where competent evidence strangely happens to be found, are the case of murder and that of mutilation or mayhem; and as to the latter, the law has been shown to be still almost in every Colony highly defective in theory as well as practice."

"Far different in these points was the English law of villeinage. Our rude forefathers allowed, indeed, of slavery, and even departed from the humanity of their Saxon ancestors as to some of its rules; but they were not unjust or unfeeling enough to deny, as to life or limb, the full protection of the law where its protection was most necessary; or to regard the blood of their fellow-creatures as of less estimation on account of their servile state. Nor was there generally any distinction in the remedy, any more than in the rule, on account of the slavery of the party injured. The maimed villein might indict, the violated niefe,* and the son of a murdered slave, might implead, even by ap peal, their haughty lord; and not only enforce against him the same condign penalties, to which he would have been subject had he injured an equal in the same manner, but ob

Rule IX. In consequence of a transfer in either of these ways, or by the authority of his immediate owner, the slave may be at any time exiled, in a moment, and for ever, from his home, his family, and the colony in which he was born, or in which he has long been settled.

"The law of our islands, in this respect, is not only more rigorous than any code that has ever been known in Europe, but surpasses in cruelty that of the foreign West India settlements."

"Plantation slaves, not only in the Spanish and Portuguese, but in the French colonies also, are real estate, and attached to the soil they cultivate, partaking therewith all the restraints upon voluntary alienation to which the possessor of the land is there liable; and they cannot be seized or sold by creditors, for satisfaction of the debts of the owner." (p. 69.) Rule X.-The slave may be mort

their wrongs."† (pp. 40-42.)

Rule V. These harsh powers of the master may all be exercised, not by himself only in person, but by his representatives and agents of every description, and by every person whether bond or free, who is clothed in any manner with his authority.

"The English lord had an arbitrary power of beating or correcting his villein; but it was a power which he could only exercise in person, and with his own hands. He could not delegate that important and dangerous authority; not even pro re nata; much less constitute general attorneys, managers, overseers, and drivers, with a power of driving and whipping, ad libitum, the human cattle whom he gave them in charge. The villein might have an action against any man but his lord for beating him, except for just cause; and it was no legal defence in such action to plead, that it was done by the command of the lord." (p. 46.)

Rule VI.-Slaves have no legal rights of property in things real or personal; and whatever property they may acquire belongs, in point of law, to the master.

Rule VII-The slave, in the British colonies, is at all times liable to be sold, or otherwise aliened, at the will of the master, as absolutely, in all respects, as cattle, or any other personal effects.

Rule VIII. He is also at all times liable to be sold by process of law, for satisfaction of the debts of a living, or the debts or bequests of a deceased master, at the suit of creditors or legatees.

* So a female slave was called.

Vita et membra sunt in potestate regis, ita quod si quis servum suam occiderit, non minus punietur quam si alienum occiderit; et in hoe legem habent contra dominos, quod stare possunt in judicio contra eos de vita et membris, propter sævitiam dominorum vel propter intolerabilem injuriam, &c. (BRACTON de Leg. lib. I. cap. ix.)

Litt. Villeinage, Sect. 199, 190, 194, 208, &c. 9 CORE's Reports, 76. A.

ticular estate or estates, in possession, remainder, or reversion.

Rule XI-While the master's power of alienation is thus despotic and unlimited, the slave has no legal right of redeeming his liberty on any terms whatever; or of obtaining a change of masters, when cruel treatment makes it necessary for his relief or preservation.

Rule XII.-The state is hereditary and perpetual.

"The state descends only in the female line. The owner of the mother becomes owner also of the child; and of the children's children, in the same line, to all generations; subject only to this defeazance, that if in three successive descents they intermix only with European blood, so as not to be nearer than in the fourth degree to any negro ancestor, the servile condition wears out, and the future progeny are free."

"From what legal authority these canons of slavery are derived, the colonial proprietors have never, I believe, attempted to explain. They talk loudly and indignantly of their

vested rights,' and represent the proposed measure of declaring that the children to be

hereafter born shail be free, as a violent invasion of their property;' but on the origin of these asserted rights, and of the title to this future property, as between themselves, and the unborn subjects of it, they are prudently silent. Not one of their learned advocates, not even their historian, MR. EDWARDS, though he with great industry examined their earliest records, and with great zeal defended all their supposed rights, including that of a perpetual slave-trade, has quoted a single colonial law which enacts that slavery shall be hereditary and perpetual, or that the childTM of a female slave shall inherit her servile condition, and become the property of her master. The next time they tell us of vested legal rights, in opposition to every natural and moral right in generations yet unborn, let them supply this omission if they can. If not, I shall have credit, I trust, for the assertion, founded on my certain knowledge as to many of the islands, and my full belief as to all, that no positive law has any where expressly imposed slavery on the issue of negroes born under the King's allegiance, though their mothers, or even both their parents, should be slaves."

"We are told also of Acts of Parliament that have sanctioned these odious rights; but let the statute be cited that has established or recognized the rules now under review, the sole foundation of property in creole slaves. That the importation and sale of slaves from Africa was long sanctioned by British laws, is a sad and opprobrious truth; but I know of no Act of Parliament that has excluded the children and posterity of those imported Africans from the birthright of British subjects, and ordained that they shall for ever be the property of the man by whom their mother or ancestress was bought." (pp. 122, 123.) "Much more might be said deserving very serious consideration, if we were decide on the legitimacy of this state, when imposed on men not brought as alien captives from Africa, but born under the King's allegiance, and expressly recognized as His Majesty's subjects." (p. 125.)

now

to

"It seems needless to delineate more minutely the legal nature of this dreadful state of man, in that view of it which I proposed in the first place to exhibit,-the relation between the slave and his master; or, to use the more emphatic language of the colonies, his owner."

Enough has been said to give a general, though faint conception, of the master's tre. mendous power. An authority has been shown on the one side, and a dependency on the other, more extreme than the term slavery has hitherto been understood to denote among mankind; and the rigour of which, in point of law, at least, is beyond example, if not beyond excuse."

"Excessive toil, hunger, pain, imprisonment, exile, and every possible species of human sufferance, with the exceptionsof violent death and mutilation, are inflictions within the legal range of the master's authority. He can oppress by deputy, as well as in person; he can transfer his authority when, how, and to whom he pleases. Without his leave, no property whatever can be acquired or held; without his will,

no domestic comforts or social connexions can be for a moment enjoyed. He is impotent only to secure to his faithful slave those slender advantages with which the loss of liberty has elsewhere been, in some small degree, compensated. The poor negro finds in slavery nothing secure, nothing permanent, but the weight of the chain that galls him. Though bereft of property, he is still the sport of fortune; though a tiller of the soil, he has no share in its produce, or any sure means of support. Though confined to the domain, he has no abiding domicil. Home, wife, subsistence, children, friends, country, are all to him most precarious possessions; all depend, not only on the will, but often also on the life, the prudence, the foresight, or the fortune of his owner. He has no legal means of deliverance from the merciless exercise of that extreme

authority to which he is thus subjected. Though this harshest of human relations is so brittle in respect of the superior party, it can

not, without his consent, be severed at the instance, or for the necessary protection of the inferior. The poor negro can rarely be released, but by death, from the yoke of the most inhuman oppressor.. To finish the injustice of this sad destiny, it descends upon his offspring." (pp. 127, 128.)

CHAP. IV. Sect. 1.-Of the legal nature and incidents of colonial slavery, as they respect its relations to persons of free condition in general, the master and his delegates excepted.

* See the royal proclamations issued in consequence of the insurrection at Barbadoes.

"Unless morals and manners are so singularly pure in the West Indies, as to supply the place of laws, the subject now under consideration must be one of no trivial conse quence to the security and well being of the slaves. What then are their legal rights, in relation to persons not invested with an owner's or master's authority over them, whom, for the sake of brevity, I shall call 'strangers ;) and how, as against these, are they protected from injustice and oppression?"

"This inquiry, if I had not much misrepresentation to refute, might be very briefly dis patched.-A West India slave can, strictly speaking, have no civil rights whatever, for he has no civil character, or personality."

"It is not inconsistent with this principle, that very recent laws have provided, or affected to provide, some protection for these poor beings, against a few of the many injuries to which their present situation exposes them; for though free men are now declared to be liable to be punished for depriving them of life or member, and in some places for a few other extreme oppressions, it would be inaccurate to consider these cases, as instances of civil rights in the slave."

"By a law of this country, commonly called the Black Act, the malicious killing, maiming, or wounding of cattle, is a capital felony; but we do not therefore consider cattle as having any civil rights. The legal crime in this case, as in the other, does not consist in the violation of any right of the sufferer, but in the injury done to the master's property, or to public morals, or to the police and good order of the state. The sufferings cruelly inflicted on a sentient being, may indeed have been regarded by the legislature in adjusting the punishment; but a personal wrong is not the essence of the crime." (p. 130.)

Sect. 2.-The colonial slave cannot be a party to any civil suit, either as plaintiff or defendant, nor can he be received as informant or prosecutor by any court or magistrate, against a person of free condition.

"This important disability, the leading fact in the present branch of our subject, has never been controverted, and will be found to be admitted by plain implication in almost every passage of the West India evidence as to legal protection, which has been or shall hereafter be cited. The colonial advocates seem to have regarded it as a necessary and universal consequence of a state of slavery, and which therefore neither admitted of, or needed, any concealment." (p. 131.) :

Sect. 3.-The action or suit of the master against other persons of free condition by whom his slave has been injured, is a mode of redress applicable only to a few particular species of wrongs, and is improperly represented as legal protection to the slave.

"This boasted remedy by the master's action, is in fact limited to redress for such personal violence as impairs the value of the slave, and to the recovery of property † wrongfully taken out of his possession.

"For any other of the numerous civil wrongs, by which a man's welfare and happiness may be injured or destroyed, redress, in this mode at least, cannot possibly be obtained." (p. 141.)

Sect. 4. The protection of slaves

Which in the consideration of the colonial law is the property of the master. (p. 139 )

against strangers, by indictment, or other criminal proceedings, is not less narrow and inadequate in point of law, than their protection by the civil suits of the master; while both in point of practice are scarcely more than nominal. Sect. 5.-There are many species of wrongs, for which it is not pretended that a slave, when injured by a free stranger, can have any legal redress.

Sect. 6. The testimony of slaves is not admissible in any cause, civil or criminal, against a white person; though this confessedly suffices to deprive them of the benefit of the laws by which they are in a few cases ostensibly protected, independently of all other obstacles to the execution of such laws.

The

"To show this more clearly, let us consider how large a proportion of every West India community is at present disqualified from proving the crimes of white persons. total amount of slaves in our islands is esti mated at about 700,000, and that of white in habitants at 50,000; which makes the latter, in the proportion of about one to fourteen of the former."

"But it is material to remark, that while the inhabitants of the towns constitute the chief part of the white population, they com. prise but a very small part of the enslaved negroes. On the plantations, on the contrary, it often happens that a single white man, assisted by one or two overseers, who are often mulattoes, or mestizes, has the government of from one to two, or even three hundred, slaves; and if the resident owner, or his chief manager, is a single man, there is probably no other white individual on the estate; but if he is married, his wife, and such of his children as are yet too young to be sent to Europe for education, of course also too young to give evidence, are the only additional residents of free condition. If plantation slaves are ill-treated contrary to law, the manager himself for the most part must be the criminal party; and who, under these circumstances, is to testify against him i His overseers are most probably his accom plices; and besides, if they are now made ad. missible witnesses, or if they are white men, he has only, when about to perpetrate any act of cruelty prohibited by law, to send them out of the way. There is, however, little danger that men who have their bread to earn in that situation, will expose themselves to the odium and persecution that they would infallibly have to encounter among the planters, for telling tales out of school, and giving in. formation against their employers, on behalf of the slaves."

"It results from these premises, that while in West India societies collectively, not above one individual in fourteen is a competent witness of the crimes of white persons; there is not in the country parts of the islands, and on plantations especially, above one individual in a hundred, perhaps, who can be received in any degree to prove them; nor any witness at all against the person by whom they are most likely to be committed, if we except an individual or two in his service, and under his immediate controul. Now what should we think of such a phrase as the protection of the law, in this crowded metropolis, and of those who called that protection 'adequate and ample,' if (with the exception of the persons who usually demand the vigilance of the police, the ordinary law-breakers themselves)

one man in a hundred only were competent to prove or give information of a crime? Should we not say, that except to that hundredth person, the deserts of Africa would be safer than the streets of London; and that to

tell the ninety-nine of their being protected by law, was to add insult to a barbarous proscription? Yet this illustration is, in truth, very feeble, when we apply it to the situation of plantation slaves." (p. 185.)

Sect. 7.-The slave, while exposed to so many remediless wrongs, is bereft by the same laws of the right of self defence.

"By the existing law in most, I believe in all of our colonies, the slave who should attempt to defend himself against a murderous weapon, or instrument of torture, in the hands of a white person, though the aggressor possessed no public warrant or private authority over him, might be hanged for so obeying the Imperious dictates of nature."

This iniquity, perhaps, like all the rest of the system, may be said to have its root in necessity and I am not very anxious to de termine whether it is really among those numberless secondary and subsidiary sins, the additional guilt of tolerating or establishing which, this terrible slavery unavoidably imposes on the lawgivers and statesmen who maintain it. But this unjust law seems to be another harsh peculiarity in the code of the West Indies; and if so, its necessity, sup. posing it to be really necessary, cannot be ascribed to the state of slavery in general, but only to the highly aggravated and dreadful species of it, which prevails in that country."

"No distinction, I apprehend, has elsewhere been made by law between slaves and freemen, as to the rights of self-defence against persons not exercising a lawful authority over them." (p. 189.)

CHAP. V. Of the legal nature and incidents of West India slavery, in its relations to the police and civil government of the country. Sect. 1.-Of the ordinary benefits of civil society which are withheld from the negro slave.

"Security of person and property, education, and municipal capacities, rights, and privileges of various kinds, profitable or ho nourable, are the advantages which man in general derives from the social union."-" Let us inquire, then, whether any, and what portion of these benefits, beyond the very partial and inadequate personal protection that has been described, is possessed by the West India slave."

"Of the far greater part of them our account may be immediately eased."

"He is, as has been already shown, divested of the right of property, and excluded from almost all the ordinary means of acquiring that usufructuary interest in the subjects of property, which the master might allow him to enjoy."

"As to his incapacity for public honours and offices, it will be comprised in the idea of private slavery, even by readers who have never crossed the Atlantic."-"The more weighty disabilities of contracting, of suing, and being sued, have been already noticed; and have been shown to be, in their absolute and unqualified nature at least, peculiar to the slavery of the Colonies." (pp. 197-200.)

Sect. 2." The education of slaves is

shamefully neglected in the laws and institutions of our Colonies.” (p. 200.)

Sect. 3.-"The sacred duty of instructing the infant or adult slaves in the principles of Christianity, and providing for them the means of public worship, is equally neglected." (p.203.)

Sect. 4. The efforts of European piety and charity to remedy these neglects, have not any where been aided by the colonial legislatures, and in some islands have been actively opposed by them.*

Sect. 5.-Of the obstacles which have been opposed to the religious instruction of the slaves; and of the means of promoting it in future.

"There are two regulations, which for obvious reasons no colonial proprietor is likely to recommend, and which yet appear to me of unspeakable importance to the success of any measures that may be taken in this great and necessary work. The new teachers, whoever they are, should be guarded against themselves in the first place; and in the next place, against the malice of their enemies; ar for the former purpose, they should be absolutely prohibited from being owners or masters of slaves." (p. 269.)

"The other suggestion I have to make is, that the teachers of the slaves should be rendered safe in the exercise of their functions, until at least the spirit of opposition to them by the planters and colonial functionaries subsides, by some special provision, for the fair and impartial investigation of their conduct, when they are accused of political mischief."

"Justice, sacred justice, at least demands, that they should, when accused, be fairly tried; and this they cannot be, where the judges and jurymen are all deeply tinctured with the same hostile prejudices and feelings, out of which accusation is so likely to arise; more especially in an hour of popular agitation and panic."

"What I would suggest, therefore, is, that some special provision should be made for the fair investigation of all charges made against the appointed or tolerated instructors of slaves, imputing to them traitorous or seditious practices; and the best plan that occurs to me for this purpose is,-first, to direct that examinations in writing, on both sides, be taken before the Governor, and to require of him to exercise a preliminary judgment upon them, whether the charge is sufficiently proved to make it proper that the party shall be taken into or detained in custody, for the purpose of being brought to trial. If on his official responsibility he so determines, then the accused party ought to be sent to England, to be tried by a jury of his country; and proper regulations should be made by Act of Parlia ment for this purpose, and for the production of the necessary evidence here. Such provisions are not unprecedented; and if they were allowable, to make the officers and friends of Government safe in obeying the revenue laws in North America, they cannot be less so in the present case, where the prejudices that oppose the impartial trial of the

*Note by the Editor. This assertion, as it respects the Local Legislatures, in their collective character, is, we fear, too generally true. But we have pleasure in stating, that, of late especially, many individuals among the West Indian Proprietors have done themselves the greatest honour by their concern for the moral welfare of their slaves.

accused are more than equally violent, and nearly universal."† (pp. 272-274.)

Sect. 6.-The West India slave is not only subject to all the criminal laws by which the offences of free persons are punished, but to an additional penal code of great extent and severity, made for the government of men of his condition alone.

"First, The slave is generally subject, in common with free persons, to the whole criminal code of this country, as far as it is in force in the Colony to which he belongs; and likewise to every penal Act of Assembly made for the government of the free colonists, except where he is expressly distinguished from them by the provisions of those insular laws; which he never is but to his prejudice." (p. 285.)

"Secondly. He is treated as an offender against society, for acts which amount only to violations of his private duties as a slave. Such is the case last adverted to. The crime of desertion recently was, by the laws of every island, and I believe still is in some of them, punishable with death. Even in Jamaica the latest edition of its Meliorating Act has not wholly taken away that reproach."

"The going beyond the limits of the plantation without permission, by a note in writing from the master, is another heinous offence, which municipal law avenges; and to depart from the island is death, not only to the fugltive, but to every servile accomplice." (p. 287.)

"Slaves have been as numerous in other countries, in proportion to the free inhabitants. They were so at Rome, at Athens, and even in this island. The means of flight and absconditure have also elsewhere been as great, or rather much more abundant. But where, except in the West Indies or America, was a fugitive slave ever punished with death, by the law, merely for quitting his master's service?" (p. 291.) ·

"Thirdly. There are many laws, which punish slaves, and slaves only, for acts perfectly innocent in their moral nature, though performed with the master's approbation, and presumably by his command; nay, sometimes, when the compulsion, arising from his order, expressly appears. There are, for instance, in almost every island, laws which prohibit slaves from buying and selling in the markets, with the exceptions of certain articles; from raising specified vegetable products on their own provision grounds; and from owning, or having in possession, certain species of live stock. Some of the first of these descriptions of laws, indeed, allow a special written licence, or ticket from the master, to privilege the traffic of the slave; but his verbal consent or order, or even a general licence in writing, does not save his sable dependant from forfeiture or corporal punishment." (p. 296.)

"Fourthly. Slaves are punished for mere civil trespasses, and trifling misdemeanours, or for actions in their nature quite innocent, with a severity that is reserved in England for petty larceny, and other infamous crimes."

"The instances of such rigour are far too many to be here fully enumerated. Some of them have been already noticed; to which may be added the offences of drumming, or dancing, blowing horns, assembling together for amusement, in certain numbers, or at certain hours, demanding more than certain regulated rates of wages for their labour, as

porters, boatmen, &c.; together with many actions, which though of an immoral nature, are but imitations, by such slaves as occasionally practise them, of the manners of the free people around them. Such are cockfighting, playing at quoits or dice, or any other species of gaming, drinking, dancing, threatening, quarrelling, fighting, using insolent language or gestures to any white or free person, talking obscenely, throwing squibs, or making fire-works. The law of Barbadoes conveniently adds the sweeping description of any other misbehaviour whereby the public may be disturbed, or any particular person immediately aggrieved. "

"The last Jamaica Meliorating Act has added the preaching to, or teaching other slaves, as anabaptists or otherwise, and the attending nightly or other private meetings."*

"The ordinary punishment annexed to these heinous offences, is a number of lashes,

not exceeding thirty-nine, on the bare body,

with that dreadful instrument the cart-whip." (pp. 302, 303.)

"Fifthly. Many offences have been made capital by these laws, when perpetrated by a slave, which, when the act of a free man, are but petty larcenies, misdemeanours, or at most felonies within the benefit of clergy; and in some instances, the negro is punished with death, for actions which would subject a free man to no public punishment at all." (p. 303.)

"Sixthly. These humane lawgivers have further enlarged their sanguinary catalogue, by punishing the bare attempt or design to commit crimes, as severely as the crimes themselves." (p. 304.)

"Seventhly. Slaves are liable still, I believe, by some of these insular laws, as they certainly very recently were, to cruel and shocking punishments, unknown to the law of England, and equally so, in respect of free persons, to that of the same Colonies. In capital cases, they have, in certain islands, been liable to, and actually put to death by, the most dreadful modes of execution."

"I have already incidentally noticed Acts of Barbadoes, St. Vincent's, Jamaica, and other islands, by which slitting the nose, cutting off the ears and feet, and other dismemberments, have been expressly directed or authorized, either as fixed or discretionary punishments, for various crimest; and sometimes for petty misdemeanours; nay, even for actions in their nature innocent; and other instances of the same kind might be cited from the printed laws of our Colonies; though the more ordinary and prudent course has been to cover such barbarous intentions by general words; giving a discretionary power to the justices of the peace before whom the slave is convicted, to sentence him to death, or such other punishment as they shall think fit." *Act of 1816, Sect. 50, 51.

+ Note by the Reviewer. The following extract from a newspaper of late date appears to be in point:

From the Kingston Gazette of Nov. 29th, 1823.-"The following are extracts of letters from the island of Trinidad, to a Gentleman in that city.About ten days since an intended rising amongst the negroes in the valley of Diego Martin, was fortunately discovered, and twenty-three of the principals taken and sent into confinement. I question much if any one of the twenty-three negroes taken will be executed.-I remember a similar occurrence in 1805, when four suffered and several had their ears cropped; one of these said ear. less gentlemen was taken up as a principal in the late affair.-From the Morning Chronicle of 28th Jan. 1824.

"As to the mode of death in capital cases, it has also by some Acts been expressly referred to the discretion of the Court; but in other Colonies, where no such Acts existed, a practice prevailed, and has been regarded as legal, of inflicting upon slaves convicted of insurrection, or other heinous crimes, under the authority of an order from the Governor and Council, what is there called an "exemplary death."

"The most common modes of such execu tions have been burning some of the unhappy convicts, or rather roasting them alive; and hanging others up alive in irons upon a gibbet, to perish by hunger and thirst, with the additional horrors produced by such a dreadful situation. (p. 308.)

Sect. 7.-Slaves are prosecuted and tried upon criminal accusations, in a humanity of English laws, and highly manner grossly inconsistent with the dangerous to the safety of the innocent.

Sect. 8.-The slave, when prosecuted as a criminal, is deprived of that protection which he might naturally derive from his master's regard to self-interest, and is sometimes even punished for the master's crimes.

"When a slave is condemned to death by the civil magistrate, he is, previous to his execution, appraised, and the value, not exceeding a limited sum, is allowed and paid to his owner, out of the public treasury of the island." (p. 322.)

"The case is aggravated by a farther consideration, which even colonial legislators themselves have been obliged to recognize, though an additional reproach to their system. The crime of the slave may often be the inevitable fruit of the master's oppression."

"Here I admit they have made one exception to the rule of indemnifying the master; but an exception which shows the iniquity of the rule itself, and which is accompanied with a most gross violation of the plainest principles of justice and mercy."

"But in regard there are some masters and owners of negroes and other slaves in this island, who do not make sufficient conscience of providing what is necessary for their negroes or other slaves, or allowing them time to plant or provide for themselves, for which cause such negroes or other slaves are necessitated to commit crimes contrary to the law; and yet the safety of this island, requiring that such negroes and other slaves shall suffer as the law has appointed, rather than the poor inhabitants of this island be ruined, and

↑ "For capital crimes hanging is the punishment; but in cases of insurrection, the Governor and Council, as I have heard, sometimes inflict higher punishments; such as exposing negroes in a cage, and starving them to death." (Evidence of the agent for Barbadoes, Privy Council Report, Part III. tit. Barbadoes. Further queries added under A. No. 3.)

Insurrection is not the only crime for which an exemplary death has been inflicted at Barbadoes; nor is gibbeting alive, or what the agent called starving in a cage, the only mode of it. Forty years ago the author was in that island, and his stay did not exceed three days; yet he was present at a trial for murder, in the event of which, two negroes convicted of the offence were burnt alive. If the murdered party had murdered them, his punishment would have been a £15 penalty.'