THE

HORRORS

OF

NEGRO SLAVERY,

&c.

SECOND EDITION.

Price One Shilling.

[Pg 1]

In the last Session of Parliament a variety of papers respecting the Slave Trade was laid on the table of the House of Commons, and among them, the following extract of a letter from Lord Seaforth, the Governor of Barbadoes, to Lord Hobart, dated at Barbadoes, the 18th March 1802, viz. “Your Lordship will observe in the last days proceedings of the Assembly, that the majority of the House had taken considerable offence at a message of mine, recommending an act to be passed to make the murder of a Slave felony. At present the fine for the crime is only fifteen pounds currency, or ELEVEN POUNDS FOUR SHILLINGS STERLING.”

It was difficult to conceive a stronger proof of the deplorably unprotected condition of the Negro Slaves in Barbadoes, the oldest and most civilized of our slave[Pg 2] colonies, than is furnished by the above official document. In a community where even the life of a Negro slave is estimated at the cheap rate of eleven pounds four shillings sterling, and where a proposition to raise its legal value to a price which may be less revolting to European feelings is resented as an affront by a grave legislative assembly; it would argue an utter ignorance of the nature of man, and of the principles by which his conduct is usually guided, to expect that the general treatment of Negro slaves should be humane and lenient. But we are not at present reduced to the necessity of inferring, by the aid of disputable analogies, the practical nature of the existing slavery, from the state of the laws respecting it. What might, last year, have been considered by some as matter of presumption merely, of presumption, however, sufficiently strong to remove all doubt from unprejudiced minds, is now matter of fact. We have now the practice of slavery so graphically described, in some further documents of unquestionable authority, as to supersede the necessity of reasoning, and to silence the most determined stickler for West Indian humanity.

On the 25th of February 1805, a number of additional papers respecting the Slave Trade was presented to the House of Commons by His Majesty. To these papers it is the purpose of this pamphlet to call the attention of the public, as exhibiting a picture of Negro bondage, with which every individual in the kingdom ought to be made fully acquainted, who has a heart to feel for the miseries of his fellow-creatures, or a voice to raise against that detestable traffic which is the main prop of colonial despotism.

The first thing which occurs in these papers particularly deserving of notice is a continuation of the correspondence[Pg 3] between Lord Seaforth and the Secretary of State. The following is a transcript of it, with the addition of a few notes intended to illustrate the text:

One circumstance of the above narrative may not strike the minds of some readers with its due force, although to me it appears to be the most affecting part of the whole case. They may have been led to conceive, that whatever atrocity there was in the proceedings of Crone and his companion, yet in Colbeck there was some approximation to European feeling. But how stands the fact with respect to Colbeck? On being coolly told that a[Pg 16] Negro had been killed and buried,—told so by the murderer himself, his neighbour and frequent visitor;—is he shocked by the tale? Does he express any horror or indignation on the occasion? No! he goes away satisfied with the assurance, that the murdered Negro is not his own. Let the reader give its due weight to this one circumstance, and he will be convinced that a state of society exists in the West Indies, of which an inhabitant of this happy island can form no adequate conception. Had it been his horse instead of his Negro Slave, Colbeck would have been affected in much the same way as he is said to have been.

From this impressive circumstance may also be inferred the value of West Indian testimony, when given in favour of West Indian humanity. Mr. Colbeck, for example, would naturally enough be spoken of as a man of humanity by his West Indian brethren, and they would probably be sincere in giving him that praise. But who is this man of humanity? It is one who, hearing that a fellow-creature has been cruelly and wantonly murdered, goes away SATISFIED, because he himself has sustained no pecuniary loss by the murder! In truth, the moral perceptions and feelings which prevail in that quarter of the globe, are wholly different from those which are found on this side of the Atlantic. An exception may, indeed, be made in favour of a few men of enlightened minds; but the remark is just as applied to the bulk of the community—the people, whose prejudices are stated by Lord Seaforth to be so horribly absurd, as to resist all measures for remedying this shocking state of society.

We shall doubtless hear it argued on the present as on former occasions, when similar barbarities have been incontestably proved, that “individual instances of cruelty, like those which have now been produced, are no[Pg 17] proofs of general inhumanity. Instances, of, at least, equal atrocity, might be collected from the annals of the Old Bailey. But how very unjust would it be to regard these as exhibiting a fair view of the English character?”

There is, however, a remarkable defect in the analogy which is here attempted to be established; a defect which seems fatal to the argument. In this happy country, when we hear that crimes have been perpetrated, we hear also that they have been punished: we have at least the satisfaction of knowing, that no practicable means are left unattempted for securing the criminals, and bringing them to justice. But is this the case in Barbadoes? We hear of great crimes indeed; but we hear at the same time of their impunity. The criminals are not under the necessity of endeavouring to elude detection, or of screening themselves from prosecution by concealment: they even talk of their crimes with a shocking indifference. The laws themselves conspire to defeat the ends of justice. We find, not the lawless part of the community, but the legislative assembly of the island, sanctioning the perpetration of the foulest murders, by their refusal to recognise murder as a felonious act. We find even officers of the Crown neglecting the obvious duty of instituting a legal inquest into these murders. To what is this neglect to be attributed? To the contagious influence of those prejudices, and of that savage indifference to Negro life, which evidently pervade the people at large? Or is it to be accounted for on the ground that the law has actually deprived His Majesty’s Attorney General, and His Majesty’s Coroner, of the constitutional power of instituting such an inquest? In either case our colonial system will stand justly chargeable, not only with outraging[Pg 18] every feeling of humanity, but with violating every acknowledged principle of justice.

But the West Indians and their friends will probably have recourse to another argument. “Granting,” they may say, “in its fullest extent, the truth of all that you have stated with respect to Barbadoes, it is yet very unfair to extend the charge of inhumanity, which is justly brought against that island, to the West Indies in general. The Legislatures of all the other islands have passed laws which make the murder of a Slave felony; they have also provided such salutary regulations ‘for the support,’ and ‘for the encouragement, protection, and better government of Slaves,’ as serve to place them in a situation of even enviable security and comfort.”

It will be readily admitted, that the Legislatures of most, if not all the islands, with the exception of Barbadoes, have passed laws which make the murder of a Slave a felonious act. It must also be admitted, that many regulations have been framed and placed on the insular statute-books, which, if faithfully enforced according to their apparent intent, could not fail to produce beneficial results. But have the clauses which contain these regulations been carried into effect? Are they any thing more than a blind, intended to conceal from the eyes of the British public the enormity of our West Indian system? Was it ever even in the contemplation of the lawgivers themselves that these laws should be executed? The papers to which so large a reference has already been made happily contain a distinct answer to these questions: that answer it will now be proper to state.

On the 4th of October 1804, it appears that Earl Camden addressed letters to the Governors of the different West Indian islands, requiring from them information on[Pg 19] a variety of points. A copy of the heads of information transmitted to one of the islands, Dominica, will furnish the reader with a sufficiently clear idea of the nature of these requirements. It is as follows:

“An account of all the Negro Slaves imported every year since 1788, and of the number re-exported in each year.

“The most authentic and particular account which can be obtained, of the number of Negro Slaves, dividing them into classes of male and female; children from 1 to 12; youths from 12 to 20, full-grown men and women from 20 to 60; and the aged; and stating, as accurately as possible, the number in each class respectively: also,

“An account of the total number of free Negroes and coloured people.

“N.B. It is desirable that the manner in which the information is obtained, and the account made up, should be stated as distinctly as possible.

“You are also desired to transmit at the same time, in original and duplicate, the following further information, viz.

“A list and abstract, or general account of all returns, made upon oath by owners, overseers, or managers, in pursuance of the 7th and 8th clauses or sections of an act, passed in December 1788, intituled, ‘An Act for the Encouragement, Protection, and better Management of Slaves[10].’

[Pg 20]

“If it appears that no such accounts or returns have been duly made, or that they have been in any great measure neglected, you are requested further to send,

“An account or list of all convictions had, and fines or forfeitures recovered, and of all prosecutions commenced against the defaulters, pursuant to the said act of Assembly.

“If the said returns and accounts have been wholly or generally neglected, and no prosecutions have taken place for that cause, you are to send a certificate to that effect.

“You will also state whether the island had in 1788, or in 1799, when the act was made perpetual, or yet has, any and what parochial or established clergy, by whom the regulations in sections 3 and 4, have been or can be carried into effect[11].”

[Pg 21]

To these inquiries no answer appears to have been returned by the Governors, either of Jamaica or the Bahamas. From those of the Leeward Islands, St. Vincent and Grenada, letters have been received, stating the difficulty of immediately complying with the requisitions of Earl Camden, but promising to take measures, without delay, for procuring the desired information. Now here it may be proper to remark, that with respect to several important heads of inquiry, particularly those which relate to the execution of the laws enacted for the protection of Slaves, a very short delay must have been sufficient. The Governors, by referring to the Secretary of the island, or to the clerks of the several courts of record, could have at once ascertained whether the legal provisions mentioned by Earl Camden had or had not been carried into effect. If they had; a copy of the record would have been all the answer which was requisite: If they had not; it was only necessary to say so, and to state the reasons of the failure.

This manly and becoming course has been pursued only in one instance, viz. in that of the Governor of Dominica: and his answers, though defective in some important particulars, yet contain a candid disclosure of facts, and are therefore calculated to throw considerable light, not only on the causes which may possibly have impeded the returns from the other islands, but on the general state of Negro slavery in the West Indies.

Governor Prevost, in his letter to Earl Camden, represents Dominica “as distinguished by the laws it has passed for the encouragement, protection, and government of Slaves;” but he goes on to remark, “I am sorry I cannot add that they are as religiously enforced as you could wish[12].” Now this is precisely what has been[Pg 22] asserted, with respect to the laws in question, by the advocates of abolition, and as strenuously denied by West Indians. The laws may look well on paper, but they are inefficient: nay, they were never meant to be otherwise. If any one is so extremely ignorant of West Indian affairs, as not to have been already apprized of this fact, let him read the following passage in an official letter of the Governor of Dominica:

“The Act of the Legislature, intituled, ‘An Act for the Encouragement, Protection, and better Government of Slaves,’ appears to have been considered, from the day it was passed until this hour, as a POLITICAL MEASURE to avert the interference of the mother-country in the management of Slaves[13]. Having said this, your Lordship will not be surprised to learn the clause seventh of that[Pg 23] Bill has been wholly neglected[14]. As to the eighth clause, it is too intimately connected with the public interest to be allowed to sleep.

“I am apprehensive you will find the account of all convictions had, and fines or forfeitures recovered, and of all prosecutions commenced against the defaulters, pursuant to the said act, very unsatisfactory; however, here, now and then, the act has shewn some signs of life.” P. 36.

After examining with the utmost attention the account to which Governor Prevost refers (and which is inserted at page 39), it does not appear that a single fine or forfeiture has been recovered, nor a single prosecution commenced against defaulters, during the SEVENTEEN YEARS that the act has been, not to say in force, for that would be ridiculous, but in existence. Of convictions there is indeed a considerable number, but, with the exception of two, they are all convictions of Negroes. Of these two, one is for the murder of a Negro: but the record which states the conviction, states also that the convict was pardoned[Pg 24] by Governor Johnstone. The murderer was a soldier in the 68th regiment. The other case is that of a man who was fined thirty pounds currency for ill-treating a Slave, the property of Doctor Fellan. No other particulars are mentioned respecting this singular trial and conviction. The signs of life, therefore, which have been shewn by this act, as far as regards the protection of Negro Slaves, must be admitted to be very equivocal.

Governor Prevost refers Earl Camden to a letter from the Rev. John Audain, Rector of St. George’s, as explaining “why the clauses 3 and 4 are not carried into effect.” Mr. Audain’s letter, however, throws little light on the subject. He can furnish no returns of marriages, because (he says) “a very few even of the free coloured people marry, and not one Slave since I have been here. Why they do not, I readily conceive, particularly the Slaves. Their owners do not exhort them to it, and they shew no dispositions themselves to alter that mode of cohabitation which they have been accustomed to.” P. 40.

It appears then, that the 3rd and 4th clauses of this boasted act are as nugatory as the 7th: “they are not,” says Governor Prevost, “carried into effect[15].” And yet if the reader will turn back to page 20, he will find that these clauses are introduced by a preamble of peculiar solemnity. They are enacted with the professed view of “improving the morals and advancing the temporal and eternal happiness of the Slaves.” What is this but impious mockery? Have they been executed? No. Has a single penalty been enforced for their non-execution?[Pg 25] No. Surely, after this discovery, it is impossible that such mere mummery of legislation should continue to impose on the good sense of the people of Great Britain. They will see that the difference between Barbadoes, and the other islands, is in fact merely nominal: and that the same lamentable deficiency of legal protection, the same system of unqualified oppression, characterizes Negro bondage throughout the whole extent of our West Indian possessions.

Before the pamphlet closes, it will be proper to devote a few pages to the consideration of a long Report of the Assembly of Jamaica which forms a part of these papers.

The picture given in that Report of the situation of the West Indian islands is in the highest degree discouraging; but it is represented by the reporters as less gloomy than the truth. “A faithful detail,” it is said, p. 26, “would have the appearance of a frightful caricature; and unless speedy and efficacious measures are adopted for giving permanent relief, by a radical change of measures, we must suppose that the West Indian islands are doomed to perish as useless appendages to the British empire.” Credit is represented to be at an end; the planters, generally, to be labouring under the pressure of accumulating debt; and the greatest distress to pervade all classes of the community. Admitting the fidelity of this representation, a question will still arise respecting the causes which have produced so unfavourable a state of things. The Report affirms, that it has chiefly been produced by the enormous duties imposed on West Indian produce; by the competition of East Indian sugars; and by the attempts made to abolish the Slave trade.

The two first points would lead to very lengthened details, and are foreign from the design of this pamphlet.[Pg 26] It may be observed, however, in general, that notwithstanding the labour employed by the reporters to prove that the additional duties imposed on West Indian produce fall not on the consumer, as in every other instance, but on the grower, no peculiarity appears to exist in the case under consideration, which exempts it from the operation of the general rule; a rule which is familiar to the merest sciolist in political economy. The protecting duties imposed on East India sugar appear also to be sufficiently high to exclude them from competition with West Indian sugar in the British market. A part of the East Indian sugar, it is true, is consumed in this country; but it is a small part, the demand for it being confined to a few individuals, who are willing to pay a high price for sugar rather than wound their consciences, by using what is procured through the oppression of their brethren: the rest is exported.

The attempts made to abolish the Slave trade operate, it is said, to the disadvantage of the island, by increasing the danger of insurrection among the Slaves[16], and by discouraging the hope of a permanent supply of labourers. West Indian property, it is added, is thus so greatly diminished in its value, that merchants will no longer advance money upon it; and without an advance of money, the plantations cannot be carried on with advantage.

[Pg 27]

The Report, however, overlooks the effect produced on the value of property in the old islands by the extended cultivation of Trinidad and Dutch Guiana. But is not the great and growing rivalry of these colonies a far more formidable evil than that of the East Indies? Why then have they so much insisted on the latter, while the former, though much more obvious and much more mischievous, is passed over in silence? Is it that the reporters have a sympathy with the owners of Slaves, which even self-interest cannot overcome; and that they dread the precedent of cultivating sugar by free men, as is done in Bengal? They must feel that it would have been greatly to the advantage of the old islands, had they consented to an abolition of the Slave trade fourteen years ago, before the fertile plains of Guiana had yet been brought into cultivation by the enormous amount of British capital, which has been transferred thither.

The reporters labour to keep out of view the dangers which threaten Jamaica from the example and proximity of St. Domingo, and from an increase of the Negro population in the island; and they absurdly argue, that the more the Negro population is increased, the greater will be the security of the West Indies. As to the plea so strongly urged, of danger, even from discussing the question of abolition in the British Parliament, it is rendered almost ridiculous by the circumstance, that the debates which have taken place on that subject are regularly published, at great length, in the official newspapers of Jamaica; and that even the present Report, in which the question of abolition is largely discussed, has been inserted, by authority of the Assembly, in the Royal Gazette of that island.

The reporters are greatly displeased that they should[Pg 28] be thought not to know their own interests, and what is most likely to promote them. This however is an imputation which they share in common with a great part of mankind, and which particularly attaches to all who, like them, are engaged in gambling speculations. The West Indian party, it will be remembered, vehemently opposed the bills for regulating the Middle Passage, and yet they have since confessed, that those bills have been productive of great benefit to their concerns: and had they not been so infatuated as to oppose, fourteen years ago, unfortunately with more effect, the abolition of the Slave trade, they would have been saved the ruinous competition of Dutch Guiana; and they would have had at this moment the almost exclusive possession of the sugar-market of Europe.

The reporters insist with much earnestness on their right to the continuance of the Slave trade, on the ground of its having been sanctioned by Acts of Parliament. But is it not absurd to suppose that any Acts of Parliament, which may have been framed to encourage the importation of African labourers into the West Indies, can have conveyed to West Indians the right of establishing such a frightful system of oppression as the preceding part of this pamphlet has proved to exist among them? What act can be produced which binds the Imperial Parliament to uphold a system so outrageously opposed to every principle of British policy and of British law; and not only to uphold it, but to enlarge its influence by the perpetual increase of its wretched victims? Granting that West Indians have that claim to which they pretend on the justice and faith of Parliament, the claim attaches to this country, and not to Africa, which was no party in the contract.

[Pg 29]

The reporters are very indignant that any of the parliamentary orators should have dared to express an opinion that the Slave trade is “contrary to the principles of justice and humanity;” and they add, that “the particular accusations of oppression, without the means of redress; of avaricious and unfeeling rigour towards our Slaves, unrestrained by a sense of interest, or the dictates of humanity; heaped upon the inhabitants of the British West Indian colonies; have been repelled and refuted by such irrefragable evidence, that they can now make little impression, except on the prejudiced and uninformed.” Page 12.

How far a sense of interest or the dictates of humanity are capable of preventing unfeeling rigour from being exercised towards Negro Slaves, let the correspondence of Lord Seaforth, already referred to, testify. If farther evidence were required on this point, that of Governor Prevost might be adduced. He expressly declares (p. 34), that “the interest of the master in his Slaves’ well-being is not always a sufficient check.” But even supposing that a sense of interest should operate with the owners of Negro Slaves in restraining cruel treatment, yet what is likely to be the operation of this potent principle in cases where the management of the estates of absent proprietors is left to attornies, whose commissions are enlarged in proportion to the amount of the crops; and to overseers, who hold their office during the pleasure of those attornies, and whose reputation as planters depends not on the increase of Slaves, but on the increase of the yearly produce of the estate? It is the more necessary to make the inquiry, because by far the greater part of the sugar plantations of Jamaica are in this predicament. Allowing, therefore, that the principle of self-interest[Pg 30] possesses all the force which is attributed to it, yet in the present circumstances of Jamaica its operation on the whole is more likely to be injurious than beneficial to the Negro Slaves[17].

But what is this “IRREFRAGABLE TESTIMONY” to which the Assembly of Jamaica refer, as disproving the allegations of abolitionists? It cannot have been the correspondence of Lord Seaforth with Earl Camden, for that had not yet been made public. They ought to have pointed to the chapter and page in which this invaluable testimony lies concealed. For my own part, anxious as I am that this great cause should have an impartial hearing, I still would be willing that it should be decided without referring to any other testimony than that which has already been produced by West Indians and their friends. Even on their own shewing, the charges of “inhumanity and injustice,” at least to the moral perceptions of Englishmen, are not only not disproved, but incontrovertibly established. West Indians cannot deny that the Negroes whom they purchase are procured in Africa by means the most revolting to humanity and justice. Bryan Edwards, their own historian and apologist, has said, that to deny this would be “insult and mockery.” They cannot deny that the Negroes are transported in fetters to the West Indies, and there sold like cattle in a fair. Neither can they deny that the Negroes, being sold, become the absolute property of their purchaser, who may separate parents from children and from each other, and sell them when and to whom he pleases: that, moreover,[Pg 31] West Indian Slaves have no civil rights whatever, which are not equally enjoyed by brutes, the parade of laws in their favour signifying nothing, as has already been proved, while their evidence is inadmissible in a court of justice, and while the men who administer those laws have an interest, real or supposed, in their violation: and that therefore no effectual limit can be put to the master’s discretion, either as to the quantity of food to be given, of labour to be enforced, or of punishment to be inflicted. It is a fact equally undeniable, that the labour of Negro Slaves is extracted from them, as it is from a team of oxen, by the lash or the terror of the cart-whip[18]: that, in a climate congenial to their own, they nevertheless decrease so fast as to require constant importations to keep up their wasted numbers: and lastly, that they are regarded as an inferior order of beings[19]; from which it flows as a corollary that they can have no claim to a participation in those rights of humanity, or in that sympathy which men in general are willing to bestow on those whom they consider as fellow men. Now these are all points of general notoriety: they are either distinctly admitted by the West Indians, who have given evidence before the Privy Council and the House of Commons; or they are established beyond dispute by written[Pg 32] documents which the West Indian Legislatures and Governors have officially furnished. That they are confirmed in some important particulars by the papers which have now been reviewed, will scarcely be controverted. If, however, the bare statement of the above facts, facts, let it be remembered, resting on West Indian testimony, should amount (as it will appear to do to all who have not been accustomed to breathe the moral atmosphere of our Slave colonies) to a charge of “injustice and inhumanity,” of “oppression,” and “unfeeling rigour,” against the West Indian system, then surely the bold and unqualified assertion that such a charge has been “refuted by irrefragable testimony,” has no foundation on which to stand.

The reporters have incidentally introduced into their Report a comparison between the state of the Negro Slaves and that of “the oppressed peasantry” of Bengal. After giving an exaggerated representation of the wretchedness of the latter, they add, “such is the situation of twenty millions of free subjects of the British empire in India, whilst its legislature is hunting for imaginary misery[20] in the West Indian colonies, where the lot of the labourer is a thousand times more fortunate.” P. 18.

I would here ask the framers of this Report a few questions, which may serve to throw light on the comparison, which they have instituted. Do they not know that the Bengal peasant is not dragged from his own country by[Pg 33] force or fraud, loaded with fetters, chained to the deck, or stifled in the hold of a Slave-ship; bartered as a mere implement of agriculture; separated at the pleasure of another from his wife and children; worked under the lash without the liberty even of pausing in his toil, but at the bidding of the driver; and liable to be punished to any extent, and with any circumstances of cruelty, which the caprice of his master may direct? Do they not know that the Bengal peasant is not punishable by any other sentence than that of the law, after a regular trial and conviction; that his person and property are as fully secured to him as those of the Governor General of India; and that he is the sole judge both of the labour and of the food which suit him? There is only one answer which can be returned to these questions; and that answer will prove it to be no better than absolute mockery in the Assembly of Jamaica thus to compare the condition of the Bengal peasant with that of the Negro Slave.

But this is not all. The reporters enter into tedious calculations to shew how much higher the wages of the Negro Slave are than those of the Bengal peasant; but they omit to advert to one very material point of difference between them. The wages of the Bengal peasant are paid to himself: he labours for his own benefit solely. But it is to his master, and not to himself, that the wages of the Negro Slave are paid. From his thankless toil must be extracted, not only the means of his own subsistence, but the means of pampering the luxury, swelling the pomp, gratifying the avarice, or discharging the debts of his owner. And when the circumstances in which the planters are now placed have been considered, it cannot be expected that a very ample proportion of the Slave’s earnings should be applied to his own sustentation,[Pg 34] especially as that proportion, whatever it may be, depends entirely on the will of an insolvent, or nearly insolvent master.

The reporters complain that they were not permitted, in the session of 1804, to produce fresh evidence at the bar of the House of Commons in favour of their right to a continuance of the Slave trade. But would any evidence which they could produce contradict that statement of the nature of West Indian slavery which they themselves have already furnished, and by which its injustice and inhumanity are clearly demonstrated? And supposing they had been hardy enough to do this, would any credit have been due to such contradictory testimony? Besides, what confidence can the British Parliament or the British Public repose in the declarations of West Indians, even if they should sanction those declarations with all the solemnity of an oath; when it appears from the acknowledgment of Governor Prevost, and from the concurring testimony of their own records, that the most honourable men among them could so far forget their high obligations as legislators, as to join in a combination to deceive the Government and the Legislature of this country, and to obtain credit to themselves for humanity, by passing laws which they meant at the time to be wholly inoperative?

I shall only detain the reader while I notice one more argument in favour of the Slave trade which is contained in this Report. The continuance of importations, it is affirmed, will not increase the disproportion of Blacks and Whites so much as the abolition would. This is an argument not very level to common understandings; but the reasoning on which it is built is of this kind. If the Slave trade were abolished, the number of adventurers[Pg 35] who repair to the West Indies in the hope of amassing a fortune would be diminished, and consequently the white population would decrease. But supposing the number of adventurers who go out with such large expectations were diminished, does it follow that an equal number, with more moderate views, might not be procured to supply their place? While emigrations to America are so frequent and numerous, might not a part of them, with proper encouragement, be easily diverted to the filling of vacancies in Jamaica? The planters of that island, however, are far from feeling, on this point, the solicitude which they express. Several proofs of this might be given. In the first place, do they not almost universally refuse to employ on their estates, in any capacity, white men who are married and have families? If they really wished to increase the number of whites, would not men with families be the most desirable persons to employ? Another proof is, that although there is a law of the island requiring the proprietors of estates to maintain a certain number of white servants in proportion to their slaves (about one white to thirty slaves), yet the tax, which is payable in case of a deficiency in that number, is so low, that it is in general a gain to the proprietor to pay the tax rather than to procure the individuals. In short, it is notorious, notwithstanding the language employed in the Report, that no pains have been taken to remedy the disproportion of the black and white population.

The true reason, however, of this argument is to be found, not in the increased danger which will result to the island from abolishing the Slave trade, but in the constitution of the Jamaica Assembly. That Assembly (though containing a small proportion of wealthy planters) is chiefly composed of such adventurers as are alluded[Pg 36] to in the Report, and for whose privileges so much solicitude is there manifested: viz. either merchants who are concerned in the sale of Slave cargoes, or agents employed to manage the estates of absent proprietors; to whom are added a few insolvent proprietors of sugar estates, largely indebted, perhaps, to those very merchants and agents. Now it is the voice of these adventurers which is heard on the present occasion, and not that of the real proprietors of Jamaica. The real proprietors, if their voice could be heard, might possibly speak a different language; and we see that in some cases they do so. Many of them are sensible, that, added to the fatal rivalry of Guiana, the true cause of their embarrassment (as their historian Long has well shewn), and the grand source of their danger also, is the continuance of the Slave trade: and if they were not influenced by prejudice or party connexions, or deterred by the threats of creditors, or duped by the misrepresentations of agents, they would follow the example which Mr. Barham has set them, and take that part which prudence and policy concur with justice and humanity in dictating; I mean the part of forwarding a legislative abolition of the Slave trade, as the only safe and practicable, and at the same time effectual remedy, which can be applied to the dreadful evils of our colonial system. Eighteen years have passed since this question was first agitated in Parliament; and since the public have been amused with tales of the amelioration of Colonial bondage. That every hope of this kind is completely blasted, the information contained in this pamphlet sufficiently proves. Nor can such a hope be otherwise than abortive, until Parliament shall consent to abolish the Slave trade.

THE END.

S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street.