:

praise it tends to make me despond; and it led me to say, Some persons will, ere long, tell lies of me also. I admire Mr. Milner's plan about Mr. Howard; state debtor and creditor. If we have any thing good about us, there is a set-off; and it is best that it should be in some measure stated.' (Life of Scott, 7th ed. 429.)

XVIII.-page 144.

Mr. Steele's experiment (1783-1790) is described, as abridged from Mr. Clarkson's account, in the pages of an excellent publication, entitled, "The System; a Tale of the West Indies,' 1827. 204-206.-See also Review of the Quarterly Review,' &c. 1824. 50-54.

The Honourable Joshua Steele coming into possession of three estates in Barbadoes, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years, went over for the purpose of trying how far the condition of his poor slaves might be ameliorated, preparatory to emancipation. He was spared, in the full enjoyment of his faculties, for nine years; and lived to enjoy the most decisive success from his benevolent exertions. The progress of his plan was, briefly, as follows:

1st. He took from the drivers their whips, and deprived his overseer of all arbitrary power. The latter immediately resigned his situation, and the former were soon dismissed for their refractory conduct under the loss of their whips: he erected instead a magistracy out of the Negroes themselves, and established a trial by jury among them, which fully answered his most sanguine expectations.

2d. He introduced the practice of voluntary labour, and at a trifling premium; by which means he found the Negroes worked with alacrity, and contrived not only to earn their day's wages, but to secure an hour for themselves in the evening, by increased application to their tasks.

3d. He erected his estates into manors, and registered every adult male slave a copy-holder, assigning to him a tenement of land sufficient to produce what was necessary to furnish his family with food and clothing: a privilege liable to be forfeited on any instance of flagrant misconduct. He then established a regular system of rent and wages: putting a rent upon each tenement, which he valued at so many days' labour; and another rent on the personal service due by each slave to his master; against which he set a daily allowance of pay to the copy-holders for the work which they were to do: allowing them in each year forty-eight days, beside Sundays, to themselves. Tools were furnished, and lent to the labourers; and they had the option of receiving their wages, either in cash, or in necessaries;

the chief part of which were valued at the most moderate market price; all being entered with great simplicity and exactness in books which checked each other.

Such were the broad outlines of an admirable plan; and what was the result?-1st. From the stimulus thus applied, his Negroes performed the work of cultivation at one-fourth part of the expense formerly incurred: they no longer counterfeited sickness, or remained sullen under a violent punishment: but, incited by the reward, flocked to their tasks, and wrought with emulation: thus constituting a vast saving of time otherwise lost, and money expended in the hospitals. 2dly. By the promptitude of his labourers, Mr. Steele always saved the season: all was done in its proper time, and always ensured him a full crop, where his neighbours, under the old system, lost half theirs by the backwardness of their gangs. -3dly. The watchmen, paying for all losses happening on their watch, were alert in duty: and the plantation which, from the scantiness of its produce, through wasteful inattention, had bought yearly several hundred baskets of corn, yielded a surplus of all descriptions of provisions; and that surplus, sold at a high price, formed a most important source of profit.To conclude; for every 100l. annually cleared at the first period of these reforms, 3451. 6s. 8d. were cleared when all came fully into operation. Before the whips were taken away, in three years and three months there were fifteen births and fifty-seven deaths. After the change of system, in four years and three months the births were forty-four, the deaths forty-one; of which latter ten. were of superannuated men and women; while in the same interval the clearance of the estate was above three times more than it had been for ten years before.Some detached parts of Mr. Steele's plan were virtually adopted, indeed, at the Lagoon; but one essential portion of his system was never introduced there-namely, the stimulus of wages; and, of course, there was a correspondent disposition to inactivity, even among our most steady Negroes; while the others were conscious of the reign of terror, still administered by the whip, with whatever leniency and impartiality. The selfish principle,' says the authoress of The System, 'is as active beneath a black skin as a white; '—but I will add, not more so. In either case no man will work for nothing, unless compelled. Where there is a remuneration, labourers of all colours can be equally industrious; however languid at a sugar-mill in Jamaica, or at a tread-mill in England ; though superintended by drivers and turnkeys.

After all, I cordially adopt the sentiments of the late Bishop Horsley, when he said: Even if I were to allow, that the slaves in the West Indies receive, from the liberality of the planters, all the alleviations which their condition will admit, yet I would

say, that they cannot be otherwise than miserable; for, if you were to pamper them with the most exquisite delicacies, or put them to rest on a bed of roses, a slave will still be a slave.' (Speech in the House of Lords; June 10, 1806.)-In the same address his Lordship observes, When we come down to Christianity,' from the antecedent dispensations, we find that dealers in slaves are held among the worst of the human race. St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, tells us what the dealers in slaves are, and who are their companions. The slave-dealers are called stealers of men, ανθρωποδιςαί or ανδραποδισαῖ and their companions are liars, perjurers, murderers, parricides, and perpetrators of unnatural crimes!'

I shall not, for instance, state what manumissions took place among our own slaves; but cite what Mr. Bickell generally says, in reference to Jamaica, respecting the oppression exercised against such Negroes as wish to emancipate themselves. He writes, If an industrious Negro, in a favoured situation, saves a little money, the sum demanded for his freedom is, in most instances, so enormous, that it is but seldom effected. In many cases, where free Brown or Black men have been connected with female slaves, they have had a wish to purchase their freedom out of love to the wife, as she is called, or, if she be a mother, perhaps to the child or children also; but so much has been demanded, that they have been obliged to relinquish the idea. With one instance of this kind I was well acquainted, as it happened in Kingston. A free man had lived with a Black female slave belonging to a certain White lady, and much desired to purchase her, that he might give her freedom and marry her. He applied to the mistress, who did not altogether object to selling the young woman, but demanded so great a sum for her, that the poor fellow could not raise so much, even by selling all he had. The common price of a good domestic female slave was then from 1007. to 1301. currency: but how much do you think, this lady asked for this female, who wished to be married to the man she loved? Why, the sum of 2001. currency! at least 707. more than she was worth. Nor could she be prevailed upon to sell her for less, although assailed by the prayers of the lover, and the tears of his mistress: so that she was neither emancipated nor married, for the man did not like to marry a slave; but she was allowed to live on in the same wicked way; though,

* 1 Tim. i. 9, 10.

had an equitable sum been demanded, she would have been emancipated, and her children (now slaves and bastards) would have been free and legitimate. This is not a solitary case; it often occurs; and in many instances they will not sell a valuable slave on any terms.—There is a much greater liberality in this respect in the Spanish colonies, where emancipation cannot be withheld from slaves on certain sums being offered, and on other certain conditions; there being fixed laws on this head. But in our colonies there is no inducement held out; for the slave is a complete chattel, a mere machine impelled by the whip, as the master has the power of perpetual possession. However deserving or fortunate the slave may be, in being steady and industrious, and having friends and a little money, it avails nothing; for, if the owner choose, he or she must die in bondage. Indeed, being good and industrious would, in nine cases out of ten, rivet his chains more tightly; for the more he does, the more valuable he is, and therefore the less likely to be parted with. Go to any estate, and offer a fair sum for a worthless Negro, he or she would be readily and gladly sold to you. Offer a good price for an ingenious tradesmen, a hard-working, steady field Negro, or an interesting young female, and say that you wish to make them free, the owner or manager would reply, "No, sir; these are some of my most valuable slaves; I would not part with either of these men for more than his value. And as to that young woman, sir; she will work as well as any man I have; she is likely also to have a large family. I cannot spare her for any sum! (32-37.)

But, say, the advocates of slavery, if the Negroes are manumitted, they will ruin us by pauperism. Yet it appears, from the Parliamentary Papers of May 9, 1826, that, in a population of free Blacks and people of Colour amounting to from 80,000 to 90,000, throughout all the islands, only 229 persons have received any relief, however small, as paupers; being about one in each 370 persons; and exhibiting altogether an example of ease and independence, not to be paralleled in any other part of the British dominions, or among any other class of his Majesty's subjects. What says the Rev. Mr. Bridges on this subject? The free Negro and Coloured population of these colonies are a slothful race, living without labour or means; they ' merit your commiseration, and should elicit your sympathy.' In age or incapacity, they are exposed, without resource, to all the want and misery, which close a life of unrestrained indolence, apathy, and vice.' And these 229 persons have been all the paupers relieved from 1821 to 1825 inclusive, a period of five years!

The lower Whites of Barbadoes are without exception the most degraded, worthless, hopeless race I have ever met with in my life.'-As to certain Whites called the Tenantry (attached

by law to every estate in the same island), the greater part of them live in a state of complete idleness, and are ignorant and debauched to the last degree. Whole families of these free Whites depend for their subsistence on the charity of the slaves. Yet they are as proud as Lucifer himself.' (Coleridge, 305, and 286.)

XX.-page 159.

A well-digested statement of what is very briefly related in the text may be found in Brown's History.' ii. 73-90.-In the same excellent work, is also an abridged account of the Moravian missions in the West Indies, from 1732 to 1821. i. 347–548.— In a tabular view, by the Bishop of Jamaica (October 1825), of the state of his diocese, we find that, for the accommodation of a population which, including all classes, amounts to about 40,000, there are churches and chapels belonging to the Establishment capable of containing only about 11,500 individuals. This is exclusive of Baptist, Methodist, and Moravian meeting-houses. The schools for the education of free persons contain nearly 700 scholars; being about one in eighty or ninety of the free population. The Bishop does not state that there are any schools for the slaves.

The following extract from the St. Vincent's Gazette of May 20, 1826, may illustrate the obedience paid to the new Bishop of the Leeward Islands :- -We understand that the Lord Bishop has signified his intention of paying this island a second visit in two or three weeks, although we see no preparations making for his reception or accommodation. We cannot imagine to ourselves the surprise and disappointment that will be felt by his Lordship on his arrival, to find, that, of the various measures of improvement, or addition, to our clerical establishment, suggested by him on his first visit, not one has yet been carried into effect; no additional place of worship provided; no school establishment provided; or means devised for giving additional impulse to the moral or religious feelings of the lower classes: in short, that we are precisely in the same state his Lordship left us, except, as one of our correspondents has lately suggested, considerably worse, no doubt, from the combined inroads of time and negligence.'

Accounts from Demerara, of the 25th of December, mention that the Lord Bishop of Barbadoes had proposed several improvements as to the treatment of the slaves, and as to giving them some instruction in reading, &c. which the local authorities have rejected.

A copy of a memorial from the proprietors and representatives