of their most zealous advocates tell. Sir W. Young, Secretary of the West Indian Committee in 1797, was governor of Tobago in 1811-and he thus speaks, in a Report to Parliament, upon the state of the slaves.

I think the slaves have by law no protection. In this, and I doubt not in every other island, there are laws for the protection of slaves, and good ones; but circumstances in the administration of this law render it a dead letter. When the intervention of the law is most required, it will have the least effect; as in cases where a vindictive and cruel master has dared to commit the most atrocious cruelties, even to murder his slave, no free person being present to witness the act. There appears to me a radical defect in the administration of justice throughout the West Indies, in whatever case the wrongs done to a slave are under consideration; or rather, that justice cannot in truth be administered, controlled as it is by a law of evidence, which covers the most guilty European with impunity; provided that, when having a criminal intent, he is cautious not to commit the crime in the presence of a free witness.

On small plantations there is but one free person, the resident manager, and no slave can appear against him. In the back yard of a jobber of a small gang for hire, in the workshops or outbuildings of each artisan or petty tradesman, and within every house, the greatest cruelties may be exercised on a slave without a possibility of conviction. I should consider it (he adds) as inconsistent with the respect and deference I bear to the sagacity and wisdom of the august body for whose use this Report is framed, to idly enlarge it with the enumeration of humane laws for the protection of slaves; all rendered nugatory by the conditions of evidence required in their administration.' Ibid. pp. 58, 59.

And such is the case now, as well as in 1811-and in the other sugar colonies, as well as Barbadoes, with no change deserving of notice. Such, too, it is intended by the West Indians that it shall continue to be! For the ministers have announced their refusal to agree in the recommendation to admit the evidence of slaves against free persons-that is, to allow the court the power of hearing it, and reserve to them the estimate of the weight which it should have. Mr Stephens's invective against this monstrous inconsistency in those who condemned the Missionary upon slave evidence, is highly eloquent; but not more eloquent than soundly argumentative.

The evidence of slaves is sufficient, it seems, to convict a preacher of the Gospel!-It is sufficient to condemn him to death; although the slaves who give the evidence are swearing for their own lives!—It is sufficient to give currency and judicial credit to the most palpable, and monstrous and inconsistent fables that ever were invented in romance-It is sufficient to prove that a pious self-devoted minister of the Gospel of Peace, is an instigator of sedition, rebellion, and blood

shed—It is sufficient to prove that a man who is sinking into his grave under the influence of a pulmonary complaint-who has a help. less wife on the spot with him-who in all probability has not many weeks to live, is desirous of being the leader in a bloody and desperate contest of bands of insurgent slaves, in order that he may be made their emperor, and reign over them in the swamps and woods of the Guiana continent! The evidence of slaves, Sir, is sufficient for all this! though they themselves are avowedly guilty of the crime they impute, and give their testimony under an extreme influ ence of terror that would disqualify the most respectable of our countrymen from being heard as a witnesss in any court of this country. Their evidence may be safely received and relied upon against a prisoner, when a whole infuriated community is clamorous for his destruction; but is too dangerous to be heard in any case before a jury of White men, all whose prepossessions, and all whose sympathies, are adverse to the prosecutor and the witness, and favourable to the party accused! The same colonists, it seems, still inexorably oppose the reception of such witnesses, however credible and however unimpeachable on every ground but the colour of their skins, when necessary to enforce the laws against the oppressors of their unfortunate class. Neither the assemblies nor their partisans here, it seems, will consent in that respect to change a rule which their more zealous champions themselves have condemned as an insurmountable obstacle to the protection of the slaves, and the course of public justice.' Ibid. pp. 59, 60.

After all this experience of the Assemblies and their advocates, surely we may be allowed now to ask, with the same eloquent defender of the oppressed African, Is it intemperate-is it unreasonable—is it precipitate, not to be content with a new reference to those same Assemblies-not passively to rely again on the same experiment, thus repeatedly tried, thus uniformly found to be fruitless? Our enemies,' says he, affect to blame us for 'not leaving the case in the hands of Government, and patiently expecting the result of its new solicitations; and even to ' ascribe to this cause the intemperate conduct of the Colonies. But was not the case left in the hands of Government, and had not its influence with the Assemblies full scope, without any interruption from us, from 1797 till the spring of the last year? If a term of twenty-six years was not long enough for patient acquiescence on our part, how long were we expected to wait before we raised our voice against this great national iniquity, and invoked the moral and religious feelings of the British people to aid us in a call for reformation?'

As often as a clamour shall be raised against the enemics of slavery for impatience; as often as they shall be desired to look for reformation towards the colonies; as often as an indifferent GoVOL. XLI. NO. 81. P

vernment shall affect to confide in the Assemblies, and an easy Parliament to repose upon the vigilance of such Government, we only desire to hold up the Address of 1797, the Circular Instructions, and the Suggestions of the Committee; and simply demanding, what has since been done in the West Indies, and answering that question by the Resolutions passed in 1823, which demonstrate that nothing had been done, and, strange to tell, also demonstrate, that because nothing had been done, Parliament renewed its confidence in the efficacious support of those who stood convicted of the non-feasance, we shall at least expect to be pardoned for repudiating all share in this confiding spirit,-if we may not also reckon upon the retrospect making a renewal of that trust impossible, consistently with a regard for the decorum usually expected in a grave and deliberative assembly. These sentiments, we rejoice to think, are common to us with the great body of our fellow-citizens. The meeting held upon the subject of Negro-slavery, at which Mr Stephen delivered the admirable speech we have been citing, was almost unexampled for the numbers, the respectability, and the fervent but rational enthusiasm of those who composed it. The friend of liberty and of human improvement may dwell with pure delight upon the whole proceedings of that day. An accurate Report of them is contained in one of the Tracts now before us; and we cannot too earnestly recommend it to the attention of our readers. They who seek, merely as critics, for gratification, will find themseves amply rewarded. It contains, among many speeches of first-rate merit, from Members of both Houses of Parliament and others, one display of eloquence so signal for rare and matured excellence, that the most practised orators may well admire how it should have come from one who then, for the first time, addressed a public assembly. We allude to Mr T. B. Macaulay, the son of one whose name ranks among the very foremost, for knowledge, talents, and integrity, in the lists of eminent men, called forth by the great African cause. He fortunately witnessed this most successful entrance into active life; and Mr Wilberforce justly and feelingly observed, referring to the attack upon Mr M. by those who purvey slander for the slave-drivers and High-churchmen, that he doubtless would willingly bear with all the base falsehoods, all the vile calumnies, all the detestable artifices which have been aimed against him, to render him, like another Mr Smith, the martyr and victim of our cause-aye, and ten times more, for the gra tification he has this day enjoyed, in hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause in such a manner.' It is, indeed, most

6

consolatory to see the place of those who have left, or are leaving the scene, filled by new candidates for the noble and unalloyed fame won in fighting the sacred battles of humanity. The great debate in Parliament upon the Missionary question, produced an invaluable acquisition to this great cause. Mr J. Williams, for the first time, bore a part in it; and delivered a speech which might fill veterans with envy, and beginners with despair. But the proceedings upon that remarkable occasion are in every one's hands, and we have not room for any longer critical digression, how tempting soever the occasion.

The fixed determination in the minds of the classes whose opinion justly commands the greatest respect, the middle classes of the people, to have Negro-slavery instantly mitigated, and gradually abolished, was indicated at the meeting in a manner not easily mistaken. It spoke the sense of all the societies scattered over the country. Let the enemies of slavery, then, persevere. They who administer Government, though in their hearts convinced and aware of the result, may, for a season, be afraid of countenancing them, because they dread the consequences of the clamour which would be raised by the Colonial party, were any sinister event to happen while they were promoting a change of system. But if the public voice is constantly exerted, they will be compelled to yield in this as in so many other instances; and, by the same ruling principle, the dread of having their authority shaken. They who have obliged those ministers to abandon taxes by the score, and places by the hundred-nay, to give up their most fixed principles of mercantile policy, and even to begin the frightful work of judicial reform-seemed, but a few years ago, to have a far more desperate work in hand, than the abolitionists who, after many a triumph, have now only their crowning victory to win. It must be theirs, if they persevere in deserving it, by their firmness and by their temperance; above all, by their vigilance in suffering no opportunities to escape unimproved; and their ra

Among those whose loss of late the cause has most seriously to lament, Mr Harrison is principally to be commemorated. He had gratuitously and most ably filled the laborious office of secretary to the African Institution during a period of twelve years. By principle a determined enemy of all undue power, and firmly attached to whatever afforded the prospect of elevating the character and improving the condition of those whom bad institutions have degraded, he had devoted his time, ever since he retired from professional pursuits, to the business of that Society, and others of a philanthrovie na ur His loss will, indeed, not easily be repaired.

tional jealousy in refusing, whether to governments at home or governments abroad, a confidence so often abused. *

ART. XI. Statement in regard to the Pauperism of Glasgow, from the Experience of the last eight Years. By THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. Minister of St Johns, Glasgow. 1823.

THE HE public has been so long accustomed to hear the praises of the system by which the people of Scotland manage their poor, that we are apt to regard it as approaching nearly to perfection; and to hold out the imitation of its peculiarities as sufficient to secure all the advantages of a legal provision without any of its evils. There is enough in the principles, and in the former administration, of our law, to justify a reasonable portion of this eulogy. But if it is supposed that we need be under no apprehension about the increase of poors-rates; and that we are completely free from that terrible scourge which is undermining the morality, and wasting the resources, of England, we must say that there never was a more palpable or more dangerous error; and there is at last a sufficient body of facts ascertained to make it evident, that the prevalence of such an opinion can only be ascribed to that ordinary delusion, by which people, who have been long used to commend a system, repose under their general admiration of it, and will not disturb themselves by inquiring how it actually works. If the Scottish law has not been able to prevent the progressive increase of pauperism, this is the strongest possible demonstration of the inadequacy of any scheme, which admits of a compulsory provision for the poor, to do so; because, though there be certainly some, there are not many, regulations, by which the evils of this mode of provision can be guarded against, with which the law of Scotland has not been fenced. Neither was there ever a time at which an examination of the

* We purpose, in our next Number, to enter upon the examination of Mr Stephen's great work upon Slavery, as it exists in the Colonies. It may, with truth, be said, that no man, without reading that book, can form an adequate idea of the state of the Negro bondsmen, in law or in practice—or a just estimate of the sacrifices which it would be fitting to make, and the risks which it would be justifiable to encounter, for the sake of terminating so intolerable an evil. The silence of the other party, inflexibly maintained with respect to this decisive exposition of the subject, most eloquently proves their sense of its importance, and their inability to answer it.