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pact are destroyed to all. If the slave is not to be punished, the owner's property (his plantation) is not safe. If he is punished, the owner's property (the slave) is injured.

No wonder the

master complains of the double risk to his property: but such risk is the necessary consequence of holding a subject of the law in property."

Chapter Third lays before us, in a series of beautiful sketches, the mechanism of a plantation, with the moral and physical characteristics of the scene; and shows how slavery is costly, by destroying the power of industry at its very source, viz. the hope of the human agent thereby to increase his comforts and add to his happiness.

Chapter Fourth contains a powerful and affecting illustration of the melancholy but natural fact, that slavery degrades and demoralizes its unhappy victims-that man the oppressed, becomes, in his turn, man the oppressor, and visits upon the innocent the wrongs he has suffered from the guilty; and thus, a chain of fierce and rankling antipathies extends over all the ramifications of society. We quote a part of the history of poor Hester, than which we have met with few pictures more touching in their details.

Little Hester was only ten years old when she was first put under old Sukey, according to the custom by which novices in bondage are made to serve a sort of apprenticeship to those who have been long under the yoke. Some humane masters, observing the facilities thus afforded to slave-tyranny, have attempted to break through the custom, but have found that, with all its abuses, it is too much liked by the slaves to be given up. The children prefer, at the outset, being instructed by their own people; and the elderly folks find pleasure, some in the exercise of authority, and others in reviving their impressions of their own young days of friendless slavery. No one who knows how fond negroes are of excitements of feeling, will wonder at their seeking this melancholy enjoyment. There are many instances where the pupil has been cherished by a mother whose babe had been early taken from her by death or violence; or by a father who had seen his sons carried off to a distance, one by one, as they became valuable for their strength or skill. There are many more instances, however, where the young slave's lot is more chequered than that of childhood in any other part of the world; where kindness is as capricious or rare as sunshine and warmth to the blossoms of a Greenland meadow. Little Hester seemed to wither fast under the treatment of her master and mistress, as they called themselves; but a tone of voice gentler than usual, a mild word, a look of encouragement, would revive her and strengthen her till the next gleam came. There was no end to her troubles but in sleep; and she never slept without dreading the waking. Wearied as she was when she laid herself down on her mat, she was apt to

sleep as long as the old people; and if she ever failed to jump up when the gong sounded, Robert was sure either to throw cold water over her, or to touch her feet with a blazing piece of wood from the fire, and to laugh at her start and cry. However foggy the morning, out she must go to the field, and do as much of other people's work as was put upon her by her master's order. However tired at noon, she must cook the mess of vegetables, and feed the pigs, and run hither and thither in the broiling sun. However dewy the evening, she must stand in the grass and pluck as much as she could carry; and, having carried it, must be kept the last, as she was the youngest, before she was relieved of her burden. She dared not put it down and leave it; for, when she once did so, she was flogged for not having gathered her portion. When she came home damp and shivering, she was thrust from the fire; and, creeping under her mat, lay awake till the smoke hung thick enough round her to warm her, and make her forget her bodily hunger and her cravings of the heart in sleep. These cravings of the heart were her worst misery; for she had known what it was to be cherished, and to love in return. Of her father she remembered little. He had been executed for taking part in an insurrection when she was very young; but her mother and she had lived together till lately. She had seen her mother die, and had stood by the grave where she was buried; yet she awoke every morning expecting to see her leaning over her mat. She dreamed almost every night that her arm was round her mother's neck, and that her mother sang to her, or that they were going together to find out the country where her father was waiting for them; but as often as she awoke, she saw old Robert's ugly face instead, as he stood with his red and blue cap on, mocking her; or heard both shouting the hymns which she hated, because they were most sung on Sundays when she was more unhappy than on other days, being tormented at home, and just as much overworked as in the field, without any one to pity her or speak for her. Cassius now and then took her into his ground, and gave her some fruit; and he had once stopped Sukey when he thought she had beat the girl enough; but his respect for the aged prevented his seeing how cruel these people were; and, supposing that the poor child would be a slave all her days, he did not "make her discontented with her condition," as the overseer's phrase was on all occasions of interference.

In the Fifth chapter, "No haste to the wedding in Demerara," we find the slave shut out from that great sweetener of life, the connubial tie,

"Because a black must be first a slave and then a man. A white woman has nobody to rule her but her husband, and nobody can hurt her without his leave; but a slave's wife must obey her master before her husband; and he cannot save her from being flogged. I saw my friend Hector throw himself on the ground when his wife was put in the stocks; and then I swore that I would never have a wife."

"But think of Hector's children, Willy. Oh, you do not

know the pleasure of hearing one's little children laugh in the shade, when the sun makes one faint at noon! It is like a wind from the north. And to let them sleep under the same mat, and to see them play like the whites,-and then their master pats their heads sometimes when they follow him."

"Like dogs," said Willy, "that as often get a kick as a kind word. When I see little children as clever and as merry as whites, I take them up in my arms and love them; but when they are carried away where their father shall never see them again, or when their mothers look sad to find them growing as stupid as we are, I am glad that I am not their father.

"Becky!" said her father, "are these the reasons that your lover will not marry you?"

Becky made no answer; for the fact was, she knew nothing more than that he thought there was no occasion.

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Willy!" said the old man again, "if you will not love nor marry here, you will try to go somewhere where you can be a man and a husband without being a slave. You work in our ground. Is it that you may be free when I am dead?”

"No, father, I shall not try to be free.

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"Why then do you sow corn and dig our ground for us? If you get money, why will you not pay it to be free?"

"I sow corn that you may have as good food as when you were young and could dig like me. I get money because others do so; but, unless it were many times as much, it does little good to me: for I shall never be free. The Englishmen, over the sea, tell us that they wish us to be free, and bid us try to buy our ransom; and when we have nearly done so, they put a higher price upon us, and laugh when we give up.'

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"How can people so far off raise our price?"

"They raise the price of sugars because our masters ask them, and then our masters raise our price. Hector once hoped to buy his freedom; and it made him happy to see his master look sad, because then he knew that his master could not sell his sugar, and did not want his slaves so much, and Hector hoped that no more sugar would be sold till his master had taken his ransom and let him go. But one day the overseer told him that his ransom was too low, and he must not go yet. It was because his master wanted to make sugar again; and he wanted to make sugar because the people in England pitied our masters, and made sugar dearer that they might be rich."

"If the whites in England pitied us," said Nell," they would make sugar cheaper that we might be free.'

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"Till they do," said Willy, folding his arms, "I will be as I am, I will work no more than I cannot help. I will sleep all I can, that I may forget. I will love my father till he dies, and Nell and Becky till they have husbands that will love them more than I. Then, since I cannot love, I will hate; and I will call to the hurricane to bury me under my roof and set me free."

The remaining chapters, on "Man worth less than beast"-" Christianity is difficult"-"The proud covet

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pauperism"- "Calamity welcome". "Protection is oppression"- -"Beasts hunt men"-" No master knows his man" in Demerara, we have not space to notice as we could wish. They are copious in illustration of the ills of slavery, they are rich in moral and Christian truth. Earnestly do we recommend this Number to all lovers of their species. Miss Martineau has done good service, by bringing Political Economy to the mind of the many, who would never have sought for it in the more abstruse paths and less inviting ways of philosophical and recondite inquiry. This is a great merit, but the merit is still greater, that she has shown that justice and mercy are at one with the soundest principles of science; and that the shortest and surest way for a nation to be rich and prosperous, is, that the rights and happiness of all its members be impartially consulted.

THE CHRISTIAN PIONEER.

GLASGOW, JUNE 30, 1832.

Unitarian Village Missionary Society (late the Lancashire and Cheshire Unitarian Missionary Society).-THE Eighth Annual Meeting of the Members of this Society, was held in the Boys' School-room, under the Unitarian Chapel, Mosley-street, Manchester, on Monday evening the 26th March; the Rev. J. J. Tayler in the chair. After briefly opening the proceedings, the chairman stated, that the collections made the preceding day at the Cross-street, Mosley-street, and Greengate Chapels, in aid of the funds of this Society, amounted to £41: 10: 9. The report of the proceedings of the Society during the past year, was next read. It presented a very gratifying illustration of the great amount of good which may be accomplished with limited means, and gave pleasing anticipations of the future extension of the principles of Unitarian Christianity. At Astley, Swinton, and Padiham, the congregations were reported to be increasing in numbers, and regular in attendance; while in the Sunday-schools at these places and at Oldham, about 570 scholars received instruction. The Rev. Henry Clarke (whose engagement as the missionary of this Society terminated in October last) reported, that the cause of Unitarianism was evidently extending at Padiham. While in that neighbourhood, he had preached upwards of thirty times at villages adjacent. Mr. Francis Duffield, who had been subsequently engaged for six months by the Society, had also visited this little nursery of humble Christians, and expressed himself highly gratified at their zeal. Mr. Duffield had also visited the neighbourhood of Ashford, Derbyshire, with a view of obtaining

information respecting Mr. Robert Shenton, formerly a preacher among the primitive Methodists in the Bradwell district, but who, having changed his sentiments, had applied to the Commitee of this Society for assistance, while he endeavoured to extend the knowledge of the one only true God. In November, the Committee entered into an engagement with Mr. Shenton; and he had subsequently preached at Ashford, the adjacent villages of Sheldon, Bakewell, Tideswell, Great and Little Longston, and Taddington, to attentive and frequently numerous congregations. In a letter from him, the great desire manifested amongst the people to read the Society's tracts, was noticed as proving a very valuable auxiliary to the labours of the Missionary, and the want of tracts was lamented. By the financial accounts of the Society, it appeared that the balance of cash remaining in the hands of the Treasurer, was £5:5:7. Resolutions were moved and seconded, and the meeting was addressed in the Christian and missionary spirit of "peace and good will to man," by Richard Potter, Esq. the Revds. F. Howorth of Bury, Edward Hawkes, J. R. Beard, Henry Montgomery of Belfast, and C. D. Hort of Gorton; and by Messrs. Francis Duffield, Aspden, J. A. Turner, J. Harland, J. Armstrong, E. Shawcross, A. Hardy, Robert Shenton, and P. Eckersley. The unexpected presence of the Rev. H. Montgomery, who was passing through Manchester on his return to Ireland, added considerably to the gratification of those present at this highly interesting meeting. Mr. Shenton gave a brief account of his labours, which had been successful beyond his expectation. An earnest hope was expressed, that before long, the benevolent work of a mission to the poor and depraved, would be commenced in Manchester.

Christian Tract Society.-THE Twenty-third Annual Meeting of this Society, was held at Worship-Street Chapel, London, May the 10th, on which occasion the Rev. James Yates was called to the chair. The Secretary, who had also acted as Treasurer, commenced the business of the evening by reading the balance-sheet, from which it appeared that there was in his hands, in favour of the Society, only 19s. The proceeds of Tracts sold amounted to £93; the annual subscriptions to £86; and there was a life subscription from Mr. Sturch of £10: 10s. which sums constituted nearly the whole receipts of the current year.

The Report was then read: it stated that seven of the old Tracts had been reprinted, and three new ones printed, namely, "The Effects of a Bad Temper, displayed in the history of Rebecca Price," "Friendly Suggestions to the Labouring Classes," and "Adherence to Truth recommended." It also stated, that the Committee had not yet been able to make any use of the Tracts received from Amsterdam; and it then proceeded as follows:

"In the course of the last twelve months, there have been issued from the store nearly twenty thousand tracts. Of these an unusually large number has been presented to societies, or to individuals who requested to be furnished with them, or to whom the Committee presumed that they would prove acceptable. Donations of tracts have been made to friends residing at Brighton, Ipswich, Newbury, Trowbridge, Cradley, Loughborough, Sunderland, and

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