Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

in any other part of Southwark, the city, or Northern Liberties; and, after that period, it made its next appearance in the three nearest families to Crisman's; it also re-appeared, on the 8th of August, in Crisman's family, which had returned to the same house, contrary to the intentions of the board, on the fifth; and, a few days later, in two or three families on the opposite side of the street, and in two in a neighbourhood more remote; and was evidently propagated from one to another, and afterwards conveyed to other neighbourhoods, in the same manner as diseases, universally acknowledged to be contagious, are usually propagated, and not like a disease derived from noxious effluvia diffused in the atmosphere, to numbers, in different directions, at the same time, nor like a disease occasioned by foul air proceeding from a particular source, which necessarily ceases to spread, or even to exist, soon after the original source, from which the foul air proceeded, has been removed or corrected.

"As soon as the board received intelligence of the existence of the disease, they used every exertion, short of absolute compulsion, to remove the sick, and the families with whom they resided, to houses provided for their reception in the country. They likewise advised and urged the immediate removal of all the families in and near the neighbourhood where the disease existed, and endeavoured to arrest the progress of the disease, by preventing, as much as in their power, unnecessary intercourse with the sick, and by warning people, residing in other parts, from visiting or transacting any business in the infected streets. "Measures, so well calculated to prevent the disease from spreading, could not have failed of success, as was proved by the proceedings in Providence, Rhode Island, if the people had not unfortunately been impressed with an opinion that the disease was not contagious, and, of course, that no precautions were ne

cessary. Misled by this opinion, they disregarded the regulations and admonitions of the board, in conse quence of which the disease was gradually conveyed into other families, and into streets more remote ; and though the increasing mortality soon convinced the people that the disease was of a different and more dangerous nature than they had been taught to believe, and occasioned the precipitate flight of multitudes, it had become too widely extended before this conviction took place, for the subsequent regulations and exertions of the board to eradicate it, or entirely suspend its progress. They, however, have the satisfaction of believing that, notwithstanding the opposition and difficulties with which they had to contend, they were instrumental, under Divine Providence, in retarding its progress, and in rescuing and preserving a number of valuable lives in Southwark, as well as in preventing the disease from pervading the city and Northern Liberties, and involving the inhabitants in the complicated miseries of former years.

"The city hospital was opened on the 15th of August; a resident physician and an assistant were appointed on the 26th; and, as the number of patients multiplied, two consulting physicians were added, with a competent number of nurses and attendants, and every thing necessary for the accommodation and relief of the patients provided.

"Physicians were also appointed to attend such sick persons, at their houses and at the encampment, as were not in a condition to be removed.

"Additional messengers were employed to collect intelligence, and to assist the officers of the board in removing the sick and the dead, and in purifying infected houses, as well as a number of watchmen, to prevent unnecessary intercourse with the sick. Carriages were also kept in constant readiness, day and night, to remove the sick and the dead.

"The number of persons with malignant fever, reported at the

health-office, amounted only to 838, pended on account of the board of

[blocks in formation]

For the Literary Magazine.

"But as many families concealed their situation, and some of the physicians omitted to report their patients, and the number of deaths by the fever amounted to more than 300, and as, on an average, the deaths HORRORS OF WEST INDIA SLAdid not exceed one in four, it is probable the whole of the sick amounted to about 1200.

"The number of patients admitted into the city hospital was 346, and the number that died there 163. "The humber of patients admitted into the hospital of the lazaretto was 47, and the number that died there, including two by accidents, eight.

VERY.

DURING the session of 1804, the following extract of a letter from lord Seaforth, the governor of Barbadoes, to lord Hobart, dated at Barbadoes, the 8th of March, 1802, was laid on the table of the house of commons.

"Your lordship will observe, în the last day's proceedings of the as"In addition to a number of hous- sembly, that the majority of the es provided for the reception of in-house had taken considerable offence fected families and convalescents, at a message of mine, recommendthe board erected tents for the ac- ing an act to be passed, to make the commodation of two hundred fami- murder of a slave felony. At prelies, and supplied more than a thou- sent the fine for the crime is only sand individuals with provisions, fifteen pounds currency, or eleven from the 7th of September to the pounds four shillings sterling." 22d of October. They also distributed relief to a multitude of indigent as well as sick families, at their houses, who, having been deprived of employment and the means of subsistence by the fever, had no other resource, as the guardians of the poor were not in a situation to assist them; in consequence of which the office of providing for the poor and destitute, as well as for numerous orphans, devolved upon the board of health, without whose care and assistance they must have fallen victims to the disease, or perish ed by famine: hence the list of their expences has been greatly enlarged, notwithstanding the donations of several humane and charitable individuals, unsolicited by the board."

The cash expended on account of the lazaretto amounted to 5454 dollars and 4 cents; the new buildings erected at the lazaretto cost 5300 dollars and 17 cents; the money ex

People, in general, would think it scarcely possible that a stronger proof could be adduced of the deplorably unprotected condition in which the negroes are placed in Barbadoes, the oldest and most civilized of the slave colonies, than was furnished in the above official document. In a community where even the life of a negro slave is valued at so cheap a rate, it would argue an utter ignorance of the nature of man, and of the principles by which his conduct is usually regulated, to expect that the general treatment of negro slaves should be humane; and presumption, however, sufficiently strong, to remove all doubt from unprejudiced minds; but we are now relieved from that objection. We are no longer reduced to the necessity of making use of disputable analogies, in order, from the state of the laws respecting slavery, to infer the probable practice; but

we have the practice so graphically described, as to supersede the necessity of argumentation, and to silence the most determined stickler for West Indian humanity.

On the 25th of February last, a number of papers, respecting the slave trade, were presented to the house of commons by his majesty, and they have since been printed. In perusing them, the attention is forcibly attracted by a continuation of the correspondence between lord Seaforth and the secretary of state. On the 13th of November, 1804, his lordship thus writes to earl Cambden.

"I enclose four papers, containing, from different quarters, reports on the horrid murders I mentioned in some former letters. They are selected from a great number, among which there is not one in contradiction of the horrible facts, though several of the letters are very concise and defective. The truth is, that nothing has given me more trouble than to get at the bottom of these businesses, so horribly absurd are the prejudices of the people" (not of one, or two, or a few individuals, but of the people).

"However, a great part of my object is answered by the alarm my interference has excited, and the attention it has called to the business. Bills are already prepared to make murder felony; but I fear they will be thrown out for the present in the assembly. The council are unanimous on the side of humanity."

In a subsequent letter, dated the 7th of January, 1805, lord Seaforth thus writes:

"I enclose the attorney general's letter to me on the subject of the negroes so most wantonly murdered. I am sorry to say several other instances of the same barbarity have occurred, with which I have not troubled your lordship, as I only wished to make you acquainted with the subject in general."

The letters to which lord Seaforth refers, and which accompany the above extracts, are from four of the most respectable individuals in the

island of Barbadoes, viz., Mr. Ince, the president of the council; Mr. Coulthurst, the advocate general; Mr. Beccles, the attorney general; and the Rev. Mr. Pilgrim. These gentlemen all agree in the material facts of the cases which they state. It would, therefore, be an unnecessary repetition to transcribe the whole of their letters: it will be sufficient to give the substance of the statements which they contain.

1. On the 10th of April, 1804, a militia man of the name of Halls, of the St. Michael's regiment, returning from military duty, overtook on the road some negroes, who were going quietly home from their labour. When he came near, he called out that he would kill them, and immediately began to run after them. The negroes, not supposing that he really intended to do them any injury, and imagining that he was in joke, did not endeavour to escape, but merely made way for him. The person nearest to him happened to be a woman, the property of a Mr. Clarke, the owner of Simmons's estate, who is stated to have been a valuable slave, the mother of five or six children, and far advanced in pregnancy. Without the smallest provocation of any kind, Halls, coolly and deliberately, plunged his bayonet several times into her body, when the poor creature dropped and expired without a groan. Two gentlemen were eye-witnesses of this horrid action. One of them, Mr. Harding, the manager of the Codrington college estate, went up to Halls and spoke harshly to him, and said he ought to be hanged, for he never saw a more unprovoked murder, and that he would certainly carry him before a magistrate. Halls's reply is very remarkable. "For what?" said he, with the utmost indifference as to the crime, "for what? for killing a negro!!!" This is a short but a significant sentence, strongly confirming an important truth which has frequently been asserted, viz., that the negroes are regarded by their white-skinned oppressors as an inferior order of

beings, and, under the influence of this sentiment, are naturally enough denied the common rights of humanity, and excluded from the pale of that sympathy, which a sense of a common nature and a common extraction is calculated to inspire. Mr. Harding, however, greatly to his credit, was proof against the force of Halls's compendious reasoning, and, having procured assistance, laid hold of him, and carried him before Mr. justice Walton. Mr. justice Walton, it would appear, was not indisposed to use the authority with which he was vested in bringing Halls to justice, but he found that," in his situation as a magistrate, the law of the island gave him no jurisdiction or authority over him," and, in short, that he had no right to commit him. In this dilem ma, Mr. Walton applied to Mr. president Ince. "I told Mr. Walton," says the president, in his letter to lord Seaforth," that I regretted, with real concern, the deficiency in our law; but that there was a penalty due to the king, in such cases (viz., the eleven pounds four shil lings mentioned above), and that, as Mr. Harding had sufficiently substantiated the fact, I would order him to be committed till he paid the forfeiture, or a suit should be commenced against him." Accordingly he was sent to prison. The president, however, seems to admit the illegality of this proceeding. "Perhaps, my Lord," he adds, " it was a stretch of power in me to order commitment before a recovery of the fine." It was certainly so: and Halls, without doubt, is sufficiently apprized of the circumstance. Nay, we shall not be surprised to hear that he has been able to rouse the popular feeling in his favour, as a man unjustly and illegally oppressed. To have suffered so severe a punishment as imprisonment, for so paltry an offence as that of killing a negro, will be likely enough to excite no small degree of virtuous indignation among the Barbadians; and the danger lest such an unauthorised restriction of the freedom

of individuals should grow into a precedent, will, of course, call forth the most vigorous resistance. We are justified in forming this expectation by what occurred some years ago, on a similar occasion, in the neighbouring island of St. Kitts, where the prosecution of a man of the name of Herbert, who had used one of his slaves with the most wanton barbarity, was not only not attended with any punishment to the offender, though the facts were clearly proved; but was likely to have been followed by the most inconvenient and injurious effects to the prosecutor, in consequence of the popular clamour which was excited against him.

[ocr errors]

2. The second instance produced by lord Seaforth is not inferior in atrocity to the first. A Mr. Colbeck, who lives overseer on Cabbage-tree plantation, in St. Lucy's parish, had bought a new negro boy out of the yard' (meaning the slave-yard where negroes are exposed to sale, in the same manner as the cattle and sheep in Smithfield market), and carried him home. Conceiving a liking to the boy, he took him into the house, and made him wait at table. Mr. Crone, the overseer of Rowe's estate, which is near to Cabbage-tree plantation, was in the habit of visiting Mr. Colbeck, had noticed the boy, and knew him well. A fire happening one night in the neighbourhood, Colbeck went to give his assistance, and the boy followed him. Colbeck, on his return home, missed the boy, who had lost his way, and, as he did not make his appearance the next day, he sent round to his neighbours, and particularly to Crone, informing them, that his African lad had strayed, that he could not speak a word of English, and possibly he might be found breaking some sugar canes, or taking something else for his support: in which case he requested they would not injure him, but send him home, and he would pay any da mage the boy might have committed. After a lapse of two or three days, the poor creature was disco

vered in a gully, or deep watercourse, near to Rowe's estate, and a number of negroes were soon assembled about the place. The boy, naturally terrified with the threats, the noise, and the appearance of so many people, retreated into a hole in a rock, having a stone in his hand, for the purpose, probably, of defence. By this time, Crone and some other white persons had come up. By their orders, a fire was put to the hole where the boy lay, who, when he began to be scorched, ran from his hiding-place into a pool of water which was near. Some of the negroes pursued him into the pool; and the boy, it is said, threw the stone which he held in his hand at one of them. On this, two of the white men, Crone and Hollingsworth, fired at the boy several times with shot, and the negroes pelted him with stones. He was at length dragged out of the pool in a dying condition, for he had not only received several bruises from the stones, but his breast was so pierced with the shot, that it was like a cullender. The white savages (this is the language of Mr. attorney general Beccles) ordered the negroes to dig a grave. Whilst they were digging it, the poor creature made signs of begging for water, which was not given to him: but as soon as the grave was dug, he was thrown into it and covered over, and, as is believed, while yet alive. Colbeck, the owner of the boy, hearing that a negro had been killed, went to Crone to enquire into the truth of the report. Crone told him that a negro had been killed and buried, but assured him it was not his, for he knew him well, and he need not be at the trouble of opening the grave. On this Colbeck went away satisfied. Receiving, however, further information, he returned, and had the grave opened, when he found the murdered negro to be his own. Colbeck brought his action of damages in the courts of the island against Crone and Hollingsworth. The cause was ready to be tried, and the court had met for the purpose, when

they thought proper to pay double the value of the boy, and 251. for the use of the island (being 51. less than the penalty fixed by law, of 151. currency each), rather than suffer the business to go to a hearing. "This, I am sorry to say," observes the advocate general, "was the only punishment which could be inflicted for so barbarous and atrocious a crime."

This horrid recital, which is given almost in the words of the report, merely avoiding repetitions, seems to require little comment. One circumstance of it, however, may not strike the minds of some readers with its due force, although it appears to be the most affecting part of the whole case. Colbeck, it is said, on hearing that it was not his slave who had been murdered, went away satisfied. O most opprobrious satisfaction! The preceding part of the narrative had prepared us to expect in Colbeck some approximation to European feeling. But what is the fact? On being coolly told that a negro had been killed and buried; told so by his neighbour, the murderer; is he shocked? does he express any horror or indignation on the occasion? No! he goes away satisfied!! Let the reader give its due weight to this one circumstance, and he will be convinced, that a state of society must exist in the West Indies of which, as an inhabitant of this happy island, he can scarcely form any adequate conception. Suppose, instead of a negro slave, that it had been a horse which had been thus killed. Colbeck, had his horse happened to be missing at the time, would have pursued exactly the same steps, and would have been affected in the same way as in the present instance. We may also learn, from this impressive circumstance, the value of West Indian testimony when given in favour of West Indian humanity. The moral perceptions and feelings which prevail in that quarter of the world, it will be perceived, are wholly different from those on this side of the Atlantic. It may be allowed that these men mean what they say, when they

« ПредишнаНапред »