NEGRO SLAVERY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 A V I E W 
 
 or 
 SOME OF THE MORE PROMINENT FEATURES 
 
 OF 
 
 THAT STATE OF SOCIETY, 
 
 AS IT EXISTS IN 
 
 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 AND IN THE 
 
 COLONIES OF THE WEST INDIES, 
 
 ESPECIALLY IV 
 
 JAMAICA. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY, 
 AND J. AND A. ARCH, CORNHILL ; 
 
 SOLD ALSO BY W. GRAPEL, CHURCH STREET, AND G. AND J 
 ROBINSON, CASTLE STREET, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 1823. 
 
 Price Three Shillings. 
 
U M 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 THE Negro Slavery of the UNITED STATES illustrated by a 
 
 Review of the Travels of Hall and Fearon 1 51 
 
 Testimony of Birkbeck 32 
 
 Remarks of the Edinburgh Review 35 
 
 Comparison of the Increase of Slaves in the United States 
 
 and in Jamaica 
 
 General remarks 40 
 
 The Negro Slavery of the WEST INDIES, especially in Jamaica 
 
 43117 
 
 Evidence of the Rev. Thomas Cooper 46 
 
 State of Morals and Religion 53 
 
 General Treatment 59 
 
 Emancipation 65 
 
 Miscellaneous Observations 67 
 
 Evidence of John Williams on, M.D 70 
 
 State of Morals and Religion 72 
 
 General Treatment 76 
 
 Miscellaneous Observations; 83 
 
 Evidence of Mr. J M 85 
 
 Evidence of the Royal Gazette of Jamaica 87 
 
 Concluding Reflections 97 
 
 Meliorating Laws 98 
 
 Driving System 101 
 
 Power of Punishment t 105 
 
 Testimony of Slaves 105 
 
 Slaves treated as Chattels 106 
 
 Presumption of Slavery arising from colour 107 
 
 Impediments to Manumission 107 
 
 Moral Condition n i 
 
 CONCLUSION . 114 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY, 
 
 fyc. fa. 
 
 object of the present publication is to furnish to 
 the public a plain, authentic, and unvarnished 
 picture of Negro slavery, not as it may have existed 
 at some antecedent period of time, but as it exists at 
 the present moment, both in the United States of Ame 
 rica, and in the European Colonies of the West Indies, 
 which have been peopled by imported Africans. We 
 shall begin with the United Slates. 
 
 THE 
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY of the UNITED STATES. 
 
 The real nature of Negro slavery, as it exists in the 
 United States, at the present moment, cannot be better 
 exhibited than by republishing an article which made 
 its appearance not long since in a monthly periodical 
 work. It is a review of two volumes of travels which 
 had recently been published in this country; the one 
 entitled " Travels in Canada and the United States," 
 by Lieutenant Francis Hall ; and the other, " Sketches 
 of America," by Mr. Fearon. The article is as fol 
 lows. 
 
 In undertaking the review of the works of Lieute 
 nant Hall and Mr. Fearon, we have no intention to 
 amuse our readers with a description of American 
 scenery, or to communicate information on the politics 
 
 6 
 
2 
 
 or statistics oi the United States. Neither is it our 
 object to discuss the much-agitated question of the ad 
 vantages of emigrating to that land of large promise, and, 
 as some allege, of lean performance. We mean to devote 
 the present article to the consideration of a single feature 
 in the picture of American society given by our authors, 
 and on which, as it stands revealed to us in these 
 volumes in all its deformity, we are anxious to fix the re 
 gards of our readers. We allude to the NEGRO SLAVERY 
 which pervades a great part of the United States. 
 
 The most copious view both of the legal and actual 
 condition of the slave, as it exists in the United 
 States, is to be found in the work of Mr. Hall. It is 
 true, as this intelligent writer observes, that in forma - 
 j tion on their actual state, whether in law or fact, is little 
 v attainable by a cursory traveller. The planter, of course, 
 will not present himself for examination, with his memo 
 randum book of the stripes and tortures he has inflicted, 
 and of the groans which have followed. If he affords 
 [any information at all on the subject, it passes through 
 I a doubly distorted medium. As a planter, he is inte 
 rested in concealing the evils, and still more the enor- 
 1 mities, of Negro servitude ; while, as an American, he 
 I is naturally anxious to vindicate the national character 
 Mn the eyes of a foreigner. Add to this, that the testi 
 mony of the slave himself would gain no credit from 
 the enemies to his freedom ; whilst it is almost im 
 possible that the passing traveller, or the occasional 
 guest, should himself witness much of the practical 
 operation of a system, the most odious and frightful part 
 of which is necessarily withdrawn from the public eye. 
 In general, therefore, the traveller has it only in his 
 power to delineate such broad outlines as are incapable 
 of concealment, leaving them to be filled up by means 
 of those fair inductions which, on the admitted principles 
 of human nature, we are authorised to draw from the 
 
3 
 
 undisputed facts of the case. And this is all which 
 Mr. Hall, or indeed Mr. Fearon, professes to do. 
 
 The law by which slaves, and even free Men of 
 ColourTare governed in the Carol inas and Mr. Hall 
 believes that the same or a similar code prevails in all 
 the slave states is a provincial act passed in 1740, and j 
 made perpetual in 1783. It begins with an enactment 
 justly and feelingly stigmatized by our author as a 
 " J^rt-cJri|Iinjj^^ It is as follows : " Where 
 
 as, in his Majesty s plantations, &c. slavery has been 
 allowed, be it enacted, that all Negroes, Mulattoes, 
 &c. who are or shall hereafter be in this province, and I i 
 all their issue and offspring, born fmd to be born, shall I 
 be, and are hereby declared to be, and shall remain for I 
 ever hereafter, absolute slaves." 
 
 A clause follows, from which Mr. Hall tells us, and 
 we can well credit his report, that " the most iniquitojggL, 
 oppressions are at this day deduced." " IT SHALL 
 
 ALWAYS BE PRESUMED THAT EVERY NEGRO IS A 
 SLAVE, UNLESS THE CONTRARY CAN BE MADE TO 
 APPEAR*/ Hall, p. 422. 
 
 The ninth jglause gives to two justices of the peace 
 and five freeholders, who most probably are always* 
 slave owners, the power of trying slaves even for capi 
 tal offences, and of carrying their sentence into effect 
 without any reference, which we can discover, to a 
 higher tribunal; and this court (subject, as it would 
 seem, to no revisal, and with whose decisions not even 
 the mercy of the governor can in most cases interfere, 
 no report of its proceedings being made to him), may 
 
 *This appalling principle, we lament to say, is also still the nni- - 
 versal rule of law throughout the whole of our West-Indian posses- A}^^^ 
 sions. The clumsy attempt which has recently been made in ,<r 
 Jamaica, to modify, by means of a process de homine replegiando, 
 its cruel consequences, only serves to establish the opprobrious 
 fact more incontestibly. 
 
 B2 
 
4 
 
 inflict such manner of death * " as they shall jndge will 
 be most effectual to deter others from offending in like 
 manner." Before this tribunal, so formed, the evidence 
 of all free Negroes and of any slave, is taken against 
 a slave, " without oath f." 
 
 The yijj^yjjbjijrlh__jdajise forbids any master from 
 suffering a slave to traffic on his own account J. 
 
 The thirty-seventh clause T observes Mr. Hall, presents 
 an exquisite specimen of legislative cant and cruelty. It 
 declares "cruelty" to be " not only highly unbecoming 
 those who profess themselves Christians, but odious in the 
 eyes of all men who have any sense of virtue and huma 
 nity." It, therefore enacts, that " to restrain and pre 
 vent barbarity from being exercised towards slaves," 
 " any person wilfully murdering a slave shall forfeit 
 700Z. currency," that is 100/. sterling ; " and that, if 
 any person shall on a sudden heat and passion, or by 
 undue correction, kill his own slave, or the slave of 
 another person, he shall forfeit 350/. currency," or 50/. 
 sterling. 
 
 The thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth clauses are con 
 ceived in a similar spirit. Fourteen pounds (we are 
 not told whether this be currency or sterling, but it 
 matters little), is the penalty for " cutting out the 
 tongue, dismembering, and other tortures inflicted by 
 any other instrument than a horsewhip, cowskin, or 
 small stick." There is, it is true, a semblance of hu- 
 
 Fortunately for humanity, the feelings manifested by the British 
 public during the last thirty years have led to the abolition, in our 
 own colonies, of the cruel modes of inflicting death which were pre 
 viously in common use there. Capital punishments are now con 
 fined to hanging. 
 
 t Such, in general, and with slight and unessential modifications, 
 is also the constitution of the slave courts in our own colonies. 
 
 tin our West Indies, this restriction is for the most part confined 
 to such articles as form the subjects of the traffic of masters, as 
 sugar, coffee, cotton, cocoa, &c. &c. 
 
5 
 
 inanity in the provision which follows, and which enacts, 
 that the master of a slave shall be presumed guilty 
 when his slave is maimed or cruelly beaten ; but the 
 whole effect of the clause is destroyed by ordering, that 
 if he should not be able to clear himself of the irnputa- 
 tion " by evidence," he may clear himself of it, " BY I 
 
 MAKING OATH TO THE CONTRARY." This is holding * 
 
 out a premium for perjury. 
 
 By the forty-third clause, any White man meeting * 
 above seven slaves on a high road together, SHALL 
 
 AND MAY WHIP EACH OF THEM, NOT EXCEEDING 
 TWENTY LASHES ON THE BARE BACK. And by 
 the forty-fifth Clause a penalty of 1007. currency is in 
 flicted for the crime of teaching a slave to write. 
 
 It would be difficult to account for the wanton and 
 superfluous barbarity which is exhibited in these and 
 similar enactments, if we were not to resort, for an ex 
 planation of the phenomenon, to the powerful operation, 
 in the breast of masters, of that basest and most cruel 
 of all passions fear. In this view of the subject, Mr. 
 Hall seems to concur ; for he thus closes his account of 
 the slave laws of Carolina : 
 
 " Such is the code by which Christians govern Chris 
 tians : nor is it, in any point, a dead letter. The fears 
 of the proprietors are tremblingly alive, and racked \ 
 with the dread of an insurrection, in which they must I 
 expect the measure they have meted. A military police j 
 is constantly kept up in Charleston ; and every Man of 
 Colour, whether slave or free, found in the streets after 
 dark, without a pass, is taken up and punished *." Hall, 
 p. 424. 
 
 But we have scarcely occasion to resort to this prin- 
 
 * Mr. Birkbeck, in his Notes on America, speaks in strong terms , 
 of the perpetual state of apprehension in which the planters of Vir- 1 
 ginia appeared to live, lest their slaves should rise against them. 
 
ciple, in order to account for the practical atrocities 
 of the slave system. The very existence of absolute 
 slavery on the one hand, and of unrestricted power on 
 the other, implies them. 
 
 " He," observes Mr. Hall afterwards, " must be a 
 very sanguine enthusiast in favour of human nature, 
 who believes that the Negro, thus protected by the 
 laws, will be very tenderly cherished by his master *, 
 The uncontrolled will of the most virtuous individual 
 would be a fearful thing to live under ; but the brutal 
 passions of the sordid, the cruel, and the ignorant, 
 scourges which might well appal the guilty and con 
 found the free/ are the rule by which at least nine- 
 tenths of the slave population are governed. If, so 
 governed, they are mildly and justly governed, we must 
 admit the constant operation in their favour of a miracle 
 strong enough to invert the whole moral order of nature. 
 To render tigers granivorous would be comparati velv easy. 
 
 " It is not impossible, but that the house servants 
 and personal domestics of humane and enlightened 
 masters may be in a condition not in every respect much 
 worse than that of persons filling the same station in 
 European countries ; but it is not from the good fortune 
 of this minute portion we can deduce a fair estimate of 
 
 1 the condition of the many. It is on the plantations and 
 principally, perhaps, among the petty proprietors, the 
 woriT~oTTorture goes on. An occasional instance of 
 atrocity sometimes meets the public eye, and sheds a 
 lurid light upon a region where hope never comes. 3; 
 Hall, pp. 426, 427. 
 
 Mr. Hall then states some particulars in the mode of 
 
 , "The Abolitionists are charged with an affectation of philan- 
 
 throphy, because they think Black men have the same feelings 
 with White; but it is the very sobriety of reason, to ascribe to 
 planters the virtues of angels." 
 
7 
 
 treating slaves, which he asserts to be matters of pub 
 lic notoriety, admitting of no dispute, and therefore 
 affording an undeniable foundation on which to discuss 
 the question of their physical enjoyments. Their huts 
 are miserable J.n_ lh.e_ last , dfigtee*. huilL- jol ji n squ are. d 
 trunks of pine trees^so ill put together that, during the f 
 night, the fire shines through them as through wire \ 
 lanterns. And he states it as no slight addition to their 
 toil to be obliged to cut and fetch wood to warm this mi 
 serable dwelling, pervious as it is to every blast, and to 
 have their night s rest perpetually broken by the ne 
 cessity of keeping up fires to temper the cold*. The 
 furniture of these huts consists of a few_ gourds and 
 wooden utensils, and, asj or bedding, a Negro is sup 
 posed to reuire_none. The accommodation to which 
 even the master who is reputed humane and equitable 
 considers his slaves to be entitled is this wretched cabin 
 with a single blanket. The usual clothing of the plan 
 tation slaves, Mr. Hall oBserved"" 11 " almost ^invariably to 
 to be ragged and miserable in the extreme." Their 
 food consists of rice and Indlian _mea1,jwith a little dried 
 fish, andjs,_" m_fact, the result_of__a_ calculation of the 
 cheapest nutriment on which human life can be sup 
 ported." "(p. 429.) 
 
 " I have heard indeed," continues this enlightened 
 traveller, " of the many luxuries the Negro might 
 enjoy were he not too indolent; of the poultry and 
 vegetables he might raise round his hut; but his un 
 conquerable idleness masters all other feelings. I have 
 seldom heard an argument against the Negroes that 
 was not double-edged. If they are, indeed, so indolent 
 by nature that even a regard for their own comforts 
 proves insufficient to rouse them to exertion, with what 
 colour can it be asserted that they feel it no misfortune 
 
 Slaves in the West Indies will, of course, suffer less from cold 
 than those iu America. 
 
8 
 
 to be compelled to daily labour for another ? Is the 
 sound of the whip so very exhilarating; that it dispels 
 at once indolence and suffering ? But I admit the fact 
 of their indolence. The human mind fits itself to its 
 situation, and to the demands which are made upon its 
 energies. J^Cut off hope for the future and freedom for 
 the present; superadd a due pressure of bodily suffering 
 and personal degradation ; and you have a slave, who, 
 of whatever zone, nation, or complexion, will be, what; 
 
 the poor African is, torpid, debased, and lowered be 
 neath the standard of humanity^ 
 "" " To inquire if, so circumstanced, he is happy, would 
 be a question idly ridiculous, except that the affirmative 
 is not only gravely maintained, but constitutes an es 
 sential moral prop of the whole slave system. Neither 
 they who affirm, nor they who deny, pretend to any 
 talisman by which the feelings of the heart may be set 
 in open day ; but if general reasoning be resorted to, 
 since pain and pleasure are found to be the necessary 
 result of the operation of certain accidents on the 
 human constitution, the aggregate of our sensations 
 (that is, our happiness or misery) must be allowed to 
 depend on the number and combination of these ac 
 cidents. If you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you 
 tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we 
 not die ? 
 
 " Should there be any unknown principle in the 
 Negro s constitution which enables him to convert 
 natural effects into their contraries, and so despise con 
 tingencies whether of good or evil, he may pride him 
 self in having over-past the glory both of saints and 
 stoics ; but the fact would no more justify his oppressors, 
 than did the stubborn endurance of Epictetus the bar 
 barity of his master, who broke his leg. It would be 
 too much, first to inflict a cruelty, and then to take 
 credit for the patience with which it is supported : but 
 

 
 tbe fact itself is, in this case, more than doubtful. That 
 to a certain point the feelings of the slave growj;allous 
 underjjpjidage, may be conceded : this is the mercy of 
 Nature : but that they are wholly extinguished by suf 
 fering, is contradicted by facts of too palpable evidence; 
 one of which is, that it is no uncommon thing for Ne 
 groes to commit suicide. This I heard from a gentle 
 man of Charleston ; and I have since met with the still 
 more unexceptionable testimony of a friend to the 
 Slave Trade. 
 
 " Dr. Williamson, in his Medical and Miscellaneous 
 Observations relative to the West-India Islands/ ob 
 serves : Negroes anticipate that they will, upon death 
 removing them from that country, be restored to their 
 native land, and enjoy their friends society in a future 
 state. The ill-disposed to their masters will sometimes 
 be guilty of suicide ; or by a resolute determination 
 resort to dirt-eating, and thence produce disease, and 
 at length death/ (i. 93.) This is the kind of man who, 
 should he ever hear of the death of Cato, would call it 
 the result of an ill disposition towards his master, 
 Caesar. 
 
 " I remember to have once heard a person assert, 
 from his own experience, that a cargo of Africans ex 
 pressed great pleasure on finding themselves made 
 slaves, on their arrival in America. A further explana 
 tion, however, removed the seeming improbability of 
 this anecdote. They imagined they had been pur 
 chased for the purpose of being eaten, and therefore 
 rejoiced in their ignorance, when they discovered they 
 were only to be held in bondage." Hall, pp. 429432. 
 
 It is impossible to resist the force of this reasoning* 
 It may be evaded by sophistry or opposed by selfish 
 ness, or questioned by prejudice or ignorance, but its 
 truth and justice will be self-evident to the mind of 
 every intelligent and candid observer. The consider- 
 
10 
 
 ation of this terrific subject very naturally leads our 
 ingenious author to inquire how it has happened that 
 " slavery and slave dealing," though exhibiting little 
 either in speculation or practice, which is calculated 
 to convince the judgment or captivate the affections, 
 should have found advocates, not merely among slave- 
 traders and slave-holders, but among men of cultivated, 
 and apparently liberal, minds. Without any natural 
 sympathy with cruelty, and without any interest in tEe 
 question, they still defend these hideous practices, as if 
 fBe^were wortEy of being embraced and cherished for 
 the sake of their own native loveliness. IMTany of them 
 would shudder at inflicting on a single fellow-~creature 
 a particle of the privations and sufferings, which they, 
 nevertheless, uphold in argument as fit " to be the 
 portion and daily bread of thousands." We shall, at 
 "present, aBsfain from entering on this extensive and in 
 viting chapter in the history of the human mind, and 
 content ourselves with noticing Mr. Hall s explanation 
 of the fact which has so justly surprised him. He refers 
 it to the influence of authority, to prejudice, or to an 
 inaptitude to investigate any subject beyond the line of 
 their ordinary occupations, 
 
 * As such persons scarcely affect to reason, or in 
 quire, it is difficult to discover on what grounds they 
 rest their opinions : the few who pretend to speak from 
 experience, have seldom more to urge than the expe 
 rience of good West- India dinners; and how can any 
 thing be wrong where people dine so well ? The many, 
 who have made up their minds by mere dint of not think 
 ing on the matter, take fast hold upon some one of the 
 many bold falsehoods, or skilful sophisms, with which 
 those interested in the traffic are ever ready to furnish 
 such as find it troublesome, or fancy it unsafe, to use 
 their own understandings; as for instance Negro 
 slaves are better off than the poorer classes in many 
 
11 
 
 European countries. They are quite contented with 
 their situation, except when perverted by their pre 
 tended friends. It is the proprietor s interest to use 
 them well, and therefore he does use them well. Or, 
 The abolitionists are me^odutSyJacoH^^or^e^jisiast^ 
 and therefore unfit to be trusted with reforms of any 
 kind ; besides, slavery has existed time out of mind, 
 and why is the present generation to pretend to more 
 wisdom and humanity than their forefathers V Their 
 very good nature leads them to disbelieve most of the 
 cruelties they hear related as connected with the slaye- 
 system ; or should the evidence of particular facts occa 
 sionally overpower their prejudice, they readily admi^ 
 that as Negroes are constihitix^ 
 
 men, they require a different treatment ; so that whaj 
 may_seem harsh to us, and would in fact be harsh to 
 people of ^ pur. complexion, is no more to them thap a 
 sjdubrious_ regimen. Such advocates, however con 
 temptible as logicians, are of great numerical import 
 ance. They constitute the standing army of corruption 
 in all shapes ; are always to be found among the sup 
 porters of power, and may be depended on as the steady 
 friends of whatever is established. To the efforts of 
 the enlightened few, they oppose the inert resistance of 
 impassive matter ; a resistance which gains respect by 
 seeming disinterested, and remains unassailable, be 
 cause, like the tortoise, it presents no vital point of at 
 tack. Self-interest takes the field with better armour, 
 and more enterprise ; but the combat would be short- 
 Jived, did he not, after each discomfiture, find refuge 
 within the shell of his simple ally." Hall, pp. 417419. 
 In the United States, indeed, as Mr. Hall admits, 
 the influence of these causes is less powerful than in 
 Europe. In America, few can be uninformed of the 
 actual condition of the slaves ; and as they are accus 
 tomed thoroughly to discuss all public questions, ilw 
 
12 
 
 case of the Black population has a better chance of 
 being at least understood by them than by us. Ac 
 cordingly, in some of the old states, and in all which 
 have recently been admitted into the Union, slavery 
 Las been formally excluded from their constitution* 
 The whole of the Eastern and a great part of the Cen 
 tral States, and many enlightened individuals even in 
 the southern provinces, particularly the Quakers, are 
 declared enemies of the system of slavery. It is true, 
 that, for the most part, they oppose it rather as a great 
 political evil, than as a violation of the eternal obliga 
 tions of humanity and justice : nevertheless, its extent 
 is in this way gradually narrowing. With them there 
 is no dispute, nor, indeed, can there be, respecting the 
 opprobrious and humiliating facts of the case. With 
 us, on the contrary, the only persons who, in general, 
 have an opportunity of viewing with their own eyes the 
 state of colonial bondage, are persons interested in up 
 holding it. And they are induced by tenderness for 
 their own reputation, as well as by the strong feeling of 
 interest, and, we may add, by pride, to throw a veil 
 over the enormities of the system, and to resist every 
 attempt to withdraw it. The advantage which America 
 possesses in this important respect, would encourage a 
 hope of the eventual extinction of this evil at no very 
 distant period, at least, at an earlier period than it 
 would be reasonable to expect it in our own colonial 
 possessions, but for another circumstance on which Mr. 
 Hall, incidentally, but feelingly, touches, and which 
 must have a powerful influence in perpetuating the mi 
 series of slavery in the United States ; we mean, the 
 force of habit. Let any one consider, for a moment, 
 the different sensations with which an individual who 
 had never witnessed the infliction of a wound, and a 
 practised surgeon, would regard the amputation of a 
 limb; or the disgust which would be excited in an 
 
13 
 
 inhabitant of some splendid mansion in Grosvenor 
 Square, on being admitted, for the first time, to the 
 occupancy of an apartment in the Borough Compter or 
 Bristol Jail, as compared with the feelings of some old 
 offender who was familiar with all the filth and abomi 
 nations of the place. A similar difference will be found 
 to exist in the feelings of the man who has a near view of 
 slavery for the first time, and of him whose eye has be 
 come familiar with its horrors, or has, perhaps, been ac 
 customed to them from infancy. It cannot be expected 
 that a person born and educated in Carolina, or in Ja 
 maica, should be shocked by those parts of the slave 
 system, which, if viewed by a person of common sen 
 sibility for the first time, would fill him with disgust and 
 horror. In one respect, therefore, we are more ad 
 vantageously situated in this country than in America 
 for judging accurately of the effects of the slave system. 
 The natural feelings which they are calculated to excite 
 are less blunted by familiarity. These remarks are il 
 lustrated by what Mr. Hall tells us of the impression he 
 received, when, in travelling southward from Phila 
 delphia, he first entered the slave states. 
 
 "The houses, universally shaded with large virandaS, 
 seem to give notice of a southern climate; the huts 
 round them, open to the elements, and void of every 
 intention of comfort, tell a less pleasing tale: they 
 inform the traveller he has entered upon a land of 
 masters and slaves, and he beholds the scene marred 
 with wretched dwellings and wretched faces. The eye, 
 which for the first time looks on a slave, feels a painful 
 impression : he is one for whom the laws of humanity 
 are reversed, who has known nothing of society but its 
 injustice, nothing of his fellow-man but his hardened, 
 undisguised, atrocious selfishness. The cowering hu 
 mility, the expressions of servile respect, with which 
 the Negro approaches the White man, strike on the 
 
14 
 
 senses, not like the courtesy of the French and talian 
 peasant, giving a grace to Poverty, but with the chill 
 ing indication of a crushed spirit : the sound of the 
 lash is in his accents of -submission ; and the eye which 
 shrinks from mine, caught its fear from that of the task 
 master. Habit steels us to all things ; and it is not to 
 be expected that objects, constantly present, should 
 continue to excite the same sensations which they cause, 
 when looked upon for the first time, and this, perhaps, 
 is one reason why so much cruelty has been tolerated 
 in the world : but whosoever should look on a slave for 
 the first time in his life, with the same indifferent gaze 
 he would bestow on any casual object, may triumph in 
 the good fortune through which he was born free, but in 
 his heart he is a slave, and, as a moral being, degraded 
 infinitely below the Negro, in whose soul the light of 
 freedom has been extinguished, not by his own insensi 
 bility, but by the tyranny of others. Did the miserable 
 condition of the Negro leave him mind for reflection, 
 he might laugh in his chains to see how slavery has 
 stricken the land with ugliness. The smiling villages, 
 and happy population of the Eastern and Central States, 
 give place to the splendid equipages of a few planters, 
 and a wretched Negro population, crawling among 
 filthy hovels for villages (after crossing the Susque- 
 hanna) there are scarcely any ; there are only planta 
 tions : the very name speaks volumes.? Hall, pp. 31.8 
 320. 
 
 Let us observe, on the other hand, the effect produced 
 by the force of habit on the moral feelings of a respect 
 able individual, Mr. Duff; a person residing in a remote 
 valley in the state of Virginia, whom Mr. Hall describes 
 as an excellent specimen of the best part of his neigh 
 bours. He was remarkably temperate ; never uttered 
 an immoral expression ; and his disposition seemed in a 
 bigh degree friendly and benevolent. 
 
15 _ 
 
 ;< Yet, mark," observes our author, " the withering 
 c-ftect of slavery on the moral feelings ! he Was talking 
 of the different ways men had in that part of the country 
 >f making money. * Some/ said he, purchase droves 
 of hogs, oxen, or horses, in one part of the Union, and 
 drive them for sale to another ; and some buy Negroes 
 in the same way, and drive them, chained together, to 
 different markets : I expect two gentlemen here this 
 evening with a drove. I expressed my horror of such 
 traffic : he civilly assented to my observation, but plainly 
 without any similar feeling, and spoke of the gentlemen 
 he expected as if they were just as * honourable men* 
 as any other fair dealers in the community : luckily I 
 was not cursed with their company. I never chanced 
 to fall in with one of these human droves ; but I borrow 
 from a pleasing little work, written by a Virginian, and 
 entitled, * Letters from Virginia, the following descrip 
 tion which he gives, in the character of a foreigner newly 
 landed at Norfolk. 
 
 " I took the boat this morning, and crossed the 
 erry over to Portsmouth, the small town which I told 
 ou is opposite to this place. It was court day, and a 
 crowd of people was gathered about the door of 
 the court-house. I had hardly got upon the steps to look 
 m, when my ears were assailed by the voice of singing, 
 and turning round to discover from what quarter it came, 
 saw a group of about thirty Negroes, of different sizes 
 and ages, following a rough-looking White man, who 
 sat carelessly lolling in his sulkey. They had just turned. 
 round the corner, and were coming up the main street 
 to pass by the spot where I stood, on their way out of 
 towb. As they came nearer I saw some of them loaded 
 with chains to prevent their escape ; while others had 
 hold of each other s hands, strongly grasped, as if to 
 support themselves in their affliction. I particularly 
 noticed a poor mother, with an infant sucking at her 
 
16 
 
 breast as she walked along, while two small children had 
 hold of her apron on either side, almost running to keep 
 up with the rest. They came along singing a little wild 
 hymn, of sweet and mournful melody, flying, by a divine 
 instinct of the heart, to the consolation of religion, thelast 
 refuge of the unhappy, to support them in their distress. 
 The sulkey now stopped before the tavern, at a little 
 distance beyond the court-house, and the driver got out. 
 " My dear sir," said I to a person who stood near me, 
 " can you tell me what these poor people have been 
 ag? what is their crime? and what is to be their 
 punishment?" " O," said he, " its nothing at all, but 
 a parcel of Negroes sold to Carolina; and that man is 
 their driver, who has bought them." " But what have 
 "They done, that they should be sold into banishment?" 
 " Done !" said he : " nothing at all that I know of: their 
 masters wanted money, I suppose, and these drivers 
 give good prices." Here the driver, having supplied 
 himself with brandy, and his horse with water (the poor 
 Negroes of course wanted nothing), stepped into his 
 chair again, cracked his whip and drove on, while the 
 miserable exiles followed in funeral procession behind 
 him. " Hall, pp. 357360. 
 
 The view which Mr. Hall has given of the slavery 
 of the United States is substantially confirmed by Mr. 
 Fearon, who states " the treatment of the Negroes 
 throughout these states" to be " as villainous as can well 
 be imagined." (p. 268.) He has given us a transcript 
 of some of the provisions of a law, not an ancient and 
 now obsolete law, but a law passed by the city council 
 of New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana, on the 17th 
 day of October, 1817, for the government of the slave 
 population. 
 
 By this law, any slave found occupying, or sleeping 
 in, any house, out -house, building, or inclosure, not 
 his owner s or immediate employer s, without a ticket 
 
17 
 
 from such owner or employer, expressly describing the 
 
 ,place, and specifying" the time for which the licence is 
 
 j granted, shall be committed to gaol by any officer of 
 
 ! police, or any other White person, there to receive 
 
 I twenty lashes, on a warrant from the mayor or justice 
 
 I of the peace, unless his owner or master shall previously 
 
 / pay five dollars for him, with all costs. 
 
 The sixth clause of this Act confines assemblies of 
 slaves for dancing or other merriment exclusively to - 
 Sundays, and to such open and public places as the 
 mayor shall appoint ; such assemblies not to continue 
 later than sun-set : every violation of the rule to be 
 punished with ten to twenty-five lashes, besides being 
 liable to the penalties of the preceding clause. 
 
 The four following clauses, which we give entire, will 
 sufficiently satisfy our readers of the humanity of this 
 \ modern Code Noir. 
 
 " No person giving a ball to Free People of Colour 
 shall, on any pretext, admit or suffer to be admitted to hft 
 said ball any slave, on penalty of a fine from ten to fifty 
 dollars ; and any slave admitted to any such ball shall 
 receive fifteen lashes. 
 
 " Every slave, except such as may be blind or infirm, 
 who shall walk in any street or open place with a cane, 
 club, or other stick, shall be carried to the police gaol, fa 
 where he shall receive twenty-five lashes, and shall more 
 over forfeit every such cane, club, or other stick, to any 
 White person seizing the same ; and every slave carry 
 ing any arms whatever, shall be punished in the man 
 ner prescribed by the Black Code of this State. 
 
 " If any slave shall be guilty of whooping or hallooing 
 any where in the city or suburbs, or of making any cla 
 morous noise, or of singing aloud any indecent song, () 
 he or she shall, for each and every such offence, receive 
 at the police gaol, on a warrant from the mayor, or any 
 justice of peace, a number of twenty lashes or stripes; 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 and if any such offence be committed on board any ves 
 sel, the master or commander thereof shall forfeit and 
 pay a sum of twenty dollars for each and every suck 
 offence. 
 
 " Every slave who shall be guilty of disrespect to* 
 wards any "White person, or shall insult any Free per 
 son shall receive thirty lashes, upon an order from the 
 mayor, or justice of the peace." Fearon, pp. 277, 278. 
 
 If the subject were not too serious for mirth, there 
 is something perfectly ludicrous in these legislative 
 enactments. They dre only to be explained on the prin 
 ciple to which we have already referred. We are fami 
 liar in private life with the strange effects which often 
 proceed from terror when it has once taken full posses 
 sion of the mind ; the laughable exaggerations and ir 
 rational expedients to which it leads. Here, however, 
 its unrestrained influence compromises the comfort and 
 happiness of whole communities, and that not for a pass- 
 V ing moment, but for ages, and throughout the miserable 
 succession of generations yet unborn. 
 
 A practical proof of the wretchedness and degrada 
 tion, to which this unhappy class of our fellow-creatures 
 is reduced, is exhibited, we are told, at " every tavern" 
 in the slave states; where, Mr. Hall informs us, adver 
 tisements are seen posted for runaway slaves. " The 
 barbarous phraseology in which they were drawn up 
 sometimes amused" him ; but he was more frequently 
 disgusted with " the ferocious spirit of revenge" they 
 too plainly expressed. An incident, which we quote 
 from Mr. Fearon, speaks the same painful truth still 
 more strongly. The scene is laid at Lawes hotel at 
 Middletown, in the slate of Kentucky. 
 V" v A few minutes before dinner, my attention was 
 I excited by the piteous cries of a human voice accom- 
 ipanied with the loud cracking of a whip, Following 
 fthe sound, I fotwad that it issued from a log-barn, the 
 
19 
 
 door of which was fastened. Peeping through the V 
 logs, I perceived the bar-keeper of the tavern, together 
 with a stout man, more than six feet high, who was 
 
 called colonel , and a Negro boy about 14 years 
 
 of age, stript naked, receiving the lashes of these 
 monsters, who relieved each other in the use of a horse 
 whip ; the poor boy fell down upon his knees several 
 times, begging and praying that they would not kill 
 him, and that he would do any thing they liked : this 
 produced no cessation in their exercise. At length Mr. 
 Lawes, the master of the hotel arrived, told the valiant 
 colonel and his humane employer, the bar-keeper, to 
 desist, and that the boy s refusal to cut wood was in 
 
 obedience to his (Mr. L. s) directions. Colonel 
 
 said, that he did not know what the Niggar had done, 
 but that the bar-keeper requested his assistance to whip 
 Caesar; of course he lent him a hand, being no more 
 than he should expect Mr. Lawes jto do _for_Jjim under 
 similar circumstances. /At table Mr. Lawes said, that 
 
 hehaH~~not been so vexed for seven years. This ex 
 pression gave me pleasure, and also afforded me, as I 
 thought, an opportunity to reprobate the general system 
 of slavery ; but not one voice joined with mine : each 
 gave vent in the following language to the superabun 
 dant quantity of the milk of human kindness, with 
 which their breasts were overflowing : 
 
 " I guess he deserved all he got/ 
 
 * It would have been of small account if the Niggar 
 had been whipt to death. 
 
 " I always serve my Niggars that way : there is 
 nothing else so good for them. 
 
 " It appeared that this boy was the property of a re 
 gular slave-dealer, who was then absent at Natchez 
 with a cargo. Mr. Lawes humanity fell lamentably in 
 my estimation when he stated, that whipping Niggars, 
 if they were his own, was perfectly right, and they al- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 ways deserved it ; but what made him mad was, that 
 the boy was left under his care by a friend, and he did 
 not like to have a friend s property injured.* 
 
 " There is in this instance of the treatment of a 
 Negro, nothing that in this State is at all singular ; and 
 much as I condemned New York, Pennsylvania, and 
 Ohio, when in those sections, 1 must now give them 
 the character of enlightened humanity, compared with 
 this State, in which such conduct as that I have de 
 scribed, is tolerated and approved." Fearon, pp. 239 
 241. 
 
 The following relation, however, of Mr. Hall, is of a 
 still more affecting description. It is an account which 
 he has given us of the trial and execution of a Negro, 
 that took place during his stay in Charleston, South 
 Carolina. 
 
 " A man died on board a merchant ship, apparently 
 in consequence of poison mixed with the dinner served 
 up to the ship s company. The cabin-boy and cook 
 were suspected, because they were, from their occu 
 pations, the only persons on board who did not partake 
 of the mess, the effects of which began to appear as 
 soon as it was tasted. As the offence was committed 
 on the high seas, the cook, though a Negro, became 
 entitled to the benefit of a jury, and, with the cabin- 
 boy, was put on his trial. The boy, a fine looking lad, 
 and wholly unabashed by his situation, was readily 
 acquitted. The Negro s turn was next. He was a 
 man of low stature, ill-shapen, and with a countenance 
 singularly disgusting. The proofs against him were, 
 first, that he was cook ; so who else could have poi 
 soned the mess ? It was indeed overlooked, that two 
 of the crew had absconded since the ship came into 
 port. Secondly, he had been heard to utter expres 
 sions of ill-humour before he went on board : that part 
 of the evidence was indeed supprest which went to 
 
explain these expressions. The real proof, however, 
 was written in his skin, and in the uncouth lines of his 
 countenance. He was found guilty. 
 
 " Mr. Crafts, junior, a gentleman of the Charleston 
 bar, who, from motives of humanity, had undertaken his 
 defence, did not think a man ought to die for his colour, 
 albeit it was the custom of the country ; and moved in 
 consequence for a new trial, on the ground of partial 
 and insufficient evidence ; but the judge, who had urged 
 his condemnation with a vindictive earnestness, intrench 
 ed himself in forms, and found the law gave him no 
 power in favour of mercy. He then forwarded a repre 
 sentation of the case to the President, through one of 
 the senators of the state ; but the senator ridiculed the 
 idea of interesting himself for the life of a Negro, who 
 was therefore left to his cell and the hangman. In this 
 situation he did not, however, forsake himself; and it 
 was now, when prejudice and persecution had spent their 
 last arrow on him, that he seemed to put on his proper 
 nature, to vindicate not only his innocence, but the 
 moral equality of his race, and those mental energies 
 which the White man s pride would deny to the shape of 
 his head and the woolliness of his hair. Maintaining 
 the most undeviating tranquillity, he conversed with ease 
 and cheerfulness, whenever his benevolent counsel, who 
 continued his kind attentions to the last, visited his cell. 
 I was present on one of these occasions, and observed 
 his tone and manner, neither sullen nor desperate, but 
 quiet and resigned, suggesting whatever occurred to him 
 on the circumstances of his own case, with as much calm 
 ness as if he had been uninterested in the event ; yet as 
 if he deemed it a duty to omit none of the means placed 
 within his reach for vindicating his innocence. He had 
 constantly attended the exhortations of a Methodist 
 preacher, who, for conscience sake, visited those who 
 were in prison ; and, having thus strengthened his spirit 
 
with religion, on the morning of his execution, break 
 fasted, as usual, heartily ; but before he was led out, he 
 requested permission to address a few words of advice to 
 the companions of his captivity. e I have observed much 
 in them, he added, * which requires to be amended, 
 and the advice of a man in my situation may be re 
 spected/ A circle was accordingly formed in his cell, in 
 the midst of which he seated himself, and addressed 
 them at some length, with a sober and collected earnest 
 ness of manner, on the profligacy which he had noted in 
 their behaviour, while they had been fellow-prisoners ; 
 recommending to them the rules of conduct prescribed 
 oy that religion in which he now found his support and 
 consolation. 
 
 " Certainly, if we regard the quality and condition of 
 the actors only, there is an infinite distance betwixt this 
 scene and the parting of Socrates with his disciples: 
 should we, however, put away from our thoughts such 
 differences as are merely accidental, and seize that point 
 of coincidence which is most interesting and important; 
 namely, the triumph of mental energy over the most 
 clinging weaknesses of our nature, the Negro will not 
 appear wholly unworthy of a comparison with the sage 
 of Athens. The latter occupied an exalted station in 
 the public eye ; though persecuted even unto death and 
 ignominy, by a band of triumphant despots, he was sur 
 rounded in his last moments by his faithful friends and 
 disciples, to whose talents and affection he might safely 
 trust the vindication of his fame, and the unsullied 
 whiteness of his memory : he knew that his hour of 
 glory must come, and that it would not pass away. The 
 Negro had none of these aids, he was a man friendless 
 and despised ; the sympathies of society were locked up 
 against him ; he was to atone for an odious crime by an 
 ignominous death ; the consciousness of his innocence 
 was confined to his own bosom, there probably to sleep 
 
23 
 
 for ever : to the rest of mankind be was a wretched cri 
 minal ; an object, perhaps, of contempt and detestation, 
 even to the guilty companions of his prison-house ; he 
 had no philosophy with which to reason down those 
 natural misgivings, which may be supposed to precede 
 the violent dissolution of life and body : he could make 
 no appeal to posterity to reverse an unjust judgment. 
 To have borne all this patiently, would have been much : 
 he bore it heroically. 
 
 " Having ended his discourse, he was conducted to 
 the scaffold, where having calmly surveyed the crowds 
 collected to witness his fate, he requested leave to ad 
 dress them. Having obtained permission, he tept 
 firmly to the edge of the scaffold, and having com 
 manded silence by his gestures, You are come, 7 said 
 he, to be spectators of my sufferings : you are mis 
 taken ; there is not a person in this crowd but suffers 
 more than I do. I am cheerful and contented, for I am 
 innocent. He then observed, that he truly forgave all 
 those who had taken any part in his condemnation, and 
 believed that they had acted conscientiously from the 
 evidence before them ; and disclaimed all idea of imput 
 ing guilt to any one. He then turned to his counsel, 
 who, with feelings which honoured humanity, had 
 attended him to the scaffold ; * To you, Sir/ said he, 
 I am indeed most grateful : had you been my son, you 
 could not have acted by me more kindly : and observing 
 his tears, he continued ; * This, Sir, distresses me be 
 yond any thing I have felt yet : I entreat you will feel 
 no distress on my account : I am happy/ Then pray 
 ing to Heaven to reward his benevolence, he took leave 
 of him, and signified his readiness to die ; but requested 
 he might be excused from having his eyes and hands 
 bandaged : wishing, with an excusable pride, to give 
 this final proof of his unshaken firmness : he, however 
 
submitted, on this point, to the representations of the 
 sheriff, and died without the quivering of a muscle. 
 
 " The spectators, who had been drawn together, 
 partly by idle curiosity, and partly by a detestation of 
 his supposed crime, retired with tears for his fate, and 
 execrations on his murderers." Hall, pp. 433 438. 
 
 We might fairly challenge the writers of romance to 
 rival this story in depth of interest. We should only 
 weaken its effect by any comments of our own. 
 
 The depressed and degraded condition of the Negro 
 slave is communicated, as might be expected, by an al 
 most infallible contagion, to the whole of the free Black 
 and Coloured population of the United States. Nor 
 are even those parts of the Union, called, by way of 
 distinction, Free States, in whicjj slavery is abolished 
 by law, exempt from this charge. \ The curse of slavery 
 pursues the descendants of slaves tothe latest generation. 
 So long as the slightest tinge of African blood can be 
 discovered to flow in their veins, however professedly 
 liberal the institutions of any particular state may chance 
 to be, the sentence of civil disability and degradation 
 continues in force. There exists, as Mr. Fearon well 
 expresses it, in all these states, not excepting any^ " a 
 penal law deeply written in the minds of the whole 
 White population, which subjects their Coloured fellow- 
 citizens to unconditional contumely and never-ceasing 
 insult. No respectability, however unquestionable ; no 
 property, however large; no character, however un 
 blemished, will gain a man, whose body is, in American 
 estimation, cursed with even a twentieth portion of the 
 blood of his African ancestry, admission into society. 
 They are considered as mere Pariahs, as outcasts and 
 vagrants on the face of the earth." These persons, 
 though many of them are possessed of the rights of 
 citizenship, it would be little to say, are not admitted to 
 the exercise of their civil franchises ; they are not ad- 
 
25 
 
 nritted to a participation of the same religious privileges. ,j 
 We are told by the Abbe du Bois, in his account of the / 
 Hindoos, as well as by Dr. C. Buchanan, in his Chris- J 
 tian Researches, that the transcendent greatness of Jug 
 gernaut levels all distinctions among his votaries ; and 
 that Bramins and Soodras are, in his presence, melted 
 down into one common state of prostration and abase 
 ment. In Christian America, the case is different. 
 The god whom they worship is not the God who is " no 
 respecter of persons," and who " hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men." Even in Philadelphia and 
 New York, there are " African churches" appropriated 
 to " those native Americans who are Black, or have 
 any shade of colour darker than White." Though 
 nominally citizens, they " are not admitted into the 
 churches which are visited by Whites." (p. 167.) In 
 perfect conformity with this spirit, observes Mr. Fearon, 
 is the fact that, in New York, the most degraded White 
 will not walk the street with a Negro ; so that although 
 New York is a free state, it is so only on parchment, the 
 Black and Coloured Americans being practically and 
 politically slaves ; thus shewing, that " the laws of the 
 mind, are, after all, infinitely more strong and more ef 
 fective than those of the statute book." p. 61. / 
 
 The following anecdote will throw some farther light 
 on this subject. 
 
 " Soon after landing at New York," says Mr. Fearon, 
 " I called at a hair-dresser s in Broadway, nearly oppo 
 site the city-hall : the man in the shop was a Negro* 
 He had nearly finished with me, when a Black man, 
 very respectably dressed, came into the shop, and sat 
 down. The barber inquired if he wanted the proprietor 
 or his boss (master), as he termed him, who was also a 
 Black ; the answer was in the negative, but that he 
 wished to have his hair cut. My man turned upon his 
 heel, and, with the greatest contempt, muttered in a tone 
 
26 
 
 of proud importance, We do not cut Coloured men 
 here, Sir/ The poor fellow walked out without reply 
 ing, exhibiting in his countenance confusion, humiliation, 
 and mortification. I immediately requested, that if the 
 refusal was on account of my being present, he might 
 be called back. The hair-dresser was astonished : 
 { You cannot be in earnest, Sir, 7 he said. I assured 
 him that I was so, and that I was much concerned in 
 witnessing the refusal from no other cause than that his 
 skin was of a darker tinge than my own. He stopped 
 the motion of his scissars : and after a pause of some 
 seconds, in which his eyes were fixed upon my face, he 
 said, * Why, I guess as how, Sir, what you say is 
 mighty elegant, and you re an elegant man ; but I guess 
 you are not of these parts/ * I am from England, 
 said I, * where we have neither so cheap nor so enlight 
 ened a government as yours, but we have no slaves. 
 4 Ay, I guessed you were not raised here : you salt 
 water people are mighty grand to Coloured people ; you 
 are not so proud, and I guess you have more to be proud 
 of: now I reckon you do not know that my boss would 
 not hare a single ugly or clever gentleman come to his 
 store, if he cut Coloured men : now my boss, I guess, 
 ordered me to turn out every Coloured man from the 
 store right away ; and if I did not, he would send me 
 off slick; for the slimmest gentleman in York would not 
 come to his store if Coloured men were let in. But you 
 know all that, Sir, I guess, without my telling you : you 
 are an elegant gentleman too, Sir. I assured him that 
 I was ignorant of the fact which he stated ; but which, 
 from the earnestness of his manner, I concluded must 
 be true." pp. 58, 59. 
 
 " At the dinner-table I commenced a relation of this 
 occurrence to three American gentlemen, one of whom 
 was a doctor, the others were in the law : they were 
 men of education and of liberal opinions. When I 
 
27 
 
 arrived at the point of the Black being turned out, 
 they exclaimed, c Ay right, perfectly right : I would 
 never go to a barber s where a Coloured man was cut ! 
 Observe, these gentlemen were not from the south; 
 they are residents of New York, and I believe were born 
 there." Fearon, p. 60. 
 
 But let us listen to the testimony of Mr. Hall on the 
 same subject. He is speaking of Carolina. There, 
 he says, the condition of a free Man of Colour is, in 
 fact, scarcely preferable to that of a slave. 
 
 " Subjected to the same mode of trial, exposed to 
 the same jealous surveillance, carefully excluded from 
 all the rights and privileges of citizenship, and sur 
 rounded by every kind of snares, both legal and illegal, 
 his freedom seems but a mockery superadded to oppres 
 sion. The statute declares, that every Man of Colour 
 shall be presumed a slave : every newspaper is a com 
 mentary on the injustice and barbarity of this enactment ; 
 every day Men of Colour are advertised as taken up on 
 suspicion of being slaves : they are committed to jail, 
 and if no owner appears, are sold to pay expenses. 
 But the direct operation of the law is not all the free 
 Man of Colour has to dread. 
 
 " The humane exertions of some gentlemen of the 
 Charleston bar have lately brought to light a singular 
 system for kidnapping free Negroes, and selling them 
 as slaves into Kentucky, or any state at a distance from 
 their connections. The agents were a justice of the 
 peace, a constable, and a slave dealer. 
 
 " The process was as simple as unblushing villainy 
 could devise. A victim having been selected, one of 
 the firm applied to the justice, upon a sham charge of 
 assault, or similar offence, for a writ, which was im 
 mediately issued and served by the constable, and the 
 Negro conveyed to prison. Here, without friends or 
 money, he is to await his trial for some unknown crime 
 
8 
 
 charged against him by some unknown accuser : no 
 wonder if, in this desolate condition, his spirits sink, 
 and his fears anticipate the worst : the constable now 
 appears, exaggerates the dangers of his situation ; ex 
 plains how small is his chance of being liberated, even 
 if innocent, by reason of the amount of the jail fees 
 and other legal expenses ; but he knows a worthy man 
 who is interested in his behalf, and will do what is 
 necessary to procure his freedom, upon no harder con 
 dition than an engagement to serve him for a certain- 
 number of years. It may be supposed, the Negro is 
 persuaded ; influenced, perhaps, (as the counsel for 
 the defendants observed on the trial,) by the charms of 
 a country life. The worthy slave-dealer now appears 
 on the stage. The indenture of bondage is ratified in 
 presence of the w r orthy magistrate and constable, who 
 share the price of blood, and the victim is hurried on 
 ship-board to be seen no more. 
 
 " This traffic had been long carried on, when huma 
 nity discovered and exposed it in a court of justice; 
 but since, by the present law, there is no such offence 
 as man-stealing, it could be punished as false imprison 
 ment only. Should not, however, the shame of dis 
 covery produce a stronger impression on the parties 
 engaged in this iniquitous traffic, than can be expected 
 from their depraved habits, it is more than probable it 
 will continue to be carried on with keener and perhaps 
 more atrocious dexterity than before." Hall, pp. 424* 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed that the Black and 
 Coloured race alone experience the pernicious conse 
 quences of the prevalence of slavery. The curse has 
 reached beyond them, and the moral debasement which 
 it has engendered in the minds of the chief actors in 
 this drama of guilt and blood in the minds of the 
 masters of slaves, furnishes a striking comment on that 
 
29 
 
 passage of Holy Writ ; " They shall eat of the fruit of 
 their own way, and be filled with their own devices." 
 Is it possible for any serious mind to read the following 
 extracts without acknowledging the righteous govern 
 ment and retributive justice of the Almighty? 
 
 " The existence of slavery in the United States has 
 a most visible effect upon the national character. It/ 
 necessarily brutalizes the minds of the southern anc 
 western inhabitants ; it lowers, indeed, the tone of hu 
 mane and correct feeling throughout the Union ; am 
 imperceptibly contributes to the existence of that greai 
 difference which here exists between theory and practice." 
 Fearon, pp. 378, 379. 
 
 Mr. Hall gives his opinion upon the subject somewhat 
 more at length. 
 
 " It is impossible to consider the character of the 
 southern states, without again adverting to the perni 
 cious effects of slavery. 
 
 " Land cultivated by slaves requires a considerable 1 
 capital, and will therefore be divided among a small \ 
 number of proprietors. Experience, too, shews that 1 
 the quantity of labour performed by slaves is much } 
 below that of an equal number of free cultivators ; the 
 number of persons deriving support from the soil will 
 consequently be less ; but the loss is not in quantity only, 
 the quality is proportionably deteriorated. He who 
 commands the sweat of others, will be little inclined to 
 toil himself*; the inclination will dimmish with the 
 necessity. The fact is so consonant with this remark, 
 that in the southern states, the fisheries, and all branches 
 of active exertion, fall into the hands of the New Eng- 
 landers; so much so, that the city of Charleston is 
 supplied with fish by smacks from Marble-head and 
 
 * " Of the proprietors of slaves, a very small proportion, indeed, are 
 ever seen to labour. Jefferson s Notes, p. 241." 
 
so 
 
 Boston. Climate might be supposed to have a partial 
 influence in producing this effect, were not such indi 
 viduals as are compelled by the nature of their occu 
 pations to rely much on their own efforts found no 
 ways inferior, in attainments and application, to the same 
 description of persons in the more temperate portions 
 of the Union. Nay, have not almost all the sultriest 
 regions of the globe been alternately the seats of sloth 
 and enterprize ? 
 
 " The same distribution of property which renders 
 labour unnecessary to its proprietor, is no less fatal to 
 his mental improvement. Experience informs us, that 
 means and leisure are less powerful excitements to study 
 than the spur of necessity, and the hope of profit. In 
 formation will be first sought, that it may be useful ; 
 it will afterwards be pursued for the pleasure of the 
 acquisition only. The planter has, therefore, been ever 
 reckoned amongst the least enlightened members of 
 society ; but, says a proverb, those whom the devil finds 
 idle, he sets about his own work. Dissipation must 
 be always the resource of the unoccupied and ill-in 
 structed. 
 
 " If the political effects of slavery are pernicious to 
 the citizen, its moral effects are still more fatal to the 
 man. * There must doubtless (says Mr. Jefferson) 
 * be an unhappy influence on the manners of the peo 
 ple, produced by the existence of slavery among us. 
 The whole commerce between master and slave is a 
 perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions ; the 
 most unremitting despotism on the one part, and de 
 grading submissions on the other. Our children see 
 this, and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitative 
 animal. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches 
 the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the 
 circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of pas 
 sions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised 
 
31 
 
 in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious 
 peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can 
 retain his morals and manners undepraved by such cir 
 cumstances/ Notes, p. 241. 
 
 " We know the time of prodigies is past, and that 
 natural effects will follow their causes. The manners 
 of the lower classes in the Southern States are brutal 
 and depraved *. Those of the upper, corrupted by 
 power, are frequently arrogant and assuming : unused 
 to restraint or contradiction of any kind, they are 
 necessarily quarrelsome ; and in their quarrels, the 
 native ferocity of their hearts breaks out. Duelling is 
 not only in general vogue and fashion, but is practised 
 with circumstances of peculiar vindictiveness. It is 
 usual when two persons have agreed to fight, for each 
 to go out regularly and practise at a mark, in the pre 
 sence of their friends, during the interval which precedes 
 their meeting : one of the parties, therefore, commonly 
 falls. 
 
 " Did the whole of the above causes operate with 
 undiminished influence, the result would be horrible; 
 but there are several circumstances continually work 
 ing in mitigation of those evils." Hail, pp. 457 
 460. 
 
 The testimony which we have here adduced, has 
 received the most decisive confirmation from another, 
 and, it will be thought by some, a less suspicious, quar 
 ter. Mr. Morris Birkbeck, both in his " Notes on a 
 Journey in America," and in his " Letters from the 
 Illinois," appeal s to have laboured to convey to his 
 countrymen a favourable impression, not only of the 
 
 * " The stage -drivers, for instance, are more inhuman, and muck 
 inferior in decency of behaviour to the Negroes, who are sometimes em 
 ployed in the same capacity ; so that it seems not improbable, that the 
 effects of slavery, upon the lower orders, at least, are more debasing to 
 the governing class, than to the governed." 
 
32 
 
 United States as a scene of profitable enterprize, but 
 of the general character and manners of its inhabitants. 
 But what is his representation of the nature of slavery, 
 and its effects on the moral and intellectual qualities 
 of the American population ? Let the friends arid 
 advocates of our slave-system, and, above all, let our 
 members of Parliament, who may be called to revise 
 that system, weigh it well. It is replete with consider 
 ations of momentous import. The passage will be found 
 in Birkbeck s " Notes," p. 20. 
 
 " May 10. I saw two female slaves and their 
 children sold by auction in the street; an incident of 
 common occurrence here, though horrifying to myself 
 and many other strangers. I could hardly bear to see 
 them handled and examined like cattle; and when I 
 heard their sobs, and saw the big tears roll down their 
 cheeks at the thoughts of being separated, I could not 
 refrain from weeping with them. In selling these un 
 happy beings, little regard is had to the parting of the 
 nearest relations. Virginia prides itself on the com 
 parative mildness of its treatment of the slaves ; and, in 
 fact, they increase in numbers, many being annually 
 supplied from this state to those farther south, where 
 the treatment is said to be much more severe. There 
 are regular dealers who buy them up, and drive them 
 in gangs, chained together, to a southern market. I 
 am informed 1 that few weeks pass without some of them 
 being marched through this place. A traveller told me, 
 that he saw, two weeks ago, one hundred and twenty 
 sold by auction in the streets of Richmond ; and that 
 they filled the air with their lamentations. 
 
 " It has also been confidently alleged, that the con 
 dition of slaves in Virginia, under the mild treatment 
 they are said to experience, is preferable to that of our 
 English labourers. I know and lament the degrading 
 state of dependent poverty to which the latter hare 
 
33 
 
 been gradually reduced by the operation^of laws origin 
 ally designed for their comfort and protection. I know 
 also that many slaves pass their lives in comparative 
 ease, and seem to be unconscious of their bonds, and 
 that the most wretched of our paupers might envy the 
 allotment of the happy Negro. This is not, however, 
 instituting a fair comparison, to bring the opposite ex 
 tremes of the two classes into competition. Let us take 
 a view of some particulars which operate generally. 
 
 " In England, exertion is not the result of personal 
 fear ; in Virginia, it is the prevailing stimulus. 
 
 " The slave is punished for mere indolence^ at the 
 discretion of an overseer : the peasant is only punished 
 by the law, when guilty of a crime. 
 
 " In England, the labourer and his employer are 
 equal in the eye of the law : here the law affords the 
 slave no protection, unless a White man gives testimony 
 in his favour. 
 
 " Here, any White man may insult a Black with im 
 punity ; whilst the English peasant, should he receive a 
 blow from his employer, might and would return it with 
 interest, and afterwards have his remedy at law for the 
 aggression. 
 
 " The testimony of a peasant weighs as much as that 
 of a lord in a court of justice; but the testimony of a 
 slave is never admitted at all, in a case where a White 
 man is opposed to him. 
 
 " A few weeks ago, in the streets of Richmond, a 
 friend of mine saw a White boy wantonly throw quick 
 lime in the face of a Negro-man. The man shook the 
 lime from his jacket, and some of it accidentally reached 
 the eyes of the young brute. This casual retaliation 
 excited the resentment of the brother of the boy, who 
 complained to the slave s owner, and actually had him 
 punished with thirty lashes. This would not have hap 
 pened to an English peasant. 
 
34 
 
 " I must, however, do this justice to the slave-master 
 of Virginia : it was not from him that I ever heard a 
 defence of slavery; some extenuation, on the score of 
 expediency or necessity, is the utmost range now taken 
 by that description of reasoners who, in former times, 
 would have attempted to support the principle as well 
 as the practice. 
 
 " Per-haps it is in its depraving influence on the moral 
 I senses of both slave and master, that slavery is most de- 
 / plot-able. Brutal cruelty, we may hope, is a rare and 
 \ transient mischief; but the degradation of soul is universal. 
 " All America is now suffering in morals, through the 
 
 r baneful iiifluence of Negro slavery, partially tolerated, 
 corrupting justice at the very source" 
 
 " Slavery," he says in another place, "that broadest, 
 foulest blot which still prevails over so large a portion 
 of the United States, will circumscribe my choice within 
 narrow limits ; for if political liberty be so precious, that 
 to obtain it I can forego the well-earned comforts of an 
 English home, it must not be to degrade and corrupt my 
 children by the practice of slave-keeping. This curse has 
 taken fast hold of Kentucky, Tenessee, and all the new 
 states to the South." 
 
 Such is the delineation of Negro slavery, as it exists 
 in the United States, which has been given by three in 
 dependent and impartial eye-witnesses/ A writer in a 
 / contemporary Review, not remarkable for partiality to 
 British in preference to trans- Atlantic policy, on contem 
 plating the picture, expresses his keen indignation in 
 terms which do him the highest honour. " The great 
 curse of America," he observes, " is the institution of 
 slavery, of itself far more than the foulest blot upon 
 their national character, and an evil which counter 
 balances all the excisemen, licensers, and tax-gatherers 
 of England. No virtuous man ought to trust his own 
 character, or the character of his children, to the demo- 
 
$5 
 
 ralizing effects produced by commanding slaves. Jus 
 tice, gentleness, pity, and humility, soon give way before 
 them. Conscience suspends its functions. The love oi* 
 command, the impatience of restraint, get the better of 
 every other feeling; and cruelty has no other limit 
 than fear. That such feelings and such practices 
 should exist among men who know the value of liberty, 
 and profess to understandjts principles, is the consum 
 mation of wickedness. lEvery American who loves his 
 country should dedication s whole life, and every faculty 
 of his soul, to efface the foul stain from its character. / 
 If nations rank according to their wisdom and their I 
 virtue, what right has the American, a scourger and 
 murderer of slaves, to compare himself with the leas 
 and lowest of the European nations ? much more of till 
 great and humane country^ where the greatest lord dares 
 not lay a finger upon the meanest peasant ? f What is 
 freedom, where all are not free ; where the greatest of 
 God s blessings is limited, with impious caprice, to the 
 colour of the body ? And these are the men who taunt 
 /the English with their corrupt Parliament, with their 
 I buying and selling votes. Let the world judge which is 
 \ the most liable to censure ; we who, in the midst of 
 our rottenness, have torn off the manacles of slaves all 
 over the world ; or they who, with their idle purity and 
 useless perfection, have remained mute and careless, 
 while groans echoed and whips clanked round the very 
 walls of their spotless CongressTj We wish well to 
 America, we rejoice in her prosperity, and are delighted 
 to resist the absurd impertinence with which the cha 
 racter of her people is often treated in this country: but 
 the existence of slavery in America is an atrocious crime , 
 with which no measures can be kept, for which her situ 
 ation affords no sort of apology, which makes liberty 
 itself distrusted, and the boast of it disgusting." 
 burgJi Iteview, No. LXI. pp. 14-6 148. 
 D 2 
 
.. 
 
 36 
 
 This is just and spirited. Every reproach which the 
 passage contains applies to the United States with an 
 accuracy which admits of no cavil, and with a force 
 which cannot be resisted. May it produce its due effect 
 on the population of that rising empire ! And may 
 they be induced, while they yet may, to avert from 
 themselves, by repentance and reformation, the judg 
 ments which, if the word of God be true, must sooner 
 or later overtake such cruel and impious oppression ! 
 " The people of the land have used oppression, and 
 have vexed the poor and needy, yea they have oppressed 
 the stranger wrongfully. Therefore have I poured out 
 mine indignation upon them : I have consumed them 
 with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I 
 recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God." 
 Ezek. xxii. 29. 
 
 There is, however, one circumstance in the extract 
 we have given from the Edinburgh Review, which has 
 not a little surprised us: we mean, that the reviewer 
 should have chosen to place Great Britain in contrast 
 with the United States on this occasion. We know not 
 whether the writer intended that this part of his observ 
 ations thould be understood ironically. If so, he has 
 failed of his aim. At the same time we admit, that a 
 more severe and biting satire on this country could 
 hardly be imagined than he has in effect conveyed by 
 thus bringing her forward to darken the shade which he 
 has thrown over the internal policy of America. In this 
 view, every syllable he has uttered is wormwood and 
 gall. Let our readers look back to the extract ; and as 
 they cast their eye over it a second time, let them sub 
 stitute Great Britain for America, and then say whether 
 every expression of vituperation, every term of repro 
 bation and disgust, may not be applied with at least equal 
 force and equal justice to the one country as to the 
 other. Is the institution of slavery less a curse in Great 
 
37 
 
 Britain than in America ? Is there something so pecu 
 liar in the moral atmosphere of a British colony, that 
 the "justice, gentleness, pity, and humility," which 
 wither elsewhere under the influence of slavery, should 
 there flourish ; that conscience should there retain its 
 dominion, and prevent all the hideous effects so well 
 described as the inevitable result of unmeasured despot 
 ism ? Is " the value of liberty" less known, and 
 are " its principles" less understood in England than in 
 America ? Are " the feelings and practices" involved 
 in our system of colonial bondage less opposed to those 
 principles, or are they less " the consummation of wicked 
 ness," because they exist under the sanction of the 
 British government, rather than under that of the 
 United States ? Is it less the duty of every Englishman 
 than of" every American, who loves his country , to dedicate 
 his whole life, and every faculty of his soul, to efface this 
 foul stain from its character ?" In " this great and 
 humane country" are there " no scourgers of slaves ?" 
 Can we forget that " all are not free with us ?" Or has 
 the enfranchisement of our colonial bondsmen indeed 
 taken place ? And are those laws at length abrogated 
 in the British colonies, which, " with impious caprice, 
 limit the greatest of God s blessings to the colour of the 
 body?" We have done much, k is true,. to effect the 
 universal abolition of the Slave-trade ; but what single 
 legislative measure have we, as a nation, yet adopted, 
 not merely for " tearing off the manacles" of ourJB]ack 
 and Coloured fellow^uEJects in the coloniesTbut for 
 lightening the chains of their servitude, for protecting 
 them against oppression, for raising them in the scale of 
 being ? The pathos of a few occasional speeches, the 
 barren generalities of an address to the Crown, the 
 printing of reams of barbarous enactments, or horrid 
 recitals, or studied apologies for slavery, will not fulfil 
 the obligations we are under to these wretched outcasts. 
 
38 
 
 It may be true, that their groans do not echo, nor their 
 chains clank, around the walls of our Parliament, as 
 around those of Congress ; but how many owners of 
 slaves may be reckoned in the two branches of our 
 legislature, whose voice, during the last thirty years, may 
 possibly have assisted in preventing either the echo of 
 the groan, or the clank of the chain, from reaching our 
 ears ? But it has been beyond the power of the loudest 
 clamours either of interest or prejudice to drown them 
 entirely; and the stifled sigh, the suppressed but im 
 ploring murmur, have only pierced the deeper into the 
 heart, on account of the distance from which they have 
 been wafted, and the efforts made to obstruct their 
 passage. But whether the British Parliament catch the 
 sound or not, it has entered, doubtless, " into the ears 
 of the Lord of Sabaoth." And if it be true, as we do 
 most conscientiously believe it to be, that " the existence 
 of slavery in America is an atrocious crime with illicit no 
 measures can be kept" is it possible for us to contemplate 
 its existence within the British dominions in a less fear- 
 ^Mlight? 
 
 But we shall be told, that the slavery existing in our 
 West Indian colonies differs materially in many respects 
 from that which prevails in the United States. We do 
 not mean to deny this. We believe that, in one or two 
 particulars, the comparison- might prove favourable to 
 our own colonies. The slaves suffer less from cold in 
 the West Indies than in America ; and we do not mean 
 to affirm that they are excluded from places of worship, 
 however infrequently they may, in point of fact, 
 attend them. In all the grand and essential points of 
 I personal comfort, however, the balance turns greatly on 
 \ the other side. In America, they are in general more 
 abundantly supplied with food. The labour of the field 
 is there, too, for the most part, of a lighter kind than on 
 sugar plantations. Task work is also more prevalent in 
 
 16 
 
39 
 
 America than in the West Indies, where labour is 
 usually performed by gangs under the immediate impulse 
 of the lash. Besides which, the Black and Coloured 
 population have a readier access to the means of religi- 
 ous instruction in America than in our colonies*. 
 
 * That the treatment of the skives in the British colonies must be 
 much more oppressive than it is even in the United States, would seem to 
 be established beyond controversy by the following comparative statement 
 of the Negro population of Jamaica and of the United States, in the years 
 1790 and 1820. 
 
 In 1790, the number of slaves in Jamaica is stated by Bryan Edwards 
 at 250,000, which, however, he considered under-rated. 
 
 In 1810, from calculations founded on the Reports of the Assembly of 
 Jamaica, they must have been about 320,000 -- In 1817 they were rated, 
 on what was affirmed to be a more accurate census, at 345,252, being an 
 addition of only 9^2^2^ in the whole of that period ; and yet from the year 
 1787 to the period of the Abolition of the Slave-trade in_180.8, 188,785 
 appear to have been added by importation from Africa to the stock in that 
 island, though the commencement of that importation is four years prior 
 to 1791 ; yet this will probably be counterbalanced by the admitted in 
 accuracy of the returns in 1791. 
 
 In the year 1790, the slave population of the whole of the United 
 
 States was - 676,696 
 
 In the year 18OO it was 894,444 
 
 In - 1810 1,191,364 
 
 In ,- 1820 - - 1,531,431 
 
 The natural increase would have appeared to be considerably greater, if 
 
 174,142 had not been added to the free Blacks during that period, about 
 
 100,000 of them by manumission. We see that between 1790 and 
 
 1 800 the rate of increase was - - 28^ per cent. 
 
 Between 1800 and 1810 33^ per cent. 
 
 And between 1810 and 1820 - 28^ per cent. 
 
 The small difference in the increase from 1800 to 1810 must be attributed 
 
 to the partial importation from Africa during a short part of that period, 
 
 but this will be far more than counterbalanced by the number ma 
 
 numitted. 
 
 In 1790, then, Jamaica had a slave population of above - 250,000 
 In 1817 and in 1820, (the number will probably be found 
 nearly the same in both years,) 345,252 
 
 In 1791, the United States slave population was 676,696 
 
 In 1820, ditto, ditto, - 1,531,431 
 
 If a system not more rigorous than the American system had been pur 
 sued in Jamaica, the population of that island ought to have been in the 
 year 1820, 565,775. 
 
 With 188,785 added by importation, still the population of Jamaica falk 
 i 20,523 bhort of what it ought to have been, making a difleruice altogether 
 
40 
 
 ~T)ur main purpose, in the present article, has been, 
 by exhibiting a series of facts, to fix the value of certain 
 general principles which apply to the state of Negro 
 slavery in all parts of the civilized world, and to de 
 monstrate that, in its leading characteristics, and more 
 prominent tendencies and effects, it is, when uncontrolled 
 lu some external influence which shall make the eman- 
 
 fc/ \J 
 
 cipation of the slave the ultimate end of its regulations, 
 the same revolting institution, whether administered by 
 Spaniards or Portuguese, Frenchmen or Dutchmen, 
 Englishmen or AmericansJ The slavery of the African 
 race, indeed, as it exists in the dominions of these na 
 tions, is accompanied by circumstances of degradation 
 peculiar to itself, arising from the colour of the unhappy 
 subjects of it. Still the tendency to abuse the power 
 with which domestic slavery, under any form, necessarily 
 invests the master, is a principle which rests not on any 
 modern discoveries, but which comes to us upheld by 
 the historical records of every succeeding age. The 
 only hope which can be indulged of effectually counter 
 acting this tendency, is from the vigilant intervention of 
 some authority superior to that of the master, untainted 
 with his prejudices, and uninfluenced by his selfish views. 
 A In the colonies of Spain, for example, where the govern- 
 (ment has exercised the entire power of legislation, more 
 
 Ihas been done to alleviate the hardships of Negro sla 
 very, and to pave the way for its gradual extinction, 
 than in the colonies of any other nation. In the British 
 colonies, on the other hand, as well as in the United 
 States of America, where the makers of the laws are also 
 the masters of the slaves, the legal constitution of slavery 
 has been written in characters of blood, and hung round 
 
 of 409,308. The bare statement of such a waste of human life, 
 such a cruel counteraction of the universal tendency of mankind to increase, 
 renders all comment superfluous. 
 
41 
 
 with all those attributes of cruelty and revenge which 
 jealousy, contempt, and terror could suggest. If in our 
 own colonies, since the agitation of the Slave-trade con 
 troversy, the barbarous rigour of their earlier statute- 
 books has been in someVespects softened, may we not 
 fairly ascribe the change to the influence of public opi 
 nion at home, operating on the fears of the masters of 
 slaves, and forcing them to the reluctant adoption of 
 enactments less revolting in their terms, and which, from 
 their apparently humane bearing, might have the effect of 
 averting the dreaded intervention of the imperial legis 
 lature? But if this view of the subject be correct, and in 
 whatever degree it is so, the written law will be apt to 
 fail of its effect, and to be at variance with the general 
 practice, unless a very^yjgilant^aiuJ efficient superin 
 tendence over its execution shall be exercised by the su 
 preme authorities of the state. Hence arises the strong 
 moral obligation of parliamentary interference for the 
 protection of the servile population in our colonies, for 
 restraining and punishing tlie" abuse of the master s 
 power, and for gradually, but effectually, putting an end 
 to slavery itself. And although slavery, in existing cir 
 cumstances, cannot, we fear, be eradicated but by cautious 
 and progressive measures, yet surely by means of judi 
 cious regulations, vigorously executed and vigilantly en 
 forced, it might be divested in the interval of at least a 
 part of its malignity. 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed that we mean to 
 prefer against the West Indians, as a body, any charge 
 of extraordinary criminality, or to intimate that they are 
 peculiar objects of public reprehension. It is not so 
 much they who are in fault, as the system with which 
 they are, in many, perhaps in most, cases, involuntarily 
 connected. It is their misfortune to have been born, 
 perhaps, in a slave colony, and to have been familiarized 
 with the view of slavery from the moment of their birth. / 
 
It would be to exact from such persons something more 
 than we are entitled to look for, something more than is 
 consistent with the ordinary phenomena of human nature, 
 were we, in their case, to regard as a mark of singular 
 depravity or inhumanity the circumstance of their dif 
 fering, in their feelings and habits of thinking on this sub 
 ject, from those who have been more favourably situated 
 for forming a correct judgment. This is a consideration, 
 however, which, though it may disarm the severity of 
 censure, and claim for such individuals the exercise of 
 the utmost candour and charity, does in no degree alter 
 the duty of the British parliament and the British 
 public. If " the existence of slavery," as it now exists 
 in our colonies, be, to use the forcible language of the 
 Edinburgh Reviewer, " an atrocious crime," then 
 r " every Englishman who loves his country should dedi- 
 / cate his whole life, and every faculty of his soul, to efface 
 this foul stain from its character," as speedily as is con 
 sistent with the safety and well-being of the parties more 
 immediately concerned. 
 
THE 
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY of the WEST INDIES. 
 
 THE main object of the preceding article is stated to 
 have been, " by exhibiting a series of facts, to fix the 
 value of certain general principles which apply to the 
 condition of Negro slavery in all divisions of the civilized 
 world ; and to demonstrate that in its leading character 
 istics, and more prominent tendencies and effects, it is, 
 nschen uncontrolled by some powerful external influence 
 which shall make the emancipation of the slave the 
 ultimate end of its regulations, the same revolting insti 
 tution, whether it be administered by Spaniards or Por 
 tuguese, Frenchmen or Dutchmen, Englishmen or 
 Americans." This is also the main purpose of the pre 
 sent publication. In pursuing it, however, we are 
 anxious to avoid the imputation of unfair dealing to 
 wards the holders of slaves in the British colonies. We 
 might have brought forward, in abundance, proofs of the 
 excessive rigour of the slave code in the colonies of the 
 French and Dutch. We might have shewn, by an in 
 duction of particulars, resting on the best authority, 
 with what terrible ferocity that code is often administer 
 ed in practice ; how it serves to divest the female cha 
 racter of its most amiable attributes, rendering not the 
 masters only, but the mistresses of slaves, dead alike to 
 the feelings of tenderness and delicacy ; and how it con 
 verts even the most sacred functions of criminal justice 
 into the means of indulging the w6rst passions of the 
 human heart, and of gratifying a barbarous and san- 
 
44 
 
 guinary thirst of vengeance. It might be said, how 
 ever, that, in doing this, we were exciting unjust preju 
 dices against our own West India planters ; that our 
 own colonial institutions bear in themselves a much 
 milder aspect than those of the French and Dutch, and 
 are besides administered by Englishmen, in the spirit, 
 and according to the maxims, of English jurisprudence. 
 We will not now stop to controvert the correctness of this 
 statement ; we will give our countrymen the benefit of 
 the plea, so far at least as to abstain, for the present, 
 from illustrating our general position by facts drawn 
 from the foreign colonies of the West Indies. The 
 proofs already exhibited, in confirmation of it, have 
 been drawn from the nature and effects of the slave 
 system in the United States, the general spirit of whose 
 legislation and jurisprudence is, to say no more, as 
 liberal as our own ; and we mean, in what follows, to 
 confine the examination to the British islands. 
 
 Here again, we propose to take a view of the state of 
 slavery, which must be admitted, by West Indians 
 themselves, to be the least unfavourable to the character 
 of their system. We shall not now have recourse to 
 the writings of that able and faithful delineator of Negro 
 slavery in our own islands, the Rev. James Ramsay, 
 because the scenes he witnessed, however they may 
 serve to mark the genius of that institution, it might 
 be alleged, are now upwards of forty years old. Neither 
 shall we have recourse to any part of the evidence taken 
 before the Privy Council, or before Parliament, when 
 the question of the Slave Trade was first agitated in this 
 country. We shall not even cite, in support of our 
 general views, the testimony of Dr. Pinckard ; nor the 
 recorded atrocities communicated by Lord Seaforth in 
 1803, as illustrative of the state of slavery in the oldest 
 of our colonies, Barbadoes ; lest it should be argued, 
 that these authorities do not apply to the actually exist- 
 
 13 
 
45 
 
 ing state of things. We shall abstain even from laying 
 any stress on the still more recent exemplifications of 
 the spirit and tendency of colonial slavery, which are 
 furnished to us in the cases of Huggins of Nevis, Hodge 
 of Tortola, and Rawlins of St. Kitts, lest we should 
 be charged with too much confining our view to small 
 and insulated communities, where individuals are less in 
 fluenced by public opinion than in larger societies*. 
 "We recollect, indeed, to have heard West Indians, when 
 these cases were alluded to in Parliament, challenge the 
 opponents of the slave system to look, for a just appre 
 ciation of its character, not to our smaller islands, but 
 to Jamaica, which exceeds them all in extent of popu 
 lation, and the liberal nature of whose institutions they 
 did not hesitate to set up as a model for general imi 
 tation. We accept the challenge ; and we propose, 
 therefore, for the present, to confine our view to a con 
 sideration of the slave system as it exists in Jamaica, the 
 colony in which we are told that it may be seen under 
 the most favourable circumstances, and where we are 
 also told that the slaves are under the protection of a 
 humane code of laws, humanely and equitably adminis 
 tered. 
 
 In this delineation, also, of slavery, as it exists in Ja 
 maica, we shall abstain from selecting particular instances 
 of cruelty, and shall farther abstain from specifying such 
 cases of general treatment, in the management of plant 
 ations, as might be deemed to be peculiarly harsh and 
 Tigorous. On the contrary, we shall select, for our 
 most prominent example, the case of an estate, the 
 owner of which is distinguished even in this country for 
 gentlemanly and kindly feeling; and (which is per 
 haps of still more importance) is possessed of wealth 
 
 * Let it not be supposed, that we admit the validity of the objections to 
 which, in the present instance, we think proper to defer. We may have 
 other opportunities of shewing that they have no real force whatever. 
 
which relieves him from the necessity, to which many by 
 their circumstances are unhappily driven, of exacting 
 from their slaves an undue portion of labour, or of deny 
 ing them the requisite supplies for their sustentation 
 and comfort. In short, the proprietor in question, it is 
 well known, is himself an excellent master to his slaves, 
 and does all in his power to render their situation com 
 fortable. But he lives in this country, and is therefore 
 obliged to trust to the agency of others ; and in point 
 of fact his best efforts appear to have been employed 
 in vain to mitigate the intrinsic oppressiveness of the 
 system. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Cooper published, in the course 
 of the last year, in a periodical work called the Monthly 
 Repository, several papers, with his name affixed to 
 them, on the subject of Negro Slavery in the West 
 Indies. These papers attracted considerable notice, 
 being evidently the production of an able, intelligent, 
 and upright man ; and naturally induced persons taking 
 an interest in the question to communicate with him 
 upon it. The following statement is the result of these 
 communications ; and it is now given to the public with 
 the permission of Mr. Cooper himself, who, we are 
 most happy to announce to our readers, is engaged in 
 preparing for the press a more complete detail of his 
 observations on Negro Slavery during his residence in 
 the \\^est Indies, as well as a fuller development of his 
 views on the subject. 
 
 I. EVIDENCE OF THE REV. THOMAS COOPER. 
 
 In the year 1817, Robert Hibbert, Esq., of East 
 
 Hide, near Luton, Bedfordshire, engaged the Rev. 
 
 Thomas Cooper to go over to Jamaica, for the express 
 
 purpose of ascertaining the practicability of improving, 
 
 i by means of religious instruction, the condition of the 
 
 ^ Negroes on his estate of Georgia, in the parish of 
 
4? 
 
 Hanover, in that island. With a view to render liis 
 task as agreeable as possible, Mr. Cooper was autho 
 rised to adopt his own plans of tuition, " provided they 
 should in no respect be found incompatible with the 
 order and management of the plantation." A house was 
 provided for him, pleasantly situated about a mile from 
 the Negro village, and he was made quite independent 
 of the other White people connected with the slaves. 
 He reached the estate on Christmas day, 1817, and 
 continued upon it for upwards of three years, after which 
 he returned to England, where he now resides. 
 
 The owner of this estate, who himself resides in 
 England, is, as may be inferred from his proceedings in 
 this very instance, a man of great benevolence. He was 
 at the entire expense of Mr. Cooper s mission, and he 
 seemed disposed to spare no outlay which he thought 
 likely to contribute to the comfort of his slaves, of 
 whom there were about 400 attached to the estate. 
 The estate had formerly been made to produce 400 
 hogsheads of sugar ; but Mr. Hibbert, considering that 
 the labour required for the production of so large a 
 quantity pressed too heavily upon his slaves, directed 
 that only 300 hogsheads should be made, and it is to 
 this moderated scale of employment, and to a gang of 
 Negroes thus favourably circumstanced, in relation to 
 their proprietor, that Mr. Cooper s information refers. 
 
 One great obstacle to his success as a religious in 
 structor, which Mr. Cooper had to encounter at the very 
 outset of his undertaking, was this, that the slaves had 
 no time to attend upon him. This will require a some 
 what lengthened explanation, which will serve, at the 
 same time, to throw light incidentally on several material 
 features of the slave system. 
 
 The season of crop, in other words, the sugar harvest, 
 commenced about the time of Mr. Cooper s arrival in 
 Jamaica, and continued for about five months. During 
 
48 
 
 that period, the general plan is, and that plan was fol 
 lowed on Georgia estate, to begin the manufacture of 
 sugar on Sunday evening, and to continue it generally, 
 without intermission, either day or night, till about mid 
 night of the following Saturday, when the work stops for 
 about eighteen or twenty hours, to commence again on 
 the Sunday evening *. In order to prevent any interrup 
 tion of this process during the week, the slaves capable of 
 labour, are, with some necessary exceptions, divided into 
 two gangs or spells, which, besides being both fully occu 
 pied in the various occupations of the plantation during 
 the day, are engaged the whole of the night, on alternate 
 nights, in the business of sugar making f . Their labour, 
 during crop time, is thus equal to six days and three 
 nights in the week. And in the exaction of this labour, 
 no distinction is made between men and women : both 
 are subjected to the same unvarying rule. 
 
 The canes are carried on the backs of mules, or in 
 carts, from the field to the mill. The men employed 
 in this part of the work have no regular time of rest, 
 either night or day. Their task is to keep the mill 
 regularly supplied with canes, and it is only when they 
 have been able, by exertion, to accumulate a quantity 
 there, that they can venture to take rest. It seldom 
 happens that they get a whole night s rest at one time. 
 Besides the alternate night of rest allowed to the other 
 slaves, that portion of them who were not attending the 
 sugar works had half an hour allowed them to sit down 
 in the field to eat their breakfast, and two hours further 
 interval of labour allowed them in the middle of the 
 day, generally from one to three. The same allowance 
 
 * By an act of the Jamaica legislature of Dec. 1816, it is forbidden 
 to set the sugar mills to work before five on Monday morning. But this 
 regulation appears to have been practically disregarded in this instance. 
 
 f On many estates the two gangs or spells, instead of alternating the 
 whole of the night, labour half of each night, the one being replaced by 
 the other at midnight. 
 
49 
 
 of time For breakfast and dinner was continued to the 
 labouring slaves the whole year round. * 
 
 During the five months of crop, therefore, it is pretty 
 evident, that it would have been found " incompatible 
 with the order and management of the plantation" to 
 allot any portion of time for religious instruction, unless 
 it were on Sunday. 
 
 But here it will be said, that Sunday was the very dayon 
 which that instruction might most conveniently and ap 
 propriately have been given; and that it could hardly be 
 alleged, with any fairness, that the Negroes had no time 
 to attend to religious instruction, when the middle of 
 that day might have been set apart for the purpose. 
 To this arrangement, however, Mr. Cooper found there 
 were insuperable objections: it was wholly " incom 
 patible with the order and management of the plantation/ 
 In the first place, the persons who had been toiling for 
 six days and three nights in the preceding week, many 
 of whom had continued that toil till past midnight on 
 Saturday, could not be expected voluntarily to assemble, 
 at a very early hour, to listen to lessons which they had 
 not learned to appreciate. In the next place, Sunday 
 was the only day which was allowed them, during the 
 five months of crop, for cultivating their provision- 
 grounds; for bringing thence the food requisite for their 
 susteance during the week ; and for going to market. 
 
 It may not be generally understood, that not only is 
 -Sunday a market-day in Jamaica, but that, for the 
 Negroes, whether as venders of the fruit or vegetables 
 or poultry or other articles of food they may have to 
 dispose of, or as purchasers of the little necessaries or 
 
 * The law referred to above specifies these periods of half an hour 
 and two hours as the proper intervals of labour during the day ; and it 
 adds that, except in crop time, the slaves are not to be obliged to work 
 kefore five in the morning, or after seven in the evening. 
 
 
 
50 
 
 comforts they may wish to buy in return, Sunday is the 
 only market-day. Such, however, is the fact. 
 
 The distance of the place of market, varying from one 
 to five, ten, and even more miles, and which must be 
 twice traversed by such slaves as go to it, and who have 
 generally heavy loads to carry thither, tends further, 
 independently of the time required for their sales and 
 purchases, to abridge the hours which could, by any 
 possibility, be given to religious worship on the Sun 
 day. 
 
 It is some labour even to fetch on that day from their 
 provision-grounds the plantains, or yams, or eddoes, or 
 other food which they may require, to feed themselves 
 and any children they may have, during the succeeding 
 week ; a labour which is often aggravated by the dis 
 tance of those provision-grounds from the homestall of 
 the plantation ; a distance often extending to six, and 
 sometimes even to ten miles. The distance of the pro 
 vision-grounds on Georgia estate was about three miles 
 from the Negro village, which was thought moderate. 
 Still the very walk thither and back was sufficient to 
 diminish, by two hours, the brief respite from plantation- 
 labour which Sunday afforded to the slaves. 
 
 But besides these different uses to which the Sun 
 day was necessarily appropriated, there remained an 
 other of a still more engrossing nature. Sunday 
 was the only day which was allowed to the slaves, during 
 crop, for cultivating and keeping in order their pro- 
 vision-grounds, from which provision-grounds they de 
 rived their sole means of subsistence, if we except a weekly 
 allowance of seven or eight herrings to each adult, and 
 half that number to each child, and a small present of a 
 pound or two of salt fish at Christmas. If, therefore, 
 they neglected to employ in their provision-grounds a 
 sufficient portion of the Sunday* to secure to them an 
 adequate supply of food, they might be reduced to ab- 
 
51 
 
 solute want; and although the want might be supplied, 
 yet the neglect would not fail to be punished. 
 
 When all these circumstances are weighed, we shall 
 have no difficulty in comprehending how it was that 
 Mr. Cooper, during the first five or six months of his 
 residence on Georgia estate, could find no time, for the 
 religious instruction of the slaves, which was compatible 
 with its order and management. 
 
 " The Sunday shone no Sabbath day to them." 
 
 Nor was their case, in this respect, on Mr. Hibbert s 
 estate, at all peculiar. It was the common lot of the 
 plantation-slaves generally throughout the island. 
 
 Crop-time, however, lasted only for five, or, at most, 
 six months of the year. How did Mr. Cooper succeed 
 during the remaining six or seven months? During 
 those months, as well as during crop-time, the Sunday 
 was wholly and exclusively applied, in the case of the 
 slaves, to the various secular objects already mentioned ; 
 but chiefly and above all, Sunday being the day especially 
 appropriated for the cultivation of their provision- 
 grounds, which were the allotted source of subsistence 
 for themselves and their families while engaged in the 
 weekly labours of the plantation, it was felt to be im 
 possible to require that a portion of it should be given 
 to attendance on religious instruction, at least unless an 
 equivalent portion of time had been given them, during 
 the week, for the purpose of cultivating their grounds. 
 But, even then, to have enforced such attendance on the 
 Sunday would have proved a grievous imposition. It 
 would have operated as an interdict from attending 
 market, on the only day on which there was any market 
 to attend. Under these circumstances, even Mr. Cooper 
 was forced to admit that it would have been the greatest 
 cruelty to compel the slaves to attend Divine worship on 
 Sundays. 
 
 E 2 
 
But it may be asked whether no time, except Sunday, 
 is given to the slaves for the raising of food. The law 
 of the island requires that one day in a fortnight, except 
 during the time of crop, should be allowed to the slaves, 
 exclusive of Sunday, for cultivating their provision- 
 grounds. * This would amount to from fourteen to 
 sixteen days in the year. The proprietor of Georgia 
 was, however, more liberal than the law. There the 
 slaves were allowed for this purpose (and other proprie 
 tors in that quarter, Mr. Cooper thinks, may have been 
 equally liberal,) every Saturday after crop, until they 
 began to dig the land into holes for the fall-plant, when 
 they are allowed only every second Saturday. By this 
 arrangement, the Negroes belonging to Georgia had 
 about twenty-eight days in the year allowed them for 
 the cultivation of their grounds, besides Sundays. 
 
 As this time, however, had been given them for the 
 express purpose of raising their food, it would have 
 been unjust to the slaves, and would have placed both 
 religion and its minister in an odious light, had any 
 part of it been authoritatively diverted from its original 
 destination, with a view to attendance upon him. Ac 
 cordingly it was agreed that, out of crop, an afternoon 
 every fortnight should be allowed for religious worship 
 and instruction. Mr. Cooper had thus an opportunity of 
 preaching to the slaves about eleven or twelve times in the 
 year. But the moment crop began, there was an entire 
 cessation for five or six months of all meetings of the 
 kind. 
 
 After remaining in this unsatisfactory state for up 
 wards of three years, Mr. Cooper, as has been already 
 remarked, quitted Jamaica and returned to Great Bri 
 tain. He justly observes, that it could perhaps hardly 
 
 * See the amended Slave Act of Jamaica, presented to the House of 
 Commons, along with various other papers respecting the West Indies, 
 on the 10th June, 1813. 
 
53 
 
 be expected that he should have consented to consume 
 his time amongst a people to whom he could preach 
 only twelve times in the year. 
 
 Having thus made our readers in some measure ac 
 quainted with the respectable witness to whose testimony 
 we mean in the first instance to refer them, we shall 
 now proceed to adduce his further evidence, both as it 
 respects the particular estate on which he resided, and 
 the condition of the slaves generally in the island. 
 When the statements are general, they are to be con 
 sidered as comprehending Georgia, unless that estate 
 be particularly exceptecl. 
 
 1 . State of Morals and Religion. 
 
 This, Mr. Cooper states, is as bad as can well be ima 
 gined both among Whites and Blacks. With scarcely 
 any exceptions, all of the former description, residing on 
 plantations, live in a state of open and avowed concubinage 
 with Black or Coloured women. The general profligacy, 
 in this respect, is perfectly notorious and undisguised * ; 
 and one effect of it is, that the young women on estates, 
 instead of becoming mothers of children, are at an early 
 age made the mere instruments of licentious gratification* 
 It is well known that the morals of nineteen out of twenty 
 White men are ruined before they have been a month 
 in the island. They get into habits of debauchery, and 
 every idea of religion vanishes. Mr. Cooper does not 
 recollect to have seen a single White man there, who 
 shewed any serious concern about religion, excepting 
 some Missionaries. 
 
 There is no regular marriage instituted amongst the 
 slaves ; indeed, the women will say they w r ould not be 
 
 * So undisguised, indeed, is it, that, when visitors stay all night on an 
 estate, they are accustomed, on going to bed, to desire the domestic who 
 attends them to bring them a girl, with almost as little ceremony as they 
 would ask for a candle. 
 
54 
 
 -such fools as consent to be confined to one man : their 
 engagements, therefore, are merely temporary, and are 
 not considered as at all binding. Mr. Cooper never 
 heard of any attempt, by agreement between masters, 
 to bring together on the same plantation a man and 
 wife who lived on different plantations. Nor could it 
 in general be of any very great use to do so, while there 
 is no such thing among them as a marriage- tie. 
 
 It is, doubtless, in part owing to this cause, and to 
 the universal profligacy of manners prevailing among 
 Blacks and Whites, that the Negroes, in Jamaica, are a 
 very unprolific race : not that they are so naturally, 
 but they are made so by the brutalizing and demoral 
 izing system of government under which they live, which 
 is notoriously most unfriendly to the production of life, 
 and, in several ways, tends directly to its destruction. 
 Among other things, it causes the women to be ex 
 tremely careless of themselves when breeding, so that 
 miscarriages are very common; and it produces also the 
 most miserable neglect of their children. 
 
 The Negroes on Georgia estate do not keep up their 
 numbers. There were in one year only seven births, 
 though the whole population is about four hundred. 
 Mr. Cooper attributes this non-increase to their morally 
 degraded condition ; to prostitution and its various con 
 sequences, including disease ; to hard work, and to se 
 verity of punishment. Indeed, he considers that having 
 no other motive to exertion in their present state, they 
 would not work at all, were it not that neglect would be 
 visited with severe punishment. 
 
 In Jamaica the slaves are scarcely ever taught to 
 read. 
 
 In every parish there is a rector, who, generally 
 speaking, preaches every Sunday morning at the parish 
 church; and a curate, who has a chapel. The service, 
 however, takes place at the very time which may be 
 
55 
 
 called high-change at the Negro market. Mr. Cooper, 
 when he attended church, may have seen twenty or 
 thirty Negroes there, (whether slaves or free he could 
 not say,) and probably about a dozen Whites. The 
 greater part of the congregation consisted of free Mu- 
 lattoes. The regular church-service was read, and a 
 sermon preached, which, however, was not at all adapted 
 to the Blacks. It is required by law that there should 
 be service in the afternoon, after market should be over, 
 to suit the time of Negroes, when all who might attend 
 should be catechised : but this had not been done in the 
 parish of Hanover ; and he believes not in the adjoining 
 parishes, excepting for a short time at first. It may have 
 dropped in consequence of the non-attendance of the 
 Negroes. 
 
 To obviate the complaint that had been made in 
 England of the want of Christian instruction for the 
 slaves, an act was passed instituting a curacy in each 
 parish, expressly for their benefit. The act states that 
 the curates shall appropriate two days in every week to 
 go to some one or other of the estates in rotation, and 
 there to perform the duties of his office, and to instruct 
 all slaves willing to be instructed, provided the consent 
 of the person in 2>ossession of the estate bejirst obtained. 
 In consequence of the necessity of obtaining this con 
 sent, Mr. Cooper was informed, by the curate of Han 
 over parish, that he might apply to ten estates before he 
 got leave to preach on one. These applications had a 
 reference only to week-days; for it would have been 
 obviously the greatest cruelty to compel the attendance 
 of the slaves at worship on Sunday. Both the rector and 
 curate of Hanover parish said (and the same was true 
 of the adjoining parishes) that they were of no use to 
 the slaves as instructors, and that, under existing cir 
 cumstances, it was impossible they should. And as for 
 the curate s act, it was generally held there to have been 
 
56 
 
 passed for the satisfaction of England, and 5iot for any 
 .good it was likely to produce. 
 
 The character given by Mr. Cooper of the slaves- is 
 such as might be expected to be formed by a state of 
 oppression and degradation such as theirs, and in the 
 total absence of all intellectual, or moral and religious 
 culture. He represents them as addicted to thieving ; 
 but he adds, that to this vice, in some cases, they are 
 strongly tempted, by the unreasonable conduct of the 
 planters themselves. These generally refuse to sell any 
 of their sugar in the island; the consequence is, that 
 . those who are not sugar-planters can procure it only 
 .in a concealed and smuggled way, in the Negro 
 market, where it is all stolen sugar. Mr. Cooper, who 
 refused to buy any such, was obliged to tell the attorney 
 of Georgia, that if he would not allow him to have some 
 sugar on the estate, he must send to London for it. 
 
 The following passage we give entire. It is taken 
 from a letter of Mr. Cooper s in the Monthly Repository 
 of 1822, p. 494. 
 
 " Liberty seems evidently to be the natural right of 
 every human being. Why not then admit of their being 
 prepared for the enjoyment of privileges which cannot 
 be held from them without acting contrary to the sacred 
 laws of truth and justice? The planters, however, are 
 not the only persons with whom 1 would remonstrate 
 upon this subject; for all who indulge in the consumption 
 of West India produce, or contribute in any way to 
 the maintenance of the present order of things in our 
 sugar-islands, ought in common fairness to bear their 
 share of the blame. With what propriety can a con 
 sumer of rum or sugar cast a stone at the cultivator of 
 the sweet cane. The Negro is the injured individual ; 
 he is robbed of his liberty, and with that of every thing 
 that can render a rational existence desirable. He is 
 denied all the advantages of education, condemned to 
 
57 
 
 the vilest ignorance, lest, by becoming informed, he 
 should discover, and seek to remove the cause of all his 
 unmerited misfortunes. He cannot marry, and is there 
 by not merely tempted, but, in a manner, compelled to 
 form the loosest and most disgusting connections. I 
 would appeal to the common discernment and feelings 
 of mankind, whether marriage can exist where a third 
 person has it in his power to step in and disannul the 
 holy league. Now, every one knows that this is virtually 
 the case with respect to the slaves in the West Indies. 
 The connections which they form do not always take 
 place between individuals belonging to the same pro 
 prietor : in numerous instances they are the property of 
 different masters. But it is no uncommon thing for the 
 inhabitants of one plantation or settlement, to be 
 removed to another, situated perhaps on the opposite 
 side of the island; and consequently, in all such cases, 
 husbands, wives, and children, belonging to other gangs, 
 are, contrary no doubt to the wishes of the respective 
 masters, left behind. Others again are seized, and sold 
 to pay the debts of their owners. These evils might be 
 removed by attaching them to the soil, but then others 
 would remain of a nature almost equally formidable. 
 Every slave being compelled, under pain of corporal 
 punishment, to yield implicit obedience to the will of the 
 master, the wife, as well as the husband, would be un 
 der the necessity of joining a gang under the command 
 of a driver, and, in case of not giving him satisfaction, 
 to submit to the most degrading chastisement adminis 
 tered in the most indecent manner. I have known them 
 point to things of this description, for the purpose of 
 shewing that it is impossible for them to marry. Over 
 their children it is obvious that they could have no 
 authority resembling that which parents in a free country 
 possess : they could only leave them the same wretched 
 inheritance which they received from their ancestors* 
 
58 
 
 Hence, those who have children are generally careless 
 in respect to the habits they form, and the lives they lead. 
 They know they can never sink lower in the scale of 
 society than they already find themselves placed, and 
 they have no hope of rising. A regular line of orderly 
 conduct may save them from the lash, but it can effect 
 no radical change in their condition. The highest 
 office to which they can ever aspire is that of a driver, 
 an office which no one, not destitute of every manly 
 and generous feeling, could wish to hold. In short, 
 they have nothing to gain and nothing to lose ; they 
 have no character at stake : a good name, which, Solo 
 mon says, is rather to be chosen than great riches, 
 is of no avail to them. Their worth is estimated by the 
 strength of their bodies, and the talent and disposition 
 to perform their master s work. The greatest villain, 
 therefore, in a moral respect, may be, and sometimes is, 
 the most valuable slave ; the natural consequence of all 
 which is, that the Negroes, as a people, are as destitute 
 of correct morality as they are of liberty. Chastity is 
 utterly out of the question amongst the whole tribe, 
 and both men and women are found to vindicate, as 
 innocent, practices which it is scarcely allowable to name 
 amongst Christians. This is followed by low cunning 
 and contempt of truth, a determined resolution to thieve, 
 and the greatest aversion to every species of labour. 
 Gratitude, affection, fidelity, activity, and courage, make 
 no part of the character of the West India slave; and 
 yet thousands and tens of thousands have been 6 re 
 ceived into the congregation of Christ s flock, and signed 
 with the sign of the cross, &c. &c. I have been pre 
 sent, more than once, at the christening of two or three 
 hundred of them, and repeatedly conversed with persons 
 who have been thus regenerated. Need I add that the 
 whole is a solemn mockery of what the people are ex 
 horted to regard as a Christian rite? No effort what- 
 
59 
 
 ever that I could ever learn is made to prepare them 
 for the ceremony, or, after it is performed, to enforce its 
 design. The poor creatures get a new name, with which 
 they are mightily pleased, and some of them are said to 
 fancy themselves out of the reach of Obeat, or witchcraft. 
 Within the last few years, it is true, curates have been 
 sent out for the avowed purpose of instructing them in 
 religion ; but, it is to be feared, they meet with no ade 
 quate success. The Negroes cannot attend on their 
 service on a Sunday ; and when 1 left Jamaica, no 
 regulations had been made, or, I believe, thought of, 
 for allowing them time in the week. These Missionaries 
 are expected to visit several estates every week, for the 
 purpose of preaching to the slaves, if they can obtain 
 leave of the proprietor, or person acting in his place, to 
 do so. But this they very seldom get: on some estates 
 not at all, on others once or twice in the year ; so that 
 their presence in the island can be of little importance. 
 I have heard it, indeed, repeatedly declared that the 
 Curate s Act was intended for England, not for Jamaica ; 
 and this really appears to me to be viewing the subject 
 in its true light ; for it must have been known, before it 
 was passed, that the planters would not allow the slaves 
 any opportunity for attending on their new instructors, 
 and that, consequently, such a law could have no ten 
 dency to improve their condition. In a thousand in 
 stances the clergy are rather to be pitied than blamed; 
 and I have not the least doubt that many a curate 
 most deeply laments that ever he crossed the Atlantic." 
 In a subsequent letter Mr. Cooper observes, that 
 if a man would but u fix on his mind a clear picture of 
 a master treading on his slave with the feet of despotism, 
 he would perceive the cruel mockery of the same indi 
 vidual pretending, while in such an attitude, to raise 
 his wretched victim with the hand of mercy." There 
 is, he affirms, among slave-holders generally, " the 
 
60 
 
 strongest prejudice to any thing which is in any way 
 calculated to open the minds of their people." 
 " Ignorance, gross ignorance," is conceived to be " the 
 grand prop of Negro slavery." Nay, he believes it to 
 be the common opinion in Jamaica, " that the Negroes 
 are an inferior species." 
 
 2. General Treatment. 
 
 The gangs always work before the whip, which is a 
 very weighty and powerful instrument. The driver has 
 it always in his hand, and drives the Negroes, men and 
 w r omen, without distinction, as he would drive horses or 
 cattle in a team. Mr. Cooper does not say that he is 
 always using the whip, but it is known to be always 
 present, and ready to be applied to the back or shoulders 
 of any who flag at their work, or lag behind in the line.* 
 The driver, who is generally a Black man, has the power 
 not only of thus stimulating the slaves under him to 
 exertion, by the application of the whip to their bodies, 
 while they are proceeding with their work, but, when 
 he considers any of them to have committed a fault de 
 serving of a more serious notice, he has the power also 
 of prostrating them (women as well as men) on the 
 ground, causing them to be held firmly down, by other 
 Negroes, who grasp the hands and legs of their pros 
 trate companion, when he may inflict upon the bare 
 posteriors such a number of lashes as he may deem the 
 fault to have merited; the whole number which he may 
 inflict at one time, without the presence of the overseer, 
 being, by the Slave Act of 1 816, limited to ten. One of 
 the faults which the driver most frequently punishes in this 
 way, is that of coming too late to the field, either in the 
 
 * In one of his printed letters, in which he is replying to an objection, 
 Mr. Cooper incidentally, but very significantly remarks, that " to a 
 Jamaica man" it would be " truly astonishing" to learn that the whip was 
 hot needed, or that its sound was rarely heard. 
 
61 
 
 morning or after dinner. Those who arrive after the fixed 
 time are pretty sure to get a few, perhaps, five or six 
 lashes. Mr. Cooper, on one occasion, saw three or four 
 old women come too late : they knew they were to be 
 whipped, and as soon as they came up, threw themselves 
 down on the ground to receive the lashes : some of them 
 received four, others six lashes. These minor punish 
 ments, Mr. Cooper says, are very frequent. He believes 
 that seldom a day passes without some occurring ; and 
 he has heard of as many as sixty Negroes being flogged 
 in one morning, for being late. 
 
 More serious punishments are only inflicted by the 
 authority of the overseer; and the mode of their inflic 
 tion is usually the same as has been already described. 
 Whether the offender be male or female, precisely the 
 same course is pursued. The posteriors are made bare, 
 and the offender is extended prone on the ground, the 
 hands and feet being firmly held and extended by other 
 slaves ; when the driver, with his long and heavy whip, in 
 flicts, under the eye of the overseer, the number of lashes 
 which he may order; each lash, when the skin is tender 
 and not rendered callous by repeated punishments, mak 
 ing an incision on the buttocks, and thirty or forty such 
 lashes leaving them in a dreadfully lacerated and bleed 
 ing state. Even those that have become the most cal 
 lous cannot long resist the force of this terrible instru 
 ment, when applied by a skilful hand, but become also 
 raw and bloody ; indeed, no strength of skin can with 
 stand its reiterated application. 
 
 These punishments are inflicted by the overseer, 
 whenever he thinks them to have been deserved. He 
 has no written rules to guide his conduct, nor are the 
 occasions at all defined on which he may exercise the 
 power of punishment. Its exercise is regulated wholly 
 and solely by his own discretion. An act of neglect or 
 of disobedience, or even a look or a word supposed to 
 
62 
 
 imply insolence, no less than desertion or theft or con 
 tumacy, may be thus punished ; and they may be thus 
 punished, without trial and without appeal, at the mere 
 pleasure and fiat of the overseer. Doubtless, any slave 
 may, after having been punished, complain of his over 
 seer to the attorney of the estate, or to a magistrate ; 
 but such complaint often does him more harm than good. 
 
 The law professes to limit the number of lashes which 
 shall be given at one time to thirty-nine: but neither this 
 law, nor any other which professes to protect the slave, can 
 be of much practical benefit to him : it cannot, under ex 
 isting circumstances, be enforced ; and its existence in 
 the statute-book, therefore, is but a mockery. A Negro, 
 especially one who is the slave of an absentee proprietor, 
 may be considered as entirely in the power of the over 
 seer, who is his absolute master, and may be at the same 
 instant his lawgiver, accuser, and judge; and may not 
 only award sentence, but order its execution. And 
 supposing him to act unjustly, or even cruelly, he has it 
 in his power to prevent any redress from the law. The 
 evidence of a thousand slaves would avail nothing to his 
 conviction; and, even if there were any disposition in the 
 inferior Whites to inform or to bear testimony against 
 him, he has only to take care that the infliction does not 
 take place in their presence. 
 
 In point of fact, Mr. Cooper believes that the limit 
 ation of the number of lashes to thirty-nine is practi 
 cally disregarded, whenever the overseer thinks the 
 offence deserving of a larger measure of punishment. 
 The information he received on this subject all went to 
 shew that the law was not attended to. One overseer 
 told him, that a woman had disobeyed his orders, and 
 he put her in the stocks by way of punishment. She 
 complained to the attorney of this proceeding. He 
 ordered her to be thrown down on the ground, in the 
 customary manner, and thirty-nine lashes were inflicted 
 
63 
 
 on her naked posteriors ; after which she was raised up, 
 and immediately thrown down again, and received thirty- 
 nine lashes more, applied in the same manner. 
 
 The law permits the Negroes to make their complaints 
 to magistrates. In one case several Negroes went to 
 complain to a magistrate of their want of houses, or 
 proper accommodation. Mr. Cooper saw them, on 
 that occasion, at the magistrate s door. The magis 
 trate, however, told him it would never do to interfere 
 in such matters, for, if they did, there would be no 
 getting on between masters or overseers and magis 
 trates; and, with respect to these complainants, what 
 he did was to desire them to return home and trust to 
 their master s kindness : and Mr. Cooper thought that, 
 all things considered, he could not well have done 
 otherwise. 
 
 |* Two women, who were pregnant, desired to quit 
 j the field during rain, on account of their pregnancy. 
 The overseer refused them permission. They went to 
 complain of this refusal to a magistrate, but were 
 stopped in their way by a neighbouring overseer, 
 and by him thrown into the stocks until he sent them 
 back to their own overseer, who put them again into 
 the stocks on their own estate, and had them flogged. 
 Of this proceeding they complained to the attorney. 
 The attorney was of opinion that the overseer had 
 acted with undue severity ; but he considered the women 
 to have been highly to blame for attempting to complain 
 to the magistrate ; whereas, he said, they ought in the 
 first instance to have complained to him. j 
 
 It is common for Negroes, who have been guilty 
 of what is deemed a serious offence, to be worked all 
 day in the field, and during the intervals of labour, as 
 well as during the whole night, to be confined, with 
 their feet fast in the stocks. In the case of one Negro, 
 who was so confined for some weeks, Mrs. Cooper 
 
begged hard to obtain a remission of his punishment, 
 but did not succeed. Another Negro, belonging to the 
 estate, was a notorious runaway. Being taken, he 
 was flogged in the usual manner, as severely as he well 
 could bear, and then made to work in the field. During 
 the interval of dinner-time he was regularly placed in 
 the stocks, and in them also he was confined the whole 
 night. When the lacerations, produced by the flog 
 ging he had received, were sufficiently healed, he was 
 flogged a second time. While the sores were still un- 
 healed, one of the book-keepers told Mr. Cooper that 
 maggots had bred in the lacerated flesh. Mr. Cooper 
 mentioned the circumstance to the attorney, who did 
 not manifest any surprize on hearing it. 
 
 An old African Negro, well known to Mr. Cooper, 
 who appeared to possess a sound and superior mind, 
 and was reckoned the best watchman on the estate, was 
 placed to watch the provision-grounds for the use of the 
 overseer s house. These were robbed, and the robbery 
 being imputed to his neglect, he received a very severe 
 flogging. The old man declared (Mr. Cooper does 
 not vouch for the truth of the excuse) that he could 
 not help what had happened, the grounds being too 
 extensive for him to guard them effectually, so that 
 while he was on one side of them, the Negroes could 
 easily steal on the other. This flogging made a great 
 alteration in the old man, and he never seemed well 
 after it. In two or three weeks another robbery oc 
 curring, he received a still more severe flogging than 
 before. One morning, while Mr. and Mrs. Cooper were 
 at breakfast, they heard a groaning, and going to the 
 window, saw this poor man passing along in a state 
 which made Mrs. Cooper shrink back with horror. 
 Mr. Cooper went out to him, and found his posteriors, 
 which were completely exposed, much lacerated, and 
 bleeding dreadfully. He seemed much exhausted. Fie 
 
6,5 
 
 attempted to explain the case, but was incapable from 
 fatigue and suffering, A Negro boy was standing by ; 
 the old man pointed to him, and said, " Massa, him tell 
 you." The poor old man from this time was never well 
 or cheerful, and he soon afterwards died. 
 
 Mr. Cooper never saw a Negro, who, when uncovered, 
 did not exhibit marks of violence, that is to say, traces 
 of the whip, on his body. 
 
 It has been already mentioned that the Negroes on 
 this estate, and the same is the case generally through 
 out the island, have no food beyond a small allowance 
 of salted fish, except what they raise on their own 
 grounds ; Sundays, and a certain number of days beside, 
 being allotted for their cultivation. 
 
 The Negroes have in general too few houses ; but the 
 having a house to themselves, be it ever so bad, gives 
 some feeling of importance. On Georgia there are 
 many houses built in rather a superior style, which 
 have cost the proprietor a heavy sum of money ; but in 
 general their huts are like sheds. They are made with 
 posts put into the ground. The sides are wattled, some 
 being plastered with mortar, and some not. They are 
 thatched, sometimes shingled. They often have one 
 room to sit in, with one or two for sleeping. They lie 
 on boards, or on a door covered with a mat of their 
 own making, and sometimes a blanket for covering ; but 
 they have not all blankets. A woman with children has 
 a blanket, and also the aged men ; but many men have 
 none. 
 
 3. Emancipation. 
 
 If the mother be three degrees removed from the 
 Black, her child by a White man is free, and classes, in 
 point of privilege, with Whites. 
 
 White men occasionally give freedom to their mis 
 tresses and their children. But this, in all cases where 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 the mistress and her children are not the slaves of tke 
 White man, must be effected by purchase, and, of 
 course, with the owner s consent. But such purchases 
 cannot be effected when the estate is mortgaged, or the 
 owner is a minor. White men often complain that the 
 owner is not compelled to give freedom to their children, 
 on his being paid their value. In all cases where slaves 
 are made free, a bond must be given that they shall not 
 \become chargeable. 
 
 Free Blacks and persons of Colour pay all taxes, and 
 perform military duty in the colonial militia, precisely 
 as the Whites. According to the number of Negroes 
 which each planter possesses, he is obliged to have upon 
 his estate a certain number of White persons, or to pay 
 a certain sum for each deficiency. This is with a view 
 to prevent the militia from falling off in numbers. Free 
 people of Colour, though they are bound to serve in the 
 militia, yet are of no avail in freeing any estate, on which 
 they may be employed, from this penalty. Indeed, from 
 the prejudice existing against them in the minds of the 
 Whites, it is in very few cases that they are employed 
 on estates, which, considering the perfect competency of 
 many of them, they feel to be a great hardship. So 
 far indeed are they from being encouraged in Jamaica, 
 that their increase is viewed with apprehension, as 
 adding to the danger of insurrection. Much jealousy is 
 entertained of them, especially when they have been 
 educated in England, where they have been treated as 
 men, and on a footing of equality with their W T hite 
 brethren. And yet Mr. Cooper is of opinion, and in 
 that opinion we entirely concur, that " the principle 
 of gradual emancipation," though the subject of so much 
 alarm to West Indians, affords the best means of re 
 medying the evils of the system, with safety to the master 
 and the slave. 
 
67 
 
 It is a strong proof of the degrading light in which 
 free persons of Colour are viewed by the Whites, that 
 these last never introduce even their own children into 
 company. It was thought a very extraordinary thing, 
 on one occasion, to see a father riding in a gig with his 
 own Coloured daughter. Coloured persons reputed to 
 be the children of the owners of the estates are some 
 times held as slaves upon them, and have been even 
 sold along with them. 
 
 Many of the free Negroes are industrious, and suc 
 ceed very well, although they never think of hiring 
 themselves to the planters to work in the field. It could 
 not indeed be expected that they should submit to the de 
 gradation of working under the lash. They are objects of 
 great respect to the slaves, but are kept at a distance by 
 the free Browns, who consider themselves as rising in 
 rank as they approach to the colour of Whites. 
 
 Very great difficulty is experienced by Negroes in 
 obtaining their freedom, even when they are able to pay 
 for it, because those who, by their industry and frugality 
 have realized the means of purchasing their freedom, 
 and who, therefore, are most worthy of it, and also 
 likely to employ it most beneficially, are the most valu 
 able hands. Mr. Cooper knew three valuable men who 
 wished to purchase their freedom. They had long ap 
 plied in vain to the agents of the proprietor resident on 
 the spot. They at length, however, obtained their end, 
 by an application to the proprietor himself then in 
 (England. After this a fourth made many efforts to ob 
 tain his freedom by purchase, but they proved unavail 
 ing ; and he sunk in consequence into a state of despond 
 ency, and became of comparatively little value. 
 
 The number of Brown slaves, the children of White 
 men, is very considerable. In general, however, they 
 are not employed in the field : Mr. Cooper knew only one 
 estate on which Brown slaves were so employed, viz. 
 
 F 2 
 
08 
 
 Roundhill, in Hanover. They are usually employed as 
 domestics, or taught mechanic arts, as carpenters, 
 coopers, masons, smiths, &c. 
 
 4. Miscellaneous Observations. 
 
 A large proportion of all the estates are mortgaged ; 
 and estates are frequently sold to pay off the debts upon 
 them. The slaves themselves, too, or a part of them, 
 are often seized for the payment of the master s debts ; 
 and this is done without any reference, in a multitude 
 of cases, to family-connections. It is felt by them as a 
 grievous hardship to be separated from their connections: 
 it sometimes produces a species of rebellion ; and has 
 been known to occasion the death of many, through the 
 distress of mind which it produces. 
 
 Small proprietors often undertake to do work on 
 estates by job, which they employ their slaves to ex 
 ecute. When they are thus sent to different places, 
 they carry their own provisions with them, and usually 
 sleep on the ground under a tent, all huddled together, 
 though sometimes they are accommodated in the sugar- 
 works of the estate, or by the Negroes of the estate in 
 their houses. 
 
 Task-work is very uncommon in Jamaica. It is held 
 to be dangerous to allow the slave much spare time. 
 
 If a Negro is deemed to be incorrigible by plantation- 
 discipline, he is often sent to the workhouse of the parish, 
 where he is chained to another Negro, and employed, 
 with others chained in the same manner, two and two, 
 in repairing the roads during the day, being shut up 
 during the night. This punishment is inflicted without 
 the intervention of any magistrate, by the mere desire 
 of the master or overseer, who may protract it for any 
 length of time. 
 
09 
 
 When Negroes are sent out in pursuit of runaways, 
 they are usually armed with a cutlass, and are author 
 ized, in case of resistance, to chop, that is, to cut 
 down the runaway. The Maroons are also encouraged 
 by rewards to take up runaways. They carry fire-arms, 
 and may shoot them if they resist. 
 
 There is on every estate what the Negroes call a 
 Hothouse or Hospital, which a medical practitioner is 
 expected to visit once or twice a week. The Negroes 
 have generally a great dislike to being shut up in this 
 Hothouse, where they are separated from the kindness 
 of their friends, and would prefer being in their own 
 houses, even though in a miserable state. 
 
 White women, who are owners of slaves, will, in 
 general, without any scruple, order their slaves to be 
 flogged, and some of them will even stand by to see them 
 stripped bare, and punished in the usual disgusting 
 manner. 
 
 Just before Mr Cooper quitted the island, as he was 
 walking in the streets of Lucea, the port-town of 
 Hanover parish, in company with the captain of the 
 vessel in which he had taken his passage, they saw an 
 old mail who appeared to have been recently flogged. 
 He was standing in the public street with his posteriors 
 exposed and bleeding, and yet he seemed to excite no 
 attention whatever from any one but Mr. Cooper and 
 the captain. 
 
 Such is the unbiassed testimony of this respectable 
 Christian minister on the subject of Negro slavery, as 
 it exists at the present time in our island of Jamaica. 
 The statements he has made do not consist of instances 
 of cruelty collected in a long series of years, or from dif 
 ferent parts of the island, but they refer to one neigh 
 bourhood, and mostly to one estate ; and that estate, too, 
 not singled out for the harshness or inhumanity of its 
 
yo 
 
 treatment, but sueh an estate as would be as likely as any 
 other to have been selected in order to convey the most 
 favourable representation of Negro bondage ; being an 
 estate the owner of which is conspicuous for his bene 
 volence, and seems sincerely desirous of sparing no ex 
 pense to make his slaves as comfortable as circum 
 stances will allow. Do not these facts, therefore, furnish 
 a strong presumption, we will not say against the owners 
 of slaves, but against the system which they administer, 
 as incurably vicious, unless the British parliament shall 
 interfere to apply a remedy adequate to the occasion, 
 by paving the way for a gradual emancipation, and in 
 the mean time by abating the evils which will otherwise 
 be found to be inseparable from that degrading and dis 
 gusting state of society, which exists in our West India 
 islands ? 
 
 The valuable statements of Mr. Cooper appear to us 
 to possess this great recommendation, that they are given, 
 (as may be more clearly seen by a perusal of his papers 
 in the Monthly Repository,) with an admirable dispas 
 sionateness, and without the slightest feeling of irritation 
 towards the planters, whether proprietors or overseers. 
 On the contrary, with a candour that does him the 
 highest honour 9 he becomes, in some respects, their apolo 
 gist, attributing the evils which he specifies and deplores, 
 mainly to the system they are called to administer, 
 rather than to any particular disposition, on their part, 
 to administer it oppressively, or to abuse the tremen 
 dous power they possess. He conceives them to be 
 forced, by circumstances, " to continue to whip on their 
 unwilling gangs, as a post-boy does his hacks from mile 
 to mile." What an idea does this single sentence convey, 
 of the nature of Negro slavery ! 
 
 But, after all that can be said in favour of the slave 
 holders is admitted, we would ask, is it possible to expect 
 that such power as their* should not be abused ? Or that 
 
 15 
 
71 
 
 the men who possess it, and who are stated to have cast 
 off the fear of God, and to experience little or no con- 
 troul from human laws, should not be tyrannical, capri 
 cious, and cruel ? To suppose this, would be to suppose 
 the planters of Jamaica to be angels and not men. 
 
 II. EVIDENCE OF JOHN WILLIAMSON, M. D. 
 
 In the year 1817 Dr. Williamson published a work, 
 in two volumes, 8vo., entitled, " Medical and Miscella 
 neous Observations relative to the West India Islands*, 
 by John Williamson, M.D. Fellow of the Royal College 
 of Physicians, Edinburgh, formerly Surgeon of the 
 Caithness Highlanders, and late of Spanish Town, Ja 
 maica. " He dedicates this work to the Earl of Hare- 
 wood, on whose estate of Williamsfield, in the parish of 
 St. Thomas in the Vale, Jamaica, he had lived for about 
 four years in a professional capacity, f His residence 
 in the island appears to have extended from August, 
 1798, to April, 1812, a period of nearly fourteen years. 
 
 The testimony of Dr. Williamson will be less liable to 
 exception, in the estimation of West Indians, as he shows 
 himself, on all occasions, a sturdy advocate of their sys 
 tem ; and when he finds fault with them, it is manifestly 
 with extreme reluctance. He even hopes, by an exhi 
 bition of facts, to place in their true light the unfair 
 representations of the enemies of the colonies, " the 
 officious would-be friends" (as he calls them) " of huma 
 nity," who, he assures us, have only to " leave the 
 Negroes to their own judgment, and to improvement by 
 the wisely framed resolutions of their own colonial assem- 
 
 * See an able review of this work in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxviii. 
 p. 340. 
 
 f On this estate Dr. Williamson states, that every thing was conducted 
 on principles of liberality highly honourable to His Lordship. He resided 
 there free of expence, and every comfort was afforded him he could have 
 wished for. Vol. i. p. 76. 
 
72 
 
 blies," in order to their being " a happy people," \vho 
 will " fully appreciate the value of their superior condi 
 tion." Vol. i. p. 338. He sometimes expresses him 
 self in terms almost approaching to rapture, when 
 speaking of the condition of the Negroes in the West 
 Indies ; nay, he even doubts whether the abolition of 
 the Slave-trade was not a great evil, inasmuch as it 
 prevented the removal of Africans from a state of bar 
 barism and misery, in their own land, to that state of 
 civilisation and improvement, a West Indian plantation ! 
 (Vol. i. p. 371. ii. p. 332, &c. &c.) 
 
 One of the blessings attending this removal he rather 
 amusingly discovers to be, that " indolent, good-for- 
 nothing Negroes," (and it seems there are many of these 
 in Jamaica,) who, " if they were left to their own free 
 wills, uncontrolled by wholesome laws, which encourage 
 industrious habits, would become idlers and plunderers, 
 and return to barbarism," (vol. i, p. 345.) here find the 
 control of such wholesome laws. In other words, (heir 
 indolence finds a cure, and their industry an incentive, 
 in the wholesome discipline of the cart-whip. In short, 
 whenever Dr.W. speaks in general terms, he seems at a 
 loss to find words strong enough in which to eulogise the 
 humanity and tenderness of West India proprietors and 
 overseers. But let us come to particulars, in order to 
 see how far his facts tend to contradict or to corroborate 
 his panegyric; and, that this may be better understood, 
 we shall range our extracts from his work under the 
 same general heads which we adopted in the case of 
 Mr. Cooper s information. 
 
 1. State of Morals and Religion. 
 " The manner in which Sunday is spent," observes 
 Dr. W., " will appear extraordinary, and very contra 
 dictory to the duties inculcated on that day. A great 
 market is kept by the Negroes, which is, in truth, also a 
 
 11 
 
73 
 
 market for the Whites. The merchants attend at their 
 stores and counting-houses." (Vol. i. p. 42.) 
 
 " The sacred observance of Sunday appears to me," 
 he says, " necessary, if we expect any good effect from 
 the commands of God. In countries where the duties 
 of that day are becomingly attended to, a greater pro 
 portion of virtue, &c. is to be observed. On the con 
 trary, where the Sabbath is violated, the manners of the 
 mass of the people are vicious, regardless of every com 
 mendable principle, and afford examples of human de 
 pravity which, it is with reluctance I must say, is too 
 applicable to that country (Jamaica). It is much to be 
 wished, that the fourth commandment were more fully 
 taken into consideration. It seems possible to do away 
 Sunday markets, and cultivating the ground. Sugar-mills 
 should not be at work on that day, indeed, no labour 
 allowed. It was appointed, by Divine authority, to be a 
 day of rest and devotion, in which no work should be 
 performed." (Vol. i. p. 108.) 
 
 " It must be admitted," he goes on to remark, " that 
 the means of religious instruction to Negroes, in Ja 
 maica, are yet extremely defective ; and, it is still more 
 painful to add, that the White inhabitants are culpably 
 inattentive to public religious duties. /It were well if 
 that were all. Contempt for religion is openly avowed by 
 a great proportion of those to be met with in that country." 
 (Vol. i. p. 328.) 
 
 " The propriety of matrimony," he tells us, " is seldom 
 impressed on the minds of the Negroes, by the clergy 
 or any other White persons. Indeed, the latter, them 
 selves, shew the example of a libidinous course of life, 
 and follow that promiscuous intercourse which can 
 scarcely be justified in savages." (Vol. i. p. 329.) 
 
 " At our parish-church, the people of Colour behaved 
 themselves with the greatest propriety, but the White 
 persons conducted themselves with great indecency." 
 
74 
 
 " It is impossible, however, to do any thing, * (in the 
 way of religious improvement,) " unless a becoming ob 
 servance of the Sabbath is enforced. At present, it is a 
 day of labour, marketing, and exchange, and too often is 
 concluded by scenes of excess and brutal debauchery. 
 That system is authorized by the Whites. But until done 
 away, and that, as an introduction to Christian habits 
 among the Negroes, nothing can be so futile as to attempt 
 to reconcile Christianity with a violation of one of its 
 most important commandments." (Vol. i. p. 331.) 
 
 " Such a state of things among a people arrogating 
 to themselves the designation of Christians," he adds, 
 " is of a nature so criminal, that to that we may ascribe 
 the destructive line of conduct followed by the Negroes, 
 affecting their lives and health, and the ultimate interests 
 of those who are the cause of these evils." " No cir 
 cumstance is, in my opinion, so adverse to the preva 
 lence of Christianity among Negroes as the conduct of 
 the White inhabitants, who treat the Sabbath with a 
 violation of its most sacred duties, and make it, by the 
 established customs of the island, a day of marketing, 
 labour, dancing, and excesses of every kind" (Vol. ii. 
 p. 285.) 
 
 Sunday, Dr. W. conceives, is the only day on which 
 instruction can be conveniently given. But " on that 
 day the Negroes," he tells us, " are engaged in market 
 ing and labour. They are thus taught to disobey the 
 command which enjoins the observance of the Sabbath; 
 and it is impossible to suppose that a consistent impres 
 sion can be made on the minds of Negroes, where the 
 slightest sagacity on their part must expose the absurdity. 
 While the legislature of Jamaica does not provide 
 that Sunday shall be a day of rest, and enforce attention 
 to it, I cannot persuade myself to believe their sincerity." 
 (Vol.ii. p. 287.) 
 
75 
 
 Let us hear Dr. Williamson s testimony respecting 
 another class of evils : "A stranger is much sur 
 prised to observe the domestic attachments which many 
 of the most respectable of the White inhabitants form 
 with females of Colour." " Among the Negroes, licen 
 tious appetites are promiscuously gratified ; and the truth 
 requires that it should not be concealed, the Whites on 
 estates follow the same habits, on many occasions, to a 
 greater extent Black or Brown mistresses are consi 
 dered necessary appendages to every establishment : even 
 a young bookkeeper, coming from Europe, is generally 
 instructed to provide himself; and however repugnant 
 may seem the idea at first, his scruples are overcome, 
 and he conforms to general custom." (Vol. i. pp.42. 49.) 
 
 Dr. William son, after enumerating a variety of causes 
 of disease to which the circumstances of the Negroes 
 expose them, adds, " Feelings of humanity and interest 
 concur to deplore that condition of moral turpitude 
 which has proved the source of so many evils to that 
 devoted country." " That unrestrained habit of promis 
 cuous intercourse, which almost universally prevails in 
 Jamaica, is, in itself, an insuperable bar to population." 
 " Negro women, in that unrestrained and corrupt line 
 of conduct they are apt to pursue, on arriving at pu 
 berty, contract habits inimical to all decency, and particu 
 larly adverse to all probability of increasing numbers on 
 the estate." He then proposes a plan for placing them 
 under discreet superintendence, until married to persons 
 of their own colour ; and adds, somewhat obscurely, 
 but with a dreadful significancy, " Such a course would 
 preclude that barbarous and violent line of conduct 
 adopted on such occasions." * (Vol. ii. pp. 131. 199.) 
 
 * This sentence furnishes one of the many instances which occur in 
 Dr. Williamson * book, of reluctant admissions, or dark intimations of 
 evils, the combined result of profligacy and hard-heartcdness, (lust and 
 
76 
 
 From these, and similar causes, " The diseases of 
 pregnancy," Dr. W. thinks, " are aggravated in Negro 
 women. Abortion is so frequent as to lead to an opi 
 nion, that means are taken to procure it, on account of 
 ill disposition * to their masters, and other barbarous rea 
 sons , for which there can be no excuse" " Unless 
 means are adopted to bring the women to civilized 
 habits, it will undoubtedly follow that every year will 
 discover a prodigious decrease in our Negro popu 
 lation." (VoLii. pp. 199, 200.) 
 
 " An unlucky" (what a singular epithet to employ 
 on the occasion !) "an unlucky habit of debasement 
 has established itself, by long custom on estates, of book 
 keepers attaching themselves to mistresses, slaves on 
 the estate," &c. (Vol. ii. p. 252.) 
 
 But enough of this. 
 
 2. General Treatment. 
 
 " An imperfect, confused manner is adopted in Ja 
 maica," Dr. Williamson informs us, " for providing 
 suitably for sick Negroes in the Hothouse, or Hospital." 
 
 " The utmost" he can say in their favour is, " that in 
 extreme cases, where danger is represented, the most hu 
 mane attentions are in general rendered, and nothing 
 wanting which can conduce to comfort or recovery." 
 Chronic diseases, and lues, he says, are little attended 
 to; and though it would be for the interest of the pro- 
 
 cruelty) in persons armed with power, which, however intelligible they 
 may be to his West Indian friends, can convey no very clear ideas to 
 persons used only to the decencies and restraints of European society. 
 
 * One perceives, in such expressions as these, the influence of colonial 
 society, even on a mind so humane and considerate as Dr. Williamson s. 
 Thus, on another occasion, he tells us that the wretched slaves, who com 
 mit suicide, do so from being ill disposed to their masters. (Vol. i. 
 p. 93.) 
 
77 
 
 prictors, and of humanity, if they were attended to, yet 
 " any attempts at innovation are resisted." 
 
 " If the practitioner were earnestly disposed to insist 
 on his prescriptions and other instructions being obeyed, 
 he would find his best efforts ineffectual ; and it would 
 be better, on the whole, by cultivating friendship with 
 the overseer, to promote that object." In short, he 
 confesses that " the nature of medical practice was 
 unsatisfactory on estates and plantations." He com 
 plains of overseers dismissing patients from the Hospital, 
 in opposition to the advice of the medical attendant; 
 thus accounting for the many instances of irrecoverable 
 venereal cases. The liberal and humane intentions of 
 proprietors *, he further complains, are not carried into 
 effect. He has had often to lament that his own well- 
 considered prescriptions to subdue a chronic disease, 
 and to restore an additional healthy labourer to his em 
 ployer, were completely frustrated by the negligence of 
 overseers." Dr. Williamson, in another place, spe 
 cifies an instance where, in attempting the cure of 
 a chronic complaint, which was proceeding favour 
 ably, " the unfortunate man was turned out to work 
 by the overseer; and, though he might labour for a 
 while, would most probably become a victim to incu 
 rable disease." (Vol.i. pp. 55. 63. 65. 185.) 
 
 " The Yawy Negroes," he further observes, " on 
 estates, seemed to me to be in a very neglected state. 
 In the progress of disease, that maintenance was not 
 afforded them which, with a view to cure, should be 
 liberally dispensed. A disease, itself injurious to the 
 constitution, is thus aggravated; whereas, if nature were 
 supported by ft diet, clothing, cleanliness, and com- 
 
 * It was while residing on the estate of the Earl of Harewood that 
 Dr. Williamson penned these remarks ; and though the remarks them 
 selves are strong, yet how much more strong are the implications which 
 they convev ! 
 
78 
 
 fortable housing, she would work her own cure in most 
 cases. An immense deal of labour is thus lost to the 
 proprietor. But this is not all ; for, owing to patched- 
 np cures, there is a premature disappearance of the 
 Yawy eruption, and the disease lies lurking in the sys 
 tem ; bone-aches attack the unfortunate Negro ; the 
 master loses a valuable servant ; and the servant drags 
 on a miserable existence." " The legislature has not 
 interfered in this important matter." (Vol. i. p. 88.) 
 
 " The great mortality among infants, the first two 
 weeks after birth," ought, he says, to have secured 6t the 
 notice of all engaged in plantation-interests, from the 
 proprietor downwards." In St. Thomas in the Vale, 
 " the loss of infants was great beyond what could be ima 
 gined." On enquiry, the bad management accounted 
 to him for the mortality. (Vol. i. p. 1 30.) 
 
 " At Newhall estate, where the Negroes were in 
 dulged, and considered of dissipated habits, a great deal 
 of bad health occurred." 
 
 "The hospitals on estates are much in want of hot 
 and cold baths, which might be erected at a mode 
 rate expense. A plan had been given in some time be 
 fore for that purpose ; and the liberal proprietor of 
 Newhall had directed his overseer to have it done : but 
 his orders were not obeyed." (P. 155.) 
 
 " It is painful for me to remark," observes the Doctor, 
 on another occasion, " that on an estate, a valuable 
 Negro was prevented, by the commands of an overseer, 
 from availing himself of medical prescriptions, while 
 labouring under a pulmonic complaint. My opinion 
 was given to the overseer, with a prescription. Several 
 weeks after, the Negro met me. An increased illness 
 was expressed by his general appearance, and he de 
 clared he had neither received medicine nor indulgence, 
 as I had directed. The consequences were, in a short 
 time, fatal to a decent Negro, whose overseer could not 
 
79 
 
 deny him to have been a dutiful servant, and respectable 
 in his station. * 
 
 On another estate, " a woman, for a trivial offence, 
 was confined in the stocks, in a cold room, night and 
 clay, and her life endangered by neglect." Again, " A 
 pregnant woman was confined to the stocks for miscon 
 duct, and only liberated a few days before her delivery. 
 Her health had suffered severely, and, after bringing a 
 child, she discovered symptoms of puerperal fever, 
 which terminated her existence in a few days." (Vol. f. 
 p,191.) 
 
 Negroes are represented by Dr. Williamson as " very 
 liable to affections of the mind, which produce diseases 
 of various kinds." Among these Dr. Williamson reckons 
 the mat d cstomac, or dirt-eating, which, "when it has once 
 established itself among a gang of Negroes, we cannot 
 possibly calculate on the extent of its ravages. It has 
 been observed, however," he adds, " that on estates where 
 the Negroes are extremely comfortable , this disease is seldom, 
 if ever, discovered (Vol. ii. p. 261.) 
 
 The professional pursuits of Dr. Williamson have, 
 naturally enough, led his thoughts chiefly to the medical 
 treatment of the Negroes. It is to this point that his 
 observations are principally directed. Still, much inci 
 dentally breaks out, which throws light on" the prevail 
 ing spirit and tendency of the colonial system, as it 
 affects the well-being of the slaves. Some of the follow 
 ing extracts, however, from Dr. Williamson s work, have 
 a more general bearing : 
 
 " The overseer of an estate indulged a disposition to 
 amorous connection with a handsome Negro woman, 
 the adopted wife of a Negro cooper, with whom she 
 
 * He speaks of another case of a female, where he promised himself 
 success in the treatment: but he says, " the overseer wanted labour; and 
 in these circumstances we must not attempt to thwart the overseer." 
 ( Vol. i. p. 249.) 
 
80 
 
 had lived as such for some time. She was the mother 
 of children to her husband, and they lived together in a 
 comfortable way. The woman declared herself unwil 
 ling to indulge the overseer in a wish so injurious to her 
 husband s happiness ; but, his orders were to be obeyed, 
 and she yielded to his desires ; and he aggravated the 
 act by insisting that she should altogether live with him. 
 It is painful to me to be obliged to add, that the wo 
 man s husband became the object of his resentment. 
 He was annoyed for having expressed discontent at 
 such an invasion of his happiness. His life became a 
 burden ; and though his wife was the companion of the 
 overseer s bed, plots for his destruction were contem 
 plated by the woman and her injured husband." Arsenic 
 was mixed in lemonade for the overseer. He perceived 
 the metallic taste, and did not drink of it; but a book 
 keeper took a draught of it, which produced uneasy 
 sensations ; but a brisk emetic being administered, pre 
 vented fatal consequences. After an enquiry, " it was 
 pretty clearly ascertained, that the Negro woman, se 
 duced from her husband, had mixed the dose," hoping 
 that the overseer would have been " the just object of 
 vengeance, by forfeiting his life." (Vol. i. p. 374.) 
 
 Dr. Williamson proceeds no farther with the story. 
 He does not inform us what became either of the 
 Negroes or of the overseer. It was due to the cha 
 racter of the country to have stated this. In a subse 
 quent part of his work, (vol. ii. p. 201.) he again briefly 
 adverts to the occurrence, but without attempting to 
 satisfy our curiosity as to the fate of the parties con 
 cerned. He founds on it indeed a salutary monition to 
 Whites, against pursuing the gratification of their licen 
 tious appetites, by the exercise of authority; and states 
 it as his opinion that nothing operates more injuriously 
 on the comfort of the Negro women than such cruel in 
 vasions of their domestic enjoyments. (Vol. ii. p. 201.) 
 
81 
 
 Dr. Williamson remarks, C that where corporal 
 punishment is least exercised, that property is always 
 under the best management." And he recommends 
 that, in all cases of punishment, " the Negro s name, 
 his crime, the extent of punishment and of confine 
 ment, should be regularly entered in a book, and that 
 no overseer, or person under his authority, should inflict 
 any punishment which should not thus be brought 
 within notice, or punish a Negro in any shape, but in 
 the presence of a White man belonging to the estate * 
 whose name must be entered in the book; the whole to 
 be sworn to by the overseer." (Vol. i. p. 193.) 
 
 He afterwards recurs to this subject, and is so im 
 pressed with the injurious nature of the punishments 
 which it is in the power of overseers to inflict, that he 
 recommends that they should take place, " if possible, in 
 the presence of the plantation-doctor, who should be 
 empowered to limit the extent of punishment," (Vol. ii. 
 p. 219.) 
 
 We shall make only one extract more under this 
 head. 
 
 " An abuse," observes our author, " at present ex 
 isting on some properties, is arming the drivers with 
 power to inflict punishment in the field." " When 
 punishment is inflicted by flogging, the limit should not 
 be extended above 39 lashes, which the overseer is only 
 empowered to inflict by law. It cannot, however, be 
 denied that this limit is often out-done, and by re 
 peatedly punishing offenders the parts become insensible 
 to the lacerations which tear up the skin. When that 
 barbarous consequence is arrived at, the infliction of the 
 lash becomes a matter of indifference to the unfortunate 
 
 * This recommendation is obviously intended by Dr. Williamson to 
 supply some remedy for that principle of colonial law, which excludes the 
 evidence of slaves from being received, in cases affecting persons of free 
 condition. 
 
Negro, and new sources of torture must be found out by 
 which the commission of crime may be checked. It 
 can scarcely be necessary to add, that such a condition 
 of torpor in the parts to which punishment is applied 
 can never be justified on any pretext ; and I blush to 
 reflect that White men should be the directors of such 
 disgraceful deeds. Opinions have been given that it 
 would be well altogether to do away the possession of a 
 large heavy whip from the driver s hands ; and whether 
 we consider the frightful sound which reaches our ears 
 every minute in passing through estates, by the crack 
 of the lash ; or the power with which drivers are pro 
 vided to exercise punishment ; it would be desirable that 
 such a weapon of arbitrary and unjust authority were 
 taken from them. It is at present customary to crack 
 the whip to turn out the gangs, at stated hours, to the 
 field. When a Negro seems to be tardy at his work the 
 driver sounds the lash near him, or lets him feel it as he 
 thinks propei*" * From all this the " impression made 
 upon the passenger, who is probably a stranger, is 
 horrible indeed." " Every consideration of humanity 
 and policy points out that the frequent infliction of the 
 heavy whip to cut up and lacerate severely" is improper. 
 " That extreme punishment f, if awarded, should be only 
 
 * Speaking of the driving system, Dr. Williamson observes, in his own 
 obscure way, that " however much it may be the wish of proprietors and 
 attorneys of estates to condemn every step which tends to bear down the 
 Negro incapable of the usual labour of the healthy, it is too true that due 
 consideration is not sometimes given to this point. The interests of pro 
 prietors are thus sacrificed to a barbarous policy. On estates this fault is 
 not so common as in jobbing-gangs ; but in both the crime is equally 
 culpable, and inimical to their true policy." (Vol. ii. p. 223.) 
 
 Now the plain English of this passage we take to be, that on sugar- 
 estates, but still more in jobbing-gangs, the weaker part of the gang are 
 sometimes over-driven, by the impulse of the lash, in order to keep up 
 with the stronger. 
 
 f What Dr. Williamson justly calls extreme jnmishment it is neverthe 
 less in the power of every overseer to inflict summarily, at his own dis 
 cretion, for any fault or for no fault at all. 
 
83 
 
 admitted on occasions of very aggravated crime ; and it 
 would be well, even under these circumstances, not to 
 inflict it 011 the single opinion of any individual." 
 
 " By abandoning the severity of punishment, unless 
 in cases of very aggravated transgression, the condition 
 of the Negroes will be immensely improved. A Negro, 
 subjected to frequent and severe punishment, has an 
 appearance and manner by which he is easily known. 
 If) in a warm day, we pass by a gang when they are un 
 covered behind, it is a reproach to every WJiite man to 
 observe in them the recently lacerated sores, or the deep 
 furrows which, though healed up, leave the marks of cruel 
 punishment. If the management of Negroes can be con 
 ducted without such unperishing testimonals of uncalled- 
 for cruelty, let not future crimes disgrace us, and let our 
 future humanity towards them compensate for the past." 
 (Vol. ii. pp. 222. 225.) 
 
 3. Miscellaneous Observations. 
 
 General remarks are rare in the work of Dr. Wil 
 liamson, nine-tenths of it being devoted to medical facts 
 and comments ; but such as we have been able to glean, 
 we shall now give. 
 
 " The constitution of this island," the Doctor tells 
 us, " in its political establishment, renders it necessary 
 to keep up distinctions in society, which exclude all 
 persons of Colour from admission into that of Whites. 
 This exception at first appears extraordinary ; but some 
 consideration will point out its necessity." Dr. W. 
 does not, however, inform us of the process by which he 
 arrived at this conclusion, nor does he explain why dis 
 tinctions in society should attach to colour exclusively. 
 
 After speaking of a certain gang of Negroes, who had 
 been purchased at the Marshal s sales, and who, hav 
 ing been seized and sold for payment of their master s 
 debts, had, of course, been forcibly separated from their 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 connections in different parts of the island, he states 
 that medical care was lavished on them in vain. " De 
 pression of mind spread among them." " They can 
 didly confessed that death was their wish." He then 
 goes on to observe as follows : " Negroes anticipate that 
 they will, upon death removing them from that country, 
 be restored to their native land, and enjoy their friends* 
 society in a future state. The ill-disposed to their mas 
 ters will sometimes be guilty of suicide, or, by a resolute 
 determination, resort to dirt-eating, and thus produce 
 disease, and, at length, death. It is often necessary to 
 check that spirit ; and as Negroes imagine that, if de 
 capitation be inflicted after death, the transition to their 
 native country cannot follow, a humane principlz+leads 
 the proprietor to have the head of such a Negro placed 
 in some prominent situation ; and this has been found 
 a salutary mode of deterring the rest from conduct so 
 destructive." (Vol. i. p. 93.) 
 
 The Marshal s sales spoken of above, Dr. W. informs 
 us, take place at Spanish Town, which is the seat of 
 the courts of justice for the county of Middlesex ; and 
 he speaks of the practice, though conformable to the 
 existing laws, as being the hardest and the most irre- 
 concileable to a feeling mind that can be conceived. 
 He then indulges in we know not what day-dreams 
 of the early abolition of this power of seizing a Negro, 
 with as little ceremony as an ox or a cask of sugar, 
 and selling him to pay his owner s debts. Six years 
 have since elapsed, and the practice still exists, in every 
 British slave-colony, in all its horror. 
 
 Dr. Williamson speculates, with equal good nature, 
 on the happy effects which the humanity of colonists and 
 of colonial legislatures will infallibly derive from that, 
 in his view, very questionable measure of policy, the 
 abolition of the Slave-trade; and, we fear, with something 
 of a like result. " Those who had the barbarity" (it 
 
85 
 
 seems there were such) " to count on supplies of slaves 
 from Africa, at the expense of the Negroes already in 
 their possession, working THEM severely, clothing and feed 
 ing THEM imperfectly, will now find it their policy to take 
 good care of Negroes for selfish reasons. For some 
 time after I went to Jamaica, it was customary, on a few 
 properties," (he does not say on what proportion of those 
 he was acquainted with,) " not to encourage the rearing 
 of children, on account of the loss of labour incurred by 
 the mother s confinement, and the time afterwards re 
 quired in rearing the infant." But now " proprietors 
 and attorneys," (he says nothing of the overseers of non 
 resident proprietors, by far the most numerous class, and 
 who exercise a more decided influence on the happiness 
 and increase of the Negro population than any other,) 
 but now " proprietors and attorneys will increase their 
 exertions to protect Negroes. On every property in 
 ducements will be held out to encourage the propagation 
 of children, which would be materially promoted by 
 introducing marriage among them." (Vol. i. p. 372.) 
 
 This grand and indispensable mean, however, of en 
 couraging population, has not yet been introduced by 
 these proprietors and attorneys, on whose enlightened 
 humanity Dr. Williamson is disposed to place so gene 
 rous and unbounded a reliance : his warning was given 
 five or six years ago, and has hitherto produced no effect. 
 
 III. EVIDENCE OF MR. J M- 
 
 J. M. is the son of a respectable tradesman in 
 London, who, wishing to do something for himself 
 went out, about the beginning of the last year, 1822, to 
 the island of Jamaica, to be a book-keeper on Bushy 
 Park estate, in the parish of St. Dorothy s; a large 
 estate, belonging to a wealthy and liberal proprietor, 
 and which has the reputation of being managed as well 
 
86 
 
 or rather better than usual.* He had no complaint 
 whatever to make against the owner, attorney, or over 
 seer for any harsh or unkind treatment of himself; but 
 the state of things he found there was so grating to his 
 feelings, that he could not have remained, even though 
 his health had been quite unaffected, which, how 
 ever, was not the case ; and after a few weeks residence 
 on the estate, he resolved to return to England, in which 
 he met with no opposition. His statement is as follows : 
 " The slaves on the estate were constantly attended 
 by drivers with cart or cattle whips, which they were in 
 the habit of using as here carmen use their whips on 
 horses ; and occasionally one or more slaves were ordered 
 out of the line of work, laid prostrate on the ground, 
 and received a few lashes (from two or three to ten) on 
 their posteriors, for no other offence that he could per 
 ceive or ever heard of but that of being indolent, or 
 lagging at their work, or being late. He saw a few 
 working with iron -collars round their necks, connected 
 with each other by a chain ; a punishment which, he un 
 derstood, was usually inflicted for running away, and 
 continued sometimes for several weeks. The huts of 
 the slaves were very indifferent, and almost destitute of 
 furniture. On Sunday they either attended market, or 
 worked in their own grounds ; but none went, or were 
 expected to go, to any church or place of worship; nor 
 did he ever see or hear of any instruction, religious or 
 otherwise, being bestowed upon them. Many of the 
 slaves had women living with them as their wives ; but 
 as for marriage being used, either as a means of civili 
 zation or for any other purpose, he never even heard 
 the word mentioned as it respected them. He under 
 stood that the White servants were not allowed to take 
 those women who so lived with particular men ; but as 
 
 * New Hall Estate, (see p. 78.) also bclongb to him. 
 
87 
 
 for any others, they not only chose and took such as 
 pleased them, but they were expected to do it as a matter 
 of course. Accordingly, lie was invited by the overseer 
 to follow the general practice, the very first day he ar 
 rived on the estate. In a spare house, kept for the oc 
 casional use of persons coming thither for a few days, 
 were women whom he understood to be at the service of 
 whoever came to occupy the apartments, and two of them 
 were spoken of as the children of a former proprietor. 
 
 " But little provisions appeared to him to be given to 
 the slaves. Herrings and such fish, rather as sauce 
 than as food, were given them. But they had grounds 
 allotted them, and the Sunday, throughout the year, for 
 their cultivation, with every or every other Saturday out 
 of crop-time (the practice on this head differing) ; and 
 while strong and in good health, this he thought might 
 do very well. But in crop-time (on some estates nearly 
 half the year) they could have very little leisure or in 
 clination to work for themselves, being often greatly 
 fatigued by extra night-work and watching. He un 
 derstood that, by the law of Jamaica, only thirty-nine 
 lashes could be given at once, but he was told, on the 
 spot, that an overseer could easily, when so disposed, 
 evade it." 
 
 The agreement of the three witnesses who have been 
 produced, in all material points, must appear remark 
 able, especially when it is remembered that they resided 
 on different parts, widely removed from each other, of 
 the same island. Mr. Cooper resided on the north side 
 of the island, the last cited witness on the south side, 
 and Dr. Williamson, while engaged in plantation- duty, 
 nearly in the centre of it. But we have a fourth wit 
 ness to bring forward. 
 
88 
 
 IV. EVIDENCE OF THE ROYAL GAZETTE OF JAMAICA. 
 
 In the month of January, 1 S ] 6, there appeared in a 
 periodical work (the same which afterwards contained the 
 review of Hall and Fearon, inserted above,) an article 
 entitled " Review of the Reasons for establishing a 
 Registry of Slaves." In that article there occurred the 
 following statement, viz. : 
 
 " It is among the many opprobrious peculiarities 
 of the West India system, that it has created a legal 
 presumption in favour of slavery ; so that every person 
 in the islands, who does not boast a pure Euro 
 pean descent, is, in all judicial proceedings, assumed to 
 be a slave, until he can prove himself to be a freeman. 
 
 " When the importations of African Negroes into our 
 colonies commenced, and for some years after that pe 
 riod, it was, doubtless, the fact, that a Black complexion 
 was the certain indication of a servile condition. It 
 was then probably true, without one exception, 
 that every African who was found in a British settle 
 ment had been previously reduced by violence to a state 
 of bondage. The West Indies possess a written and 
 an unwritten law. Their statute-book contains the for 
 mer : usage, of an origin comparatively modern, is the 
 sole foundation of the colonial lex nonscripta. English 
 lawyers would, we apprehend, vehemently dispute the 
 validity of this whole body of traditionary West Indian 
 law ; but difficulties of this kind are not much regarded 
 in the supreme courts of Jamaica or Barbadoes. Relying 
 on customs which have had their birth far within the 
 date of legal memory, it is the doctrine of those tribunals, 
 that the offspring of a female slave necessarily inherit 
 the terrible condition of their mother. In the earlier 
 times of our colonial history, it was, after this principle 
 had been once established, probably true, that Mulattoes 
 as well as Negroes, were really in a state of slavery. 
 
89 
 
 The mixture of European with African blood could 
 not vary their condition, for that they derived ex parte 
 maternd, and a White mother of Mulatto children was 
 probably never seen in the West Indian islands. If, 
 therefore, manumissions had never been introduced into 
 our colonies, or if free Blacks had never migrated thither 
 from Great Britain, or other countries, or if a time had 
 never arrived when the importation of the natives of 
 Africa was declared illegal, it would have been strictly 
 true, that a Negro and his remotest posterity were 
 necessarily slaves, and the legal presumption of the servile 
 condition of such persons would have been fairly sup 
 ported by the real state of the case. 
 
 " But the emancipations by purchase, by grant, and 
 by will, have been in use from a time little posterior to 
 the origin of the Slave-trade ; and though during the 
 last nine years it is the admitted fact that large numbers 
 of African Negroes have been liberated in our colonies 
 by the operation of the abolition-laws, yet, strange to 
 say, the courts of justice of every one of the islands 
 continue to act on this cruel legal presumption, with as 
 littleattention to the case of manumitted and free Negroes, 
 as if such a class of society had not existed. As the law 
 at present stands, if a White person asserts a right to 
 bold his fellow- creature in perpetual slavery, the burden 
 of proof lies, not on the asserted owner, but on the 
 alleged bondsman. He is required, at the peril of 
 the most severe personal affliction to which men can be 
 subjected in this world, to prove a negative ; to show 
 that he is not a slave. In making this proof, he is, by 
 another most iniquitous principle of law, excluded from 
 producing as evidence in his favour the testimony of any 
 of that class of society, the Black or Coloured slave- 
 population, to whom alone his right to freedom and 
 the grounds of it may often be known. In Barbadoes, 
 and till the last two vears in Jamaica also, he was even 
 
90 
 
 unable to summon, as witnesses, the feto persons of his 
 own complexion with whom alone he can ever associate, 
 and on his descent from whom his title to liberty fre 
 quently depends. If manumitted in the colonies, the 
 loss of the deed of enfranchisement would destroy the 
 only evidence by which his claim could be substantiated. 
 Or should he be among the number of those recently 
 imported from Africa, and restored by the Abolition-act 
 to freedom, his ignorance of the language of the country, 
 to which he has been removed, would of itself prevent 
 his asserting his right to that inestimable blessing; nay, 
 even if he were born in this happy island, and had the 
 unhappiness to visit our West Indian colonies, he would 
 be liable to be seized as a runaway, and sold into per 
 petual bondage, for want of a deed of manumission, 
 which, under the circumstances of his birth, he could 
 never have possessed. 
 
 " Such is the law, and such also is the daily practice 
 of British colonies. It is not merely the individual 
 European claimant, but the state itself, the crown of 
 Great Britain, as represented by the executive govern 
 ment of its colonies, which continually holds the miserable 
 descendants of Africa to this dreadful probation. Let any 
 man take in his hands a file of Jamaica newspapers, one 
 will scarcely be found without numerous advertisements 
 to the following effect : 4 Whereas - , a man of Colour, 
 who asserts himself to be free? has been committed to the 
 
 ptiblie gaol of ; notice is hereby given, that unless 
 
 within days the said shall satisfactorily prove 
 
 Ms title to freedom, or shail be claimed by his lawful 
 owner, he will, at the expiration of that time, be sold 
 for the benefit of the public* Thiss we assert ta be the 
 exact substance of advertisements which frequently 
 appear in the West Indian Gazettes ; and any man who 
 will take the trouble of looking into them, may satisfy 
 himself of the fact. Nor is this shameless public insult 
 
 9 
 
on national justice unsanctioned by law. There is not 
 an island in which this course of proceeding is not ex 
 pressly authorized, in the case of persons taken up and 
 committed on suspicion of being runaway slaves ; persons, 
 that is to say, who are found in any of the colonies without 
 a master, and without the legal proofs of their freedom. 
 
 " Nor let it be imagined that such cases are merely 
 supposititious or of unfrequent occurrence. The Royal 
 Gazette of Jamaica itself, the island whose pretensions 
 to the character of justice and mercy, in its legislative acts, 
 are sounded so loudly in our ears, need only to be opened, 
 in order to furnish numerous cases of the most aggra 
 vated description. We have now before us the file of 
 that paper for 1815; and we will give a specimen or 
 two of the evidence which it furnishes. On the 20th 
 May, 1815, we find the following specification of 
 persons confined in the common gaols of the island as 
 runaways : 
 
 " George Thomas, an American ; says he is free, but 
 has no document thereof. 
 
 " Samuel Menderson, a Portuguese Creole (no mark, 
 &c.) ; says he is free, but has no document thereof. 
 
 " Joseph, a native of St. Domingo (no brand-rnavk, 
 &c.) ; says he is free : to be detained until he proves his 
 freedom. 
 
 " William Kelly, a Creole ; says he is free : to be 
 detained until his freedom is proved. 
 
 " John Francis; says he is a native of Cura^oa, and 
 that he is free, but can shew no document thereof. 
 There are marks of flogging on his back, which, he says, 
 he got on board the Hebe frigate* 
 
 " Thomas Hall; says he is free. 
 
 " Antonio Belfour, a Sambo ; says lie is an Ameri 
 can, and that he is free. 
 
 " David Barrow, a Samboo; says he was born at 
 Barbadoes, and that he is free. 
 
92 
 
 " Alexander Antonio ; says he is a Spaniard, and that 
 he is free. . 
 
 " John Rose, an American Sambo, a sailor ; says he 
 is free. 
 
 " Antonio Moralles, a Creole, of the island of St. 
 Thomas ; says he is free, but has no document thereof. 
 Came here as carpenter of the schooner Sparrow. 
 
 " In the very last paper which arrived from Jamaica, 
 that of the 18th November, 1815, we find the following 
 insertions in the gaol-lists, viz. : 
 
 " John Dixon, a Creole ; says he is free, but has no 
 document thereof. 
 
 " John Messar ; says he is free, but has no document 
 thereof. 
 
 " Edward Brian Wardins, a Mulatto Creole ; says he 
 is free, but has no other document than a pass, signed 
 John Wardins, who says that he is hrs son, and was 
 born free. 
 
 " William Bennett, a Creole ; says he is free, but has 
 no document thereof. 
 
 " The Gazette of each week exhibits similar, and not 
 less numerous, instances. 
 
 " Here let it be recollected, that all the individuals in 
 the above list (and these form, probably, not a tithe of 
 the cases of precisely the same nature which have ap 
 peared in the Royal Gazette of Jamaica, during the last 
 year alone) allege that they are free. There is no 
 contrary allegation ; they are not claimed by any one as 
 slaves. And yet because they cannot produce docu 
 mentary evidence of their freedom, (a species of evidence 
 which, perhaps, they never could have possessed, or may 
 have lost,) they are, after a certain time, by the fiat of the 
 Jamaica legislature, to be sold to the best bidder, pre 
 cisely as strayed horses or mules who have been im 
 pounded, but not claimed, would be sold; and the 
 proceeds of this sale, (the price of blood !) after defraying 
 17 
 
93 
 
 the gaol-expenses, are to be paid into the treasury of the 
 island. Is it possible for an Englishman to contemplate 
 such a state of things as this without horror ? and are we 
 not bound, in the sight of God and man, to provide an 
 adequate remedy ?" 
 
 One would naturally have imagined that so cruel and 
 oppressive a system as this could hardly have been 
 exposed to the view of the British parliament and public 
 without leading to enquiry, at least, if not to some mea 
 sures of a remedial nature. Seven years, however, have 
 elapsed since the above exposition of this great and crying 
 evil, and no step whatever has been taken to abate it. 
 Charity might suggest that this otherwise unaccountable 
 omission may have arisen from ignorance or inadvertence. 
 West Indians, in this country especially, may not have 
 been aware of the true state of the case, and they may 
 never have seen the article from which the above extract 
 has been taken. There is, however, die most decisive proof 
 to the contrary. On the 19th June, 1816, Mr. Palmer, 
 himself a Jamaica planter, and a leading and influential 
 person among the West Indians, quoted largely from 
 this very article, in a speech of great length and ability 
 which he made in the House of Commons, on an occasion 
 to which we shall hereafter find it necessary to advert. 
 The article was therefore well known to him. But 
 although the very address to the King which Mr. Palmer 
 then moved, in his preface to which he particularly 
 referred to this article, prayed His Majesty " to carry 
 into effect every measure tending to promote the moral 
 and religious improvement, as well as the comfort and 
 happiness of the Negroes," it is the fact that the evil 
 in question remains to this day without any effectual 
 redress. To this very day every Black or Coloured 
 person in the British West Indies is assumed to be a 
 slave, unless he can adduce legal proof of his being free. 
 
94 
 
 The evidence of the existence of this principle, Rot 
 merely in some statute which it might be alleged was 
 obsolete and inoperative, but in active and constant 
 operation, was then drawn from the Royal Gazette of 
 Jamaica. From the same respectable and authentic 
 source we derive the proof, that, up to this day, the same 
 principle continues still to be maintained in law, and 
 acted upon in practice. 
 
 From the Royal Gazette of September, 1822, we 
 extract the following notices of persons taken up, and 
 confined as runaways, viz. : 
 
 " In St. Andrew s work-house, Robertson, a Man- 
 dingo ; says he is a discharged soldier, of the second West 
 India regiment^ and that he is free" 
 
 " In St. James s work-house, Joseph Lee, a Creole ; no 
 apparent brand-mark* : says he is free, but has no docu 
 ment thereof." 
 
 " In Spanish Town work-house, EdwardQuin, a native 
 of Montserrat, elderly ; no mark : says he is free, but no 
 document." 
 
 " In Clarendon work-house, Harry, a Creole ; formerly 
 belonged to Mr. George, who died before the Maroon 
 war (1797); has had no owner since: grey-headed." 
 
 But what proof is there that these persons were ac 
 tually sold ? We can adduce no evidence on this point. 
 These persons may, for aught we know, have been able, 
 before the period of their imprisonment expired, to esta 
 blish their freedom by legal proof. But if they were 
 unable to do this, it would only have been following 
 the course prescribed by the law, to sell them, by 
 public auction, as slaves. Of this fact the very num 
 bers of the Gazette which have supplied the above ex- 
 
 * Slaves are commonly marked with the owner s name, like sheep or 
 cattle. The operation is performed with a heated brand. 
 
95 
 
 tracts, furnish evidence. We observe in it the following 
 advertisement : 
 
 " Westmorland Work-house, Aug.27. 1822. 
 " Notice is hereby given, that unless the under-men 
 tioned slave is taken out of this work-house prior to 
 the 22d October next, he will on that day, between the 
 hours of ten and twelve in the forenoon, be put up to 
 public sale, and sold to the best bidder, agreeably to the 
 work-house law now in force, for payment of his fees : 
 viz. John Williams, five feet nine inches and a half high, 
 no brand-mark ; says he is a Maroon of Charles-Town, 
 whereof John March, Esq. is superintendant, but which 
 is supposed to be false, as he is apparently a foreigner by 
 his speech. He had for some time been seen skulking 
 near Glasgow estate, in this parish." 
 
 The following names and descriptions are appended 
 to similar advertisements, viz. : 
 
 " Kingston work-house. Mary Johnson, an aged 
 Creole ; no brand-mark : says she belonged to William 
 Johnson, a Maroon, who has been dead eight years ; 
 since which she has maintained herself." 
 
 " Spanish-Town work-house. Joe, a French Creole; 
 no brand : very black : says he belongs to his father and 
 mother in St. Mary s." 
 
 " Clarendon work-house. Robert, an Eboe, elderly ; 
 belonged to Mr. Macbean, who died some time ago ; has 
 no owner at present." 
 
 Now, is it possible to conceive a more tremendous 
 instrument of oppression than the power which the laws 
 of the West Indies convey, to every man in the commu 
 nity, of thus treating, as slaves and criminals, all whose 
 countenance indicates that they are of African descent, 
 
90 
 
 or that they have African blood in their veins ; of im 
 prisoning them as runaways, and of having them after 
 wards sold into a perpetual bondage, where they, and in 
 the case of women their offspring too, may wear out 
 their wretched lives under the cattle-whip ? As those 
 who take up runaways, and commit them to a work 
 house, are entitled to a reward for this service, it is ob 
 vious that there exists a strong temptation to abuse this 
 power. Any needy ruffian, to whom a few dollars are 
 an object, may first rob a poor wretch of his document 
 of freedom, and then commit him as a runaway. Be 
 sides, what a fearful tenure it is by which to hold that pre 
 cious possession of personal liberty, that if the certificate 
 of it, which a man ought to have in his possession, shall 
 have been lost by accident, or consumed by fire, or stolen 
 or destroyed by the various insects which abound in tro 
 pical climates, he shall be exposed to this appalling risk. 
 But how many free Black and Coloured persons may 
 reside in our islands, or be led to visit them, who may 
 be in this predicament ; or who may be ignorant of the 
 requisitions of this cruel law"; or who may never have had 
 the means of establishing their freedom by documentary 
 evidence ? They may have been born and liberally edu 
 cated in England. They may have migrated thither 
 from one or other of the numerous provinces of North 
 or of South America. They may have been liberated 
 under the Abolition-acts. They may have served in the 
 navy or army of Great Britain, and may have bled in 
 fighting her battles. But if they have either never had 
 such a document of freedom as West Indians have pro 
 nounced legal s or, having had it, have lost it, they are 
 liable to undergo the merciless and relentless operation 
 of the work-house law : and after having laboured for 
 some months, in chains and under the lash, for the be 
 nefit of the public, they may then be put up to auction 
 and sold into irremediable bondage, the proceeds to he 
 
97 
 
 applied first to the payment of their fees, and when that 
 end is answered, (proh pudor . ) to replenishing His Ma 
 jesty s treasury ! ! ! Comments would only weaken the 
 effect which the bare statement of such facts is calcu 
 lated to produce. * 
 
 HAVING now r detailed the evidence which it was our 
 design to exhibit, in illustration of the more prominent 
 features of Negro slavery, as it actually exists at the 
 present day in our own colonies, and particularly in 
 Jamaica, we shall not exhaust the patience of our readers, 
 nor weaken the effect of the preceding statements, by 
 any lengthened observations of our own. We beg, 
 however, to be permitted to subjoin a few brief remarks. 
 
 During upwards of thirty years we have heard many 
 boasts made, both in pamphlets and in parliamentary 
 speeches, of the improvements that have taken place in 
 the condition of the Negro slave; and we were led to 
 indulge a hope, that assertions so confidently made, and 
 so constantly repeated, must have had some foundation 
 on which to rest. On looking narrowly, however, into 
 
 * It might be thought disingenuous not to notice in this place the asser 
 tion of the Jamaica Assembly, that persons thus taken up as runaways 
 are allowed to establish their liberty by the process called homine 
 repleguindo, a provision to that effect having been introduced into their 
 last consolidated slave-act. But it may be sufficient to remark, that this 
 process still leaves upon the alleged slave the burden of proving his free 
 dom. To those who wish to examine this question more fully in all its 
 legal bearings, we would particularly recommend a pamphlet, published 
 by Butterworth, in 1816, and entitled " A Defence of the Bill for the 
 Registration of Slaves, by James Stephen, Esq., in Letters to William 
 Wilberforce, Esq. ; Letter the Second." The whole subject will be there 
 found fully and most luminously discussed at p. 25 73. The discus 
 sion is particularly deserving of the attention of professional gentlemen. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 / the facts of the case, we have met with nothing to sus- 
 
 / tain that hope. We have not been able to discover any 
 
 / substantial amelioration in the nature of the slavery of 
 
 I the present day, when compared with that, which, from 
 
 I the evidence adduced before the Privy Council and Par- 
 
 / liament in the years 1788 1791, we learn to have 
 
 I then prevailed. The slavery of both periods appears to 
 
 |^ us to be identically the same state of existence. 
 
 ^ We do not mean to deny that many individual plant 
 ers, as Mr. Hibbert and others, may have been induced, 
 by the discussions which have taken place, and by their 
 own benevolent feelings, to act a more liberal and indul 
 gent part towards their slaves than formerly. Neither 
 do we mean to affirm that the influence of public opi 
 nion, excited by the public agitation of the subject, has 
 had no effect in restraining the abuses of power. What 
 we mean to affirm is, that during the sixteen years which 
 have followed the abolition of the Slave-trade ; nay, dur 
 ing the thirty-five years which have elapsed since the con 
 dition of Negro slavery has become a topic of controversy 
 in this country, that unhappy state of being has under 
 gone no real or substantial improvement whatever no 
 improvement, that is to say, which does not depend, 
 we may say wholly, on the dispositions and conduct of 
 the proprietor or of his delegated agent, for the time 
 being. 
 
 We admit that various colonial acts have been framed, 
 professing to improve the condition of the slave ; but they 
 have been generally inefficient to their professed object, 
 whatever other purpose they may have served. Of the 
 Curate s Act of Jamaica, for example, Mr. Cooper in 
 forms us, that he had heard it repeatedly declared, that it 
 was "intended for England and not for Jamaica ;" for, 
 he adds, " it must have "been known before it was passed, 
 that, under the peculiar circumstances existing there, 
 such a law could have no tendency to improve the condition 
 
99 
 
 of the slaves" So, with regard to the Register Act of 
 the same island, it is impossible to read it without per 
 ceiving that it is wholly inoperative to the ends for 
 which chiefly a registration of slaves was proposed. * 
 
 It is true, also, that the leaders of the West India 
 body in Parliament have stood forward, at different 
 times, as the advocates of measures of amelioration. 
 
 In 1797, Mr. Charles Ellis moved an address to His 
 Majesty, praying him to call on the different colonial 
 legislatures to adopt such measures as should " appear 
 to them best calculated to obviate the causes which have 
 hitherto impeded the natural increase of the Negroes 
 already in the islands, gradually to diminish the necessity 
 of the Slave-trade, and ultimately to lead to its complete 
 termination ; and particularly with a view to the same 
 effect, to employ such means as may conduce to the 
 moral and religious improvement of the Negroes, and 
 secure to them throughout all the British West India 
 islands the certain^ immediate^ and active protection of the 
 law." 
 
 All the West Indians then in Parliament supported 
 this motion ; and although they were considered by the 
 abolitionists as wrong in expecting any effective mea 
 sures of reform from the colonial legislatures, yet theyl 
 had at least credit given them for good intentions. It\ 
 afterwards, however, came out, somewhat awkwardly, 1 
 that one of the chief movers in this business had held a i 
 different language in his confidential correspondence 
 with the local authorities, from what he held in Parlia- \ 
 ment. There the West Indians professed to make the 
 amelioration of the condition of the slaves and the abolition 
 of the Slave-trade their ultimate objects. In the corre- / 
 spondence, however, which was evidently not intended 
 
 * See " A Review of the Colonial Slave Registration Acts," printed 
 for Hatchard, in 1820, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 to see the light, an effort was made to conciliate the ac 
 quiescence of the colonists, by assuring them that the 
 main object of the motion was (not what it professed, to 
 terminate the Slave-trade, and improve the condition of 
 the slaves, but), as it was expressed by Sir William Young, 
 in a circular letter, addressed to influential persons in 
 the West Indies, " to stop for the present, and gradually 
 to supersede the very pretensions at a future period, to a 
 measure of direct abolition by the mother-country, a mea 
 sure which would blast the root of al] our settlements 
 of property ; change the foundation of every bequest, 
 loan, and security ; turn every mortgage into an annuity 
 on the lives of the Negroes; institute a general system 
 of foreclosure ; and, depreciating our estates, preclude all 
 immediate resources, and ruin every interest." 
 
 Nor were the resolutions of the Committee of the 
 West Indian body in London, which accompanied the 
 above letter, less explicit. They state, that " unless 
 some plan of regulation shall be brought forward" by 
 the colonies themselves, " many persons of weight and 
 character," seeing no alternative proposed which is " at 
 all compatible with their ideas of humanity," " will feel 
 themselves under the necessity" of supporting the mea 
 sures of Mr. Wilberforce. " That, consequently, for 
 the joint purposes of opposing the plan of Mr. Wilber 
 force, and establishing the character of the West India body, 
 it is essential that they should manifest their willingness 
 to promote actively the cause of humanity, by such steps 
 as shall be consistent with safety to the property of indi 
 viduals, and the general interests of the colonies." (See 
 House of Commons papers, ordered to be printed, 8th 
 June, 1804-, marked H. Leeward Islands, No. 119.) 
 
 The West India Committee, or rather their organ, 
 Sir W. Young, having neglected in express terms to en 
 join secrecy on their correspondents abroad, these confi- 
 
101 
 
 dential communications were recorded, by the legislatures 
 of St. Vincent s and of the Leeward Islands, as the 
 basis of their proceedings, and as such they made their 
 appearance unexpectedly on the table of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 In consequence of this correspondence, some, but 
 not all, of the colonial legislatures were induced so far 
 to yield a decent compliance with the royal requisition, 
 as to pass what they called meliorating acts. These, 
 however, have generally, we may say universally, proved 
 a dead letter. The governor of Dominica, General 
 Prevost, when called upon by the Secretary of State, 
 Earl Camden, in his circular letter of the 4th of Octo 
 ber, 1804, to specify what had been their effect in that 
 island, replied, that " from the many years I have 
 passed in the West Indies, and as a resident in most of 
 the colonies, I may venture to represent to Your Lord 
 ship the legislature of Dominica as distinguished by 
 the laws it has passed, for the encouragement, protec 
 tion, and government of slaves; but, I am sorry I 
 cannot add, that they are as religiously observed as 
 you could wish." As for " the act of the legislature, 
 * An Act for the Encouragement, Protection, and better 
 Government of Slaves, it appears to have been consi 
 dered, from the day it was passed, until this hour, as a 
 political measure to avert the interference of the mother- 
 country in the management of slaves. Having said this, 
 Your Lordship will not be surprised to learn that the 
 seventh clause * of that bill has been wholly neglected." 
 
 In other cases the avowal of the motives was not so 
 explicit, but in all the return was NiL.f 
 
 * A clause requiring certain returns to be made for the declared pur 
 pose " of securing, as far as possible, the good treatment of the slaves." 
 
 f See papers ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, 25th 
 February, 1805. 
 
. 
 
 In June, 1816, Mr. Palmer, an eminent planter of 
 Jamaica, moved in the House of Commons, as chair 
 man of the West India body, another address to the 
 Crown, praying, among other things, that His Ma 
 jesty would be graciously pleased " to recommend, in 
 the strongest manner, to the local authorities in the 
 respective colonies, to carry into effect every measure 
 which may tend to promote the moral and religious im 
 provement as well as the comfort and happiness of the 
 I Negroes." One effect of this motion was to frustrate 
 I Mr. Wilberforce s bill for the Registration of Slaves ; in 
 I other words, " to avert the interference of the mother- 
 country in the management of slaves." But there, we 
 fear, its effect has terminated : at least, we are not aware 
 that, during nearly seven years which have now elapsed 
 
 n since this address was moved, the condition of the 
 Negro slave has undergone any substantial amelioration 
 in any of our colonies ; and with respect to the largest of 
 them, Jamaica, the evidence we have now adduced 
 seems to establish the contrary conclusion. But that 
 we may not be accused of adopting this conclusion on 
 insufficient grounds, we shall specify some particulars, of 
 vital importance to the well-being of the Negro race, 
 in which there is manifestly no real improvement. 
 f 1 . The Negroes in Jamaica are still driven at their work 
 K, I by the impulse of the cart-whip, as cattle or horses are 
 * driven in this country. This fact is undeniable. But 
 let us only consider for one moment all the depressing 
 and brutalizing effects of such a system, a system 
 which shuts out the Negro from even the pretence to a 
 higher motive for exertion than the fear of the lash, and 
 which extracts labour from him, not in the measure 
 which his strength affords, or his interest prompts, but 
 in the measure which an overseer or a driver may 
 choose to draw from him by the impending terror or the 
 actual infliction of corporal punishment; let us only 
 
 8 
 
103 
 
 consider this one feature of colonial bondage, and we 
 shall at once see enough to account for more than half 
 of its multiplied evils. * 
 
 * The following description of the driving system has been given by one 
 who was long an eye-witness of its practical operation. It is contained 
 in a pamphlet, published by Katchard, in 1802, intitled The Crisis of 
 the Sugar Colonies." (P. 8 13.) 
 
 " That West India Slaves, whether French or English, are the property 
 of their master, and transferable by him, like his inanimate effects ; that 
 in general he is absolute arbiter of the extent and the mode of their 
 labour, and of the quantity of subsistence to be given in return for it ; and 
 that they are disciplined and punished at his discretion, direct privation of 
 life or member excepted : these are prominent features, and sufficiently 
 known of the state of slavery. Nor is the manner in which the labour of 
 the slaves is conducted a matter of less publicity. Every man who has 
 heard any thing of West Indian affairs, is acquainted with the term Negro- 
 drivers, and knows, or may know, that the slaves, in their ordinary field- 
 labours, are driven to their work, in the strict sense of the term driven 
 as used in Europe : though this statement no more involves an intimation, 
 that, in practice, the lash is incessantly, or with any needless frequency, 
 applied to their back, than the phrase * to drive a team of horses im 
 ports, that the waggoner is continually smacking his whip. 
 
 " But a nearer and more particular view of this leading characteristic 
 may be necessary to those who have never seen a gang of Negroes at their 
 work. 
 
 " When employed in the labour of the field, as, for example, in hclewg 
 (i cane-piece, that is, turning up the ground with hoes into parallel 
 trenches, for the reception of the cane plants, the slaves of bcth sexes, 
 from twenty, perhaps, to fourscore in number, are drawn out in a line 
 like troops on a parade, each with a hoe in his hand ; and close to them, in 
 the rear, is stationed a driver, or several drivers, in number duly propor 
 tioned to that of the gang. Each of these drivers, who are always the 
 most active and vigorous Negroes on the estate, has in his hand, or round 
 his neck, from which, by extending the handle, it can be disengaged in a 
 moment, a long, thick, and strongly plaited whip, called a. cart-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 at 
 the instant when he perceives an occasion, without any 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 ade 
 quate 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 hole or section of the trench 
 should be finished in equal time with the rest ; and if any one or more 
 Negroes were allowed to throw in the hoe with less rapidity or energy 
 than their companions in other parts of the line, it is obvious that such 
 
104 
 
 C 2. They are still liable to severe punishments., inflicted 
 in the most revolting and disgusting manner., at the mere 
 will, uncontrolled by law, of the master , or of the over 
 seer who acts for him. If we contemplate only the mode 
 in which women continue to be punished on estates in 
 Jamaica, we shall have another most impressive evidence 
 of the depth of the slave s degradation. The British 
 parliament have lately thought it right entirely to pro 
 hibit the flogging of women in this country, in any mode 
 or for any crime, although that punishment could not 
 have been inflicted without a regular trial, the finding of 
 a British jury, and the sentence of a British judge. 
 But in Jamaica, to this very day, every overseer retains 
 the power, at his own entire discretion, for any offence, 
 or for no offence, of exposing in the most shameless 
 manner, in the presence of the whole gang, the person 
 of every female, young or old, who is placed under his 
 authority, and of inflicting on those very parts which it 
 would be deemed in this country an intolerable outrage 
 to expose at all, and which it is indecent even to name, 
 thirty-nine lacerations of the tremendous cart- whip; 
 
 part of the trench as is passed over by the former will be more imperfectly 
 formed than the rest : 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 languor to be repaid by brisker 
 action or return to work, can be allowed to individuals : all must work or 
 pause together. 
 
 " I have taken this species of work as the strongest example, but 
 other labours of the plantation are conducted upon the same principle, 
 and as nearly as may be practicable, in the same manner. 
 
 " In short, with a few exceptions, the compulsion of labour, by the 
 physical impulse or present terror of the whip, is universal j and it would 
 be as extraordinary in a West India island to see a line of Negroes with 
 out a driver behind them, as it would be in England to see a team of 
 horses on a turnpike- road without a carman or waggoner." 
 
105 
 
 and the same power, though in a more limited extent, is 
 possessed by every driver on every sugar estate in Jamaica. 
 Let the women of Great Britain hear this, and let them 
 unite their efforts in rescuing their miserable fellow-sub 
 jects, the Negro women of Jamaica, and our other colo 
 nies, from this horrid and cruel profanation. 
 
 Nor is it merely the power of corporal punishment 
 which is possessed by the master or overseer, but that of 
 adding to it the oppressive imprisonment of the stocks, 
 and that for any length of time, accompanied by hard 
 labour in the field. Here is a subject worthy of the at 
 tention of our committees of prison-discipline. Even 
 in this land of freedom, with all our guards of law and 
 magistracy, a free press, and enlightened public opinion, 
 they have found ample room for their benevolent vigi 
 lance. Let them not stop there. Let them turn their 
 attention to our slave-colonies. Let them look through 
 the many thousands of places of confinement existing in 
 the West Indies, subject to no legal controul, to no con- 
 troul, indeed, but that of the owner or overseer of the 
 estate, who is at once the accuser and the judge, the 
 executioner of the sentence, and the jailer of his victim. 
 Let them examine the stocks, and the bolts, and the fet 
 ters, and the chains, and the stripes which await his 
 judgment or caprice, and say whether there be not here 
 a new field worthy of their best exertions. 
 
 We have supposed, in what we have said under this 
 head, that the overseer, in the punishments he inflicts, 
 confines himself strictly within that measure of severity 
 which the letter of the law permits him to exercise. But 
 the peculiarity of colonial jurisprudence, to which we 
 shall next advert, serves almost wholly to absolve him 
 from any obligation to make the law the rule of his con 
 duct in the administration of plantation-discipline, and 
 renders almost every attempt to limit the exercise of his 
 authority vain and illusory. 
 
106 
 
 3. In Jamaica and, the other islands the evidence of 
 slaves is still wholly inadmissible, not merely in cases 
 implicating their owner, but in all cases whatsoever, 
 whether civil or criminal, affecting persons of free condition. 
 Any White man may inflict not only thirty-nine but 
 three hundred and ninety lashes on a slave ; he may even 
 murder the slave outright ; yet, if the crime be not com 
 mitted in the presence of other persons of free condi 
 tion willing to testify against him, he is secure from 
 punishment. A thousand other slaves may have been 
 present, but not one of the thousand would be per 
 mitted to offer his testimony in a court of justice against 
 the criminal. The jury would not even be allowed the 
 opportunity of judging of the credibility of his evidence. 
 The mere circumstance of his being a slave would be 
 at once an insuperable bar to his statements being heard. 
 His evidence would be wholly inadmissible. It is 
 equally so in all civil causes, even when the suit involves 
 a question of personal freedom. 
 
 It is unnecessary to point out the enormities which 
 must result from such a system. About 34-5,000 in 
 habitants of Jamaica, for example, are thus shut out, by 
 the operation of this universal principle of colonial law, 
 from any fair hope of obtaining legal redress for any 
 injury, whether civil or criminal, which they may sustain 
 from any one of the privileged order, amounting, perhaps, 
 to a fifteenth or twentieth part of the whole population ; 
 while the persons composing that order have this farther 
 pledge of immunity, that it is their common interest to 
 discourage and defeat any attempts, on the part of the 
 the slaves, to obtain the efficient protection of magis 
 trates or of courts of justice. 
 
 4. The slaves in Jamaica and other colonies are still 
 regarded by the law, and treated, in point of fact, not as 
 human beings, but as chattels ; and, as such, are liable to be 
 seized and sold for the debts of their master, with as little 
 
10? 
 
 ceremony a s a horse or a cart, or apiece of furniture would 
 be seized and sold in execution in this country. Much 
 has been said of the excessive cruelty of this practice 
 even by West Indians. Bryan Edwards has elo 
 quently exposed the many miseries which it produces to 
 the slaves: he even brought a Bill into the British 
 parliament about 1795, which passed into a law, for 
 removing the impediments it was alleged our statute- 
 book threw in the way of a remedy being applied to the 
 evil by the humanity of the colonial legislatures. Nearly 
 thirty years have since elapsed, and notwithstanding the 
 removal of all impediments; notwithstanding the eloquent 
 denunciations of Bryan Edwards ; notwithstanding the 
 undivided support he received from the whole West 
 India body in parliament ; not a single attempt has yet 
 been made, in any one colony under the British crown, 
 to remedy the evil. The nearest and dearest relations 
 may still, by the ordinary process of law in civil suits, 
 be torn asunder and separated for ever, dragged 
 from their homes and their families, and sold even 
 3 into a distant colony. Great Britain has abolished 
 f the African Slave-trade. Even the West Indian plant- 
 f. ers, who strenuously fought its battles to the last, now 
 /I join in reprobating its iniquity. But is there any thing 
 \ in the African Slave-trade which can exceed in horror 
 the practice in question, a practice, too, specifically 
 sanctioned by the colonial laws, a practice not of rare 
 and occasional, but of constant and almost daily, recur 
 rence, and which takes place openly and publicly in the 
 chief towns of our colonies ? In our eagerness to induce 
 other nations to abolish their Slave-trade, let us turn 
 our eyes on the abominations of our own. 
 
 It seems unnecessary to point out how much the evil 
 of this detestable principle of law must have been 
 aggravated by the pecuniary difficulties under which 
 the West India planters have been labouring, by their 
 
108 
 
 own admission, for many years past; and how intensely 
 its pressure on the wretched slaves must be augmented 
 at this present moment by the acknowledged increase 
 of those difficulties. 
 
 5. It is a farther proof of the hitherto unmitigated 
 degradation of the African race in Jamaica and our 
 other colonies, that, as we have already shown, a black 
 skin, or eve?i the visible singe of African blood in the coun 
 tenance^ furnishes a legal presumption of slavery, and 
 exposes the unhappy individual, who cannot repel that pre 
 sumption by legal evidence, to all the pains and penalties 
 of a cruel and interminable bondage. But on this point, 
 after what we have said above (p. 88 9V. ), we need not 
 now enlarge. 
 
 6. Besides this, nothing has been done during the last 
 thirty years to promote the gradual manumission of the 
 
 I 
 
 1 slave-population, or to remove the obstructions which im- 
 peded it ; but, on the contrary, those obstructions have in 
 some instances been materially increased. While in the 
 colonies of Spain and Portugal, and particularly of the 
 former, the manumission of slaves has been liberally 
 encouraged ; in our own colonies, it has every where 
 met with discouragement, and in some of them the in 
 fatuated policy of the local authorities has even imposed 
 heavy fines on manumissions. The happy effects of the 
 more liberal policy of Spain are visible even in Cuba, 
 notwithstanding the immense importations of new 
 Negroes which have taken place of late years into that 
 island. But in all the other colonies of Spain, where 
 these importations had ceased, it has issued at length in 
 the almost entire extinction of Negro slavery, and that 
 without any convulsion, nay, without loss to the master 
 or injury to the slave. * 
 
 * We annex the substance of a statement on this subject, which has re 
 cently been laid before the public. It is to the following effect : 
 
109 
 
 Now, if it be not intended by the local legislatures 
 that the state of slavery which now exists in the English 
 colonies shall be perpetual, and that it shall be handed 
 
 In the Spanish American possessions it has always been the established 
 practice to encourage manumissions. A slave had a right by law to his 
 freedom, as soon as he could repay to his master the sum he had cost. In 
 order to enable the slave to do this, he was not only allowed the undis 
 turbed enjoyment of the Sabbath, either for rest or for religious purposes, 
 or for his own emolument, as he might like best, but he was allowed also 
 one day in the week for the cultivation of his provision-grounds ; his 
 master being entitled to the labour of the other five. As soon, however, 
 as the slave, by his industry and frugality, had accumulated the fifth part 
 of his value, it was usual for the master, on being paid that amount, to 
 relinquish to the slave another day of the week, and so on until he had 
 repaid the whole of his original cost, and thus became altogether free. 
 He continued, however, in some cases, during the days which were his own, 
 and even after his complete emancipation, to labour for hire in his mas 
 ter s service. I3y this process, not only was the master s capital re 
 placed without loss, but a peasantry was formed around him, which had 
 learned by experience the happy effects of industry and frugality, and 
 were therefore industrious and provident. Notwithstanding this liberal 
 policy, the enfranchised slaves have never been known in the Spanish 
 possessions to rise against their former masters, or to excite those who 
 were still slaves to seek any other method of deliverance than they them 
 selves had pursued ; whilst they formed, by their number and hardihood, 
 a valuable means of defence from foreign aggression. In consequence of 
 this admirable system, the whole Negro population of the Spanish pos 
 sessions were so rapidly approximating to emancipation, that about the 
 year 1790, the number of free Blacks and people of Colour somewhat 
 exceeded, in all of them, the number of slaves. Since that time, in Cuba 
 alone, in consequence of the immense importations from Africa into that 
 island, has this proportion been diminished ; but even there the free Black 
 and Coloured population amounts to from a third to a half of the number 
 of the slaves. In the other trans-Atlantic possessions of Spain their num 
 ber has gone on progressively increasing, until now slavery can hardly 
 be said to have an existence there. And this happy consummation has 
 been effected without any commotion, and with the ready concurrence 
 of the master, who has not only not been a loser, but a gainer, by the 
 change. How opprobious to Great Britain is the contrast which this 
 system exhibits to that of our colonies ! 
 
 The happy effects of tliis admirable mode of manumission are well 
 illustrated in the following extract from Humboldt s Travels : 
 
 " We observed with a lively interest the great number of scattered 
 houses in the valley inhabited by freedmen. In the Spanish colonies, the 
 institutions and the manners are more favourable to the liberty of the 
 
110 
 
 down as the inheritance of the Negro race from age to 
 age, how happens it that not one step has yet been taken 
 by them for relaxing the chains of so many thousands 
 of our fellow-subjects ? Let it not be forgotten that in 
 the year 1792 Mr. Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville), 
 whose regard for West Indian interests no one has ever 
 questioned, announced his intention of proposing a plan 
 for extinguishing the bondage of our colonies, His 
 
 Blacks than in the other European settlements. In all these excursions 
 we were agreeably surprised, not only at the progress of agriculture, but 
 the increase of a free, laborious population accustomed to toil, and too poor 
 to rely on the assistance of slaves. White and Black farmers had every 
 where small separate establishments. Our host, whose father had a reve 
 nue of 40,000 piastres, possessing more lands than he could clear, he dis 
 tributed them in the valley of Aragua among poor families who chose to 
 apply themselves to the cultivation of cotton. He endeavoured to sur 
 round his ample plantations with freemen, who, working as they chose 
 either on their own land or in the neighbouring plantations, supplied him 
 with day-labourers at the time of harvest. Nobly occupied on the means 
 best adapted gradually to extinguish the slavery of the Blacks in these 
 colonies, Count Torur flattered himself with the double hope of rendering 
 slaves less necessary to the landholders, and furnishing the freedmen with 
 opportunities of becoming fanners. On departing for Europe he had 
 parcelled out, and let a part of the lands of Cura. Four years after, at 
 his return to America, he found on this spot, finely cultivated in cotton, a 
 little hamlet of thirty or forty houses, which is called Punta Zamuro, and 
 which we afterwards visited with him. The inhabitants of this hamlet 
 are nearly all Mulattoes, Zumboes, or free Blacks. This example of let 
 ting out land has been happily followed by other great proprietors. The 
 rent is ten piastres for a vanega of ground, and is paid in money or in 
 cotton. As the small farmers are often in want, they sell their cotton at 
 a very moderate price. They sell it even before the harvest ; and the ad 
 vances thus made by rich neighbours, place the debtor in a state of depend- 
 ance, which frequently obliges him to offer his services as a labourer. The 
 price of labour is cheaper here than in France. A freeman working as a 
 day-labourer (Peor) is paid in the valleys of Aragua and in the Llanos 
 four or five piastres a month, not including food, which is very cheap on 
 account of the abundance of meat and vegetables. I love to dwell on 
 these details of colonial industry, because they prove to the inhabitants of 
 Europe, what to the enlightened inhabitants of the colonies has long ceased 
 to be doubtful, that the continent of Spanish America can produce sugar 
 and indigo by free hands, and that the unhappy slaves are capable of be 
 coming peasants, farmers, and landholders." 
 
Ill 
 
 plan was simply this, that all children who should be 
 born in the West Indies after a fixed day (the 31st 
 Dec. 1799, we believe,) should be free, and, being free, 
 should be educated by the masters of the parents, and, 
 when arrived at such a degree of strength as should 
 qualify them for labour, should work for five or for ten 
 years, or whatever period it might be, for the payment of 
 the expence of their previous education and maintenance. 
 Thirty-one years have since passed, and we seem farther 
 removed from such a consummation at the present 
 moment than we were at that period. Matters, on the 
 contrary, have been getting worse : the local authorities 
 have not only adopted no active measures to promote 
 manumissions, but they have added to the impediments 
 which before existed : they have been so far from 
 empowering slaves, as in the Spanish colonies, to 
 demand their freedom, when by their industry and 
 frugality they have acquired the means of purchasing it, 
 that they have even discouraged, in various ways, 
 voluntary manumissions of meritorious slaves by their 
 masters. 
 
 In May, 1801, an act was passed in Barbadoes to 
 increase the fines on manumissions from 50/. to 300/. 
 on each female manumitted, and to 200/. on each male. 
 In July, 1802, the legislature of St. Kitts imposed a fine 
 of 500/. currency on the manumission of slaves born 
 in the island, to be increased to 1000/. in the case of 
 slaves not born in the island. In some of the other 
 islands fines of inferior amount were imposed ; and in 
 the Bermudas an act was passed to prohibit emancipa 
 tion altogether, and to prevent persons of Colour being 
 seised of real estate : and all these acts received the 
 royal assent ! Such has been the spirit of colonial 
 legislature even at a recent period ! 
 
 7. But let us further look at the moral condition of 
 our slave-colonies, and we shall be better able to judge 
 
112 
 
 of the real progress of improvement as contrasted with 
 the boasts to which we have alluded. 
 
 The marriage of slaves has not yet been legalised in 
 Jamaica or in any one of our slave-colonies* The most 
 unrestrained licentiousness prevails, almost universally, on 
 estates, among all classes whether White or Black. The 
 face of society presents, with few exceptions, one unvary 
 ing scene of open and promiscuous concubinage and pros 
 titution. The Christian Sabbath, instead of being a day 
 of rest and religious observance, continues to be the univer 
 sally authorized market-day, and in almost all the colonies, 
 and especially in Jamaica* a day of compulsory labour 
 for the slaves ; we say compulsory labour, for though 
 they may not be actually driven, in their provision- 
 grounds, on the Sunday, yet they are compelled to 
 cultivate them on that day on pain of starving ; they 
 toil under the lash for six days in the week, and during 
 the time of crop for six days and three nights, making 
 nine days labour in the week for a great part of the 
 year ; and yet they are denied the rest of the Sabbath : 
 they must toil on that day also, or starve. 
 
 And while in our colonies the Negro slaves are 
 denied the Sabbath as a day of repose or devotion, in 
 the colonies of Spain and Portugal the conduct pur 
 sued is widely different. There, the Sabbath is appro 
 priated in the case of the slaves to rest or religious 
 observances, and another day in the week is regularly 
 allowed them to cultivate their grounds, or otherwise 
 to be employed for their own benefit. The contrast is 
 striking and opprobrious ! 
 
 When we take this circumstance into view, and when 
 we connect with it the fact of the non-institution of mar 
 riage, and the open and avowed profligacy of manners 
 which prevails in Jamaica, for example; and when we 
 take into the account, moreover, the driving system, 
 and the arbitrary power of punishment placed in the 
 
113 
 
 hands of the Whites, can we wonder that the Negro 
 population should be decreasing in most of our colonies, 
 and especially in those where sugar is extensively cul 
 tivated?* If the human race could increase under 
 such circumstances, it would be contrary to all our re 
 ceived notions of the tendency of the moral government 
 of God. A blight must accompany a system so directly 
 at variance with his known will. His displeasure must 
 rest upon it. 
 
 To look also for the effectual communication of re 
 ligious instruction to the slaves by their masters, under 
 such a system, must be considered as hopeless. We 
 have seen, indeed, striking effects produced by the la 
 bours of Missionaries, among the slaves, in several of 
 our islands ; but the attempts of these Missionaries have 
 this advantage over any attempts which the masters 
 themselves might make, that they are not rendered abor 
 tive, in the very outset, by the glaring inconsistency, 
 which even the slaves themselves must be struck with, 
 of having Christianity offered them by men whose sys 
 tem of proceeding is a flagrant outrage of its most sa 
 cred obligations. 
 
 Before the planters can hope to succeed in any efforts 
 they may make to convey religious instruction to their 
 slaves, they must, at least, begin by giving them the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 We purposely omit many other circumstances in the 
 legal condition of the Negro slave, which tend to ag 
 gravate the hardship of his condition, from a fear of 
 too much swelling the present pamphlet. We allude 
 to such circumstances as these. He is debarred 
 the common right of self-defence, if the person assault 
 ing him be a White: death, or some other severe 
 
 * See supra, p. f,9. note. 
 1 
 
punishment, is denounced against him for striking, or 
 attempting to strike, struggling with, resisting, or 
 opposing any White person. He is subject not only 
 to the general criminal law, but to a peculiar penal 
 code of extreme harshness and severity : for example, 
 he is liable to suffer death for obeah, or witchcraft ; 
 he is liable to death, or dismemberment, for running 
 away ; he is liable to thirty-nine lashes for drumming, 
 dancing, drinking, using insolent language or gestures, 
 &c. We will not, however, dwell on this part of the 
 case at present, enough having been brought forward 
 to establish our general position respecting the still 
 unmitigated severity of colonial bondage. 
 
 Now, after this view of the subject, when we read 
 again the motions of Mr. Charles Ellis, in 1797, and 
 of Mr. Palmer, in 1816, (both planters of eminence 
 in Jamaica,) calling upon His Majesty, in grave and 
 set terms, to take measures for promoting " the moral 
 and religious improvement, as well as the comfort and 
 happiness of the Negroes," in what light are we compel 
 led to regard such motions ? We should be glad, at least, 
 to learn how many of the West Indian gentlemen who 
 supported those motions, have done what in them lay 
 to promote " the moral and religious improvement, as 
 well as the comfort and happiness of their slaves ;" how 
 many of them have secured to their own slaves (for this, 
 at least, was in their power) the undisturbed enjoyment 
 of the Sabbath as a day of rest, by giving them the 
 same time, on other days, for the culture of their 
 grounds; how many of them, also, have made Sunday, 
 on their own estates, a day of religious worship and 
 instruction. We should further be glad to learn, what 
 efforts they have made to prevent the profanation of 
 that day by public markets and forced labour ; what 
 measures they have adopted for repressing, on their 
 
115 
 
 own estates, the shameful irregularities which have been 
 shewn so universally to prevail ; what substitute they 
 have found for the driving system ; and what effective 
 restraints they have imposed, in their own cases, on 
 the tremendous power possessed by overseers? Let 
 them shew what they themselves have done in these 
 respects, before they can hope to derive any credit from 
 the barren generalities of a parliamentary address; 
 which, whatever may have been its real purpose, has 
 produced no beneficial results to the Negro population. 
 We admit that the legislature of Jamaica has passed 
 an act appointing curates for the instruction of the 
 slaves, and giving these curates salaries ; but still the 
 slaves have no Sabbath. We also admit that many of 
 the slaves have been christened ; but still they have no 
 Sabbath. The very men who vaunt that curate s act 
 and those christenings, as a proof of their zeal for Chris 
 tianity, still deny to their slaves the Christian Sabbath. 
 This fact speaks for itself. 
 
 We shall abstain from any farther observations on 
 the present occasion, although the subject is very far 
 indeed from being exhausted. But we are anxious, 
 before we conclude, to take this opportunity of calling 
 upon influential W T est Indians in this country, and 
 especially upon such of them as sit in either House of 
 Parliament, to consider dispassionately the facts we 
 have brought before them, and to ask themselves whether 
 they have done their duty in permitting a state of things, 
 so repugnant to every principle of humanity and justice, 
 to continue so long unmitigated and unredressed. It 
 is surely worthy of such men as Lord Darlington, Lord 
 Harewood, and Lord Holland, not to mention the nu 
 merous W^est India planters and merchants in the lower 
 House of Parliament, to come forward to investigate 
 and reform the abuses of a system which their high 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 names have served, in some measure, to rescue from 
 merited reprobation. To the last-mentioned nobleman, 
 in particular, we would make our appeal, in the confi 
 dence that it will not be made in vain. He stands 
 pledged to the African race, not merely by the here 
 ditary obligations which are attached to the revered 
 name of Fox, not merely by the engagements which 
 he early entered into, and has often renewed in the face 
 of the country, not merely by the liberal principles 
 which he professes on all occasions to be the guides of 
 his public conduct; but, above all, by the circumstance 
 that he is himself a planter, and derives a part of his 
 revenue from the cruel and debasing bondage which we 
 
 O O 
 
 have here attempted to delineate. It seems, therefore, 
 peculiarly incumbent on him to take a leading part in 
 instituting an enquiry into its nature and effects, and 
 in applying, without delay, a remedy to its evils. 
 
 We would also remind those distinguished friends of 
 justice and humanity in both Houses of Parliament, (our 
 Gloucesters, Grenvilles, Greys, Lansdownes, and Har- 
 rowbys ; ourWilberforces, Smiths, Cannings, Broughams, 
 and Mackintoshes,) who have toiled so ardently in the 
 cause of the wretched African, that a great duty devolves 
 upon them, and that to them will the public, when 
 their eyes are fully opened to the enormity of the sys 
 tem which prevails in our slave-colonies, naturally look 
 for the zealous and consistent prosecution of the prin 
 ciples which animated them in their struggles to suppress 
 the Slave-trade. 
 
 But let the public also do their duty. Let them 
 strengthen the hands of their leaders by a general, dis 
 tinct, and concurrent appeal to the legislature on this 
 momentous subject. If, through their supineness in 
 making their wishes known, the dreadful evils of colo 
 nial bondage should be indefinitely prolonged, will not 
 the guilt become theirs ? They cannot plead ignorance 
 
y 
 
 117 
 
 of the existence of these evils. Proof has been pro 
 duced, sufficient to satisfy every reasonable man, that 
 at least a parliamentary investigation is indispensable. 
 Let them then unite in calling for such an investigation, 
 and for such remedial measures as that investigation may 
 shew to be requisite. And let them remember, to sti 
 mulate their efforts, that at present, they (the British 
 public) do not only tolerate this system, but they actually 
 support it. It could not exist for a single year, but for 
 the aid of the public purse ; which, to the extent of two 
 or three millions, is, at this moment, annually expended 
 in bolstering up this fabric of iniquity. But it cannot 
 last. Such a combination of impiety and licentiousness, 
 of oppression and cruelty, of war with all human 
 sympathies, and contempt for all divine laws, cannot 
 continue to meet with countenance and support in this 
 country. It only requires to be known and appreciated, 
 in order to be effectually reformed. If we could for a 
 moment anticipate a contrary result, we should tremble 
 for our country. If, after these practices are known, 
 we should connive at their continuance, nay, if we do 
 not do our best to suppress them, we shall be justly 
 chargeable, in the sight of the Almighty, with all their 
 turpitude and criminality. 
 
 But what, it may be asked, are the practical 
 measures it is proposed to adopt ? On these we 
 may think it necessary hereafter to address the public. 
 In the mean time our object is simply to expose the 
 enormity of the evils of Negro slavery, with a view to 
 excite the attention of the public, and, through them, of 
 Parliament to the subject. On the wisdom nnrl juntirr 
 of Parliament^we place an implicit reliance. Let the 
 evils be only examined and ascertained, and we cannot 
 doubt that appropriate remedies will be discovered and 
 applied. Neither can we doubt that in applying them 
 a due regard will be paid to whatever claims West 
 
118 
 
 Indian planters may have on the liberality of the 
 nation. 
 
 The present publication, it seems right to mention, has 
 originated with an association at Liverpool, formed for 
 the express purpose of employing all lawful and prudent 
 means for mitigating and finally abolishing the state of 
 slavery throughout the British dominions. Similar 
 associations are already formed in the metropolis and in 
 other parts of the United Kingdom. But it became 
 Liverpool, long the deepest in the guilt of the Slave- 
 trade, to come forward the first to protest against the 
 perpetuation of the original injustice of that criminal 
 traffic, in the persons of the descendants of its earlier 
 victims. Such associations, we trust, will be multiplied 
 in every corner of the realm, and will never intermit 
 their united and strenuous efforts, until by exposition, 
 petition, remonstrance, and every legal method of 
 intervention, they wipe out this foul stain from the 
 character of their country, and deliver themselves from 
 all participation in a system which, as has now been 
 demonstrated, involves the violation of every acknow 
 ledged principle of the religion of Christ. 
 
 THE END. 
 
A. .* ,.._.., :,., jjort ant Inform- 
 
 . ,o>i o,i the Subject of Slavery. 
 
 Ramsay s Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves 
 in the British Sugar Colonies, London. Phillips, George Yard. 
 1784. 
 
 Privy Council Report on the Slave Trade and Slavery, 1738 1789. 
 
 House of Commons Evidence on ditto, 17901791. 
 
 Abstract of ditto, and of Privy Council Report. 
 
 Debates in House of Commons, 1791. T _ . c ,.... 
 Ditto ditto, ^Printed for Phillip,. 
 
 Ditto ditto, 1806. 1| 
 
 Ditto ditto, 1807. I 
 
 Ditto on Slavery at the Cape of j Printed for Hatcnara. 
 
 Good Hope, - J 
 
 Wilberforce s Letter to his Constituents, 1807. 
 Pinckard s Notes on the West Indies. 
 Professional Planter. 
 Dixon s Mitigation of Slavery. 
 
 Watson s Defence of the Methodist Missions in the West Indies. 
 Report of the African Institution on Reasons for a Registry of Slaves. 
 Review of the Colonial Registry Bills by the African Institution. 
 Sixteenth Annual Report of the African Institution. 
 Stephens s Letters to Wilberforce on the Registry of Slaves. 
 Cropper s Letters to Wilberforce. 
 Singleton s Report of the State of Sierra Leone. 
 Pamphleteer, No. XVI. containing Coster on the Amelioration of 
 Slavery. 
 
 LONDOX : 
 
 Printed by A. & R. Spottiawoode, 
 New- Street-Square. 
 

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