Various clerical authorities might be adduced to the same effect. And yet, in the face of these testimonies, what is it, in the case of Mr. Bridges, which we are called to contemplate? He was presented to a parish, the ecclesiastical duties of which he had to perform singly or perhaps with the aid of a curate, though that no where appears. Besides its population of White and free Coloured inhabitants, which had hitherto occupied almost exclusively the pastoral care of West-Indian incumbents, it contained about 16,000 slaves. In less than three years he reports, that of these he has actually baptized 9,413. If we assume these 9,413 to have been also actually converted from Paganism to Christianity, or even to have been taught enough of the fundamental truths of the Gospel to understand the engagements into which they entered, we have here a miracle as great as was exhibited on the Day of Pentecost. And if they were not converted to Christianity, or if they did not understand the nature of the solemn vow and covenant they were called to make, what a mockery of religion, what a prostitution of the sacred initiatory rite of baptism, is here made the subject of boast! When he sprinkled them with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' and received them into the congregation of Christ's flock,' did he make them promise to renounce the carnal desires of the flesh; and to keep God's holy will and commandments, and to walk in the same all the days of their life?' If he did, we would ask again, whether these engagements, with respect to almost all his neophytes, were not words without a meaning? How many of his 9,413 converts were actually living at the time, and have continued since to live, in a state of lawless concubinage, indulging, day by day, without restraint, instead of renouncing, the carnal desires of the flesh?' Out of 16,000 slaves, by his own account, he had married only 187 couples. In what state were all the rest of those persons living, whom he pronounced, on their baptism, to 'be regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's church,' and for whom he solemnly gave thanks to Almighty God,' as such -praying too that they may lead the rest of their life according to this beginning?' Does such a transaction require a comment? Then, as to keeping God's Commandments, what shall we say to the Fourth? Has the Sunday ceased to be the market-day, or a day of labour, to these baptized Negroes? And when they come really to understand the requisitions of the Christian covenant, the repentance, faith, and new obedience, which our Church requires of all adults before they are admitted to baptism, what must they think of the propriety of their admission to that rite?

6

III.-page 13.

This quite agrees with Ramsay's account (52-4) of the then treatment of slaves in the French colonies. 'Missionaries are appointed, for the purpose of training them up to a certain degree of religious knowledge; and ample estates or funds are allotted for the maintenance of ecclesiastics. The master is obliged to acquaint the governor or intendant, within eight days, of every African whom he has purchased, that a missionary may be assigned to instruct him.-Every slave has a claim to a certain allowance of food and clothing, which is not to be diminished by his master, under pretence of having given him time to work for himself. On ill treatment, he is directed to apply to the king's attorney, who is obliged to prosecute the master.—If a slave be rendered unserviceable through age, hurts, or disease, or be turned adrift by his master, he is to be placed, at the master's expense, in the public hospital.-Marriage is also held sacred, and is solemnized by a priest. Care is taken to marry them young on the same plantation. They are also attached to the soil, and cannot be drawn off to pay debts, or be sold separate from it. They use private prayer. The field Negroes begin and leave off work with prayer; the black overseer officiating as priest.' (59, 61.)-Much more to the same effect may be be found in my author. The evening devotions of the slaves in the French islands are described by an ear-witness, who visited the colonies in 1807.- Voyage to the West Indies, &c. by John Augustine Waller, R. N.' 1820. 91, 92.

IV.-page 17.

The amount of the sums collected for our religious and philanthropic societies in 1825-6, was 494,039. 16s. Ild. But it is painful to observe, how slender a portion of this half million is gathered in behalf of Anti-Slavery institutions !-It is, however, more painful to reflect upon the waste of blood, and of all national resources, during the last half century, in supporting a guilty system. On this point, it has been emphatically asked, Who is to repay the English nation for the treasure which has been expended in governing and defending the colonies? If we had made Jamaica what we have made Massachusetts, if we had raised up in Guiana a population like that of New York, we should indeed have been repaid. But of such a result, under the present system, there is no hope. It is not improbable that some who are now alive may see the last Negro disappear from

our Trans-atlantic possessions. After having squandered a sum which, if judiciously employed, might have called into existence a great, rich, and enlightened people, which might have spread our arts, our laws, and our language from the banks of the Maragnon to the Mexican sea, we shall again leave our territories deserts as we found them, without one memorial to prove that a civilized man ever set foot on their shores.'-Edin. Rev. XC. 422.

V.-page 18.

This reminds me of Bryan Edwards's memorable speech in our House of Assembly:-I am persuaded that Mr. Wilberforce has been very rightly informed as to the manner in which slaves are generally procured. The intelligence I have collected from my own Negroes abundantly confirms Mr. Wilberforce's account; and I have not the smallest doubt, that in Africa the effects of this trade are precisely such as he represents them to be. The whole, or the greater part, of that immense continent, is a field of warfare and desolation; a wilderness, in which the inhabitants are wolves to each other. That this scene of oppression, fraud, treachery, and blood, if not originally occasioned, is, in part, will not say wholly, upheld by the Slave Trade, I dare not dispute. Every man in the sugar islands may be convinced that it is so, who will inquire of any African Negroes on their first arrival concerning the circumstances of their captivity. The assertion that a great many of these are criminals and convicts, is mockery and insult!'Cited by Lord Grenville, in the debate in the House of Lords, June 24, 1806.

VI.-page 27.

But what is the character of the posterity of Shem, to go no farther then the Hindoos? Whoever is at all acquainted with this subject, will find himself rather encumbered with evidence of the treachery of the natives, than distressed by the want of it. The works of Orme, Holwell, Dow, Maurice, Scrafton, &c. produce it in every page. Treaties solemnly ratified, while other treaties are contracting with an opposite power; articles of capitulation violated by the murders of the besiegers, or the besieged; truces broken at the moment of the greatest confidence; drugged bowls and poisoned meats; parchments sealed with blood, and contracts cut to pieces by the dagger :-thes are circumstances every moment exemplified in the history &

Hindostan.' (Cunningham's Christianity in India, 1808. 20.) See also Fuller's Apology for Christian Missions. Works; 1824. iii. 279, 80.

I would ask, in this place, whether the most cruel_superstitions of Africa afford a parallel to the pilgrimage to Juggernaut, with all its bloody consequences; or to the burning alive of widows on funeral piles; or-shall I add?-to the sanguinary sacrifices, under the Druids, by the posterity of Japhet, and in the mother country of the colonies!-And what discoveries will an inquirer make, who searches into the abominations of Persia, China, and the more civilized divisions of the Asiatic world, including Polynesia? Must we confine the universal apostasy of mankind to the aborigines of Africa? and find among them more foul criminality than is practised in the capitals of their Most Catholic and Christian Majesties,-in the religious houses of Madrid, and in the Palais Royale of Paris ?

VII.-page 29.

Ramsay, 19.-Eight-and-thirty years since, the present Bishop (Burgess) of Salisbury refuted, by anticipation, the arguments now current on the consistency of slavery with the Scriptures. His Lordship's publication is extremely scarce. It is entitled, Considerations on the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade, upon Grounds of natural, religious, and political Duty; and was written (1789) in answer to some Mr. Harris, who talked of the relative duties of master and slave.'—' Reciprocal duties!' exclaims the Bishop; reciprocal duties!... To have an adequate sense of the propriety of these terms, we must forget the humane provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as the liberal indulgence of Roman slavery, and think only of West-India slavery of unlimited, uncompensated, brutal slavery; and then judge what reciprocity there can be between absolute authority, and absolute subjection.—A slave is a non-entity in civil society. Law and slavery are contradictory terms.'-A digest of his work may be found in the Christ. Obs. 1824. 620 -640.

In the year preceding the appearance of the Bishop's Considerations, Cowper thus writes:-Laws will, I suppose, be enacted for the more humane treatment of the Negroes; but who shall see to the execution of them? The Planters will not, and the Negroes cannot. In fact, we know that laws of this tendency have not been wanting, enacted even amongst themselves; but there has been always a want of prosecutors or righteous judges, deficiencies which will not be very easily supplied. The newspapers have lately told us, that these merciful

masters have, on this occasion, been occupied in passing ordinances, by which the lives and limbs of their slaves are to be secured from wanton cruelty hereafter. But who does not immediately detect the artifice, or can give them a moment's credit for any thing more than a design, by this shew of lenity, to avert the storm which they think hangs over them? On the whole, I fear there is reason to wish, for the honour of England, that the nuisance had never been troubled; lest we eventually make ourselves justly chargeable with the whole offence by not removing it. The enormity cannot be palliated: we can no longer plead that we were not aware of it, or that our attention was otherwise engaged; and shall be inexcusable, therefore, ourselves, if we leave the least part of it unredressed. Such arguments as Pharaoh might have used, to justify his destruction of the Israelites, substituting sugar for bricks, ( Ye are idle; ye are idle,') may lie ready for our use also; but I think we can find no better.'

To this I add what Mr. Burke said about the same period : 'I have seen what has been done by the West-India Assemblies. It is arrant trifling. They have done little; and what they have done is good for nothing; for it is totally destitute of an executory principle.'-Letter to Mr. Dundas (1792) on the Slave Codes.

VIII.-page 76.

I now take leave to call what the colonial party will of course disown as an exceptionable class of witnesses; beginning with Ramsay, who published his deposition about ten years before the appearance of Mr. Edwards's work. He writes,- Incon

ceivable are the miseries to which in cases of sickness the slaves are subjected. The necessaries, when any are allotted for the sick (and Heaven knows, on the best plantations they are trivial enough!) are devoured as a morsel, by that legion of harlots and their children with which the plantation abounds.—When a female slave has become the new object of the manager's attachment, she becomes an object of envy to those that have gone before her; and must think herself lucky, if she pays not with her life the forfeit of her attractions. In short, shameless profligacy usurps the place of decency; and headlong unthinking lust alone produces all the wasting effects of dishonesty, cruelty, and oppression. The greatest trouble arises from the libidinous behaviour of overseers." (Ramsay 84, 163. See also 239; for statements far too gross to be copied.)

My author's allusion to plantation infirmaries reminds me of Mr. Bickell's notice on this point; who writes :- Of the great