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in any quarter, a feeling unfriendly to them, or an indisposition to give a fair consideration to their interests. The honest but uninformed zeal of individuals, may sometimes break forth into intemperate expressions: but the great body of the people make a wide distinction between the class of which we speak. and the colonial mob. Let it be their care to preserve that distinction indelible. We call for their support. They are our natural allies. Scarcely have the Ministers of the Crown, scarcely have the Abolitionists themselves, been more corously abused by the orators of Jamaica, than those persons. The one The objects of the two classes are wholly different. consists of English gentlemen, naturally solicitous to preserve the source from which they derive a part of their revenue. other is composed, in a great measure, of hungry adventurers, who are too poor to buy the pleasure of tyranny, and are therefore attached to the only system under which they can enjoy it gratis. The former wish only to secure their possessions; the latter are desirous to perpetuate the oppressive privileges of the White skin.--We entreat these respectable persons to reflect on the precarious nature of the tenure by which they hold their property. Even if it were in their power to put a stop to this controversy-if the subject of slavery were no longer to occupy the attention of the British public-could they think themselves secure from ruin? Are no ominous signs visible in the political horizon? How is it that they do not discern this time? All the ancient fabrics of colonial empire are falling to pieces. The old equilibrium of power has been disturbed by the introduction of a crowd of new states into the system. Our West-India possessions are not now surrounded, as they formerly were, by the oppressed and impoverished colonies of a superannuated monarchy, in the last stage of dotage and debility, but by young and vigorous and warlike republics. We have defended our colonies against Spain: does it therefore follow, that we shall be able to defend them against Mexico or Hayti?'-Edinburgh Review, No. 82.

'If the philosophy of man,' says Mr. Coleridge, and past and present experience, do not deceive us, it may be confidently predicted, that the West-India islands CANNOT continue for twenty years longer in the state in which they now are. There are mementoes of insecurity on the right hand and on the left; and many deep thoughts will arise unbidden in a statesman's mind, when he muses on the prophecy of Berkeley:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past-

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;-
Time's noblest offspring is his last.'

'Six Months in the West Indies.' 2d ed. 1826. 323.

B.-p. ix.

An answer, equally correct and melancholy, to this inquiry, was published last year, entitled The Progress of Colonial Reform,' &c.; drawn from Parliamentary Papers which appeared prior to the 10th of April, 1826. What advance has been effected since ? The very latest example of colonial reform and mitigation is now before us, in the shape of an Act of the legislature of Jamaica, passed only four months ago; bearing date the 22d of December, 1826. Of this Act the 37th clause runs thus:"And in order to restrain arbitrary punishments, be it further enacted, that no slave, on any plantation or settlement, or in any of the workhouses or gaols in this island, shall receive any more than ten lashes at one time and for one offence, unless the owner, attorney, guardian, executor, administrator, or overseer, of such plantation or settlement, having such slave in his care, or keeper of such workhouse, or keeper of such gaol, shall be present; and that no such owner, attorney, guardian, executor, administrator, or overseer, workhouse-keeper, or gaolkeeper, shall, on any account, punish a slave with more than thirty-nine lashes at one time and for one offence; nor inflict, nor suffer to be inflicted, such last-mentioned punishment, nor any other number of lashes, on the same day, nor until the delinquent has recovered from the effect of any former punishment, under a penalty not less than ten pounds, nor more than twenty pounds, for every offence," &c.-Such is the law passed, by the enlightened legislature of Jamaica, in December 1826, and which is applicable to every slave-man, woman, or child-in that island. By that law the driver may inflict ten lashes; and the owner and overseer, nay, the gaol-keeper and workhouse-keeper, the attorney, guardian, and administrator, may, each and every one of them, inflict thirty-nine lashes on any and every slave-man, woman, or child-in the island, without a trial, without the order: of a magistrate, for no defined offence, but merely because he (the owner, &c.) is offended; nor can he, by any law, be called to answer for such conduct. Nay, the clause is framed for the express purpose of protecting him against all responsibility for so doing. And yet, in mockery, as it were, this clause is called a clause to restrain arbitrary punishments! It is a most singular fact, that in the new rural code of Jamaica, by which this arbitrary and uncontrouled power of the cart-whip is established, the word driver does not once appear: it is studiously withdrawn from view.' (Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 23.)

If Slavery exist at all,' says Mr. Macdonnel, himself a defender of slavery, 'there must be a very great discretionary power entrusted to those who have the superintendence of the properties. b

It is perfectly idle to attempt to regulate the conduct of those persons in all their minute duties. Power so extensive as theirs must necessarily exist beyond the controul of any law. It is no exaggeration to say, that the happiness or misery of a slave is in a manager's keeping. If he take any dislike or pique to any individual, he can harass the poor creature in a thousand different shapes.'-Considerations on Negro Slavery, &c. 1824. 281.

C.--p. x.

For the express purpose of supporting slavery, we charge a protecting duty of 10s. per cwt. on all sugar, and of 28s. per ewt. on all coffee, imported from our Indian dominions; and thus force our manufacturers, for the sake of supplying the miserable allowance of clothing to 700,000 slaves in the West Indies to forego the supply of eighty or a hundred millions of people in India.

Instead of encouraging that competition of free labour, which would as effectually destroy the trade in slaves for the cultivation of sugar, as it has already done for that of indigo, and thus remove the great barrier to our intercourse with 70,000,000 of people on the continent of Africa, we prohibit, by extravagant duties, the importation of any sugars grown there, and we charge an extra duty of 28s. per cwt. on all coffee produced in the colony of Sierra Leone, which, by discouraging cultivation, must retard the progress of civilization also.

A bounty was long paid on the exportation of refined sugar, the effect of which was, to raise the price of all sugar in the British market 6s. per cwt., equal to 1,200,000l. per annum. At the close of the last session, this bounty was reduced about one half. Now it is clear that the effect of this bounty is not to increase our trade but to lessen it; to make sugar dear to the people of England, and cheap to the people of the continent. And whilst it is on all hands acknowledged that the great expedient for extending our commerce, is to find consumption at home for the produce received in return for our manufactures, we actually are paying our money to transfer this advantage to foreigners, and to facilitate their consumption, while we abridge our own. In short, so far as sugar now comes within the reach of our distressed manufacturers, we thus, in point of fact, are taxing them, in such a way also as to diminish their already too scanty employment!'-(Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 17. This highly important periodical is ready for delivery on the last day of every month, at the office of the Anti-slavery Society, No. 18 Aldermanbury; or at Messrs. Hatchard's, Piccadilly.)

"Though I were even sure,' said the late Rev. John Newton,

that a principal branch of the public revenue depended upon the African trade (which I apprehend is far from being the case), if I had access and influence, I should think myself bound to say to Government, to Parliament, and to the nation, "It is not lawful to put it into the Treasury, because it is the price of blood." God forbid that any supposed profit or advantage which we can derive from the groans, and agonies, and blood of the poor Africans, should draw down this heavy curse upon all that we might, otherwise, honourably and comfortably possess.' (Works, 1824, vi. 525.)-It is, however, asserted, that the sugar colonies, during the last thirty years, have cost the mother country, at least 150,000,000. in national debt, and 50,000 lives.

The following is an extract from Sir W. Young's West-India Common Place Book :

Tables, shewing the Mortality of Troops in the West Indies (exclusive of those who fell in action) during seven years, from 1796 to 1802 inclusive, compiled from Regimental Returns collected by John Sayer, Esq. Commissary in the Windward and Leeward Islands during that period.

Paley's Evidences, seventh edition, ii. 376-380.-In the same vol. the author writes, "The Slave Trade destroys more in a year than the Inquisition does in a hundred; or perhaps hath done since its foundation.' (386.)-Paley was, from the first, a determined opponent of slavery. In his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, originally published in 1785, he calls our colonial law and practice the most merciless and tyrannical that ever were tolerated upon the face of the earth.'-The inordinate authority which the plantation laws confer upon the slave-holder, is exercised, by the English slave-holder especially,

6

with rigour and brutality.' But necessity is pretended; the name under which every enormity is attempted to be justified. And, after all, what is the necessity? It has never been proved that the land could not be cultivated there as it is here, by hired servants. It is said that it could not be cultivated with quite the same conveniency and cheapness, as by the labour of slaves by which means, a pound of sugar, which the planter now sells for sixpence, could not be afforded under sixpencehalfpenny ;-and this is the necessity.' (19th edition, i. 234.)

E. p. xvii.

The articles in the 58th and 60th Nos. of this Journal are satisfactorily refuted by the author of a Review of the Quarterly Review; or an Exposure of the Erroneous Opinions promulgated in that Work, &c.' 1824. The observations in the text might have been spared, as they are designed to subdue an enemy already vanquished. But they appear, if for no other cause, yet for this, to shew what the resources of that hostile force must be, which suffers itself to be dispersed by such different modes of attack. The pamphlet above mentioned defeats the Reviewer, with scarcely any reference to the authorities of which I have availed myself. It was quite independent of them.

The conduct of the Quarterly Review on the subject under discussion, and on some other points of moral feeling, has darkened its character with features it has long been impossible to mistake; and destroyed the influence it once possessed among men of independent principles. Such persons have been relieved by resorting to another Journal, which, without affecting the least respect for religion under any form, has far surpassed its rival; not merely in ability, but in fairness, impartiality, and unshrinking recognition of truth. It has pleaded the cause of the Negroes with an eloquence, vigour of talent, and practical knowledge, all but commensurate with the sublimity of its object. Its last effort, 'On the Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes,' is a splendid illustration of the justice of these remarks. (Edinburgh Review, No. xc. art. 7.)

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F.—p. xviii.

Such as grass-picking (Ramsay, 70-73)-free labour-EastIndia Trade-the Gallifet and Nottingham Negroes-Maroonsour inter-colonial Slave-Trade-Martyrdom of the missionary Smith-and, more especially, the unspeakably terrible details furnished, from year to year, of the ravages of the Trade under French, Spanish, and Portuguese flags; which alone would fill