To introduce the following letter which we have received from the Rev. J. Riland, it is necessary to state, that in the last Number of the Christian Remembrancer appeared a Review of the Rev. D. Wilson's "Thoughts" on Slavery, and a long letter to the Editor by S. H. P., animadverting upon some statements made by Mr. Riland in his "Memoirs of a West-Indian Planter," and on others by the Christian Observer relative to the slave estates of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

Our readers are aware that we have several times expressed an earnest wish for more ample and specific information than we have been yet able to obtain relative to the Codrington estates in Barbadoes, which have been held for more than a century by the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In our Number for last May (p. 316), in noticing the highly interesting Report read and the addresses delivered at Freemasons' Hall, we lamented the total silence which prevailed on this subject. In January last (C.O. p. 58), we had also made the same complaint relative to the society's last year's Report. We might add, that the new Report, just published, is equally barren of tangible specific details, such as the society are accustomed to give respecting their other stations. The notice this very year is only the same, word for word, which has been published year after year for many years,

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without a tittle of new matter. tells us, indeed, that a minister "has been provided for the Negroes, whose whole attention is to be" ["is' still in 1827 just as it was, " is," in 1820, the last Report that happens

to be before us, and we know not how much longer back "is to be," after more than a century of responsible occupation, and after generation upon generation has passed away into eternity]" to their improvement in moral and religious knowledge;" that "schools upon the national system have been formed;" that "time will be ["will," still in 1827, just as it was in 1820, and we know not how many years before] allowed to the Negroes during the week for the cultivation of their own provision grounds;" but no definite results-no list of the baptized, the married, the catechumens, the communicants, as in other stations; no notice of how many children and adults actually attend the schools and can read; how much time is allowed for instruction, and many other particulars necessary to be known.

But we must not enlarge upon this part of the subject in these preliminary remarks; our object at present being only to introduce Mr. Riland's letter.

Mr. Riland, it seems, had lamented these deficiencies, like ourselves; and had thought with us, that the friends of the society, that our prelates, and clergy, and munificent laity, had a right to demand from their West-India agents a more specific account of these matters; and he had accordingly expressed his opinions in his "Memoirs of a West-India Planter." His statements, as well as those in the Christian Observer, S.H.P., in the Christian Remembrancer, has undertaken to refute.

We had intended to have taken up the question somewhat at large in our present Number, so far as our own share of S. H. P.'s censure is concerned, being sincerely thankful

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to him, though his tone is not very friendly towards us, that he has opened the way for a discussion highly important, especially to the friends and members of the society. We would hope to convince even our brother Editor, to the much improved tone of whose work we most gladly bear witness, and whom we are far from censuring for opening his pages for the discussion, provided he does so impartially on all sides of the subject; that his correspondent S. H. P. has not given, by any means, a just statement of the matters in question; and, above all, that it is an unjust and fearful thing to make the Gospel of our Redeemer an abettor of West-India slavery. We hope to convince him that WestIndia slavery is an utterly unchristian institution; and to point out the duty of the society to expurgate itself from its share of the guilt, (for the British public now know and feel that guilt is involved in voluntary slave-holding, unaccompanied by wise and provident, but effectual, steps towards emancipation), by making its agents do far more than, from any thing in the Report, we can learn they have yet done towards constituting their slaves free Christian villagers, labouring for hire upon their estates; "not using their service without wages, but giving them for their work." But again we must check our pen for the present, leaving Mr.Riland to his own defence; and reserving ours, if defence be needed, to a future Number. We only lament that S. H. P. should have allowed himself, we would hope unintentionally, to make our work appear hostile to the Society itself, when every candid reader must see that our only object was that its members should really know how their own affairs stand, and be enabled to convey to their own slaves in Barbadoes the same blessings, temporal and spiritual, which they wish to secure for the natives of India or North America.

The Rev. J. Riland to the Editor of the Christian Observer. As you have been the immediate though innocent cause, by reviewing my work, of my exposure to the attack of a writer under the signature of S. H. P., in the Christian Remembrancer, you will, perhaps, have the kindness to allow me an opportunity of explanation. We are, indeed, on this occasion, fellow-sufferers; and this must be my excuse, if, in the course of the following remarks, I should venture, indirectly, to include yourself, in an apology for the editor of Memoirs of a West-India Planter.

I. I certainly said, that Mr. Coleridge found, in 1825, a driver on the Barbadoes estate of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; but I never cast a slur upon the Society, by calling it "a Christian corporation, which retains an estate worked under the whip." Yet these words are formally marked by S. H. P. as a quotation. What I did say referred to the state of things in 1793; when Bryan Edwards defended aChristian corporation which, unquestionably, at that time, "worked its estate under the whip." But our accuser says, "The whip is gradually falling into disuse; and, in most well-ordered estates, is only used as a punishment for theft and other crimes; but with the cessation of the use of the whip, the name of driver has not yet expired-a mo

nument of the barbarism of former times." When, however, the government at home, in 1826, urged the abolition of the whip, the Bar badian legislature declared, in reply, that the safety of the inhabitants, the interest of their property, and the welfare of the slaves themselves, forbade them to comply with Earl Bathurst's recommendations to prohibit the punishment of women by flogging; and the use of the whip in the field. To forbid, by legislative enactment, the flogging of female slaves, would, in the judgment of the Assembly, be productive of the most injurious consequences. The

power of inflicting summary punishment, by the whip, the Assembly considers to be inseparable from a state of slavery. Now, sir, the words in italics are officially addressed, in 1826, to the colonial department, from an island containing "a monument of the barbarism of former times." Assuming, however, the correctness of the statement, that the Society's estate is no longer worked under the whip †, and also

Papers presented to Parliament by his Majesty's command, &c. &c. 1827. Part I. pp. 271-274. This document contains 600 closely printed folio pages.

We had not intended to enter farther into the subject at present; but we do not think it right to permit this "assumption' of Mr. Riland's to pass without a few brief remarks, which we can fully substantiate. S. H. P. has ventured to assert that the corporal punishment of slaves, and the use of the driving whip in the field, have been abolished on the Society's estate; and he professes to ground this assertion on the evidence of the Rev. Mr. Pinder. Mr. Pinder indeed intimates, that corporal punishment is not, in general, resorted to on the Society's estate: but this is no more than every West-Indian proprietor is ready to assert of his own estate; and no more than the legislature of Barbadoes have said in terms still more explicit of slave estates in general. And yet that same legislature have absolutely refused to abolish the corporal punishment, even of females, by the infliction of the whip on their bared bodies. On the Society's estate, we may assume, that a minute record of arbitrary punishments by the manager is kept. Let it be produced for the last ten or twenty years, and we shall see how the account stands. But, supposing corporal punishment, at the will of the manager, were abolished, and the stocks, or the tread-mill, or some other device substituted for it, what has this to do with the driving whip in the field? Mr. Pinder does not, and indeed cannot say that that is abolished; and the only ground S. H. P. has for affirming it, is that he supposes the use of the driving whip in the field, to be included under the term corporal punishment, a supposition which only shews his ignorance of the subject. He ought to have known, that the use of the driving whip is no more regarded in Barbadoes as punishment, than the people of this country regard a coachman as punishing his horses, when he quickens their pace by the crack or smack of his whip, or a rider, as punishing his horse, when he goads him with the spur. Mr. Pinder is misrepresented, therefore, when he is quoted as saying, that the driving whip is

of Mr. Coleridge's assurance that the property is "remarkably flourishing," we have then a direct proof that the whip is no longer wanted

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not used on the Society's estate. He says let it be shewn the exact date when, and no such thing. If it has been laid aside, by what kind of order, this most important change has been effected, and also what stimulus has been substituted for it; for even S. H. P. will hardly affirm that the Society's slaves will work without a stimulus of some kind. But we are exceeding the limits of a note; and must reservé for a future occasion our farther remarks, by which we hope to convince even S. H. P. that he and still more the venerable Society, have been kept in the dark as to the treatment of their slaves. remembered, that four or five successive generations of slaves have grown up from the womb, and descended to the grave under the Society. It will remain to be seen, how many of these have grown up in civil bondage, and in moral and spiritual ignorance, living in concubinage, and even in polygamy, and driven to their labour like the beasts of the field, and as much slaves, after more than a hundred years* "preparation for freedom," as when the Society first became their owners. We are at issue with S. H. P. on these and various other points; and we shall be amply rewarded for our trouble, if we can only open the eyes of the venerable Society to the deceptions which, we are persuaded, have been practised upon them, with respect to the real condition of their dependents in Barbadoes. In the mean time, we ask only one question of S. H. P.: Can he shew that even a single Christian marriage has been celebrated among the slaves during upwards of a century that they have belonged to the Society? If he can, let him give us the number and the dates. These matters must all be promptly accessible to the members of the Society, in the documents at their office; for it would indeed shew a most culpable inattention, if every thing relative to their slave estates is not minutely registered in their books, and open for reference to all members of the corporation. There can be no reason, therefore, why S. H. P. should not tell us at once, and without waiting to send to the West Indies, how all these matters stand. We ask at present for no more than exactly such a "Synopsis" as is given of all the Society's other stations, to which a dozen pages are devoted in the last Report. Let S. H. P. present us with such a table for the last ten or twenty years. It needs not occupy above a page, and will help us materially in forming our estimate of the real condition of affairs. Does S. H. P., or does our brother Editor, think this request unreasonable?

EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.