency and dominion. Oppression
would tremble and fall prostrate before them,
were their professed friends and supporters but
half as zealous and persevereing as their enemies.
We may appear to have laid a very undue
297848A


101
exhaustible mine, whose treasures accumulate in
proportion as they are drawn forth. It is not like
gold, of which, if we are lavish in one quarter, we
must be proportionably parsimonious in another.
This wealth, on the contrary, the more it is used,
the more it increases.
But we have said enough, it may be, much
more than enough, to prove, that it is an impera-
tive christian duty to employ, to the uttermost,
every means in our power for the speedy and
complete extinction of West Indian slavery. To
the most efficacious of those means we have al-
ready adverted. In themselves, they are simple
and obvious, but to bring them into effective ope-
ration, is acknowledged to be a work of labour
and difficulty.
These pages will probably fall into the hands
of some who have already renounced the use of
West Indian produce, for the sake of christian
consistency,—to preserve a conscience void of
offence,ếan exemption from all participation or
encouragement of crime; though they have no
hope that their example will in the slightest de-
gree, weaken the interests of slavery, which, they
are well aware, are too firmly rooted to be shaken
by a few such scattered instances of conscientious-
ness. But, being morally certain, that the whole
system, root and branch, must of necessity be
destroyed by the general extension of such an ex-
ample, they feel impelled to do their part. But


102
what is that part ? Surely it is the christian's part,
his privilege, as well as duty, to do all, in such a
cause, which he has the power to do. Let him
reflect--that he is at present literally doing nothing
to lighten the burdens of slavery ;-that his own
example, and that of his conscientious coadjutors,
will produce no sensible effect on the condition
of a single slave,—will be utterly useless-a mere
waste of principle as far as he is the object. To
effect any important charge in his condition ;—to
prove that slavery is abhorrent to the Nation ;
to give weight and efficacy to our petitions against
it, the example must become general—and how
can it become general without exertion and la-
bour?-and from what quarter is the requisite
exertion and labour to be expected - but from
real christians ? - from such as have time and ta-
lents to devote to the cause?
The consideration of the utter helplessness of
these objects of our sympathy,--that they cannot
plead for themselves,—that they have none in the
land of their captivity to plead for them,--that
their tears are unobserved that their sighs and
groans reach us by no audible sounds,—that their
lacerated, disfigured and mutilated bodies are unex-
posed to our view,--that they stretch out to us no
imploring hands-utter no piercing cries for deli-
verance,--that all is silent, enduring, uncomplaining
suffering-should, on feeling, generous minds,
operate as the most eloquent and urgent of all


103
claims to sympathy and assistance. To whom
must we look for availing help, ---for the substan-
tial compassion of the good Samaritan? From
whence can it be most reasonably expected, but
from real christians of the more influential classes,
whose elevated station gives them a persuasive
influence over the sentiments and practice of those
around them? From whence can it be most
reasonably expected, but from those to whom it
is given richly to enjoy the life that now is, as
well as the glorious hope of that which is to come;
- from those, to whom much has been given,
and of whom much will be therefore required ?
From whom, but from those who must be often
inquiring, what they are rendering to the Lord for
all His goodness? How they are occupying the
talents with which He has entrusted them?
What account they will have to render of their
Stewardship? We want words to express our
own conviction of the extent and importanceof
the benefits which you have the ability to confer
upon the most oppressed and abused of the hu-
man family. You admit that abstinence from
West Indian produce must become general in
order to accomplish its object— And to You we
must look to make it general—to bring it into
fashion. Who else, but those who have time and
talents at their own disposal, rather, at the dis-
posal of the great Giver, can be expected to de
vote them to a cause to which there is no attraction


104
ve
m
of ambition or interest, and for the most la- be
borious and successful exertions in which, no
reward is to be hoped for, but from Him who is
seeth in secret ?
To be exempt from the crime of encouraging het
and perpetuating slavery, and to make atonement is
for past negligence, we must not only abstain
ourselves from all farther consumption of its pro-
duce, but determine, to the utmost of our power,
to engage others in a similar resolution. We
must make it a business, by every means of argu-
ment and persuasion, to engage the cooperation
of all around us, high and low, rich and poor,-
not regarding opposition and ridicule, but making
the best of our talents and influence, whatever
they be, to extend the resolution far and wide,
until it pervades the whole kingdom, -until the
use of slave produce shall become a mark of re-
proach, and those who have not renounced it
upon principle, shall be constrained to do it for
their credit's sake. A resolution and zeal short
of this, will effect nothing; we shall only trifle
with the subject, -trifle with our christian obliga-
tions, and do nothing effectual towards discharg-
ing the heavy debt we owe to our enslaved brother.
Christian charity, implies in its very nature,
the spirit of sacrifice and self-denial. What costs
us little, is, in general, of little worth. But what
sacrifice (it may be asked) or self-denial, deserving
the name, is implied in the rejection of slave pro-


105
i
ducé where the same articles may be obtained by
free labour? Certainly there is no sacrifice in
the individual substitution, but such a substitution
can never be expected to become general without
exertions which involve considerable sacrifices.
West Indian slavery has been so often discussed,
te has become so trite and hackneyed a subject that
it
seems by tacit agreement to be excluded from
common conversation, and it requires no little
courage to encounter the evident coldness or dis-
gust with which it is generally received. There
is a great deal of prejudice and hostility among a
Jarge proportion of the higher and middle ranks,
against the measure in question, occasioned by
the extensive ramifications of West Indian influ-
ence, and a prevailing notion, among such as
+ pride themselves on their loyalty, that it is
an officious interference with the business of
Government.
It is highly desirable that the friends of eman-
cipation, should, as much as possible, for the sake
of consistency, abstain from the consumption of
all slave cultivated produce. But as the cultivation
of sugar is the most lucrative, and by far the most
oppressive of West Indian slave labours ;—as the
Planter derives his chief emolument from the sale
of this article, and his monopoly of the British
market ;-it is against this article especially, that
we must endeavour to close that market. But be-
fore entering upon the consideration of the best


107
ness and cruel indifference to other's sufferings
influence their actions ? If these questions can
be answered affirmatively, then, certainly, after
an acquaintance with the shocking process of
West India sugar cultivation, there is nothing
Utopian orvisionary in expecting that
every
indi-
vidual possessed of common humanity, to say
nothing of religion, should abstain from its con-
sumption, were East India double the price, or
even if there were no other sugar to be substi-
tuted. The attention of those who are not
thoroughly acquainted with that process, is par-
ticularly requested to the following compressed
description of “ the driving system," which, in the
West Indies, is chiefly confined to sugar cultiva-
tion.
“ In holeing a cane-piece, or turning up the
ground into parallel trenches, for the reception of
the cane-plants, the slaves of both sexes, are
1 Some persons object to the substitution of East for West
Indian
sugar,
nnder the notion that the former is dearer than
the latter. The objection, though a very sordid one, ought
to be noticed. A correspondent, well acquainted with the
fact, says~"There is, in London, no difference whatever in
the price of East and West India raw sugar, consequently,
there ought to be none in the Country. The East India re-
fined sugar was considerably dearer, when first offered to the
public, on account of the difficulty and expense attending the
commencement of the refining process; but now, the diffe-
rence of príce between East and West India lump sugar is
not more than one penny or three-half-pence per pound."


108
drawn out in a line, like troops on a parade, each
with a hoe in the hand; and close, in the rear, are
stationed the drivers, in numberduly proportioned
to that of the gang. Each of these drivers, has a
long, thick, and strongly plaited whip, the report
of which is as loud, and the lash as severe as those
of the whips in common use with our waggoners,
and which he has authority to apply the instant,
he perceives occasion, without previous warning.
Thus disposed, their work begins, and continues
without interruption for a certain number of hours,
during which, at the peril of the driver, an ad-
equate portion of the land must be holed. As the
trenches are generally rectilinear, and the whole
line of holers advance together, it is necessary that
every section of the trench should be finished in
equal time with the rest; if any were allowed to
throw in the hoe with less rapidity or energy than
their companions, the trench would be imperfectly
formed; it is therefore the business of the drivers
not only to urge forward the whole gang with
sufficient speed, but to watch that all in the line,
whether male or female, old or young, strong or
feeble, work, as nearly as possible, in equal time
and with equal effect; the tardy stroke must be
quickened, and the languid invigorated ; and the
whole line made to dress, in the military phrase,
as it advances; no breathing time, no resting on
the hoe, no pause of langour to be repaid by
brisker action, can be allowed to individuals


109
o
gether.”
(however exhausted): all must work or repose to-
The labourers, having no motive for
exertion but the fear of punishment, are impelled
to their daily task in the cultivation of the
sugar-
cane, on a burning glebe, beneath a vertical sun,
by the stimulant of the whip, which Dr. Collins,
an experienced planter, and ablé apologist for
slavery, admits, “is usually left to the discretion
of the driver, and is of course administered neither
with impartiality or judgment; but is generally
bestowed with rigour on the weakest of the gang,
and those who are so unfortunate às not to be in
favour with the subdespot, on any part of the
naked body or head, by which means the weaker
Negroes are over-wrought and compelled to resort
to the sick-house”p Let it be remembered also, that
in addition to this severe and exhausting day-pro-
cess, in the cultivation of the sugar cane, there is
the aggravated oppression of alternate night labour,
during nearly half the year in grinding at the
sugar-mills, &c.
Surely there is nothing Utopian or visionary
in expecting that every person of common hu-
manity, not immediately interested in the support
of slavery, will desist from the consumption of
• See “Slavery of the West Indies delineated" by James
Stephen, Esq. vol. 1. p. 46. .
P See “ Practical rules, &c. for the treatment of slaves in
the sugar colonies." p. 201, 201. 267.


110
a luxury cultivated under such a system as this ;-
a system so exhausting and destructive of human
life in those Islands where it is most cultivated,
as would, were the same mortality generally to
prevail, “unpeople the earth in half a cen-
tury”!!! Surely there is nothing Utopian or vi-
sionary in expecting that all who retain any sense
of moral justice, will renounce the consumption
of sugar thus cultivated, were there no other sub-
stitute to be obtained for it; more especially
when acquainted with the fact (which all may be
by referring to the last-mentioned Anti-slavery
Report) that this horrid system will be mitigated
or aggravated in exact proportion as the demand
for this luxury increases or diminishes.
To the second objection, that the substitution
of East, for West India sugar would be utterly
futile as it regards the destruction of West Indian
slavery; since the sugar rejected by us would be
exported to the continent; we imagine the West
Indians themselves have furnished a complete
confutation. For to what do their violent pro-
testations against the equalization of the duties on
East and West Indian sugar,--their virulent in-
vectives against those who attempt to promote
the substitution of the former for the latter,
amount?--but to so many proofs that they regard
9 See the “second report of the committee of the Anti-
Slavery society."


111
these measures as attacks upon the very vitals of
their system. One of their ablest champions,
having asserted in so many words, that—"the
continent can be, and is supplied with sugar at a
cheaper rate than it can be grown by the British
Planter.”-And in a small tract recently issued
by the West Indian party, addressed “ to the con-
sumers of sugar,” the public are admonished not
to be the “dupes of the humbug of interested
people, who would persuade them to substitute
East for West India sugar, and by that means
involve the colonies in utter ruin.” They are
warned against the “selfish designs of interested
cunning persons, who, regardless of the sacred
obligations of truth, would, if they could, sacrifice
the West Indian colonies to their own narrow
interests, which, whilst they assume the gloss of
humanity to the negroes, would disable their
masters from feeding, clothing, protecting, and
imparting religious instructiontothem; and condemn
to ruin an integral part of the British empire.”
It is evident that the measure in question is
regarded by the colonists with the utmost alarm
See a masterly pamphlet entitled “East and West
Indian sugar, or a refutation of the claims of the West
Indian colonists to a protecting duty &c.” (page 3) to which
also we refer our readers for a complete exposure of the
fallacy of the objection that the commercial interests of the
country would be injured by the substitution of East for
West India sugar.


119
and dismay, consequently, it cannot be of that
nugatory, insignificant nature which the objector
would represent. But the production adverted to,
insignificant and contemptible as it may appear,
must not pass without farther comment. It is,
an important document, full of “
pith and argu-
ment,”-exhibiting, in narrow compass, the
wretched shifts and miserable extremities to which
the upholders of slavery are driven. It revives
and puts into popular, wholesale circulation the
often confuted falshood of the assertion that
East India sugar is not the production of free la-
bour, but of a system of slavery more severe than
that of the West Indies--many respectable au-
thorities being brought forward to prove that
such slavery exists in the Lower Carnatic. The
author of this precious document miscalculated
in supposing that it would meet the eye of none
but casual unreflecting readers, who were too
ignorant or too thoughtless to consider that the
Lower Carnatic is a thousand miles distant from
the Province of Bengal, where the sugar brought
from the East Indies into this country is cultiva-
ted. We refer the reader to a very sensible reply
to the insinuation that East India sugar is not the
production of free labour, in a small tract, bearing
the same title,~" To the consumers of sugar,” by
the eloquent author of “the Rights of man in the
West Indies"-But as this writer has entirely
passed over the objections of the West Iudian
0


113
declaimer against the substitution of East for West
Indian sugar, on account of the cruel effect it
would have upon the slave, as well as his Master,
(thinking it, no doubt, 100 contemptible to de-
serve a reply, its fallacy having been so often
exposed)-yet, being aware that many are still
under this delusion, we quote the following brief
passages from the “second report of the commit-
tee of the Anti-slavery society,” as a complete
answer to the last mentioned objection.
“The West Indians assert that if prices (of
sugar) should fall, the slaves' must starve; but in
what way are low prices to produce this effect?
The food of the field slaves in Jamaica is raised
entirely by their own hands, on the portion of
ground allotted to them for that purpose, and
cultivated during that fragment of their time spe-
cifically assigned them by law. Is it then by de-
priving the slaves of the land which has been set
apart for their subsistence, and which the owner
himself has now less temptation than ever to oc-
cupy, that starvation is to ensue? Or is it by
depriving them, without any assignable object for
so doing, of the scanty portion of time which the
law allows them for cultivating their allotments ?
If not, how is it possible for them to starve”?
“ The tendency of a low price of sugar is obvi-
ously to direct a larger share both of land and la-
bour to the growth of provisions, or of some other
article of exportable produce than sugar ;-and,
I


.114
whatever article may be substituted for it, the
change must operate as a relief to the slaves ; the
culture of sugar being by far the most oppressive
branch of colonial husbandry.” “The Baha-
mas grow no sugar. There, the increase of the
population is very considerably greater than in any
other colony. The only other colony of Great
Britain, in which there is any increase of the slaves,
is Barbadoes; and that is the colony (with one
exception) which makes the smallest quantity of
sugar in proportion to its numbers.” “IN ST.
VINCENT, GRENADA, TOBAGO, AND DEME-
RARA, WHERE THE
PROPORTION OF SUGAR
IS THE LARGEST,_THERE
THE DECREASE
PROCEEDS AT A RAPID RATE; AT A RATE,
IN
SOME
WOULD
UN-
OF THEM, WHICH
PEOPLE THE EARTH IN HALF A CENTURY”!!!
These, let it be remembered, are not vague
unsupported assertions ;-they are grounded on
authentic documents, on accurate calculation, on
notorious facts, which no ingenuity can evade or
confute. From these documents are we not fully
warranted in urging all who have heads to think
and hearts to feel, to the conscious rejection of
West India sugar and rum ?-For should such a
resolution fail to become sufficiently general to
accomplish its ultimate object, yet, it is evident
that it would essentially mitigate the sufferings of
the slave, sugar cultivation being the most dread-
fully oppressive and destructive of all his labours.


115
But we have not quite done with this West
India sugar tract. If the British public substitute
East for West India sugar-then,“ their masters
(we are told) will be disabled from imparting religi-
ous instruction to their Negroes.” Here is a “hum-
bug,” to which there is surely no parallel ! In
this wretched effort of imposture, we know not
whether audacity or imbecility are most conspicu-
Can the writer possibly imagine after the
notorious opposition made by the great body of
Planters to the religious instruction of the Ne-
groes ;-after the dreadful tragedies so recently
acted in Barbadoes and Demerara, that the people
of England can be deluded by such miserable cant
Ous.
as this?
It were endless to enumerate all the objections
which
may
be urged against the measure in ques-
tion. We trust enough has been said to prove
that it is neither a Utopian, a useless, or pernici-
ous project to endeavour to dissuade the British
Public (all, at least, who have any real sense of
religion, of hnmanity, or moral justice) from the
consumption of slave cultivated sugar, when once
acquainted with the object and tendency of its
rejection. We should shudder at the idea of being
ourselves the immediate agents of the horrid sys-
tem of oppression above described,,but volunta-
rily to sanction and encourage that oppression in
others, is, in effect, equally criminal.
This remark will be said to imply a sweeping


116
condemnation of all who entertain different opini-
ons from those here expressed of the measure in
question, and who are consequently not disposed
to adopt it. We certainly do consider the con-
sumption of West India sugar, under the present
system of cultivation, as absolutely interdicted
by the laws of religion, humanity and justice.
That many highly respectable, humane, and
truly religious persons persist in the use of it,
we are quite aware; but that circumstance does
not in the least alter the moral character of the
practice. They who do persist in it after being
acquainted with its tendency, do so at the ex-
pense of their principles. That the practice is
attended with no feeling of compunction, is no
proof of its innocence. It is possible, let us ne.
ver forget, for the very worst crimes to be perpe-
trated without any consciousness of their guilt.
It is well, disposed as we all are to self compla-
cent indulgence in any habit to which prejudice
custom, or interest incite us, that we are not left
to the uncertain, capricious guidance of individual
opinion, but that we have an explicit, intelligible,
immutable rule, A Divine COMMAND, applica-
ble to every variety of circumstance and character,
to restrain and direct our conduct, (viz)-To Do
UNTO ALL MEN, WHATSOEVER WE
THAT THEY SHOULD DO UNTO US.
WOULD


LETTER IV.
On the most efficient means of deepening and extend-
ing the public interest in the speedy extinction
of West Indian Slavery.
In enumerating the various means by which
an increased interest in the speedy extinction of
West Indian slavery can be most speedily and
widely extended, is it possible to overlook the
christian Pulpit? To Whom but the professed
Ambassadors of Him who came to “undo the
heavy burdens-to bind up the broken hearted
to preach deliverance to the captives”-to break
every yoke but that of his own mild and benign-
ant sway ;-to whom but to those who are regard-
ed as the delegated shepherds of the flock, who
profess to watch for souls as they that must give
an account";- to whom but to conscientious
christian Ministers, of all denominations, can we
so reasonably look for deepening and widening the
public interest in the speedy extinction of this
Anti-christian institution ?-by making it a sub-
ject of pulpit admonition.
Should any object, that it would be a lowering


1
118
of the dignity, a desecration of the sacredness of
the christian pulpit to employ it in the discussion
of secular or political questions ;-we would ask,
whether the present wretchedly degraded and op-
pressed condition of 800,000 immortal beings,-
the brutish ignorance and heathen darkness con-
sequent upon and necessarily connected with their
cruel bondage ;-whether an enquiry into the best
means whereby the restoration of those natural
rights which they have never forfeited, and the
enjoyment of those civil and religious privileges to
which they have an equal claim with ourselves,
may be best secured to them,--can be regarded
as mere secular or political considerations ? Ifthey
can, then are a large portion of the instructions
of our Great Lord and Master of the same secular
and political character. For on what themes did
he chiefly discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees
and with his own disciples, in his divine sermon
on the Mount, but on those of justice and mercy
-of compassion and kindness ?--and what were
the objects of his severest maledictions but injus-
tice, oppression and cruelty-above all, hypocrisy
-the combination of high religious profession
with the violation of its righteous precepts ;-long
prayers
and sanctimonious observances with the
“devouring of widows houses”-extortion and
oppression? What was the chief aim of his in-
structive parables, of Dives and Lazarus, -of
the good Samaritan,-of the relentless fellow ser-


119
vant-and of his awful illustrations of the day of
Judgment, but to inculcate lessons of compassion
and sympathy—to incite to works of justice and
mercy ?
But we need not labour to obviate objections
which have no real existence. The Pulpit is
every where employed in pressing themes of an
exactly similar nature, though of less urgent ne-
cessity than that in question ;-in recommending
the establishment and support of infirmaries and
hospitals for the relief of temporal want and the
mitigation of bodily suffering.
We would not merely contend that the
best ways and means of abolishing slavery may
with the strictest propriety and accordance with
established precedent be pointed out and recom-
mended from the Pulpit; but that such an em-
ployment of it would be peculiarly appropriate.
If righteousness, justice and mercy be essential
parts of the christian character;—if “ all the law
and the prophets be comprehended in the two
commandments of loving God with all the heart
soul and strength, and our Neighbour as our-
selves;--if Christ himself hath said, that this
second is like unto the first and great command-
ment”-in its comprehensive nature and exten-
sive requirements;—then, it is both expedient
and necessary to dilate and expatiate upon this
also;- to extend and apply it to existing circum-
stances ;-to bring the habits and conduct of


120
professors to this unvarying standard and touch-
stone of christian rectitude.
“ I say unto you, for every idle word that
men shall speak they shall give account thereof
in the day of Judgment,”-is one of those deeply
significant and comprehensive sentences in which
is revealed the awful nature and extent of our
accountability. In this concise declaration is
condensed, information of immense importance,
connected with consequences the most momen-
tous. Every word in this emphatic sentence has
a deep and weighty signification. “I say unto
you,”—What simple majesty, what solemn im-
port in the introduction! The Saviour and final
Judge of the world is the speaker,--he who is
himself THE TRUTH,“who hath said“ Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall
not pass away”—the Son of God makes the awful
declaration, that “for every idle word men shall
give account in the day of judgment." The all-
pervading presence of the invisible Judge -- the
all-controling nature of his 'religion — the im-
perishable book of remembrance preserved by
him of the whole tenor, the minutiæ, of the con-
duct of his intelligent creatures -- and their cer-
tain and strict accountability to him, are all di-
rectly implied in this concise communication.
If then, for every idle (thoughtless) word we shall
give an account in the day of judgment, is it not
a necessary inference that for every injurious action


121
we shall be equally accountable? What infa-
tuated self-deceivers we are! With what foolish,
mad presumption we say to our souls, “ Peace,
when there is no peace!” We lose the recol-
lection of the daily tenor of our own thoughts,
words and actions, - even of the most guilty we
retain but vague and transient remembrance ;
we soon forgive and forget our own transgressions
-and presumptuously and impiously imagine,
even respecting those which are unrepented of-
unannealed, that they are also forgiven and for-
gotten by our Omniscient Judge; - though he
hath with solemn emphasis declared that " for
every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
give account thereof in the day of judgment.”
How much more of their deliberate actions !
These, will not only be remembered, but a far
different estimate to our own, will be made of
them. In assigning their respective places in the
book of Divine remembrance, "righteousness will
be laid to the line and judgment to the plum-
met," actions, many of which we regard as
indifferent or innocent, will be ranged in the
column of crimes, when their motives and conse-
quences are taken into account. And will the
encouragement given to human slavery (that most
frightful complication of crime and misery) be
overlooked? Will the part we have taken re-
specting the poor Negro be left out of the esti-
mate? Will those be held guiltless who from


199
thoughtlessness or carelessness, continue to con-
sume the produce of his slavery with their eyes
wide open to the nature of that slavery which such
consumption tends to perpetuate? Can any thing
be more in character with a christian Minister
than to warn his hearers against such a delusion?
-more especially, because the practice is so gene-
ral and is therefore regarded as innocent. Chris-
tians are enjoined to be “holy and harmless,
separate from sinners ;”-to “keep themselves
pure;”--to “have no fellowship with works of
darkness;”-not to be partakers of other men's
sins." But by the consumption of slave produce
all these injunctions are violated.
" Ye are the salt of the earth ;"_" Ye are the
light of the world,” said our Lord to the first
preachers of the Gospel. “ Ye are the salt of the
earth ;"- to keep it from corruption, from be-
coming a mass of moral putrefaction ; - to pre-
serve the purity of christian doctrine, the righ-
teousness of christian practice. 6 Ye are the
light of the world,” - to illuminate its dark cor-
ners -- to detect and reprove all unrighteousness.
Had such continued to be the character of
preachers of the Gospel, could human slavery,
that horrid compound of all injustice, cruelty,
and impiety, still support and exalt itself in this
land of high christian profession, this age of pre-
eminent benevolence and refinement? Could it
be possible, that a system comprising every cala-


199
mity and outrage which man has power to inflict
upon
his fellow man, should exist in a country
where Christianity is not only tolerated, but es-
tablished ; -- where temples for christian worship
are profusely scattered over the empire;-whereits
ministers have free access to all ranks of the
community ;--where religion “lifts her mitred
head in Courts and Parliaments ;” is suffered
to raise her voice in the Palace as well as the
Church ;-to admonish the Legislature and the
Monarch as well as the People?
Why the deepest crime and foulest national
disgrace should, with a few noble exceptions,
have hitherto escaped the reprobation, and been
imagined to lie out of the sphere of the christian
pulpit—it were useless to inquire. We rejoice
in the hope that the illusion is rapidly dissipating,
and that the time is at hand when the righteous
cause of Negro emancipation will be advocated in
the right place, — with the boldness and fidelity
becoming christian ministers. We remember
that a wild fanatic, Peter the Hermit, by his
single preaching, lighted up the flames of war all
over Europe, and we doubt not that equal fervency
and extent of zeal may be kindled by conscien-
tious ministers of the true religion, in a war
against oppression and impiety which have no
parallel in the civilized world ;-in a war rightly
denominated a holy one, in which every indivi-


124
dual, possessing any just pretensions to the chris-
tian name, ought to engage with all his might.
Some of the most distinguished dissenting
ministers have already set the example, and we
are anxiously desiring that those of the establish-
ment may follow the noble precedent; — not
merely by giving their respective hearers a single
sermon on the subject of slavery and then dis-
missing it;- not merely by describing the horrors
of the system and exciting the sympathy of their
hearers for its unhappy victims; but by pointing
out and pressing the adoption of the most effectual
means of putting a speedy end to it;—by shewing
that every individual, however obscure his station,
or humble his talents, may render important assis-
tance, may do much by his own example and in-
fluence towards its final destruction.
We entreat all who are conscious of being but
partially informed of the present character of West
Indian Slavery, and are consequently deficient in
arguments and facts wherewith to repel the artful
misrepresentations and gross falsehoods by which
it is attempted, but too successfully, to delude
the British public into a persuasion that the pre-
sent actual condition of colonial bondage is not
only as little oppressive, but is, in fact, more com-
fortable than that of the Irish, or even British
peasantry ;-we entreat all such to acquaint them-
selves without delay, with one of the most im-


1
.
125
#
portant documents (just published) which has
yet appeared upon the subject, viz. the abridged
substance of some highly interesting papers re-
cently laid before Parliament, entitled “ The slave
colonies of Great Britain; or a picture of Negro
slavery drawn by the Colonists themselves ;?'
with the very appropriate motto, “out of thine
own mouth will I judge thee.”
“ The picture which it exhibits of slavery is
so fearful and revolting, that we might hesitate to
credit the existence of the reality, were it not that
the statements are official, and emanate from the
colonial authorities themselves. This is not a
narrative of past and long forgotten atrocities, fur-
bished up anew to excite the feelings of the
British public, but a delineation of the actual state
of our own slave colonies, at the present moment ;
a narrative which tells us of stripes yet unhealed;
of groans which still echo around our plantations ;
of tyranny to this moment unchecked in its deeds of
cruelty and crime; of injustice, oppression and
inhumanity both private and legislative, bearing
date not in dark ages or Pagan lands, but in
British colonies, and with the ink scarcely dry
upon the record. The first impression which its
perusal is calculated to produce, is a feeling of
surprise and horror at the extraordinary state of
society which it developes. In this analysis, the
colonists are made to describe their own system;
the proofs of its iniquity being drawn from the


126
1
colonial laws, from other colonial records of un-
questionable authority, or from the evidence of
colonial proprietors. In the ameliorated slave-
codes here brought before them, the public will
find the proof, the irrefragable proof, of the de-
termined pertinacity with which the colonists
still cleave to the worst, the most revolting defor-
mities of their system; and the utter worthless-
ness of all the pretended improvements adopted
by the colonial assemblies.”
In the postscript to these official documents,
an analysis is given of the report of the constitu-
ted guardians and protectors of the slaves, by
which we are admitted into the interior, the very pe-
netralia of the slave system,” from whence, among
other horrific disclosures, it will be seen what are its
brutalizing effects on the female character—what
refined barbarities it can train and habituate " La-
dies” to exercise upon their slaves.
In these documents the public will see that
“demoralizing and murderous system” accurately
portrayed for the maintenance of which they are
burdened with imposts to the amount of annnal
millions ; for the maintenance of which the lives
of two thousand British soldiers are annually sa-
crificed ;---for the maintenance of which British
commerce is fettered by impolitic and injurious
restrictions ;—the population of Ireland kept in
•See " the Christian Observer, Oct. 1825"--pages 655–
657.


127
idleness and beggary ;-the interests of one hun-
dred million of British subjects in India surren-
dered to those of about two thousand West Indian
Planters and Merchants !!!
But to return to the christian pulpit. The
preacher, having once thoroughly acquainted him-
self with the subject of West Indian slavery,
having convinced himself of the unexceptionable
nature and authority of the evidence on which
the horrid enormities of the system are asserted,
will find it no theme of barren speculation or
casual invective, but one of deep and wide
interest, fruitful of instruction and bearing with
important weight on the grand fundamental truths
and essential duties of christianity. He will per-
ceive, in the modern history of slavery, in the
British dominions,-in its effects especially upon
the white colonists -- the free-born sons and
daughters also, of British christendom, the most
appalling illustrations of human depravity ;-he
will perceive the hardened callosity to which the
human heart may arrive under the petrifying
influence of unrestrained avarice;-the profound
depths of wickedness into which man may plunge
when invested with unlimited power ;-the tremen-
dous extent of suffering which he has the will to
See the luminous expositions of the impolitic and bane-
ful effects of slavery, in the public speeches of the enlight-
ened and philanthropic James Cropper, of Liverpool, as
reported in various provincial papers.


128
inflict on his fellow man ;-the extremes of corpo-
real and mental anguish to which he can remorse-
lessly consign his Brother;-the monster of cruelty
and oppression, the abhorred instrument of pure
mischief which he may become, when abandoned
to himself,--emancipated from the restraints of
religion,-unawed by fear, unsoftened by love of
the righteous Governor of the universe. In the
conduct of these White tyrants, he will see terrific
illustration of the natural tendency of human in-
terests and human passions ;-he will see awful
demonstration that man, in his natural state, is
indeed “a child of wrath”-a fit object of the
vengeance of a holy God-even, of a God of love
Land will consequently obtain clearer perceptions
of the necessity and infinite value of a Redeemer
and a Saviour ;--of a new birth and complete
renovation of nature. He will see that " 66
every
good and perfect gift cometh from above;”-that
all the virtues and all the graces which have ever
adorned and beautified the human character, are
implanted by the Divine spirit alone ;-that every
fruit of righteousness which has ever appeared in
this degenerate soil; from its earliest blossom to
maturity, has been the production alone of the
Sun of Righteousness.
We earnestly hope that conscientious Minis-
ters of the Gospel, of every denomination, will no
longer withhold their earnest attention from this
momentous subject, from an apprehension that it


129
lies beyond the sphere of their influence. We
are fully persuaded that they may, in a very short
space of time, become the honoured instruments
of ridding their country of its foulest abomination,
by instigating the people of all ranks, through the
most quiet and unexceptionable means, to throw
down the altars of the bloody Moloc of slavery,
to expel from British ground every vestige of its
impious worship. We cannot, therefore, but earn-
estly hope they will lose no more time in exerting
the great influence they possess over the people;
- that they will suspend, for a season, their ac-
customed course of instruction ;-deviate a little
from the beaten track,-call the attention of their
hearers for a time, from the principles, the ground-
work of religion, to the contemplation of its beau-
tiful superstructure,- that just, and righteous and
benificent practice to which those principles incite.
Let them remind their hearers that He whom
they preach, “gave himself for them that he might
purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good
works ;''--that christians are commanded not to
"touch the unclean thing;”—and that if Gentile con-
verts were expressly enjoined by Apostolic autho-
rity, under divine direction, to “abstain from
meats offered to idols, and from blood,” it can be
no strained unnatural inference to conclude that
the spirit of this prohibition must necessarily ex-
tend to an absolute interdiction of the voluntary
consumption of the produce of slavery. When
K


130
christian Ministers have once entered on the sub-
ject, they will find it no barren and circumscribed
theme ;-it will afford ample illustration of chris-
tian duty, strong and varied appeals to the hearts
and consciences of their hearers, especially to those
of the higher and more influential classes, to whom
a wide field of interesting labour may be present-
ed, iņ endeavouring to spread and to keep alive
a general interest and sympathy, for the most
deeply injured of the human race, amang their
friends and neighbours, -and in shewing by what
means, relief may be most effectually admi-
nistered, Thus would a fresh and powerful im-
pulse be imparted to benevolence and the warm
glow of christian charity çirculated from bosom
to bosom. Thus would the rich, according to
apostolic injunction, be admonished to “ do good,
-to be rich in good works ;'-new sources of
pure satisfaction would be opened to them, in
exciting fellow, feeling and brotherly kindness in
all around them, in tasting the luxury of benefi-
cence, --in proving that the pleasures of sympathy
far surpass those of selfish enjoyment;-that their
own happiness is augmented in proportion as they
are earnestly engaged in promoting the welfare of
others; not that of their own neighbourhood and
country alone, but that of the stranger, the poor
captive in a distant land, of him who seems to
have no human helper--and thus, inheriting the
blessing of those who are ready to perish” and
V
F
li
8
M


131
the richer blessing of Him who hath declared that
a cup of cold water alone, imparted in christian
charity, shall not lose its reward.
The preacher, by directing the moral percep-
tions and religious principles of his hearers to the
subject of West Indian slavery, will shew them a
great work of righteousness, of justice and mercy
in which all may engage, from the highest to the
lowest and thereby afford substantial proof that
there is life and power in the religion they profess;
that it is an active vigorous principle, a faith that
works by love, which may be mighty, even in
feeble hands, to the pulling down this strong hold
of Satan, and setting at liberty eight hundred thou-
sand immortal beings, the wretched victims of a
two-fold bondage, bondage of soul as well as body,
withheld alike (as by far the greater proportion of
them are) from moral and spiritual as well as cor-
poreal freedom ; kept back from the sound of the
liberty of the Gospel, lest they should become
more deeply sensible of their cruel wrongs, lest
the iron yoke of oppression, the chains of igno-
rance and mental darkness, should become still
more intolerable.
We are aware that great offence may be taken
at such an employment of the christian pulpit ; at
such an exposure, in such a place, of a system in
which many persons of the first consequence and
allowed respectability, “men of education and
K 2


132
liberal attainments,” are concerned. But that
can be no solid ground of objection to those who
consider the great offence excited by the preaching
of their Lord and Master on a similar occasion;
in detecting, exposing and reprobating “ wicked-
ness in high places,”-the injustice, extortion and
cruelty of scribes and pharisees, persons, in their
day of great eminence and distinction. It will be
no solid ground of objection to those who remem-
ber that the disciples were forewarned that the
servant was not greater than his Lord, that those
who had persecuted him would persecute them
also; that if they were of the world, the world
would love its own, but because they were not of
the world, therefore the world would hate them.
The offence therefore which may be taken by
men of the world against such a proceeding, is
rather a confirmation of its consistency and pro-
priety.
Under existing circumstances, we can imagine
no subject which can more worthily engage the
constituted guardians of the public virtue, its mo-
rals and religion, than the denouncing of that
anti-christian, execrable tyranny, which obliterates
all sense of natural justice, every feeling of huma-
nity, every principle of religion ; which hardens
the hearts and sears the consciences of its active
agents and abettors, and subjects them to a more
dreadful and hopeless bondage than that of its


139
poor victims, in as much as there is reason to
dread its extension beyond the period of their
present existence.
We can imagine nothing more truly in charac-
ter with ministers of that religion which lays the
axe to the root of every corrupt tree, than to pro-
test, to make open war against, and to resist with
all their might, this bold and malignant “enemy
of all righteousness;” since it is apparent that the
Gospel can have no “free course, can be glori-
fied by none of those “mighty works,”—those
great extensive moral transformations which it is
destined to accomplish, in any nation where this
Anti-christ is suffered to reign.
What says the very temperate and candid
Author of “ Negro Slavery,”in his fairest exam-
ple of West Indian society (that of Jamiaca)?
“No virtuous man ought to trust his own charac-
ter, or that of his children, to the demoralizing
effects produced by slave keeping. The state of
morals and religion, is as bad as can be imagined.
It is well known that the morals of nineteen out
of twenty white men are ruined before they have
been a month on the Island, and every idea of
religion vanishes.”
And what says a respec-
table Clergyman, nearly five years resident on the
same Island? “I shall never forget the horror
and disgust which I felt on going on shore, for
the first time, in Kingston, August, 1819: it
u See “ Negro Slavery,” p. 27.
Du


134
was on a Sunday and I had to pass the Negro
Market, where several thousands of human beings,
of various nations and colours, chiefly Negroes,
instead of worshiping their Maker on his holy
day, were busily employed in all kinds of traffic
in the open streets. The different noises and bar-
barous tongues recalled the confusion of Babel,
but the drunkenness of some, with the impreca-
tions and licentiousness of others, put me in mind
rather of a pandemonium, or residence of devils.
I have resided nearly five years in Jamaica, and
have preached two or three sermons almost every
Sunday; many other clergymen have also exerted
themselves, but to very little purpose, as these
horrid legalized scenes are just the same, and most
of the churches in the Island are nearly empty.
I am aware there is a law in the Island, imposing
a fine on proprietors or overseers, for compelling
the Negroes to do certain kinds of labour on the
Sabbath ; but it is notorious that this law is alto-
gether a dead letter, and in Jamaica, the largest
West Indian colony of highly favoured Christian
Britain, the Sabbath is worse kept than by Turks
themselves. It is not enough that the poor Ne-
groes are compelled, on that day, to cultivate
their own provision grounds to preserve life, (not
having sufficient time otherwise allowed them)
but to add to the abomination, a Sunday market
must also be kept, which is the only market they
have, to which they trudge, like mules, with


135
heavy loads, five, ten, or even twenty miles. In
other eolonies, where the abundant fatness of the
soil hås augmented the cupidity of the planters,
the hardships of the poor Negroes are even greater
than in Jamaica, they are very much overworked;
especially the jobbing gangs (out of whose labour
fortunes have been made in a short time.) These
gangs have been compared, very aptly, to over
driven horses : the poor slaves composing them,
may certainly, without exaggeration, be compared
to the London hacks. A double price is paid for
them, and they are worked so very much, that
they do not last long. It is gold versus life.”
“Were the colonists inclined to make any
material beneficial changes in the slave code, nei-
ther the British Government nor British people
would think of interfering ; but experiente teaches
that their professions with respect to their slaves,
are urmeaning and empty, and that even the few
concessions that have been wrung from them aré
not bona fide fulfilled. Witness their not allowing
them time to attend places of worship on Sundays.
Witness the non-redress of their just complaints,
for severity and cruelty of punishment. Witness
the preventing those of the curates who wished to
attend on some of the estates, to preach and to cate-
chise, from doing so, and thereby shutting the door
of instruction on the poor slaves altogether.”
“ It must indeed be plain to every impartial
person, that the colonists do not intend to lighten


136
the hardships of their slaves. Their principal ob-
ject is to keep them in total ignorance, and to compel
them to raise the greatest possible quantity of pro-
duce; for they calculate thus-if we do away
with the Sunday market, there must be more time
given to the slaves, and our own crops will fall short;
if we allow them to be instructed, it will take a little
more time, and the Negroes will also know too much
to be content! They therefore do, and will, oppose
all interference by the British Parliament because
they wish, and intend, at all hazards, to keep the
slaves and their descendants in perpetual bondage.
This writer farther observes, that “ many colo-
nial clergymen are anxious to advance the know-
ledge of religion, but are prevented through the
general profanation of the Sabbath, and the labour-
ing and marketing of the Negroes on that day.
Some who have attempted to introduce reforms
have been stigmatised as Methodists ; and it is
scarcely safe for them to venture to preach against
gross immorality, Sabbath breaking,” &c.
Let it be remembered that this is the report of
an impartial resident eye witness of the existing
state of things in the Island of Jamaica. The
striking illustrations given by this conscious writer
(in addition to the ferocious transactions at Bar-
badoes and Demerara) of the determined and
malignant hostility which the slave system bears
1
à
See The West Indies as they are. ” by the Rev. R. Bickell.
pages 64, 67, 68, 71, 137, 138.


137
to religion, is a loud call upon its conscientious
ministers to interpose their influence; to use their
utmost exertions to purify the British atmosphere
from this - moral pestilence, which sheds a blight
and a mildew upon every opening blossom of vir-
tue, and forces into rapid and monstrous growth
every poisonous shoot of vice. So active and in-
sinuating is the demoralizing contagion engendered
by slavery, that it seems to operate by a kind of
magic ;-virtue becomes vice;—even piety her-
self becomes impious on breathing the tainted
atmosphere ; or, if she be firm and hardy enough
to resist the malignant contagion, she then be-
comes the object of persecution unto death. How
has the Christian standard been lowered and de-
graded which has from time to time been raised
in the land of slavery ! How have evil commu-
nications corrupted good manners in certain Me-
thodist missionaries, who, through the tamperings
of interest or the blandishments of flattery, have
been disinherited of their reason, shorn of their
strength,—have suffered their shield, the awful
egis of christian truth, to be basely cast away, and
instead of denouncing woes against the worship-
pers, instead of “ crying out against the altars”
of this most impious of all the idol gods of sa-
tanic devotion, have dared to arraign and condemn
the veteran band of abolitionists, have traduced
and blasphemed the sacred cause they engaged to
advocate, by asserting that christianity has no


138
hostility to slavery; have themselves, joined the
Priests of this Baal,-have become the apologists
and defenders of the execrable system of West
Indian tyranny;-and have impiously dared to
assert its compatibility with the divine will. How
deep then, must be the poison of that moral in
fection which can transform christian missionaries
into priests of Baal ?--the “salt of the earth”,
into the means of its corruption? For the honour of
the Methodist body, it is to be hoped that these
accommodating, time serving missionaries have
been expelled from its membership. But we cannot
withhold from our readers the following short ex-
tract from a sermon recently addressed by à Mis-
sionary (said to be in that connexion) to a slave
audience, in presence, no doubt, of their taskmasters;
with which the advocates of West Indian slavery
have presented the public, illustrative of the bles-
sings of slavery.
“ It ought to be remembered that the situation
of life in which Providence has placed you, is not
without its comforts; for when you have per-
formed your appointed work, you are happily
delivered from all anxiety and tormenting care,
and can return to your humble cabins with con-
fidence, being assured that no creditor will be
there claiming the little property you possess ;-
no sick wife or child will be there, without the aid
y See the small tract before adverted to, addressed “ To
the Consumers of sugar."


139
of medicine, and if required, of a nurse ;-neither
will your children meet you at your doors with
looks expressive of starvation, and pierce your
hearts with cries of hunger. No, such scenes of
misery are not to be found in your dwellings, " for
your bread is given you, and your water is sure.” z
Was there ever a more shocking profanation
of the sacred text, than thus to employ it in con-
firmation of a lie? For can there be a lie more
palpable than the inference which is made to
follow this exordium, that the comforts and bles-
sings of slavery are greater than those of the free-
born British peasantry? Of what kind is the
bread that is given, and the waters that are sure
to the West Indian slave? Is it not bread of af
fliction and water of affliction ? Are not their
lives embittered with hard bondage ? Are not
their bodies lacerated with whips and galling
chains ? disfigured with brand-marks ? Are they
not bought and sold like cattle? Are they not
considered and treated in all respects like beasts
of burden? And what are the comforts of their
« humble cabins”? What is the care they expe-
rience in sickness ? What food is provided them
in health? The Author of " The West Indies
as they are," has informed us, “ of the great care
taken of the slaves in sickness, and of the boasted
frequent attendance of medical men on the dif-
ferent properties. I have (says he) never seen
z Isaiah xxxiii. 16.


140
any very flattering specimens, though I have been
on a great many plantations, and have seen plenty
of doctors. Their hospitals, or hot-houses (as they
are very aptly styled) are, generally speaking, ,
filthy receptacles. On most estates the hospital
consists of a confined room with an earthen floor;
on which is a platform of boards, upon which the
sick lie down in their clothes. The hot-house is
often the place where the Negroes are also con-
fined in the stocks; so that it is both hospital and
gaol. They have not the comfortable cottage of
the English peasant, which no one dares to enter
without permission. No, in his mud built hut,
without a window or a chimney, on two or three
boards, or on the floor itself, the Negro slave lies
down on his mat, very often uncovered ; and if he
wants a little fire, as in the mountains he some-
times will, he must light his few sticks in the open
air, and sit upon his heels shivering by them.
As to food, the quantity in most cases is suffici-
ent, (were it otherwise, they would be unable to
perform the labour required of them) but in the
quality, none but a bigotted low minded planter,
or some interested professional resident, would
compare the coarse yams and cocoas, and stringy
indigestible plantains, with a few bad or rotten
herrings, to the wholesome bread, potatoes, and
other fine vegetables which the English cottager
enjoys. I have seen a good deal of the English poor
and can conscientiously say, that I never saw any


141
3
11
one even a pauper, who lived in the mean hoggish
way that the slaves in the West Indies do; and
moreover, that if such course food as the negroes
generally eat, were offered them, they would reject
it as unfit for human beings ; English stomachs
could not well digest it.”
Such are the bodily “ comforts” of slavery ;
what are its spiritual blessings we have before en-
quired. But we return to the peculiar hostility
which the system bears to christianity. We are
told, that in spite of all the great obstacles with
which it is surrounded in the West Indies, it is
now making rapid progress, and English liberality
is appealed to, in various directions, to enable the
Moravians to extend their settlements on several
estates to which the proprietors have invited them.
It is a matter of heart-felt rejoicing that the
preaching of the Gospel in the land where “Satan's
sect (preeminently) is,” should not be unac-
companied with its renovating power. - We
have listened with delight to the unvarnished
histories of its transforming efficacy upon the
hearts and lives of the despised Negro, but we
consider such particular instances of its success as
no argument against the general hostility which
system of slavery bears to christianity.
Even the Moravians, who stand so deservedly
high in the devoted bands of christian Missiona-
ries, whose patient, judicious, self-denying labours
are more tolerated, more encouraged by the Plan-
the


149
I
ters, than those of any other persuasion,—“becausc
of advantage,”—because of the evident benefit
which the slave owner thereby derives in the in-
creased value of his slave property ; because his
vassals thereby become more profitable, more
patient of toil, more trust worthy ;-because they
have thereby learnt the divine art of returning
good for evil ;—even these devoted messengers
of the Gospel escape not unhurt by the infectious
atmotphere of slavery, They imagine themselves
under the sad necessity of exhibiting the glorious
luminary of the Gospel, as “the sun, shorn of
his beams, - seen through a horizontal gloomy
mist; "they imagine themselves under the sad
necessity--though not of “handling the word of
ļife deceitfully”—yet of administering it partially;
inculcating upon the oppressed slave, its gentleness,
meekness and long-suffering, but witholding from
his oppressor the terrible woes which it denounces
against injustice and oppression.
The first messengers of the Gospel who bore its
glad tidings to a benighted enslaved world, were
forewarned that they should be brought before
rulers. Their commission was to preach repen-
tance to all to declare the whole counsel of God;
to lay the axe to the root of every corrupt tree;
to“ pull down wickedness in high (as well as
low) places.” The incestuous Herod was boldly
reproved by the Baptist ;-Peter and John, when
forbidden by the Jewish priests and rulers to


143
preach the new doctrine, replied with holy mag-
nanimity—“whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God judge
ye;" and they waxed bolder and bolder from the
opposition they encountered. But though the same
courage and zeal have directed many devoted Mis-
sionaries to our West Indian shores, the air is so
tainted, so heavily surcharged with moral poison,
that the nerves even of christian courage relax;---
the truth, instead of being preached to all, without
respect of persons, must, in this land of civilized
barbarians, (more fiercely hostile to christianity
than Pagan savages) ---be preached to the poor
Negro alone, and that by stealth, or connivance.
To preach the pure doctrines of the Gospel to
slave-holders--to speak to them even of the rights
of common justice and humanity, would seem to
be rushing into the very jaws of destruction. Yet,
had these Missionaries reljed less on human pru:
dence and more upon the God of Daniel," who
shut the lion's mouths ;---who, in former ages (and
His power is ever the same) caused his devoted
servants, “out of weakness to be made strong,'
to“ wax valiant in fight”-and, though few in
number “to turn to flight the armies of the aliens ;"
who disarmed the flames of their power to
burn ;-who caused His servants to walk unhurt
in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, “ heated
seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated":
peradventure, the horrid Maloc of slavery had


144
long since been abandoned—its bloody altars
thrown down—and a decree, passed under the
force of irresistible conviction, had gone forth from
the colonial legislators themselves, announcing
the year of jubilee,-proclaiming christian, instead
of martial law,—the reign of justice, of righteous-
ness and peace. But “ the fear of man bringeth
a snare”-a dangerous, a fatal snare. Our mo-
dern Missionaries, with the timidity as well as
harmlessness of the dove ;-restrict themselves by
certain laws and prudential resolutions, not to be
found in the scriptural directory, not to meddle
with the established order of things ;-not at all
to interfere between the master and the slave;
to confine themselves wholly to the spiritual con-
cerns of the latter :-never attempting to arrest
the arm of lawless power, or to restrain its merci-
less inflictions ;-to say to the cruel tyrant-"it
is not lawful for thee” thus to degrade, to oppress,
to torture thy fellow creature, — thy brother:-
never reminding the lordly usurper that it is not
lawful for him to make merchandize of human
beings,-to treat immortal intelligences as brute
animals ;-never warning him that it is at his own
peril that he scourges and chains his over laboured
defenceless victims ;-that he is thereby “heap-
ing to himself wrath against the day of wrath ;”
--that “ he shall have judgment without mercy
who hath shewn no mercy;"—that “the same
measure” which he is now meting to the slave,


145
will certainly be “meted to him again.” No, the
Missionary says nothing of all this to the slave-
holder. “No, it would be imprudent, it would
be madness to do so ;--it would utterly defeat
the object of his mission and involve himself in
certain ruin.” But is not this “reasoning with
flesh and blood”? Is not this “the fear of man
(which) bringeth a snare”? A snare indeed it hath
brought; ; --- “ Israel flees before his enemies ;”-
“the ark is taken;"_"the Philistines triumph.
In one British colony, a christian temple is rased
to the ground—its Minister made to fly for his
life and proclamation issued to forbid his return
on pain of instant destruction ;--in another, an
exemplary Missionary is arraigned for treason,
tried by court Martial, condemned-and left to
perish in prison !!-Persecution more fierce or
cruel than this, could hardly have been anticipated
had the Gospel been preached to the slave-holder,
as well as the slave.
What an imperfect mutilated picture of chris-
tianity is exhibited, when its obligations are infor-
ced
upon
the
poor
slave alone! The commission
of its Divine author was, to “preach the Gospel
to
every creature.”—That Gospel preaches to the
afflicted and the oppressed, patience and submis-
sion ;-it imparts blessings to the poor, the meek
and the persecuted ;--but its preaching is also “ to
humble the pride, to abase the haughtiness of
man”;-to disarm the tyrant of his power;--to
L


146
break the rod of oppression ;—"to bring down
the mountains and to exalt the vallies;”-to es-
tablish justice, righteousness and mercy in the
earth.
But the unmutilated Gospel, in this highly
privileged portion of the British dominions may
still be preached without hazard to the highest as
well as lowest of the community, none daring to
make the boldest asserters of its uncompromising
requirements afraid. Here slavery, the most
daring and impious of all contemnors of the laws
both of God and man, may be safely attacked
from the christian pulpit--from thence also it may
be successfully attacked and have its death blow
speedily administered.
“Thirty-six years have elasped since the rights
of the slave have occupied the anxious attention
of the people of England ;-twenty years since the
British Legislature distinctly warned the slave
owners that it was resolved to better their con-
dition;- 'seventeen years since the Law lifted up
its voice to command that right and justice be
done them.”
“Not ONE STEP, however, has yet been made
towards a compliance with these warnings, or an
obedience to this command. How much longer
then' are we to wait in the expectation of these
infatuated men listening to us, and rousing them-
selves from that implicit reliance upon our care-
lessness, or timidity, or INSINCERITY, which it


147
must be owned our conduct has been too well
calculated to engender?”.
Is it not high time to resort to other more
decisive and effective measures? Is it not
high time that christians, (those to whom the
name truly belongs) should combine all their
efforts-should concentrate all the force of their
moral and christian principles in the strenuous
use of every means whereby themselves and their
country may be soonest purged of this deep pol-
lution? Is it not, most especially high time for
“the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord,” to inter-
pose, that this moral plague, may be stayed, before
this highly favoured land be smitten with a curse,
with a worse than Egyptian blindness and obdu-
racy? of which indeed there are already alarming
symptoms.
Let the worshippers of Mammon, propose a
league with this “enemy of all righteousness”-try
to modify and restrain and accommodate its ope-
rations to political interests and state expediency,
- but let christian Ministers give it no quarter,
but like Samuel, of old, hew this impious Agag
in pieces, which, exults as he did, in the confi-
dence that “the bitterness of death is over."
• See the Edinburgh Review, for March 1825, p. 214.


1
*


LETTER V.
On the importance of Associations for the purpose
of obtaining the cooperation of the
humbler classes.
We proceed to the recommendation of an
expedient for exciting a deeper and more general
interest in the extinction of slavery, which is of
no doubtful or mere imaginary utility. We have
positive proof that it is no romantic fruitless at-
tempt to persuade people to substitute East for
West India sugar before the equalization of the
duties upon both articles shall have rendered the
former the cheaper of the two.
It must be distinctly stated, that the experi-
ment has been already made, to a sufficient extent
to justify, and as far as it has been tried, to exceed
the expectations of its most sanguine advocates.
In one large manufacturing town, a very few
individuals, in the course of a few weeks, by the
employment of only a few hours in the day in
personal visits among their neighbours, obtained
the willing promises of about two thousand fami.
lies entirely to abstain, from that time forward,


150
from all farther consumption of West Indian
sugar so long as West Indian slavery continued
to exist. Similar visits have been made with
similar success in other towns and villages, but
the zeal of the visitors has been not a little damp-
ed by the consideration, that unless such a plan
of operation becomes general,--they may devote
every hour of every day of their lives to this occu-
pation, and yet, the labour, with regard to its
ultimate object, prove altogether vain ; since the
subtraction of a few thousands from fourteen
million consumers of British plantation sugar in
the united Kingdom, would produce no percep-
tible change in the condition of its wretched culti-
vators. It seems however sufficiently evident,
from the above experiment, that the extension of
these personal visits, especially among the hum-
bler classes, for the purpose of conveying infor-
mation on the subject of West Indian slavery
and on the support it derives from our consump-
tion of its produce, would effect an important
change in the condition of the cultivators and
prove also, that there is yet among us a large
portion of moral principle, right feeling, and chris-
tian charity. But, for the prompt exercise of that
moral principle, right feeling, and christian cha-
rity, with regard to the great object in question,
truth obliges us to confess that they will be
sought for most successfully among the poor and
labouring classes. Their superiors in station and


131
intelligence should blush to hear, that whilst they
themselves are unfeelingly or thoughtlessly grati-
fying their appetite with slave produce,-object-
ing, as many of the more opulent do, to the
substitution of East for West India
sugar,
because
they consider it a little more expensive,—that not
one in ten of their poor neighbours, who has
been informed upon the subject, hesitates to de-
clare the resolution to take no more slave cultiva-
ted sugar, though the sacrifice of a penny is much
more to them than that of a pound to the rich
economist ;-to hear moreover that many of them
express an entire willingness to abstain from sugar
altogether, should the supply of East India ever
fall short of the demand, rather than contribute in
ever so small a degree to the encouragement of
slavery. To this class of consumers, whose bill
of fare is so scanty, it should be remembered that
the relinquishment of sugar would be no inconsi-
derable privation, and the paying only a penny per
pound more for East India, than they have been
accustomed to pay for West India sugar (though
of an inferior quality) is no contemptible sacrifice
to principle on their part. Of the value of a penny
to thousands and tens of thousands, in this land
of opulence, many of the higher and middle ranks
have little idea. It may appear both cruel and
absurd to engage the poor in this confederacy
against West India sugar, especially as their indi-
vidual consumption is comparatively so trifling ;


162
but the apathy which so generally prevails among
the higher and middle ranks has forced the deter-
mined advocates for a speedy extinction of slavery
upon this expedient, quite satisfied that there is
nothing in it either cruel or absurd, since it is to
them perfectly clear, from the common principles
of justice, that we have none of us any right to
retain our gratifications, our comforts, or even our
health, at the expense of the comfort, the health,
the liberty and the lives of our unoffending
fellow-creatures.
Nothing but personal observation can fully
demonstrate the efficacy of these personal appeals
to the humanity of the humbler classes in the
cause of Negro emancipation. It would be too
much implicitly to rely on all the engagements
made in this quarter, for ever to renounce the use
of slave-cultivated sugar, though they were per-
fectly voluntary; but on the greater proportion,
the visitors cannot hesitate to depend, they were
made with such evident sincerity and earnestness.
Those who have heartily engaged in this work,
find no draw-back from the great satisfaction with
which it is attended, but that arising from the
want of general cooperation, and the coldness
and opposition they have to encounter where en-
couragement and support might most reasonably
have been expected. But coldness and oppo-
sition in one quarter, should incite to greater zeal
and perseverance in another.


153
It seems evident to demonstration, to those who
have made this experiment, that a general exten-
sion of these simple missionary labours among the
humbler classes, would do much to expedite the
great work of emancipation. By this means, the
consumption of slave-cultivated sugar might be
greatly diminished, and the resistance of self-
interest to the extinction of slavery would neces-
sarily diminish in exact proportion to the dimi-
nution of its profits ;-by this means the people
might be more generally incited to more earnest
petitions for a speedy emancipation; and should
the present Parliament fail to accomplish the
work, the exertions in question would do much
to prepare the way, at the next general Elec-
tion, for the choice of a Parliament more una-
nimous and devoted to the cause ;-they would
do much towards deciding the great body of
electors to withhold their suffrages from every
candidate who refused to pledge himself to vote
for a prompt and complete extinction of British
colonial slavery. How then can those who
attach such important consequences to the ex-
tension of these simple exertions, refrain from
inviting those who are themselves surrounded
with all the bounties of a kind Providence,
blessed with hearts to sympathize with the op-
pressed and miserable, with leisure and ability
to plead their cause ;-how can they refrain from
soliciting such, earnestly to engage in this pro-


154
fitable and delightful employment? -- profitable
and delightful they will certainly find it. Those
who enter heartily into it, will find it attended by
an abundant reward, will feel the force of that
divine benediction—"Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.”
To a few individuals, the labour of visiting
every family in a large town, for the purpose of
communicating information on the subject of sla-
very, (whether by the dissemination of tracts or
by verbal intelligence), may appear insurmount-
able; but the most difficult work is rendered easy
by methodical arrangement, and a proper division
of labour. Were large towns divided into dis-
tricts, on the plan of the Auxiliary Bible Societies,
the field for individual exertion might be cireum-
scribed within easy limits, and were proper means
employed by such as are most interested in the
cause in their own respective neighbourhoods, a
sufficient number of willing agents would doubt-
less present themselves. There is no novelty to
object to in this mode of proceeding. When
people are in earnest-when the business is ur-
gent, canvassing is commonly resorted to. And
what business, to a christian philanthropist, can
be imagined more urgent than that of putting a
speedy end to the crimes and miseries of West-
Indian slavery -- of rescuing eight hundred thou-
sand fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects from the
lowest abyss of moral and physical degradation


155
and wretchedness? This great deliverance, it is
evident, may be accelerated by simple means,
were they brought into general operation. It
does not appear to be the Divine will that this
work should be accomplished without human
agency. Human agency strenuously resists this
righteous undertaking, and human agency must
strenuously counteract that resistance. Instead,
therefore, of entering into nice calculations to
ascertain what exact proportion of diminished
consumption of West India sugar, would effect
its object, let us rather strive to secure such a
general rejection of it, as shall at once carry full
conviction to the slave-holder, that there is no
longer a market, on British ground, for that
luxury, the consumption of which constitutes the
main prop of his execrable tyranny, against which,
British feeling and British virtue are at length up
in arms, determined to give it no quarter.
Information to the humbler classes, on the
subject in question, is not lost labour, like too
much of that bestowed on their superiors in know-
ledge and station. They do not admit the strong
claims of justice, the clear rights of humanity,
without making any rational exertions to enforce
them ;—they do not listen to powerful arguments,
eloquent appeals in behalf of the poor Negro,
without putting forth a finger to lighten his heavy
burdens. No, the simple story of his aggravated
wrongs is sufficient to excite their sympathy,-


136
the simple information of the means whereby
those wrongs may be redressed, is sufficient, with
them, to determine their prompt and earnest
adoption.
On this rough but impressible ground, every
touch of the moral artist will tell ;-a very few
skilful strokes will produce an effect more striking
and durable than those which with greater labour
and ingenuity are impressed upon a smoother and
more polished surface.
Besides the evident tendency of the work we
so earnestly recommend, to promote its immediate
object, it is profitable on other accounts. It dis-
pels misapprehension and prejudice from the minds
of the visitors, opens them to conviction, reveals
the true character of the humbler ranks of the
community, of which so unworthy and false an
estimate is often drawn by those who keep aloof
from their habitations, and too often condemn a
whole class for the misconduct of a few indivi-
duals. It enables the visitors to estimate more
justly their own characters,mto weigh their own
great advantages against the great disadvantages
of their poor neighbours and to blush at the
comparison, when they see, as they often will,
that the one talent entrusted to the poor, is often
turned to better account than the five or the ten
committed to their superiors in station and edu-
cation. These visits are, of course, sometimes
painfully as well as pleasurably interesting. The


157
varied pictures they present of humble life have
their dark as well as light shades. They reveal
scenes of privation and suffering little suspected
by the prosperous to exist in this favoured
country; sometimes, doubtless, the consequence
of vice, or improvidence-often, of inevitable mis-
fortune, borne with edifying patience and resig-
nation. These visits, have also this great recom-
mendation, that they excite a kindly feeling of
sympathy and mutual good-will, which ought to
subsist between all the gradations of a christian
community from the highest to the lowest. They
improve the moral perceptions, enlarge the field
of christian benevolence, expand the breast of
christian charity, open fresh channels of useful-
ness, and shew how much more may be done in
this portion of the vineyard than many imagine.
They tend moreover to abate that pride and self-
complacency so common and so natural to those
who are raised ever so little above the common
level. They are a practical conformity to the
apostolic injunction, not to mind high things, but
to condescend to mén of low estate. Those who
are incredulous respecting the efficacy of these
visits, have only to make the experiment them-
selves, in order to be convinced that this is no
exaggerated statement of their utility.
Let those among the higher and middle ranks
who persist in the use of West India sugar, reflect
for a moment, how much their resistance obstructs


158
the motion of that simple yet powerful machinery
which humanity has constructed for accelerating
her great object. Those wheels which - seem
to drag and move so heavily, would run with
easy and rapid motion towards the accomplish-
ment of their design, were this clog of opposition
withdrawn. Until it is withdrawn, the machinery
will have to encounter much wear and tear, and
a double portion of energy will be requisite in its
main-springs and chief movers; in order to coun-
teract this resistance.
The arduous, though interesting and profitable
employment of canvassing, on this important bu-
siness, from house to house, which it is to be
hoped will soon become general throughout the
kingdom, — may be encountered with many a
sneer of contempt or ridicule by such as can be
patient, laborious and persevering in nothing but
their own interest or pleasure ;-but the true
Christian, though he may not himself have time,
or opportunity to join this little band of humble
pedestrians, will be careful to throw no discourage-
ment in their way. He will remember how
many great effects have resulted from apparently
slight causes. He will remember that it is not
by might or by power” but often by very hum-
ble instruments, that the great work of righteous-
ness is promoted. He knows that the “ still
small voice” of compassion and fellow feeling
which is scarcely audible to the ambitious and


159
b
the mercenary, is distinctly heard by many who
are of little account either in their own or in others
estimation. He knows that “ foolish things,
things that are not, -are (sometimes) chosen
to confound the wise, and to bring to nought
things that are.”
The cause of emancipation, has been pleaded in
the Senate by the wise, the eloquent, the noble.
Now, it is pleaded in the workshop and the
cottage, by women and children. And if it
please the Great Controller of all things,—who
accomplishes His purposes “ by many or by few,”
-by weak as well as by mighty instruments ;-
if it please Him to accompany these feeble ef-
forts, these apparently inadequate and trifling exer-
tions with His blessing, - doubtless, they will
prosper.
Here is a frightful monster, of enormous mag-
nitude and strength to be destroyed, which has
for ages desolated some of the fairest portions of
the earth ; blasted with malignant breath the vir-
tue and the happiness of millions of human beings:
In the course of these missionary visits, children have
been observed to pay particular attention to the unvarnished
story of West Indian oppression, and in some instances, to
encourage their parents not to use the produce of that op-
pression. A correspondent says, “The little son of a Clergy-
man (warmly interested in the cause,) collected subscriptions
for the “Female Negro Society; his sister, only seven
years of age, would go, if permitted by her Parents, to every
Cottage in the neighbourhood to persuade the people to leave
off slave gugar."
b


160
-hitherto, like the great Leviathan, it has scorned
and derided all the attacks of its adversaries.
" Its heart is hard as the nether mill-stone;”-
darts are counted as stubble; it laugheth at the
shaking of a spear;”-it marketh derision of the
strong shafts of truth, the arrows of conscience.
“ It esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten
wood;”--the force of reason, the claims of justice,
the authority of revelation, it setteth utterly at
naught. But the monster does not live upon air;
-though he keeps in his strong holds, he cannot
subsist without nourishment, and of that the
weakest of his adversaries may help to deprive
him. Though he is invulnerable to direct attack,
scorns alike the declamation of the orator, the
argument of the moralist, and the authority of
religion,-he may yet be subdued and vanquished
by fasting; by this means the most savage and
destructive monsters have been rendered tame
and innoxious ;--and thus, the most savage and
destructive of all monsters, brute or human, if van.
quished by no other means, may be starved to
death.
The People have combined to nourish and to
pamper
this
pest of civilized society ; this impious
contemnor of the laws both of God and man;
and the People must combine in its destruction.
Hitherto, it has subsisted upon the unremu-
nerated toil, the tears, the groans, and the blood of
millions of human beings. The chief production


161
and support of all that oppression and suffering
(the sweet juice of the sugar cane) has hitherto
been thoughtlessly consumed by a People calling
themselves christians,-boasting of their refine-
ment, their humanity,—proud of their own liberty.
But they can thoughtlessly consume it no longer;
the faithful delineation of the horrid system of
slave cultivation precludes for ever the thoughtless
consumption of its produce ;-and those who per-
sist in its consumption prove their pretensions to
superior refinement and humanity, to be vain boast-
ing,—their vaunted love of freedom, to be mere
selfish exultation in the possession of their own
rights, and cruel indifference to the rights of others.
But though the majority of the higher and
middle ranks of society should continue to dis-
courage the exertions which it is the object of
these pages to recommend ;-it is evident, from
the experiment adverted to, that there is a wide
field in which they may nevertheless be suc-
cessfully made.
The result of personal visits, among the poor
and labouring classes especially, has been, that
more than nine out of ten families have cheerfully
adopted the resolution, entirely to abstain from
the consumption of West India sugar.
We rejoice in the intelligence that associations
for carrying this object into more extensive exe-
cution are rapidly spreading in various parts of
the Kingdom. In Birmingham and its neigh-
M


169
bourhood, in Worcester, in Sheffield, in Col-
chester, Wednesbury, Calne, &c. and we cannot
more effectually promote their extension than by
presenting the public with the following copy
of the resolutions passed at the last mentioned
Town, originating with the wife of a highly
respectable Clergyman, which express a tender-
ness of feeling, fervour of zeal and enlightened
philanthropy, which should, in such a cause,
animate every christian bosom.
“ At a Meeting of Ladies, held in Calne, the
11th of August, 1825, the following re-
solutions were proposed and approved.
1st.-—That we form ourselves into a society for aiding
the cause of Negro emancipation, and for procuring the pro-
tection of the British law for all of the African race who are
living under the British dominion, and who in 1825 are per:
mitted, by ENLIGHTENED CHRISTIAN BRITAIN to taste of
whatever is most painful and dishonouring in the bitterness
of slavery.
2nd. That all persons subscribing from 5s. to 12s. and
upwards yearly, or two guineas at one time, be members of
this association, and be entitled to receive one copy of the
Anti-slavery Reporter.
3rd.—That the business of this society be conducted by
a Treasurer, two Secretaries and a Committee of eight district
collectors, who shall have power to add to their number;
and three of whom shall be competent to act : and that the
Treasurer and Secretaries be members of the Committee in
virtue of their office.


163
4th-That the Committee shall meet once a quarter on
a day to be fixed by themselves ; and that there be an annual
meeting of this society, when the accounts shall be presented,
the proceedings of the last year reported, and the Treasurer,
Secretaries, Committee and assistant Visitors be chosen for
the ensuing year.
5th.-That the Members of this society will encourage
by their example, as well as by their influence, the use of the
produce of free labour in preference to that of slave labour;
and that the collectors, and visitors, be requested to recom-
mend to the inhabitants of the several districts into which
this Town and Neighbourhood shall be divided, to adopt the
same measure.
1
6th.—That it be the special business of the Committee
to disseminate throughout this place and neighbourhood, and
wherever their influence shall extend, authentic information
respecting the nature and baneful effects of the present system
of slavery, particularly in our own West India Colonies; and
that they are authorized (subject to the approval of a general
meeting) to adopt such farther measures as shall appear to
them to be calculated to forward the objects of this society.
1
7th.-That
every Member of this society be furnished
with the Supplement and Postscript to the Royal Jamaica
Gazette of the 21st of June, 1823, and with Mr. Clarkson's
Arguments founded on the same, and from time to time with
such other documents as may serve to shew the evils of
slavery, and the guilt of England in continuing a system, the
parent of so many crimes.
8th-That deeply impressed with the extremity of
wretchedness endured by the deserted Negro Slaves who
are worn out with labour or incurable disease, this associa-
tion will apply some portion of its funds to the alleviation of


164
their distress through the medium, in the first instance of the
association for the relief of distressed Negroes in Antigua.
9th.—That this society will continue its exertions in aid
of the cause of Negro Emancipation, till the time may come
when the unhappy children of Africa, shall no longer be
treated as beasts, no longer be bought and sold and branded
like cattle; and when the torturing and degrading cart whip
shall no longer fall on the persons of helpless Negro Slaves :
and when the Negro Mother, living under British Govern-
ment, shall press a free born infant in her arms.
Lest the zealous originator of these admirable
resolutions should be mistaken for an advocate of
gradual emancipation, we will venture to quote
her own words on the subject, in a letter to a
Friend. “ Men may propose only gradually to
abolish the worst of crimes, and only mitigate the
most cruel bondage, but why should we counte-
nance such enormities by speaking of them in such
acquiescing, unscriptural, heartless terms ? --- If
we hope for the blessing of God on our under-
taking, we must not talk of gradually abolishing
murder, licentiousness, cruelty, tyranny, keeping
stolen men, parting husbands and wives, &c, &c.
I trust no Ladies' association will ever be found
with such words attached to it.”


LETTER VI.
To the Friends of Immediate Emancipation.
Finally, we call upon all whose judgments are
convinced, whose heads and hearts approve the
proposition of immediate emancipation, to be
bold in advocating it;—to beware of that spurious
candour, that pusillanimous courtesy which com-
promises principle, and betrays weakness or in-
sincerity. A cause so righteous and so urgent
should be supported with dignity and firmness, as
well as zeal. If the encouragement of slavery
by the voluntary consumption of its produce be
criminal in you, it is also criminal in others : if
they are unconscious of its guilt, it is your duty
by every means in your power to awaken the
conviction.
When the consequences of this practice are
taken into the account, we can imagine few more
directly opposed to the sacred rule of doing to
others as we would they should do unto us, con-
sequently, few more criminal. Those who con-
tend for its innocence, after being acquainted with
the real nature of that iniquitous system which
it tends directly to encourage and perpetuate, must


166
substitute vain imaginations in the place of re-
alities ; — must behold the awful characters of
Justiceand Righteousness in masquerade, their in-
flexible aspect and unbending attitude exchanged
for indiscriminating smiles and unbounded ac-
commodation.
After the broad exposure of the complicated
wickedness of slavery, we cannot but regard the
consumption of its produce as a wilful aiding and
abetting of that complicated wickedness; we can-
not but regard the exhibition of that produce for
sale, in this enlightened and christian country
as a mark of barbarism, a reproach and stigma
upon the national character. We have no moral
right to the productions of slavery; they are, in
the very worst sense, stolen goods, and the receiver
or purchaser, knowing them to be stolen, is as
guilty as the thief.
This language may be considered as intem-
perate and offensive, but truth requires it. By a
misplaced liberality, an unwillingness to sit in
judgment upon others, with regard to the practice
in question, the requisitions of humanity and jus-
tice are compromised to politeness, to the arbi-
trary claims of what is falsely called good manners.
The best manners taught in the christian school,
are those which on a subject so important, teach
every man to speak the truth to his neighbour.” It
is cowardice and treachery, in such a cause, to with-
hold it. It is better to offend than to flatter where


167
there is no alternative. Those who have seen the
consumption of slave produce to be criminal, are
bound, by consistency, to protest against it, as
such, by every method of temperate reasoning and
gentle remonstrance which is best calculated to
convince.
The consistent friends of immediate emanci-
pation will not pusillanimously yield to the pre-
vailing disposition to keep the subject in the back
ground, but will watch for opportunities of intro-
ducing it, “In season, out of season.” Those
who are sincere in this righteous cause will be
earnest ;-their earnestness is the only test of
their sincerity. To say to the destitute, “ Be ye
warmed and be ye clothed,” without affording
the means of relief, is the language of cant and
hypocrisy—and to be professed advocates for im-
mediate emancipation, without making the neces-
sary exertions for its accomplishment, is equally
canting and hypocritical.
We have endeavoured to shew that the final
extinction of British colonial slavery may be
greatly accelerated by very simple means, but to
bring those simple means into effectual operation
will be an arduous task. The comparative small-
ness of the numbers at present engaged in it must
be supplied by individual energy and determined
perseverance.
In one decisive, consistent, immediate abolition-


168
ist there may be the concentrated foree of thou-
sands of timid, passive, gradual abolitionists. In
the evident right, the manifest justice of imme-
diate emancipation, there is every thing to inspire
hope and confidence, to give heart and soul to the
enterprise. The day, we trust, is not far distant
when the great leaders of the anti-slavery society
will transfer all the weight of their talents and
influence from the weak and hopeless cause of
gradual to that of immediate emancipation. In
the mean time, let its present advocates put forth
all their strength, make the best of their resources
and take every rational means of augmenting
their numbers. Above all, let them constantly
recur to those divine principles, those solemn
christian obligations which can alone sustain
those disinterested, energetic and persevering ex-
ertions which the cause so urgently demands.
Let it never be forgotten, that the crimes
and miseries inseparable from slavery are in no
degree diminished because they cease to excite
the shuddering horror produced by their first
recital. In the cause of the poor Negro, feeling
may fluctuate, natural sympathy may decline,
but exertion need not; that may be uniformly
sustained by the unvarying principle of christian
duty. The Friends of immediate emancipation,
know and are sure that the object for which they
contend is a righteous one, they may therefore


169
contend for it confidently. They have an invi-
sible but unerring leader, whose word of com-
mand—“Whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” is their
sufficient warrant, and they fear no consequences;
-they have no painful drawbacks to anticipate
from the triumphs of victory ;--for theirs, will
not only be a bloodless triumph, but will ulti-
mately entail blessings upon the vanquished as
well as the victors.
The profession of christianity, having, for a
long course of years, been made at a cheap rate,
without
any of those heroic and painful sacrifices
by which in former ages it was inevitably
attended, its professors have multiplied till chris-
tianity seems to be the broad instead of the nar-
row way; but the arduous work now in hand,
will divide this promiscuous crowd, and separate
the dooers from the mere hearers of the word.
We trust that the former will prove that there is
still nerve and sinew enough in christian arms
to pull down the strong holds of slavery,to
shake the pillars of this Dagon-temple—and to
raze it to its foundation.
But it should ever be remembered that as this
is a contest of right against might,—of humanity
and justice against sordid interest and lawless
power ;-as it is a christian not a political struggle
-it must therefore be, maintained by christian
exertions ;--that as the crime of slavery owes its


170
origin and support to unrestrained selfishness
(the most relentless and cruel of all human pro-
pensities) it can only be expelled by the opposite
virtue of disinterested christian charity.
It has subsisted hitherto upon the connivance
and support of the British public-and will
(humanly speaking) continue to subsist until
that connivance and support are withdrawn-and
no longer. No bounties, or protecting duties, or
military force can uphold this execrable tyranny
when the people refuse its produce. And though
its immediate extinction can alone be effected by
an act of the Legislature, such an Act could not
be withheld were the people loud and unanimous
in calling for it. Hitherto, there has been no
such call ;- even for its gradual extinction, the
voice of the people has hitherto been very parti-
ally and feebly raised. It is a remarkable and
reproachful fact, that the ample disclosures of the
horrid nature of West Indian slavery, have not,
hitherto, produced one third of the number of
petitions against it which appeared against Lord
Sidmouth's bill for fettering the Dissenters.
This disgraceful apathy, the immediate abolitionists
must labour to dispel ;-they must strive to arouse
and to keep alive the public interest in the speedy
extinction of slavery ;--to incite without delay,
such general, reiterated and strong petitions upon
the subject to both Houses of Parliament as shall
convince Government that the petitioners are in


171
e
good earnest ;--they must employ every means
in their power to discourage the consumption of
slave produce, sugar, more especially ; --- they
must caution the public against the various at-
tempts to practice upon their credulity by the
imposition of sugar, cultivated under the worst
system of slavery, for that of free labour.
А
very able and indefatigable advocate for the
extinction of slavery, in a printed Address to the
Society of Friends, (alluding to the important
benefits which the Anti-slavery cause would
derive from the abolition of the restrictive duties
on the productions of free labour) says, “ An
entire abstinence from the use of slave-grown
produce would be equally, or even more effectual.”
If so great be the importance of such abstinence,
it is surely an urgent duty earnestly to recom-
mend and promote it. And in order effectually
to guard against imposition and to prove that the
Abolitionists are at length in good earnest,-
strongly principled against all lukewarm, pusil-
lanimous, half measures; we would suggest the
expediency of endeavouring, without delay, to
prevail on the Grocers in their respective neigh-
bourhoods, to pledge themselves to abandon the
sale of slave-cultivated sugar (such pledge, if
general, would involve no pecuniary sacrifice)
e That of the Mauritius is of this description, and is very
generally imposed upon the unwary public as free grown
East-India sugar.


172
and in every town - where no such pledge could
be obtained of them, to secure, as speedily as
possible, some other agent who shall engage to
supply the public with no sugar but what is the
genuine produce of free labour.
The zealous consistent advocates of a speedy
emancipation will adopt every rational expedient
for accelerating its accomplishment. Their abhor-
rence of slavery will be strongly marked. They
will especially discourage, by every means in their
power, the consumption of that luxury by which
the inhuman system is mainly upheld. They
will endeavour to fix a stigma upon its merchan-
dize ;-to withdraw, as much as possible, the
public countenance and support from those shops
where it is exhibited for sale and give every
encouragement to those from which it is consci-
entiously excluded.
Measures so decisive, would probably draw
upon their supporters no stinted share of censure
and opposition, which, in such a cause, will be
cheerfully encountered. Charity, true christian
charity, is not a mere passive sentiment of kind-
ness and general good-will;-it is an active, cou-
rageous, self-denying principle, and its exertions
will be proportioned to the importance and ur-
gency of the claims which are made upon it. It will
be difficult to sustain that steady and earnest interest
required for the support of these various continued


173
3
exertions, in a cause where no personal interest
i is at stake. It will be difficult, we admit, but
2
not impossible. It will require effort, strenuous
effort, to make christian principle supply the
place of self-interest and evanescent feeling. But
in the consideration of our strict responsibility,–
in the spirit-stirring motives of the Gospel-in
the recollection that we are
compassed about
| with a great cloud of witnesses,”—that the eyes
i
of Angels, and of God Himself, are upon us,
there is enough to stimulate our languishing zeal,
to incite us to do violence to that natural indo-
lence and selfishness, without which it is utterly
impossible to be his disciples who requires his
followers to take their daily cross. And let it ever
B
be remembered, that the most arduous toils of
christian duty are not unattended, even in the
actual performance, with a sweet recompense of
reward. The faithful labourer in his Lord's vine-
yard, receives “ a hundred fold, now, in the present
time.”
In the hardest conflicts in a righteous
cause, there is more satisfaction than in inglorious
rest. And it is animating to think that the
success of the great contest between the sup-
porters and opposers of slavery, depends not on
the physical or political strength of the combatants,
but that its decision rests with the uc God of
battle,”—who enables one, in a righteous cause,
“ to chase a thousand."
Had it been the Divine will, (as some who
3


174
bear the name of christian ministers have im-
piously asserted) that the slavery of the unhappy
African race should be perpetuated,--would such
a general sympathy have been awakened for their
sufferings ?--would such an ardent zeal have been
kindled for their emancipation ? - Would the
wisest and best men in the nation have been con-
strained to devote themselves, as they have done,
to the Anti-slavery cause ?-No, certainly. The
great Lord of the household does not call his
servants to work, and direct their operations,
where their labour shall prove fruitless. If it be
not crowned with immediate success, it is to exer-
cise their patience, to stimulate, not to relax their
exertions, assured, as they ought to be, that
their labours shall not, ultimately, be in vain.
Why was the command to love one another, so
often reiterated by Christ to his Disciples ? Not
that the principle should lie dormant and inactive,
that it should exist only as a sentiment or a feel-
ing --but to urge them to labour, arduous perse-
vering labour for each other's welfare.
The speedy liberation of eight hundred thou.
sand captives from the strong grasp of West
Indian slavery, is a different but not impracticable
work; the resistance though great is not insur-
mountable ;-it may be permitted to try the sin-
cerity, zeal and constancy of the abolitionists. In
1
0
See “The House of Bondage," by B. Baily, A. M.


175
the mean time, whilst earnestly endeavouring to
do their own part, they may cheerfully commit
these unresisting victims of the most inhuman
oppression to the parental care of Him whose
“tender mercies are over all his works ; ' --who
“heareth the sighing of the prisoner;" — who
“ feedeth the young ravens that cry unto him;”
and without whom, “not a sparrow falleth to the
ground:"-who can, and doubtless does afford,
by means not subject to human inspection or
comprehension, mitigation and support under
oppresion and suffering, when all human re-
sources fail.
This great deliverance could, we know, be
wrought in a moment, by a single volition of the
Sovereign will : -- but that Sovereign will has or-
dained that the great purposes of his moral Go-
vernment shall be accomplished by moral agents.
In the moral as in the natural world, a regular suc-
cession of cause and effect are established. For
the manifestation of Divine omnipotence, to prove
that nothing can resist His will, He sometimes
breaks that connexion,-interrupts the general
order of His providence,works alone,--accom-
plishes his designs by miraculous intervention.
But these are rare deviations from the established
course of thingsare not to be expected,--do
not, in the least, exonerate us from labour,-from
the diligent use of the appointed means ;-~though


177
with horror at the frightful representation,-but
they awoke, “and behold it was a dream.”
Really to believe and to know, that our fellow-
creatures are actually suffering under the iron
yoke of so inhuman a bondage--and to rest satis-
fied with cold prudential plans for the mitigation
of their sufferings,- for their gradual emanci-
pation ;-calculating that their enfranchisement
will ultimately be wrought out by the slow ope-
ration of natural causes, — by the more enlight-
ened speculations of the self-same principle of
selfish, sordid interest, which first tore them from
their home and country, and has, ever since, held
them in bondage !-exclaiming, that it is prema-
ture to call upon their neighbours to refuse the
luxury produced by the over-strained sinews, the
groans and the blood of the poor Negro, until
they can obtain an adequate supply of the same
luxury on cheaper terms by free labour !-is not
to act the christian's part ;-is not to obey the
injunctions of their Divine Lawgiver. No it is
to trifle with the sublime precepts of his religion,
-as well as with the wretched objects of their
pretended commiseration.
We cannot but regard with great jealousy and
distrust all expedients for the extinction of slavery,
which are suffered, in any degree, to supersede the
prompt exertions of christian duty ;-to direct the
public attention to remote causes for the accom-
plishment of a change which ought immediately
1
1
1
N


178
to be effected. We must solemnly protest against
all unnecessary delay ; --against all farther pro-
crastinating propositions which would defer a
present duty to a future opportunity ; -- which
would overlook the obvious and certain means of
its accomplishment, in quest of remote and uncer-
tain ones. The deep crime and broad stigma of
BRITISH SLAVERY, (humanly speaking), might
long since have been eradicated but for this plead-
ing for time,- for prudence and caution; this
deprecation of precipitancy ;--the exclusion of
passion and feeling from the anti-slavery, councils
and the admission of cold calculating policy in
their stead. On the atrocious injustice and
cruelty of slavery, passion and feeling have a right
to be heard; on such a business, they properly
belong to the executive department, and are essen-
tially necessary to carry the requisitions of hu-
manity, religion and justice into prompt execution.
On such a subject, a christian, how męekly soever
duty requires him to bear his own personal ini
juries, may justify the utmost fervour of zeal; he
may “ do well, to be angry”-that the natural,
civil, and religious rights of the poor Negro are
so long, so cruelly, so reproachfully withheld from
him, after having been so fully recognized.
We would in no degree discourage such, es-
tablishments as that of the “ Tropical free labour.
company,”—-far otherwise ; ---they seem admirably
adapted, in, subserviency to the operation of


179
higher principles) to promote the grand design of
their enlightened and philanthropic projectors,
that of the extinction of slavery throughout the
world. We are only anxious that the friends of
Negro emancipation should not build too confi.
dently on their result ;--that the sanguine expec-
tation of their final success, should induce no
relaxation in the exertion of other means more di-
rectly appropriate and of quicker operation. We
can discern no shadow of reason why the emanci-
pation of our own slaves should be suffered to
hang at all in suspense on the success of any such
experiments. On the principles of eternal justice,
they have a PRESENT RIGHT to emancipation;
by the express commands of our Supreme Law-
giver we are bound to impart it. With that right,
and those commands, we have trifled too long;
emancipation has already been too long withheld;
---by every principle of religion, humanity and
justice, we are bound to withhold it no longer ;
we are bound to enforce it by the prompt and
earnest exertions of christian charity, without
waiting till it is wrought out in the common
course of events by the gradual operation of
natural causes or commercial speculations.
In the course of an animated speech delivered
by Lord Calthorpe, at the last Anniversary Meet-
ing of the Anti-slavery Society, he observed, that,
6 Whoever reflected for a moment upon the vast
results which public opinion can produce, could
1


180
not doubt that if the People of England did but
WILL it to be so, slavery would cease. Whoever
reflected upon the vast influence which the middle
classes can 'exercise in this country, could not
hesitate in believing that if they were once to say
-THIS MUST NOT BE,' there would, at once, be
AN END TO SLAVERY. For, supported as the
principle of emancipation is, in and out of Par-
liament, SLAVERY COULD NOT LAST A YEAR
IF THE MIDDLE CLASSES ONCE EXPRESSED A
DECIDED OPINION AGAINST IT."
This DECIDED OPINION, by a general rejec-
tion of the productions of slavery, would be ex-
pressed in a DECIDED MANNER; in a manner so
decided, that were it simultaneously as well as
generally expressed; in conjunctions with petitions
and strong remonstrances to the Legislature, there
would be an end at once to British slavery.
Its complete extinction, through these simple
means, embraces so many and great advantages,
obviates . so many and insuperable difficulties
which obstruct the design of gradual emancipa-
tion, that the mind is overwhelmed by the amazing
disparity between the insignificance of the means
and the vast importance of the various benefits
combined in the end. In the first place, it will
be a bloodless triumph over the most barbarous
and sanguinary of all despotisms. It will expel
the deepest national crime and disgrace, exalt the
national honour and glory without any sacrifice


181
of life or treasure. It will prove that no force can
resist the force of public principle when vigorously
exerted ;-that neither fleets nor armies, nor pro-
tecting duties, can uphold oppression, when the
PEOPLE have virtue enough to resist it. It will
expose the weakness as well as wickedness of
cruelty, and prove that humanity and justice are
stronger safeguards than arbitrary and licentious
power.
It will administer to the slave-holders,
not retributive but corrective justice, and compel
them to reform themselves.





THOUGHTS
ON COMPENSATION.
THERE is among the higher and middle ranks of
society so prevailing a disposition to admit the
justice of the claims of the Planters to compen-
sation, in the event of the emancipation of their
slaves--and principles of so much importance are
involved in the admission, that the subject seems
entitled to distinct consideration.
Nothing ever exhibited more conspicuously
the force of prejudice and custom--the power of
wealth and station to blind the understanding and
pervert the judgment, than the general admission
of these claims among those who have no interest
whatever in the question; among the enlightened,
the disinterested, the conscientious portion of the
community
“ Not that the Planters should be required to
manumit their slaves, especially on a sudden,
without compensation. It would be robbery, under


184
the garb of mercy, to compel one class of indivi-
duals to atone for the injustice of a nation,”-says
the very liberal and intelligent Adam Hodgson,
after describing the horrid injustice and cruelty of
slavery in the darkest colours !!6
Many of the Planters, we are told, are “ men
of education and liberal attainments”-of huma-
nity,—" anxious as the Abolitionists themselves,
for the religious instruction of their slaves."
What then ? Are the moral qualities of actions
changed by the circumstances or acquirements,
or even by the virtues of the actors? Do injus-
tice and cruelty lose their turpitude when prac-
ticed or sanctioned by men of “education and
liberal attainments ?” Is robbery a punishable,
a capital crime in the poor uneducated vulgar,
and is its guilt cancelled when perpetrated by
gentlemen ?
Shall we admit the propriety,
the necessity, of guarding our money and house-
hold goods from depredation by the severest
penalties - by imprisonments,
imprisonments, transportations
and sanguinary executions, and shall MEN
STEALERS, PURCHASERS, or KEEPERS OF STO-
LEN MEN-ROBBERS, OR WITHHOLDERS OF
THEIR FELLOW - CREATURES' LIBERTY (the
dearest treasure they possess)—be not only
exempt from punishment, but entitled to com-
PENSATION for the relinquishment of their
human prey ?
$ See Letters from North America, page 200.


185
When will British justice become in award
and execution what she is in representation,
hood-winked, even-handed, impartial justice?
When will the enlightened, the benevolent, the
christian world, judge and speak and act, with-
out “respect of persons?”. When will punish-
ment be equitably proportioned to crime? When
will the advantages of rank, fortune and education
be regarded (as they ought to be) aggravations,
instead of extenuations of rapacity and injustice ?
When will poverty, ignorance and necessity be
admitted to plead in mitigation, rather than aggra-
vation of punishment ?
“ By emancipation without compensation, one
party will be benefited at the expense of the
other.” Certainly it will, (temporarily at least).
And how are the violated rights of justice, in any
case, to be restored? How are usurpation and
robbery to be effectually restrained but by the
suffering of the offending party? Where the
parties at issue are the robbed and the robber,
how can justice be done to either, without taking
from the one and restoring to the other? By
emancipation we shall benefit the slave at the ex-
pense of the slave-holder,--the injured, at the
expense of the injurer. Can the designs either
of justice or of mercy be otherwise accom-
plished ? Sin, must be corrected by suffering.
The offender becomes penitent by feeling the con-
sequence, the just reward of his offence. The


186
[
T
C
C
.
.
0
slave-holder will neither be softened nor reformed
whilst he retains his unrighteous possessions.
“ Can one be pardoned yet retain the offence"?
But compensation for the relinquishment of the
most criminal and injurious of all usurpations is
a virtual cancelment of its guilt—a full admission
of the right of the usurper.
The Divine Law, required that restitution
should be made by the robber fourfold ; - he was
not merely obliged to resign his theft, but made
to smart for it in a way best adapted to restrain
and to cure his rapacity. Human wisdom will
never find a better means of curing every species
of injustice and oppression. But emancipation
falls most indulgently short of this wholesome
rigour ;-~it does not amount even to simple resti-
tution ;-(alas ! that would require à price which
the riches of all the planters would be insufficient
to repay: not the wealth of the Indies would
suffice to make simple restitution for all the de-
gradation, suffering and anguish involved in
slavery)--but emancipation leaves the usurper in
undisturbed possession of the unrighteous gain
he has hitherto acquired, and only interposes a
check to farther acquisitions.
Did the planters' illgotten, illretained pro-
perty consist of inert matter,--of bags of stolen
gold, of land or houses, of whole cities or pro-
vinces fraudulently obtained ;--or did it consist
of mere animal live stock, of eight hundred thou-
[


189
mation but for the money it will bring ;-educa-
tion and liberal attainments, not only exempt
their possessors from punishment who thus deal
with their fellow-man, because they have the power
thus to deal with him, because their human.
victim is too weak and helpless to resist ; -but
are also allowed to confer a right to compensation
for the relinquishment of those forced unremu-
nerated labours to which the claimants were
never, for a moment, justly entitled ;—for the re-
storation of that liberty which they never for a
moment had a right to withhold !!
But, “it would be robbery under the garb of
mercy to compel one class of individuals to atone
for the injustice of a nation.”
That slave-holding
is a national as well as individual crime, we fully
admit; inasmuch as the nation has suffered, con-
nived at, and encouraged it;-but the individual
crime is neither cancelled nor diminished by
national sufferance, connivance and encourage-
ment. Those who entertain a contrary opinion
are not aware of the dangerous, the impious con-
sequences involved in it. It renders right and
wrong, virtue and vice, dependent, not on any
inherent principles of moral rectitude, but on the
arbitrary, capricious standard of human allowance
and opinion. It intimates that actions are inno-
cent or guilty, good or evil, not as they are con-
formable or opposed to the laws of immutable
righteousness, but as they are conformable or op-


190
posed to the ever-varying laws of human policy ;-
in short, it virtually goes the length of excluding
the Great Creator from the legislation of His in-
telligent creatures ; - implies that they are ame-
nable at the bar of human judgment alone, and
leads directly to practical Atheism. It goes to
establish the conclusion that all practices are al-
lowable and right, which are suffered to pass un-
punished by human law, uncensured by public
opinion.
The disinterested, benevolent and conscien-
tious portion of the community, by advocating
the claims of the Planters to compensation, are
acting (unconsciously indeed, but most effectually)
the part of the grand deceiver and betrayer of
mankind;-standing between the criminal and the
convictions of his own conscience, which the ex-
pected arrest of his headlong course of ruthless
oppression would tend to awaken, and saying to
the alarmed and self convicted criminal, just
aroused to the sense of the accumulated suffering
from the frightful mass of moral and physical
wretchedness which his cruel selfishness and
sordid avarice have inflicted on his unoffending
helpless brother ;--stung, it may be to the soul,
with remorse and contrition ;-terrified with the
sight of the flaming sword of Divine Justice,
which the spiritual blindness induced by prospe-
rity and impunity, till now prevented his behold-
ing; with the hand writing also of heaven ap-


191
pearing against him in characters more appalling
than those which blanched the cheek of the vo-
luptuous Belshazzar, and caused his knees to
“şmite one against the other;" -proclaiming
retributive justice, in full measure ;
-recompense,
to the eternal world, now opening to his view ;-
justice to the oppressed ----and judgment to the
oppressor.”
To hold out comPENSATION for arresting the
gains of the most inhuman tyranny, the most
barbarous oppression ever exercised in any age or
nation,-is to say, in effect, to the slave-holder,
as the grand deceiver said to our first progenitor,
“Thou shalt not surely die,”-in other words,
Thou hast committed no crime in exercising thy
power to oppress and afflict instead of protecting
thy weak and unoffending brother ;--thou hast
committed no crime~and shalt not only incur no
punishment; but shalt receive COMPENSATION for
any loss thou mayest sustain from the restoration
of thy wretched captives, to that liberty and those
just rights, which, though withheld by no law of
equity, but by that power alone :-yet, thy coun-
try, having suffered thee hitherto to abuse that
power, heks is the guilt, AND SHE SHALL PAY
THE PENALTY!!
We assert, therefore in spite of all “ the smooth
emolients which downy doctors,” wise politicians,
eloquent orators, and sympathising friends may
administer, to, allay the pains of conviction, andi


193
without delay, to such as are still within reach
of human compensation, who have not yet
66 shaken off this mortal coil”-and passed into
that state 66 where the wicked cease from troub-
ling, and the weary are at rest.”
Though “ambition mock”-and “grandeur
scorn with disdainful smile”-the privileges and
enjoyments of which slavery has deprived the poor
Negro; yet let it be remembered that He who
“ appoints the bounds of our habitation,” has or-
dained that “ man shall not live by bread alone;"
—that his true enjoyment shall not depend on the
possession of rank or fortune ;-on the adven-
titious refinements of artificial society ;-but, on
conformity to the laws of his Creator written on
his heart, which produce in the wild Indian and
untutored savage, whilst undebauched by the
treacherous corrupting acts of European refine-
ment, fruits of disinterested kindness, generosity
and magnanimity, which might shame the pro-
fessors of a purer faith. Liberty and independence,
therefore, may be as dear-as productive of real
enjoyment to the poor Negro, as to his lordly
master ;--- and the crime of withholding them
from the one, is as great as that of withholding
them from the other. Let not the latter, there-
fore, by a misdirected sympathy and perverted
liberality, be tempted to delude himself with the
false imagination, the preposterous conceit, that
he is “more sinned against than sinning;”—
o


195
1
1
1
of the man, to the amount of a few shillings ;-
the stealer of the MAN HIMSELF, or the HOLDER
of him when STOLEN, in cruel and ignominious
bondage, --could not be held guiltless ;--could
not, before required to relinquish a species of
robbery in comparison of the turpitude of which
all other robberies are innocent, be suffered to
claim COMPENSATION ;-the people of England,
the enlightened, philanthropic, christian people of
England, the professed advocates of the poor
Negro, could not listen to a claim so audacious ;
could not admit it,--incorporate it into their
petitions for emancipation, and by so doing,
virtually admit the justice of man stealing, or of
withholding from him his best earthly possession,
and subjecting him to the utmost extreme of
degradation and wretchedness.
Admit the justice of compensation in this
quarter, and you dash to the ground, and trample
underfoot those sacred principles of eternal jus-
tice for which the abolitionists have been hitherto
contending. Admit the slave-holders claims to com-
pensation, and you admit the justice of slavery;
you not only compromise, but sacrifice the great
fundamental laws of righteousness; you surrender
right and reason to bold and insolent pretension,
h We have been informed that the petitions preparing in
Birmingham and other places, for the approaching Session of
Parliament, admit the Planters' claims to compensation.


196
and open a wide door to all sorts of weak conces-
sions and criminal compliances.
Common robbers and highwaymen, every
description of public depredators, may with equal
reason and justice claim and receive compensation
before they renounce their respective professions
- with more reason and justice; - since poverty
and want may have plunged them into crime, and
without it they may be utterly destitute of
the means of subsistence. They, like the slave-
holder, have, many of them, been initiated by
education and circumstances into habits of think-
ing and acting incompatibly (but not so incom-
patibly as he has) with the principles of moral recti-
tude~ their property also (such as it is) has,
like his, been embarked in nefarious speculations,
on the stability and success of which their subsis-
tence may wholly depend. But are these consi-
derations for a moment admitted as excuses, as
pleas in bar of judgment, in arrest of punishment,
when the peculators are detected ? — Are they
allowed to entitle the delinquents to compensation
before they shall be required to abandon their
career of depredation? “But the occupation of
this class of offenders has been interdicted and
proscribed by the laws of the land, and the em-
barkation of capital in slavery has never been so
interdicted or proscribed." True, it has not.
The laws of the land have sanctioned and encou-
raged it, consequently they cannot, and they ought


197
1
3
not to punish it. But the speculation is not, on
that account, at all the less criminal in a moral
point of view ;--- it is not, on that account, at all
less opposed to the laws of religion, of humanity,
of justice. It is for the paramount obligation of
these laws,—the immutable laws of our Creator
and Divine Legislator, that we are contending.
Against any admissions or concessions which
tend to weaken or supersede their authority, and
to give to human legislation the precedency in the
public estimation the strongest protest ought to
be entered.
But we protest against compensation to the
slave-holder on civil and political, as well as moral
and religious grounds, for it has been proved to
demonstration that ultimately he need be no loser,
but, on the contrary; a great gainer, by cultivating
his grounds with freemen instead of slaves, and
stimulating their labour by the just recompense
of wages, instead of the impulse of the cart-whip.
The emancipation of his slaves will in no other
way ruin the planter than as he obstinately rushes.
upon his own ruin, by madly refusing to conform
to a more wise and humane policy.
These free observations are dictated by no hos-
tile feeling towards the slave-holder or his apolo-
gists; but there are occasions which require that
plain truth should be uttered in plain and in strong
language—and this is one. The softening, quali-
fying language of conciliation and concession has


198
been tried long enough-a great deal too long.
How has it operated ? How is it still operating
on the parties concerned ? It has neither softened
nor conciliated, on the contrary, it has irritated
and provoked scorn, contempt, insult and defi-
ance. The violent prejudices and ferocious pas-
sions which the language of conciliation and con-
cession was intended to subdue, have, by that
means been confirmed and exasperated; prejudice
has become more malignant - passion more fu-
rious; like flames which blaze out higher and
hotter on which oil is thrown instead of water.
See how the slave-holding spirit was affected
on the receipt of the very conciliatory and conced-
ing recommendations and orders in council trans-
mitted to the colonists by Earl Bathurst. See
how it exhibited itself in Jamaica, in Demerara,
in Barbadoes. In the first, how it bearded, set
at nought, and put to defiance, not the Govern-
ment of England and the King's Ministers alone,
but the Monarch himself. In Demerara, see in
what torrents of Negro blood it wreaked its das-
tardly vengeance ;-how it glutted itself with
massacres, executions and fiend-like lacerations,
at the bare idea of which humanity sickens. With
what malignant, relentless hate it persecuted unto
death the mild minister of the religion of peace
and love. In Barbadoes, see how its fury was
sublimated to madness,“ breathing out threat-
i See the Royal Jamaica Gazette, Nov. 1–8, 1823.


199
!
1
+
1
1
1
!
ning and slaughter,”-trampling on all authority,
human and divine--boasting, exulting in havoc
and destruction ;-blaspheming the sacred name,
by appealing for Divine confirmation of their
hellish resolution to expel christianity, by hunting
down its faithful Ministers like beasts of prey ;-
to persecute, “ to exterminate by fire and sword
Methodism and all Methodists." See, the use
which has been made throughout the British slave-
colonies, of these very conciliatory and conceding
recommendations and orders in council, by the
newly enacted Draconian slave - codes, (as in
utter contempt and bold defiance of British autho-
rity) which exhibit “such perversions of the forms
of law to purposes of cruelty and oppression, as
can only find their parallel in the execrated pro-
ceedings of Judge Jefferies, or in the practical
jurisprudence of Constantinople, Morocco, or
Algiers."
The conduct of the colonists since the receipt
of the meliorating recommendations and orders in
council, is a fine comment on the wisdom of tem-
porizing, half measures--of advising hardened
+
اور
.
1
1'
* See “ An Authentic Report of the Debate on Mr. Buxton's
Motion relative to the destruction of the Methodist Chapel
in Barbadoes.”
i See “ The Slave Colonies of Great Britain, or a picture
of Negro slavery, drawn by the Colonists themselves," con-
taining most important documents, recently transmitted from
the West Indies.
1
#t


200
criminals to reform themselves. The ungovern-
able and ferocious passions excited by their odious
vocation of slave-holding, are only exasperated by
gentle advice and mild remonstrance; they can
be restrained and subdued by the strong arm of
law alone-and in their case it would be the great-
est kindness to exert it. Unbridled power has in-
toxicated, driven them to madness. They are
maniacs of the most dangerous and desperate
description. Their own interest, their own safety,
requires that their phrenzy should be restrained,
should be subdued by a lowering discipline which
nothing but the general rejection of their mer-
chandize or the force of law can administer.
The language and conduct of these colonial
bravos have dispelled the delusion long and dearly
cherished by certain speculative philanthropists,
that crimes of every descriptions are best corrected
by gentle means ;—the crimes produced by slave
holding, are at all events proved to be exceptions.
These crimes have, it is abundantly evident, been
dreadfully aggravated and multiplied, by gentle
conciliatory attempts at correction ;-RESTRAINT
AND COERCION ARE NOW IMPERIOUSLY CAL-
LED for. The slave-holding spirit is not to be
softened or moderated by parly and remonstrance ;
it will not be reasoned into humanity and gentle-
ness; it will not be persuaded to enact laws to
curb its own fury,-or if it be, it is only for the
purposes of deception and imposture, to avert the


202
House of Commons at once rescind its resolu-
tions, and leave the poor victims to their fate.
But if any thing, however small, is to be done for
their relief, I trust that Parliament will cease IM-
POTENTLY and MISCHIEVOUSLY to RECOM-
MEND, and begin at length to ORDAIN.”
We must go one step beyond this enlightened
and decisive philanthropist, and say, — Let the
words MELIORATION, GRADUAL EMANCIPA-
TION, and COMPENSATION be henceforth blotted
out of the anti-slavery vocabulary; let the friends
of Negro emancipation take advantage of the te-
nacious, unyielding spirit; the bold attitude of
menace and defiance displayed by the colonists
-and seeing that concession is useless,--that
conciliation is hopeless, - let them make a virtue
of necessity, discard all idea of compromisem
think no more of temporizing, but collecting all
their might; standing in the firm attitude of
hoodwinked, impartial, even-handed justice, hold
the balance steadily poised in which the rights of
the slave and those of his master are suspended.
Hitherto, they have gained nothing for their poor
clients, because they have asked too little, The
slave-holder saw the weakness, may we without
offence
say, the pusillanimity, the half-faced cha-
racter of gradual emancipation-and he naturally
suspected there was not much sincerity or earnest-
ness in the requisition ; he therefore determined
not only to resist it-but to traduce, vilify and in-


204
C
still boldly avows that “ slaves are chattels as much
as any other moveable property,
-over whom
the master has the entire control ;'-since he
still contends for “ the principle in all its naked
wickedness, by which he holds in fee simple ab-
solute, the bodies and souls of his fellow-crea-
tures:"_since, in Trinidad, he still insultingly
avows We did, and do declare, the whip to be
ESSENTIAL to West Indian discipline ;”—aye, as
essential, my Lord Calthorpe, as the freedom of the
press, and the trial by jury, to the liberty of the
subject, in England, and to be justified on equally
legitimate grounds. The comfort, welfare, and
happiness of our labouring classes cannot subsist
without it. The fact may have been denied by
others, but never by us. We have never conde-
scended to equivocate or disguise in this Colony.
It may be denied by the West Indian Committee, but
it has never been denied by us.”-Since the Re-
gistry-laws in the Mauritius are “a perfect nul-
lity,” and the slave trade may there be still
carried on “ without limit or control :"p_since
the slave-holder exhibits such a determined cha-
racter of resistance to British humanity, and defi-
ance of British authority ;-it is time for that
humanity and that authority to take high and
commanding ground, and since the proud citadel
of slavery refuses to capitulate,-it is fit and right
p See “The Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter,” No. 3.


206
massacres, until both parties are subject to the
control of ONE AUTHORITATIVE IMPARTIAL
LAW.
The Colonists spurn at melioration and gradual
emancipation. Slavery is a desperate diseasema
swollen and mortified limb, no emollient appli-
cations can stop the rapid progress of the gan-
grene,—the health and safety of the body politic
require its SPEEDY AMPUTATION.
Here we had intended to close our animadver-
sions on COMPENSATION, but finding we have
not yet done justice to our own views of the sub-
ject, we venture to add a few concluding obser-
vations.
“ Government,” it is said, “ would be guilty
of great injustice, after having not only permitted
and sanctioned but bribed the Planters by pro-
tecting duties, grants and charters to embark their
capital in colonial speculations; were they at
once to abolish slavery without compensation to
the slave-holder, who, but for such permission,
sanction and bribes, would have directed his capital
into other channels.”
There is, it must be admitted, some plausi-


207
bility and apparent force in this reasoning -
but before we suffer ourselves to be carried away
with it, let us examine and analize it. We must
again refer our readers to the work from which in
a preceding letter, we have made such large
extracts for incontrovertible arguments proving
6 that the West Indians have no title to their
slaves on the ground of purchase, nor on the plea
of the law of birth, nor on that of any natural
right, nor on that of reason or justice.”
“ It remains only to shew, that they have no
title to them on the ground of ORIGINAL GRANTS
or PERMISSIONS of GOVERNNENT, or of ACTS
of PARLIAMENT or of CHARTERS, or of En-
History informs us, that neither
the African slave-trade nor West Indian slavery
would have been allowed, had it not been for the
misrepresentations and falsehoods of those who
were first concerned in them. The Governments
of those times were made to believe, first, that the
poor Africans embarked voluntarily on board the
ships which took them from their native land;
and secondly, that they were conveyed to the
colonies principally for their own benefit, or out of
christian feeling for them, that they might be con-
verted to christianity. It was in the reign of
Elizabeth that the execrable slave-trade first began
GLISH LAW.
9 « Thoughts on the necessity of improving the condi-
tion of the slaves" &c. pages 12. 13. 14.


208
in England. This great princess, on its very com-
mencement, seems to have questioned its law,
fulness--to have entertained a religious scruple
concerning it, and to have revolted at the very
thought of it. She seems to have been aware of
the evils to which it might lead, and when Cap-
tain Hawkins returned from his first voyage to
Africa and Hispaniola, whither he had carried
slaves, she sent for him, and expressed her con-
cern lest any of the Africans should be carried off
without their free consent, declaring that it would
be detestable and call down the vengeance of
Heaven upon the undertakers'! Captain Haw-
kins promised to comply with the injunctions of
Elizabeth, but did not keep his word; for when
he again went to Africa he seized and carried off
many of the inhabitants as slaves.
· Here (says
Hill, the historian) began the horrid practice of
forcing the African into slavery, an injustice and
barbarity, which, so sure as there is vengeance in
Heaven for the worst of crimes, WILL SOME-
TIME BE THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL WHO
ENCOURAGE IT.'
“ We have therefore the fact well authenticated,
as it relates to original Grants and permissions,
that they originated IN FRAUD AND FALSHOOD.
Neither have the masters of slaves in our own
colonies, any title to their slaves on account of
any charters which they are able to produce,
though their charters are the only source of their


210
UNLAWFULLY HELD IN BONDAGE. THERE
IS NO MASTER, WHO HAS ANY LEGAL TITLE
TO ANY ONE OF THEM."
.»
How then could it be "robbery under the
garb of mercy,” to deprive the Planters at once,
and without compensation, of property to which
they have no legal title? But no licence, no en-
couragement, no rewards which ever have, or ever
can be held out either by individuals or govern-
ments for the commission of injustice or cruelty,
can, in any degree, absolve the perpetrators from
the guilt attached to injustice and cruelty. By
“ the law written on the heart”—by the voice of
conscience-by the express word of the Sovereign
of the Universe they are forbidden. No violations
of duty,—no crimes, great or small, are ever com-
mitted without a tempter, an instigator,---without
bribes and proffered rewards ;-and virtue con-
sists in nothing else but their rejection. "How
shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against
God ?" is the uniform voice of conscience, more
or less audible in every moral agent, under the
light of Divine Revelation, whenever tempted to
sin by promised impunity, or instigated by prof-
fered reward ;-if that “still small voice” be
disregarded, and the sin committed, -- true re-
pentance, or adequate punishment, must inevi-
tably follow :-consequently, whatever intervenes
to ward off that humiliation, compunction, and
remorse, which would lead to repentance, is doing


211
the greatest injury, instead of benefit, to the of-
fender; since it is an irreversible decree that
every offence shall receive a just recompense of
reward:"-if it be not truly repented of in time,
it will be punished in eternity.
These, it may be said, are general observations,
which do not directly bear on the very complex
subject in question. We believe, on the contrary,
that they bear directly on all subjects, however
complex, in which moral principle is involved ;-
but we hope to prove there is, in fact, no com-
plexity in that before us. Government has sanc-
tioned and instigated the Planters, by bounties,
protecting duties, &c. to embark their capital in
slave speculations. They have so embarked it-
and they have had their reward;—they have pro-
fited by these speculations. Government may,
therefore, with the strictest justice and propriety,
say to the speculators, “ Hitherto, we have in-
considerately not only connived at, but, at an
enormous national expense, supported and en-
couraged your inhuman speculations. Our eyes
are now opened to its atrocity. We will neither
encourage nor connive at it any longer. You
YOURSELVES HAVE OPENED OUR EYES. Your
own language and conduct,--the fruit which your-
selves have exhibited of slave speculations, abun-
dantly convince us, had we no other evidence, of
the necessity of putting an IMMEDIATE STOP
TO THEM. Regard for our own character, for


213
blishments to support your execrable tyranny,
we have already drawn annual millions to put
into yours. Would that be doing justice? Would
the people tamely submit to such an impost, to
remunerate you for the loss of a property to
which you never had any just title, either legal or
moral, now that their eyes are wide open to the
shameful abuse you have made of it? Would it
be prudent? Would it be safe to hazard the ex-
periment of such an impost? We believe it
would not. And therefore, Gentlemen Planters,
we think it would be prudent and wise in you to
forbear to press any such groundless and prepos-
terous claims. We say prudent and wise, if you
have any regard to your own credit or interest.
Depend upon it, the best resolution you can adopt
on this dangerous subject, is to be silent,—to
hush up this business of compensation as quickly
as possible ; for the eyes of the people, and our
own eyes, being completely opened to this com-
pact of injustice, it is utterly vain for you to at-
tempt to close them again. A flood of light has
fallen, by Heavenly direction, upon the whole
system of slavery,its horrid wickedness and
miserable impolicy have been fully developed and
can never again be hidden. With the mere names
and empty profession of humanity, justice, and
religion, neither the Government nor the people
of this great nation will any longer be satisfied
they will have the substantial realities. And


216
labour does actually produce a very great profit
to the Planters. He saw that the Negroes,
like all other human beings, were to be stimulated
to permanent exertion only by a sense of their
own interests, in providing for their own wants
and those of their offspring. He therefore tried
rewards, instead of punishments, which imme-
diately roused the most indolent to exertion.
His experiments ended in regular wages, which
the industry he had excited, enabled him to pay.
Here was a natural efficient, and profitable reci-
procity of interests. His people became con-
tented; his mind freed from that perpetual
vexation, and that load of anxiety, which are
inseparable from the vulgar system, and in little
better than four years, the annual nett clearance
of his property was more than tripled.' The
same writer remarks, I must refer to an excellent
pamphlet, entitled Observations on Slavery (pub-
lished in 1788, by Dr. James Anderson) which
shews that the labour of a West Indian slave
costs about thrice as much as it would cost if
executed by free men.' Mr. Botham, (the con-
ductor of sugar-works at Bencoolen) says, “After
spending two years in the West Indies, I returned
to the East in 1776. Having experienced the
difference of labourers for profit, and labourers
from force, I can assert that the savings by the
former are very considerable. I do suppose our
sugar Islands might be better worked than they


917
Dr
now are by two-thirds, or indeed one half of the
present force. Let it be considered how much
labour is lost by overseeing the forced labourer
which is saved when he works for his own profit.
I have stated with the strictest veracity, the plain
matter of fact, that sugar-estates can be worke
cheaper by free persons than slaves.
But the evidence drawn from these experi-
ments, and observations, is controverted and
denied by the West Indians and their abettors.
And what evidence is not controverted and de-
nied by them which tends, in any degree, to the
detection and exposure of the impolicy and wick-
edness of tneir present execrable system ? In
opposition to all the facts and reasonings brought
by their opponents in proof of the superior profi-
tableness of free above compulsory labour, they
assert that they ought to be allowed to be the
best judges of their own interests ;--that were the
broad fact such as the abolitionists have stated,
the Planters must be idiots or madmen not to act
accordingly. But we ask, in the language of the
intelligent author above quoted, -"Does man
always act with an enlightened view to self
interest ? Is he uniformly vigilant to observe, and
See“ A Letter to M. Jean-Baptist Say, on the compara-
tive expense of free and slave labour." By Adam Hodgson,
p. 10-12. 31. and Appendix, p. 7. 8.
1
• See “ Review of the Quarterly Review." p. 49-53.
1


218
prompt to pursue his real good ? Does prejudice
or passion never blind or mislead him? Nor habit
render him slow to follow the dictates of his
better judgment ?"
We have alluded to the superior profitableness
of free, above slave labour, not in confirmation of
the justice, the expediency and necessity of im-
mediate emancipation, (which would be equally
just, expedient and necessary were the result of
these experiments and observations the very reverse
of what has been stated) we allude to the fact for
the sole purpose of proving that all claims to com-
pensation are groundless and futile on the plea of
injury which the Planter would sustain from the
manumission of his slaves. He will, of course,
thereby lose the power of obtaining the market
price in ready money, for his human commodity,
and may consequently experience a temporary in-
convenience; but it will be the fault of his own
mismanagement, if he be not ULTIMATELY a
gainer by the conversion of his slaves into free
labourers. But admitting, for the sake of argu-
ment, that he would ULTIMATELY LOSE by the
transition; is it reasonable or just that the most
guilty party in this criminal transaction should be
remunerated at the expense of the less guilty ? -
the inconsiderate, and for the most part, uncon-
scious public, which has for generations been
pouring annual millions into the Planter's pocket?
We are disposed to resist these claims from no


219
uncharitable or vindictive feeling towards the
slave-holders ;--- from no anxiety to save the public
purse, but from a conviction of the very in-
jurious precedent which their concession would
establish; and that the work of emancipation
would be thereby defaced and tarnished which
otherwise would be one of the most brilliant acts
of national justice which the Legislature could
perform. We would resist all pretensions to com-
pensation in this quarter, from a conviction that
every iota which is conceded to the loud and im-
portunate demands of the slave-holder, is de-
ducted from the silent, yet powerful claims of the
slave. Which, however freely admitted in theory,
will be practically withheld in exact proportion.
as those of the former are allowed. To the
slave-holder, NOTHING is due; — to the SLAVE,
EVERY THING, which the wisdom of the nation
can devise and the wealth of the nation can execute
for the instruction, the reformation, the protection,
the comfort of these patient victims of national as
well as individual injustice and rapacity.
FINIS.
Thomas Combe and Son, Printers, Leicester.









AUG 8 - 1930