the illicit connexions between the slayes and free persons is, that the framers of the Orders in Council for the crown colonies do not appear to have had any conception of the extent of the evils produced by them, when, by their non-recognition of intermarriages between slaves and free persons, they in effect prohibit such intermarriages, and consequently give a tacit sanction to the present illicit intercourse between slaves and free persons. No inconvenience could have arisen from the different stations of the parties, but what would have been more than overbalanced by the tendency of such a provision to check the torrent of licentiousness that now prevails through all our slave colonies; and the legal amalgamation of the coloured and white people would lessen that distinction of caste (if we may so call it) which is injurious to the morality and prosperity of our slave colonies. Such connexions would, most probably, be formed between persons living on the same estate, and the Trinidad Orders in Council would have given the free person a prospect to have procured the liberty of the other party, when sufficient funds had been saved to accomplish that object.

This brings us to the new provision in the consolidated Order in Council of 8th of February, 1830, for the Manumission of Slaves: three new provisoes are added which stultify the whole provision. The first of these new clauses seems to give countenance to putting a value upon a slave beyond the market price : a principle which has been acted upon under the Trinidad Order in Council, though it had no clause in it to justify such a palpable injustice. Pamela Munro, a female slave in Trinidad, eighteen years of age, whose mother was desirous of manumitting her, was valued by two appraisers at 2607. sterling, when her real value in the market was only from 80l. to 851. sterling. Such a preposterous valuation doomed

the wretched Pamela to remain a slave; and yet the appraisers declared upon their oath that she was fully worth 2601. sterling. So much for the binding solemnity of an oath in the West Indies, when the interests of a slave will be promoted by it.* The second proviso prohibits the contribution of any benevolent person towards the manumission of a slave. The third proviso is, that if the owner or manager of a slave proposed to be manumitted shall allege that such slave has committed any theft within the five preceding years, his manumission is to be delayed till the expiration of five years from the date of the theft. Mark! it is the allegation of the master, not a legal conviction of the crime, is to doom the slave to five years, more or less, of bondage. When we reflect upon the fate of Pamela Munro under the unobjectionable provisions of the Trinidad Order in Council, and what little regard West Indians have to the binding solemnity of an oath when it is to confer a favour upon a slave in opposition to the master, we may safely denominate the provision in the Consolidated Order in Council for the emancipation of the slave as a dead letter. It is only justice to Mr. Wilmot Horton to say, that he has entered his protest against the two first provisoes of the last Order in Council, but he has not objected to the third, which leaves the slave at the mercy of his master or manager. The provision which grants to the slaves the right of acquiring every species of property, both real and personal, and of disposing of the same, does not lie open to much objection; but when we are given to understand that this provision does not revoke the existing colonial laws, which prohibit the slave from disposing of various species of property, though such exception does not appear in the Order itself, we must denounce it as a farce.

Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 30, p. 122.

It may serve to delude the good people of England, which was, perhaps, the only "executive principle" it was intended to possess. The provision for the Non-separation of Families by sale, will, if properly acted upon in the colonies, prevent the distressing scenes such separations have exhibited. The prohibition of the FLOGGING OF FEMALES is good.-The arbitrary punishments by flogging, we must briefly dismiss, by saying that we have no faith in the "executive principle" of the provisions of this clause. The Trinidad Order forbade the use of " any whip, cat, or other instrument of the like nature, for the purpose of impelling or coercing any slave to perform labour of any kind or nature whatever." The new Order substitutes for the words, "other instruments of the like nature," "other instruments usually employed in the punishment of slaves." The planter or manager has only to invent a new kind of flogging instrument, differing in form and name from those usually employed in punishing the slaves, and he may indulge in its use to coerce their labour in the field, without infringing on the regulations of the Consolidated Order. This alteration from the Trinidad Order, like many others, was very probably made in deference to colonial prejudices, the planters of Trinidad having "declared the whip to be so indispensable as to be, in fact, identified with slavery." Our serious opinion is, that whether the driving whip be banished from the field or not, in the result there would be little or no difference: if it do not follow the slave in the field, he will receive it afterwards, if through debility or exhaustion he does not perform his appointed task. We have noticed this restoration of the whip into the field under a new name, to mark the deference to the prejudiced feelings of the planters, displayed in most of the variations from the former Order for Trinidad.

We have now noticed the more

important provisions of the new Consolidated Order in Council, and when they are compared with those of the Trinidad Order in Council, disappointment at the obvious retrograde movement of this last Order in many of its regulations, is the result. If the planters had themselves drawn up the Order, it could not have been more complaisant to their violent antipathy to raising the intellectual and moral condition of the slaves, by abstaining from any attempt to extend to them education and religious instruction, and by not providing an efficient substitution of a market-day for them instead of the Sunday: and though some of the regulations may appear fair to the eye, we have little confidence of their efficacy in the West Indies, especially if the colonial laws are to be considered as unrepealed though opposed to their operation, which is only a legitimate inference from the case we have adduced with respect to slave property.

We have already adverted to excessive labour and inadequate maintenance, as inveterate evils, deeply rooted in the system of slavery, and which Mr. Stephen denounces as by far the worst, because the most general and afflicting. The two Orders in Council contain no provision to protect the slave from these systematic and destructive evils, which daily and hourly wear him down, and cut short the natural period of his life.

Mr. Stephen has calculated, from colonial authorities, that, out of crop time, the amount of the daily labour of the predial or field slave, to whom these remarks apply, is equal to fifteen hours; and in crop time, which lasts about five months, eightteen hours at the least. He says,

That the work is at least eighteen hours during that season, I am now enabled to show, from recent aud express authority; satisfy those who will not take the trouble and such as may suffice, perhaps, to of following me closely through the details here given and demonstrated, for clearer views of the subject.

Should any man, after all the evidence I have already offered, doubt whether the enormous amount of eighteen hours of diurnal labour, between the tropics, is not more than avarice armed with irresistible power can impose, or patient human nature, during five successive months, sustain, let him inquire for the Parliamentary papers, entitled "Trinidad Negroes," and printed by order of the House of Commons of the 14th of June, 1827, and he will find in it, (p. 33.) the following passage. "I feel called on to explain more fully than I did, the opinion I gave as to whether sugar-estates could be carried on entirely by free labour: I do not think they could, in the manner the work is carried on at present, making large quantities of sugar in a given time; in many instances working eighteen hours out of twenty-four, which constant labour the free settler will not submit to, &c. I have no doubt sugar-estates, carrying on labour from sun-rise to sun-set, might be worked by them," &c.

Whose is this statement? Not that of an anti-slavery writer, but of Mr. Mitchell, of Trinidad, superintendent of the free negroes, called American refugees, but a long-resident proprietor of a sugar-estate, worked by his own slaves in that island; and be it well observed, a witness called and examined on the spot, by a committee of the Insular Council, for the purpose of excusing slavery, and opposing the humane orders of His Majesty's Govern

ment.

If there were nothing worse in slavery than this cruel and murderous oppression of forcing men and women to work hard, in a hot climate, eighteen hours in twentyfour, surely this would be enough for its condemnation by every mind in which West India prejudices have not obtunded the natural feelings of humanity and justice towards their degraded objects? Stephens, Vol. I. pp. 150–153.

The inadequate sustenance of the slaves we have already briefly noticed, and adduced some colonial authorities in support of that position. If any of our readers should, not withstanding, continue sceptical, we will further corroborate our positions on these two vital points of our colonial slave system, by statistical statements, as given by Mr. Stephens. The best criterion of the 'good or bad condition of the labouring classes in any VOL. VIII. NEW SERIES,

country, may be found in the increase or decline of their numbers. This I presume is a proposition, which no man of tolerable information will deny: but it is the most decisive, when the result is on the unfavourable side. Such is the superfecundity of the human species, more especially among the tillers of the soil, that a rapid increase of population may consist with very considerable hardships, and privations; as I fear is too much the case, in many parts of England at this period; but that their condition is extremely bad, may with certainty be inferred, when the reproductive powers of nature are so far subdued, though in a climate propitious to their constitutions, that their numbers greatly decline.

Now, that such are the facts of the case, has been often asserted by the public opponents of slavery; and never, to my knowledge, denied by its apologists; and has been demonstrated by evidence of the most authoritative kind. In colonies where sugar is not cultivated, as, for instance, in the Bahamas, the slaves are found to have a great native increase; the same, though in a less degree, is the case in the sugar colonies themselves, on cotton estates; and everywhere, to a very considerable extent, among domestic slaves. In the United States of America, the increase in the slave population is from to 2 to 24 per cent. per annum, though slavery, in point of law, and in practice too, the article of labour excepted, is not less severe than in our own sugar colonies; and though the climate is certainly much less favourable to African constitutions.

It may be doubted, whether the native increase among the slaves in that country, is less than among its free inhabitants; for the ratio of increase in the general population of the United States appears, by a decennial census, to be very regularly about three per cent. per annum, comprising all classes, and if the increase of the free exceeds, by a half per cent, or somewhat more, that of the slaves, the foreign countries, together with manuvery large influx of the former from missions of the latter, may well account for the difference. The observation tends strongly to show the great natural fecundity of the African race, when unsubdued by a pernicious excess of labour; for that destructive species of oppression, unthe state of slavery is, even without this friendly to the multiplication of our species, cannot admit of a doubt. I have already noticed the case of Hayti, where forced

K

of humanity, sinks it into comparative insignificance, when we takea survey of the moral pestilence which marches in its train, and spreads through all orders of the community, without distinction of rank or colour. Let us now take a general but rapid survey of the progress of events since the abolition of the slave trade. After sixteen years had elapsed without the planters having manifested any disposition to improve the condition of the slaves, T. F. Buxton brought forward his motion in Parliament, in 1823, when Government interposed, and took the measure into their own hands. The chartered colonies were informed of the desire of Government that they would introduce some specific reforms into their slave laws, and which were pointed out to them; but the contumacious refusal of some of the colonies, on the one hand, or their contemptuous neglect, on the other, soon proved that if the work of reform was left with them, it would never be begun. In 1824, Mr. Canning laid before the House the Order in Council for Trinidad, which was only enforced in that colony, and recommended to the other crown colonies for their adoption; and it was also intended for an example to the chartered colonies. The defects in this order we have pointed out they were of that vital nature that the failure of the experiment was no other than might have been anticipated. After this order was sent to Trinidad, a fruitless correspondence was carried on between our Colonial Secretary, for the time being, and the Governors of the slave colonies. Two Bishops were appointed, one for Jamaica, the other for Barbadoes, with some additional clergymen. Their labours, with respect to the slave-population, were about as efficient as the correspondence between our Colonial Secretary and the Governors, they have produced no fruits. On the 8th of February, 1830, another Order in Council was

laid before Parliament: this is not, like the first, confined to Trinidad, but extends to all the crown colonies; but though more extended in its application, it is, as a whole, less efficient in its provisions, and its defects are not to be attributed to inadvertence or oversight, as the authors of it have decidedly set their faces against any measures that contemplated the final extinction of slavery. And what is the present aspect of the colonies? a dreadful mortality among the slaves, profligacy and irreligion among the great mass of the population, and bankruptcy and ruin among the greater part of the planters. If this review of the state of our slave colonies do not speak in a language intelligible to us, in vain would it be for one to rise from the dead. Like a mortified limb, the moral disease is too far extended to be checked by palliatives; they have been already sufficiently tried, and have failed. Nothing but the amputating knife can stop the progress of the infection. Slavery is the cause whence proceed all the evils, whether physical, moral, or commercial, under which our colonies groan, and their only cure is the total extinction of the cause. The venerable Stephen has so exactly expressed our sentiments with respect to the only remedy that can save our colonies from ruin, that I shall adopt his language.

In pleading the case of the unfortunate slaves, I may be supposed agere actum; needlessly to advocate a reformation already resolved upon, and in progress; and on the completion of which his Maintent. But it has been a leading object jesty's present Government is sufficiently of my work to prove, that no measures hitherto taken, or known to be in contemplation, either for terminating slavery, or mitigating its enormous evils, have any real tendency to promote those very important and necessary ends.

So clear and demonstrable is this truth, that were it in my power to cancel all that has been done for carrying into effect the resolutions of May 1823, I should not hesitate to do so; at least if I could re