groes must suffer." Antigua." No laws have ever been passed in this island for enforcing due care of the slaves." Nevis." There is no law that gives the slave any allowances of time but Sunday. There is no law which obliges the master to grant provision grounds." Bahamas." They are fed according to the generosity and good-nature of the master. There is no law but practice."-P. 34, 35, 36. Again-The author is asserting the power of the master to imprison, wound or injure his slaves at discretion. Here again he quotes the official answer of the Assemblies at various islands to the inquiries made by the Privy Council. But, what is yet more satisfactory, he illustrates his position by extracts from the meliorating laws (meliorating, forsooth!) of several islands, which declare more explicitly than any evidence the sense entertained by Colonial legislature of the degree of criminality attached to cruelty towards a slave. Take, for instance, an act of the Assembly of Barbadoes, passed in 1805. "If any person shall hereafter wilfully, maliciously, wantonly, AND WITHOUT PROVOCATION, kill and murder any slave, whether such slave be the property of the person so killing and murdering, or of any other person, such person so killing and murdering, being duly convicted thereof by the evidence of one or more white person or persons, &c. shall suffer death," &c. Take again a meliorating act of Dominica: In Dominica, by its first meliorating Act, to maim, deface, mutilate, or CRUELLY torture a slave, was made a crime that subjected the offender to a fine not exceeding 100%. current money, and no imprisonment at all; but I find such offences are, by a subsequent Act of 1818, made punishable with imprisonment, not exceeding three mouths; as the alternative to such fine, at the discretion of the court. We will offer one more similar act in support of the author's position, but which he has not quoted. It is an act of the Assembly of Antigua. 38 Geo. III. sec. xxxvii.-Laws of Antigua, vol. i. p. 36. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that every owner or director of any female slave within the Leeward Islands, who shall be five months gone with child, shall keep and detain such female slave upon the estate to which she belongs at all times when the other slaves are at work, but not employ her otherwise than in taking care of the children on the estate, or other light work, &c. ; nor shall any such female slave be punished in any other manner than by confinement. or director, as aforesaid, if any owner shall offend against this clause in any respect, he shall forfeit for the same the sum of five pounds. And Among the most cruel of those characteristics of negro slavery which Mr. Stephen has given, is the liability of the slave to be removed at pleasure from his wife, his family, his connexions and his home. This is well illustrated in the following passages: The slave in our colonies, at every moment of his life, however long, after any period of services, however faithful, is liable to be torn at once, and for ever, from his home, from his friends, his family, his wife, his children; from all, in a word, that is dear to him upon earth; and to be sent to serve a new master, in a distant *A curious specimen by the way of WestIndian literature,-" every owner, &c. who shall be five months gone with child!!" island or territory, during the rest of his miserable days. Such, indeed, is the personal restraint incident to this slavery, that distance of removal is not necessary to give to separation its full bitterness. The wife and husband, the parent and child, if sold to different masters, in different counties of Jamaica, or even at the opposite extremities of smaller islands, are effectually divided for life. Transfers of property, from which such cruel consequences may, and often do, result, may be effected in all the various ways in which lands, or even household goods, may change their owners in this country. The slave passes to a new master by will, by marriage settlement, by gift, sale, demise,-in short, by every species of conveyance. Nor is it always possible for the new lord of his temporal destiny to save the poor negro, in these cases, from such a sad shipwreek of his happiness. The suc cessors to the property of the deceased may be infants, or otherwise incapable of altering the disposition of the law; or, it may be necessary that the slaves should be sold to pay the debts of their deceased owner; or, a settlement may have indissolubly bound them to some other and distant estate, though the late master, having a life-interest perhaps in both, had continued them till his death upon that domain to which they were originally attached. We must be satisfied with this hasty description of the manner in which the author treats the subject, and with a still more hurried sketch of the remainder of his book. We fear indeed, that we have already exceeded those limits which on such subjects we prescribe to ourselves. juries to cattle are in some cases capital felonies. The slave can neither be plaintiff or defendant, prosecutor or informer, or even witness against any persons of free condition. The extent of this evil may be conceived, though not described, when it is remembered that his oppressors universally belong to that class; and this reflection will at once prove how utterly hopeless redress is to the slave for how is a slave to prove the author of his inby prosecutions at the suit of the juries? Nor is the protection afforded crown of a more efficient character; for in point of fact there are no Colonial laws in existence by which protection to the slave against a free man is afforded, unless where the offender is his master; and in that case, says the author, They relate in general only to one spe. cies of injury, that of violence to the person; and so far are the new acts from making all injuries, even of this kind, indictable, that they plainly imply the contrary; since the greater part of them prohibit it only by special and aggravatory descriptions, such as "wanton and cruel" the offender, in cases so described, to such beating, wounding, &c.; and they subject punishment only as might by our law, and by their own, have been adjudged for the slightest assault on a free person. And as respects the common or statute law of England, he well observes that The law of England, knowing no such state of man as that to which negroes in the West Indies are confessedly reduced, Mr. Stephen proceeds to the concan have settled nothing criminally or cisideration of incidents of Colonial villy, that directly applies to such a state; nor can any rules be derived from our law, slavery as it respects the civil charac- through the analogy that their condition ter of the slave. We need hardly re- bears to any other which that law has remind our readers, ignorant as we be- cognized: because the state of villeinage, lieve most of them are on this interest-point, differs from it widely and radically which is the nearest approach to it in one ing subject, that the slave is utterly in every other. destitute of all civil rights; in fact, he is not regarded as a sentient being, or in any other light than one of his master's cattle. In the words of the author, "he has no civil character or personality;" and although an injury done to him by any other than his master may be redressed or punished, it is only on the same principle of property as in this country malicious in After specifying many wrongs that may be inflicted by a free man upon a slave, for which he can have no redress, and pointing out the oppressive and cruel effects of rejecting the evidence of the latter, Mr. Stephen pointedly illustrates the hardship of depriving this unhappy being of the only remedy which would appear remaining. A slave, and a slave alone, of all the living occupants of this wide world, is bereft of the natural right of self-defence from violence. To offer violence, to strike, attempt to strike, struggle with, resist, or oppose, any white person, is, by these acts, declared to be a crime in a slave, which shall subject him, if the white person be wounded or hurt, and in some islands without that condition, to death, dismemberment, or other severe penalties and lest there should be a doubt, whether there be any implied exceptions in relation to lawless outrages, or in favour of self-defence, the allowable excuses are, in the more modern acts, carefully and exactly specified. They are only those of obedience to the master's immediate command, and in the lawful defence of his (the master's) person or goods; and negative words even are sometimes (as in the Grenada Act) superadded, viz. "no other cause or pretence." See Jamaica Act of 1788, Sec. 33. Antigua Act of 1702, Sec. 6. St. Christopher's Act of 1711, Sec. 4. Act of the Virgin Islands of 1783, Sec. 24. Grenada Act of 1766, &c. Thus is the poor slave placed in this monstrous, unparalleled state of degradation. A dog may bite, an ass may kick his master, "a worm will turn when trampled on"— but a slave, a wretched negro may have his person assaulted, his wife outraged, his daughter violated before his eyes, and if he turns, may expiate his offence at the gallows. Merchants of England, again we say, consider this! and palliate the state of slavery! We dare not trust ourselves to trace its further evils. It would indeed be matter of surprise if this wretched being, called a slave, used merely as the tool of wealth, appropriated to his owner's pleasures, debarred of rights, of property, of protection; exposed to insult, hunger, and outrage; excluded from the pale of civilization, and from the privileges, not only of humanity, but even of the animal creation; cut off from hope and the possibility of change; it would indeed be matter of astonishment, if such a being could be the subject of religious anxiety; or if to him the advantages of education or moral improvement were extended; Asiatic Journ.-No. 99. can it be expected that those who deem them unworthy of temporal enjoyments, will be anxious to secure to them spiritual blessings? Can it be supposed that when wealth and property, power and privilege, civil offices and trusts, distinctions and honours, are sedulously placed beyond his reach, the honours and privileges of Christianity will be extended to him? If their value is indeed appreciated by his owner, for consistency's sake he must believe his slave undeserving of every thing else, unworthy also of them; and if the owner values them not, why should he be at the useless trouble of bestowing them on his slave? However, we will admit that here too we have meliorating acts. There was indeed an act of Jamaica of 1696, which enjoined masters to instruct their slaves, and to have them baptized when fit for it; but without even the pretence of any punishment or remedy for his neglect of this idle injunction; and after near a century of acknowledged uselessness, the same clause was gravely reenacted in the meliorating act of 1788. Dominica, eleven years after, amused us with a like enactment; and the late Curate's Act of Jamaica directs, that the slaves shall be instructed in the doctrines master's consent shall be first had and ob of Christianity, provided always, that the tained. But how far such instruction has been afforded, judge from the following evidence. "Q. What has been, and is now, the "situation of the slaves in Jamaica as to "religious instruction? "A. There are a very few properties on "which there are Moravian parsons; but "in general there is no attention paid to 66 any religious instruction." (John Wedderburn, Esq. Evidence of 1790, Ho. Com. p. 381.) "Q. Are negro slaves, or their children "in general, baptized, and what religious "institutions are there for their benefit, "in each of the islands of the West"Indies? "A. It is not uncommon for negro "slaves to be baptized by the Romish "priests: but this depends entirely on "their own inclinations, as there are no "religious institutions established by law for "the benefit of slaves in the island." (Gov. Seton, P. C. Rep. on Slave Trade, p. 3. St. Vincent, A. N. 18 and 19.) "Q. What religious institutions are "there for the benefit of negro slaves in "each of the islands in the West-Indies? A. By Mr. Roberton. "None es"tablished in the Windward or Leeward "Islands." A. By Mr. Laing. "None." (Same Rep. and Pt. title Dominica, A. N. 19.) "Q. Same as the preceding. 4. By Mr. Fuller, Agent for Jamaica, Mr. Chisholme, and Mr. Long. "know of none such in Jamaica." (Same Rep. and Pt. title Jamaica, A. N. 19.) "We We really, however, must conclude, without venturing to touch upon the latter part of the volume relative to the state of slavery in respect of its commencement and dissolution, and, what we regret still more, without allusion to a valuable Appendix relative to the removal of slaves from one island to another. We cannot, however, answer it to ourselves to omit extracting the following anecdote, given on the authority of a missionary of the name of Gilgras. A master of slaves, who lived near us in Kingston, Jamaica, exercised his barbarities on a Sabbath morning, while we were worshipping God in the chapel; and the cries of the female sufferers have frequently interrupted us in our devotions. But there was no redress for them, or for us. This man wanted money, and, one of the female slaves having two fine children, he sold one of them, and the child was torn from her maternal affection. In the agony of her feelings, she made a hideous howling, and for that crime was flogged. Soon after he sold the other child. This turned her heart within her, and impelled her into a kind of madness. She howled night and day in the yard; tore her hair; ran up and down the streets and the parade, rending the heavens with her cries, and literally watering the earth with her tears. Her constant cry was, "Da wicked massa Jew, he sell my "children. Will no Buckra massa pity "negar? What me do? Me no have one "child!" As she stood before the window, she said, lifting up her hands towards Heaven, 66 My massa, do, my massa mi"nister, pity me! My heart do so," (shaking herself violently,) " my heart do so, because me have no child. Me go "to massa house, in massa yard, and in 66 my hut, and me no see 'em." And then her cry went up to God. Could the pangs of separation be more forcibly depicted? No And for what purpose is this odious system supported, in defiance alike of law, humanity, and of religion? Merely for the sake of protecting, as it is called, the property of a body who collectively have neither by their conduct nor their loyalty deserved such protection. This is no calumnious assertion; the treasonable character of the late declarations, petitions, and so forth, of the Colonial Assemblies fully bear us out in making it; nor is the empty argument, that colonial property has been purchased under a parliamentary pledge for its security, a make-weight in the balance. legislature can sanction an outrage upon morality and decency, nor has the legislature of Great Britain ever done so. Its casual and indirect recognition of slavery has been made in ignorance of its character; and even were it otherwise, the legislature that can enact can repeal its enactments. Those who bought West-Indian plantations bought them at this risk, and consequently obtained them on terms proportionably cheap. What right have they now to complain if they are exposed to that danger, the anticipation of which diminished the purchasemoney? As well might a man complain at losing an estate which he purchased at a fourth of its value, because he could obtain no marketable title. Parliament has at length discovered, what indeed it required no great penetration to discover, that sugars the produce of free labour are cheaper than those produced by the labour of slaves. An article is consumed in proportion as it is cheap, and the produce of taxation is in proportion to the quantity consumed of the article taxed. It might have been supposed that this arithmetical truism would much sooner have become apparent to a British Legislature. East-Indian sugars, in defiance of the prohibitory duty of ten shillings per cwt., do come into the English market, and even at this time command a sale there, though they are imported from a country three times as distant as the WestIndian colonies, and are subject to great waste because stowed away as ballast, and though the manufacturers do not possess the advantage of WestIndian machinery in the manufacture of them. May it not then most reasonably be inferred that, if the protecting duty were removed, East-Indian sugar would expel the West-Indian colonial produce from the market, and that the consumption would be so much extended as to do more than realize the present revenue derived from the article? So conscious indeed are the West-Indians of this inevitable result, that their outcry has been directed against some of the principal abolitionists and interested parties for this very reason. The book of Mr. Stephen at the present moment is indeed a most valuable gift to the public. Though it only carries the plan of the author to the conclusion of his delineation of slavery in its legal state, and though we are, therefore, deprived of much of the valuable practical advice that we might have expected, had the author possessed more time for the completion of his work: still it is a point of vast importance to lay before the public at the present moment, and especially before the Legislature, an accurate and well attested exposition of the system of colonial slavery. Hitherto the public have not understood the subject; Parliament has legislated in ignorance; and even abolitionists, we fear, have argued, and planned, and petitioned, with a very partial knowledge of their case. But this is beginning at the beginning; and though it ought to have been done at least twenty years ago, and truly sorry are we that the author was then diverted from his intention, it is not yet too late to produce a powerful and lasting impression. With all the artifice, the manoeuvring, the shuffling and evasive tactics of the West-India party, we resolutely defy them any longer to conceal from the British public what The average quantity of East-Indian sugar imported into the English market, notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which the importation is made, was, during the five years ending January 5, 1821, to the sugars imported from the West-Indian colonies, in the proportion of one to sixty.* Surely then, on the ground of politi-slavery is. From their own mouths cal economy, setting aside all the advantage gained by humanity and religion, it ought to become a most serious question with our Parliament, whether, for the sake of protecting the they are condemned. Indeed, it is the grand merit of the work, that while it is at once temperate and firm, clear and judicious, and scarcely open to a single censure on the score of intemperate expression (if we except, perhaps, a single note, that we shall not more pointedly describe); it is elaborate in its research, cautious in its allegations, and most scrupulously conscientious in its reception of evidence, and in its references to authorities. As contrasted with other works of this eminent writer, it is, perhaps, remarkable for its clearness of expression; and, considering the haste with which it has been prepared for the press, of which the numerous clerical errors give too frequent proof, it is |