LORD GODERICH ON THE INSURRECTION OF 1832.

47

tions, known to belong to the anti-sectarian party;, spared no pains to use it as a means of bringing one of those two, Mr. Beaumont, openly accused the them to condign punishment. Prosecutions were chairman and others, of having "garbled the evi-instituted against Messrs. Burchell, Knibb, and dence taken before them." They refused to listen to the statements of Samuel Sharpe and other ringleaders, obtained through the intervention of Messrs. Murray, Knibb, and Bleby, at the express desire of Mr. Miller, the commanding officer of the Montego Bay district, and suppressed all testimony as to how, when, and where the disturbances commenced; and this from the evident fear of criminating themselves, as they assuredly would have done had they permitted the truth to be told.

The result of their investigations may be readily conceived. They declared, "the primary and most powerful cause" of the insurrection to have been "the excitement created in the minds of our slaves by the unceasing and unconstitutional interference of H. M. ministers with our social legislature, in regard to the passing of laws for their government; with the intemperate expressions of the present ministers, as well as other individuals in the Commons House of Parliament of Great Britain, coupled with the false and wicked reports of the anti-slavery society." Another alleged cause was the teaching of the missionaries-Baptist, Wesleyan, and Moravian-but especially the former, and the mischiefs attendant on their system of distinguishing certain members of their congregations as leaders or elders; and, lastly, the committee introduced a brief mention of the main source of so much misery, by noticing "the public discussions of the free inhabitants here, consequent upon the continued suggestions made by the king's ministers regarding further measures of amelioration, to be introduced into the slave-code of this island."

Gardner, Baptist missionaries. The bill against Mr. Burchell was ignored by the grand jury, but he narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a white mob: the prosecution against Mr. Knibb was dropped for want of evidence to sustain it; and Mr. Gardner was honourably acquitted; Mr. Box, a Wesleyan minister, was apprehended and his papers examined, but nothing was alleged against him, and he was discharged.

Imperial Government the true causes of the insurThe efforts of the Assembly to disguise from the rection, and vilify the missionaries, were all in vain, as may be judged from the following extracts from an admirable despatch written by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Viscount Goderich (now Earl of Ripon).

"After exhortations repeated by H.M. Government for such public meetings as I have mentioned in every part of more than eight successive years, without effect; after the island; after the circulation of the resolutions and public journals already noticed; after the convention of a body of delegates at the capital; and after secret debates in the House of Assembly, followed by the rejection of the measures proposed there for the benefit of the slaves, it must have become, to every reflecting man, sufficiently evident, that the peace of the island was placed in extreme infection of these opinions, which they appear to have jeopardy, and that the slaves could scarcely escape the adopted. How fraught with danger to the public safety ignorant, and so easily excited, it were superfluous to was the prevalence of such opinions among a people so royal authority was opposed in their favour to that of remark. Induced as they had been to suppose that the their owners; and that designs were entertained by the king's government, which the colonial magistracy and proprietors intended to counteract by force; the sense of supposed injustice, combining with a plausible expectation of impunity in resisting it, could scarcely fail to urge them to acts of open rebellion."

manifestation of "any intemperate or hostile spirit" After adverting to the necessity of suppressing the towards the missionaries, his lordship thus proceeds to comment on the charge made against them, as fomenters of disaffection.

The committee commented on the ill effect produced by the publicity given by the press to speeches made in the House of Commons, but they passed over in silence the direct lessons of incendiarism given in the pages of the Courant and Courier, which teemed with abuse against England, and declared that unless measures were adopted to put a stop to "the encroachments of such statesmen as now rule the destinies of the empire," a revolution would take place, which "would reach across the Atlantic ;" and fearful pictures were drawn of "blazing corn-fields"* and "burning houses". "Neither earth nor bability of the charge is so extreme, that nothing short of "I must distinctly avow my conviction, that the improhell has power to sustain the colony another year; the most irresistible evidence could induce a belief of but what St. Domingo is, Jamaica too soon must it. be." Language like this was not likely to passing the slaves in our colonies cannot, in charity or in The missionaries who engage in the office of convertunnoticed by the negroes, any more than the mea- justice, be supposed to be actuated by any views of secular sures of sedition and rebellion against constituted ambition, or personal advantage. They devote themselves authorities, constantly urged in these papers, but the to an obscure, and arduous, and ill-requited service. They Assembly thought proper to ignore all this, and are well apprised, that distrust and jealousy will attend these journals in return lavished praise on the local them, and that the path they have chosen leads neither to authorities very much in proportion to the blame wealth nor reputation. If in their case, as in that of other they deserved, and inveighed against the "sectamen, motives less exclusively sacred than those which rians" more bitterly than ever. Had there been a are avowed, may exercise some influence on their minds, tittle of evidence to prove that the teaching and suspicion on that account. The great ruling motive must, in it were irrational either to feel surprise, or to cherish preaching of the missionaries, referred to in the general, be that which is professed, since, in general, there report, had tended to cause the rebellion, it is certain is no other advantage to be obtained, than the consciousthe authorities, whether civil or military, would have ness of having contributed to the diffusion of Christianity trusted to him as a master in chancery, and finished his wound inflamed, and finally terminated in gangrene and career by committing suicide. Another, during the fol- death. I do not record, without reluctance, details such lowing year, was mortally wounded in a duel by a third member of the committee. A fourth perished from the be absolutely necessary to show the fearful depths of deas these, but I dare not withhold facts which I believe to result of a family dispute, occasioned by the refusal of the pravity in which Jamaica was fast being engulphed, and son to sit down at table with his father's concubine. The from which England saved her by the noble sacrifice which father, in a fit of passion, struck the son upon the mouth, has been so little appreciated. and slightly wounded his hand against the teeth; the

*Courant, 15th Aug., 1831. † Idem, 30th Sept., 1831.

48

BARBAROUS TREAMENT OF A MORAVIAN MISSIONARY.

throughout the world. To suppose men who act habitually | prudent to resign the office which he had so greatly on such a principle, either so insensible to the restraints abused. The Moravians did not escape persecutionof conscience, or so perverted in their estimate of right and wrong, as to foment insurrection and civil war, for the stance of the extraordinary measures resorted to, to pro. "The case of Mr. Pfeiffer furnishes a remarkable in. subversion of slavery; or to believe them insensible to the extreme danger and suffering, in which by engaging in barbarity and villany of the men, who, as militia officers, cure evidence against missionaries; while it shows the such an enterprise they must involve those, for whose rioted in the plenitude of almost irresponsible power, and benefit the contest was to be undertaken, would argue controlled the lives and destinies of their fellow-beings. Mr. rather a heated and prejudiced mind, than a discerning Pfeiffer was arrested in his own house, by some thirty or judgment, and a correct acquaintance with human character. When, therefore, I consider that no motive can be home, without being allowed time to get a change of apforty militia men and their officers, and dragged away from rationally assigned, which should have induced the mis-parel, or take leave of his wife and family. The first thing sionaries to embark in so guilty and desperate an under-after that was to remove him, on some pretence, to another taking, I cannot but earnestly trust, that the trial of any one of their number, who may be charged with a participation in this rebellion, may have been postponed, until comparative tranquillity should have succeeded to the first panic; and that such trials may have been conducted, not before a military tribunal, but with all the regular forms of law. Should any such missionary have been convicted, and be awaiting the execution of his sentence, on the arrival of this despatch, your lordship will not permit that sentence to be carried into effect, till his majesty's pleasure can be known."*

66 con

When Lord Goderich penned these temperate and judicious admonitions, he probably little anticipated the excesses to which the "heated and prejudiced minds" of the planters were then being impelled. The Courant, weary of repeating such verbal abuse, as styling them " vagabondizing reverends," summate hypocrites," and "preaching miscreants," proceeded to declare that "if evidence could be elicited to prove their guilt, it would be a grateful exhibition to the island to see a dozen of them gibbeted." (Courant, January 11, 1831.) To obtain the desired evidence, most unwarrantable measures were resorted to, including shameless bribery and perjury. Torture was used to induce the slaves to criminate the missionaries: one man was flogged, another was smoked with fire and brimstone in the gaol; a woman had the gallows shown her, and was told she would be hung there. William Plummer, an aged free man, a servant of the Rev. Mr. Burchell, when confined in Montego Bay gaol, on suspicion of being connected with the rebellion, had a pot of brimstone and other materials placed in his cell, and set on fire, and those who brought it said they did it to give him a taste of hell before he went there." It was done "to extort confession." [Evidence on Oath before the House of Lords Committee, 18th July, 1832; pp. 776-7.] The property of Mr. Box (who was arrested merely on suspicion, and confined for upwards of a week in a loathsome cell, surrounded by negroes suffering with small-pox) was ransacked to find papers which might be made to bear testimony against him; and his trunks having been broken open by a magistrate named Dyer, the editor of the Cornwall Courier, extracts from the private journal found therein were published in its pages. dismissed from prison, no specific charge having been When brought against him, Mr. Box demanded that his property should be restored, and, at length, succeeded in obtaining all, except his journal; eventually, Lord Belmore having been superseded in the governorship by a nobleman of very different character, Mr. Dyer, alarmed at the probability of being prosecuted for having, in his magisterial capacity, broken open, rifled, withheld, and used for his own purposes, the property of an innocent person, thought it

* Despatch dated Downing Street, 1st of March, 1832; given in full in appendix to House of Lords' Committee on Slavery, August, 1832; part ii., p. 1321.

parish, where he could not, without difficulty, obtain the testimony of those who knew him and attended his minissmall bundle after him, containing a change of apparel, try, for his defence. His wife had found means to send a in the parish of Manchester, he was imprisoned in the which he was allowed to receive. Arrived at Mandeville, organ-loft of the church, with four soldiers to watch over him, but forbidden to remove, or to speak a word with the sentinels. He lay down, and had begun to sleep, when he was aroused by the demand, Prisoner, give me your bundle.' The bundle was examined and returned; but no sooner had he laid down and began to sleep, than he was aroused with the demand, Prisoner, shew me your bundle.' This was repeated so often, as to make it evident that it was only done to tantalize him, and prevent his getting the of them, making the observation that such a rascal did not rest which his exhausted frame required. At length, one about where he dared not move to pick them up. By the want a pillow, the contents of his bundle were scattered kindness of one of the sentinels, he afterwards obtained his property. For twenty-four hours they kept him without food or water; and on his remonstrating against such barbarity, food was tendered to him, but it had been wantonly thrown in the dirt, and covered with grit and filth, so that

he could not eat more than a small portion of it. He had to complain a second time of having been kept without food or water for a whole day, when it was excused as an oversight by the very officer, who was looking after him kept several days in entire ignorance of the charges that every half-hour of the day. One evening, after having been deputy-judge-advocate, that his trial would take place the were to be alleged against him, he was informed by the following day, 'for rebellion and rebellious conspiracy.' He inquired what he would be permitted to do in his defence; but was distinctly informed that he might obtain whatever documents he liked, to lay before the court-martial, but he could not be allowed to bring any witnesses. This, of course, was depriving him of all opportunity of defending himself; for the ruffians had taken care to remove timonials in his behalf. However, it providentially occurred him away far from those, who might be induced to give testhat a gentleman obtained an interview with Mr. Pfeiffer, and informed him that he had the right of producing witnesses; and that what had been told him was only a part of the diabolical plot laid for his destruction; at the same time, tendering his services to summon whatever friends Mr. Pfeiffer might wish to be called. This was only a few hours before the trial was to commence; but so well was the time improved, that a respectable array of witnesses trial commenced. was prepared for Mr. Pfeiffer's defence, by the time the the trial of that persecuted missionary; and such was the For nine days the court-martial sat on him, that they were compelled to bring him in not weight of testimony brought to rebut the charges against guilty,' although two of the officers in the court clamoured for his death. Pfeiffer, two women afterwards offered to make affidavit Of the witnesses brought to criminate Mr. that they were bribed to swear away his life. Their freedom was promised, with a donation in money, and a certain quantity of land, if they would swear that he had this unoffending man by the wretches into whose hands he preached freedom to them. The barbarities inflicted upon had fallen, after all, nearly proved fatal to him. The sufferings, privations, and cruel anxieties to which he was sub

COLONIAL CHURCH UNION-ASSAULT ON THE REV. H. BLEBY. 49

jected, ended in a serious illness, which placed his life in jeopardy for six months.”—(Mr. Bleby's manuscript.)

It was indeed quite necessary that something tangible should, if possible, be proved against the sectarians, as nothing else could palliate even, much less justify, the open persecution to which, both as societies and as individuals, they had been subjected. On the 26th of January, a public meeting was held at St. Ann's Bay, for the permanent establishment of a COLONIAL CHURCH UNION, the avowed object being to expel all sectarian preachers from the island, and oppose the Anti-Slavery Society in every possible manner. Happily for the good name of the Colonial Church, her clergy, with only two exceptions, one of whom was the Rev. Mr. Bridges, the instigator of the plot, and the other an unhappy man who fell in a duel, were never even suspected of having had any concern in a conspiracy, the results of which were equally mischievous and disgraceful.

The favourite motto of the Unionists was-" Destroy their nests, and the rooks will fly away." The pages of the Courant and Courier were crowded with similar advice; and the direct consequence was, the destruction of 31 Baptist, and 6 Wesleyan chapels, and other mission property, to the value of £30,000. The Baptist chapel at Falmouth was the first demolished, on the 7th of February, after which the Methodist chapel, a handsome building, which had just been put in complete repair, shared the same fate, at the hands of some of the local magistrates and the militia of St. Ann's western regiment, aided by a mob composed of troopers from the Trelawney regiment, sailors from the ships in the harbour under the direction of their captains, and other white inhabitants of the town of Falmouth. At St. Ann's the triumph of the Unionists was complete, so far as the destruction of property was concerned, the chapels at the Bay and at Ora Cabessa being pulled down, and those at Ocho Rios and Ebenezer burnt to the ground; but, to the great disappointment of the incendiaries, the Wesleyan missionaries, Messrs. Whitehouse and Wood, and the Baptist missionary, Mr. Nicholls, succeeded in effecting their escape, so that they were obliged to content themselves with hanging them in effigy. Attempts were made to destroy the chapels at Kingston, but defeated by the firmness and discretion evinced by the free coloured population, who night after night kept guard over them.

The governor (Lord Belmore) issued a proclamation, desiring the magistrates to seek out and punish the authors of these outrages, and to use the force entrusted to them in preventing similar proceedings. This proclamation was treated with the utmost contempt; one of the copies was hung upon the gallowe, others were torn down, and under one posted up in the court-house was written, "Whoever gives information respecting the above shall entitle himself

to be tarred and feathered."

The papers continued to put forth such counsel as the following:

would recommend the advice of our staunch friend 一个 to be observed towards them. Tar and feather them whenever you meet them, and drive them off the island, excepting always those who may merit a greater elevation -a more exalted distinction.'"-(Jamaica Courant and Cornwall Courier.)‡

exactly accorded with the promptings of popular The often-urged tarring and feathering scheme so feeling, which in fact these journals did but echo, that many attempts were made to put it in practice. One of the most ferocious of these was directed against Mr. Bleby, who had been selected to occupy the Falmouth station (from which Mr. Box had been driven), because "his prudence and respectability were admitted by all." The emissaries of the Union bestirred themselves so actively, that the proprietor of the house which he had hired, requested him to quit, as it would certainly be destroyed if he were suffered to remain in it, and threatening letters were sent him advising him to quit the place; but as the coloured people had welcomed him gladly and gratefully, he felt it his duty to remain, and endeavour, by patience and forbearance, gradually to disarm opposition. Mr. Dyer, the magistrate-editor before mentioned, abused Mr. Bleby in the public streets, and sent several constables to inform him that he would be prosecuted if he preached without a licence, and that all persons attending his family worship would be taken into custody. Justly apprehending personal violence, Mr. Bleby requested several free coloured persons to sleep in and near the house, a precaution which probably disconcerted the machinations of his enemies, by obliging them to renounce the idea of a midnight attack and choose an earlier hour.

On the evening of the 7th of April, while Mr. and Mrs. Bleby, and some visitors (a lady and her daughter), were seated at tea, a large body of men, from eighty to one hundred in number, were seen approaching the house. They forced in the garden gate, smashed the windows, broke open the front door, ascended the stairs, entered the room where the family were assembled, and seizing Mr. Bleby, secured and held him fast, loading him with opprobrious epithets. One of them named Dobson dealt him a heavy blow on the head with a stick, the violence of which was providentially broken by the glass candle shade, which it shattered in a thousand pieces; while others brought in a keg of tar, and turning up their coat sleeves, dipped their hands into it and commenced daubing the person of the missionary, especially his head and face, and rubbing the tar into his eyes with the intention of blinding him. Dobson then took a candle from the table, and stooping down, attempted to set fire to the trowsers of the intended victim, but Mrs. Bleby, having forced her way through the crowd, struck the candle out of his hand. She was dragged away and violently trampled upon; but seeing some of the ruffians seize the remaining candle, and try to ignite the tar with which her husband's neckcloth, and, indeed, his whole apparel, was by this time covered, she again rushed forward and succeeded in extinguishing the light, just in time to prevent the commission of a foul murder. At this

"We can only say, in the words of the reformer, John Knox, To get rid of the rooks effectually, you must destroy their nests.' As to the rooks-the preachers, we * Evidence before the Lords, July, 1832; p. 739. + The gentleman here referred to is a well-known advo.moment, an infant of a few months old, who had been cate of the West India interest, but as his name may have been affixed to a suggestion he never gave, I have thought

it best not to reprint it.

The Jamaica Watchman and Kingston Chronicle advocated the cause of order and toleration. § History of Wesleyan Missions, p. 305.

DIV. VIII.

lying asleep on the sofa, awakened by the uproar, to be the leader of the party called out, "Throw that cried piteously, upon which the person who appeared d--d child through the window;" and this brutal order was actually about to be obeyed, when the mother, disengaging herself a third time from the hands of

H

50

EFFECT PRODUCED BY MR. WHITLEY'S PAMPHLET.

the men who were now endeavouring to fasten her into an adjoining closet, sprung forward, seized her infant, and rushed out of the house bareheaded, with only one shoe, and nearly covered from head to foot with the tar she had received in her endeavours to protect her husband. The alarm given by her brought several black and coloured persons to the rescue; they seized some sticks from a bundle of firewood in the yard, and commenced a vigorous attack upon that portion of the assailants who had remained in the lower part of the house. Those in the upper room, having no light but that of the moon, hearing the noise, and thinking it might possibly proceed from a detachment of troops, precipitately retreated down stairs, where a general scuffle took place.

Favoured by the darkness and confusion, Mr. Bleby made his escape; but one of the gang, an overseer named Hopkins, being mistaken for him, was set upon by his own companions, who broke his collar bone and fractured his skull.-The injuries thus inflicted were long expected to prove fatal, but after undergoing the operation of trepanning, the wretched man partially recovered, and survived a few years, subject to periodical fits of insanity.

On learning what had occurred, Mr. Miller, a magistrate who formed one of the bright exceptions to the general character of the body to which he belonged, hastened to the scene of the riot with a party of the 22nd regiment, then garrisoned in the town. Mr. Bleby was taken to the barracks, where he found a safe asylum for the night; and his wife and child were kindly received and sheltered by Mrs. Jackson, the lady of the clerk of the peace.

With a view to prevent the repetition of similar outrages, Mr. Bleby, in the following week, waited upon several magistrates; but Mr. Miller having left the town, none of them cared to receive his statements. On the return of that gentleman, he discharged his duty, in defiance of the menaces of the "Colonial Union" party, and arrangements were made to prosecute the rioters at the Cornwall assizes. But though no magistrates could be found, on Mr. Bleby's first application, who would take his depositions, there was no want of promptitude in dealing with the men who ran to his rescue. They were speedily arrested, and bound to answer at the quarter sessions; but when one of them requested that his depositions should be taken against a rioter who had assaulted him, he was sternly refused.

Oppression had now reached its climax ; in a professedly Christian land, chapels erected for the worship of God might be destroyed, and ministers of the Gospel hunted to death's door with impunity. The Colonial Union boasted, that while they kept possession of the jury box their members might feel secure * A coloured man, named Brown, was fined £5.

In the early part of 1833 an extraordinary sensation was created throughout the United Kingdom, by a pam. phlet, entitled, "Three Months in Jamaica," by Henry Whitely, a young man of unimpeachable character, who had gone out, with an excellent introduction, to the estate of a planter, a relation of his own, for the purpose of obtaining a situation as book-keeper. The scenes he there witnessed inspired him with deep disgust, and he returned to England, bringing with him a fund of valuable, but to him dearly-bought experience. His simple narrative of the common incidents of a sugar plantation, bore the impress of truth on every page. The driver looking on with lazy indifference the piercing cries of the miserable negro

woman, the mother of several children, and her earnest entreaties to be allowed to retain some portion of her covering for the sake of decency-the aged negro man brought out,

as to the results of any prosecution that might be commenced against them; and this was literally the case, for, in opposition to the clearest evidence produced respecting the destruction of the chapels and the assault upon Mr. Bleby, the grand jury in each case ignored the bills. Meanwhile a great change was working in the mind of the British public; and the internecine strife, pecuniary involvement, and moral degradation, which had for so many years characterized the beautiful and fertile island of Jamaica, began to be generally looked upon in their true light, as the fruits of that root of bitterness which pervaded and poisoned the whole social system. The excesses of the planters, whether committed against the missionaries or against their wretched slaves, afforded the strongest arguments against their being permitted any longer to retain the power which they so grossly misused; and their very intolerance, by inducing Messrs. Knibb, Burchell, Duncan, and Barry, to proceed to England, did good service to the antislavery cause; for these men, coming fresh from the scene of action, and describing atrocities which their own eyes had witnessed, and hardships inflicted on their own persons, spoke with a power and energy which exercised irresistible influence over their hearers.† They arrived at a critical juncture, in time to give most important evidence before Parliament, and to support, by their personal testimony, before the numerous public meetings convened throughout England and Scotland on the question of slavery, the emphatic statement of Fowell Buxton, who had declared, "I stake my character on the accuracy of the fact, that negroes have been scourged to the very borders of the grave, uncharged with any crime save that of worshipping their God." In reference to the cruelties and indignities heaped upon those who had ventured to preach the gospel among them, he added

"There have not been, in our day, such persecutions as these brave and good men have been constrained to endure. Hereafter we must make selections among our missionaries. Is there a man whose timid or tender spirit is unequal to the storm of persecution? Send him to the savage-expose him to the cannibal-save his life by directing his steps to the rude haunts of the barbarian: but if there is a man of a stiffer, sterner nature—a man willing to encounter obloquy, torture, and death-let him be reserved for the tender mercies of our Christian brethren and fellow-countrymen, the planters of Jamaica."‡

The Assembly were not blind to the effect the missionaries would assuredly produce by their revelations respecting the late proceedings, and a motion was made that none of them should be permitted to leave the island; but it did not pass. Two delegates were, however, sent by the House, whose statements, and lying quietly down to receive the decreed punishment; the crack of the fearful cart-whip, and the shriek of agony, as it cut deeper and deeper into the mangled flesh-youth and age, womanhood and childhood, all subjected to the same brutalising and degrading torture, appalling as the picture was, every feature was incontestably correct, only perhaps it had never been so graphically, because so plainly told before. Many and many British youths must have shuddered at similar scenes; but they had not dared or cared to reveal them, and the great majority had probably grown callous, and ceased to sicken at such loathsome sights. I much regret having no space to spare for the lengthy extracts which could alone convey an adequate idea of the deeply interesting and thrilling descriptions given by Mr. Whitely, but the entire pamphlet well deserves, and will well reward a careful perusual. + Anti-Slavery Reporter, vol. v., p. 149.

GRADUAL DEPRECIATION OF PROPERTY IN JAMAICA.

it was hoped, would counteract the influence of the religious and anti-slavery parties, whose views were, of necessity, now daily becoming more nearly identified. In May, 1832, select committees were appointed in both Houses of Parliament, that of the Lords for the purpose of inquiring into the "condition and treatment of the slaves, their habits and dispositions," &c., and also "into the distressed condition of the several West India colonies;" that of the Commons, to consider "the measures most expedient to be adopted for the extinction of slavery throughout the British dominions at the earliest possible period compatible with the safety of all classes in the colonies."* A large mass of evidence was collected; that adduced for the information of the Commons was peculiarly valuable, and "disclosed a state of affairs demanding the earliest and most serious attention of the legislature." The active members of the House of Lords' committee were all proprietors of estates in the West Indies, excepting the Duke of Richmond (the chairman), and Lord Suffield; the three spiritual peers (Canterbury, London, and Lichfield,) attended only twice, and then for some brief ten minutes. The one-sided character of the evidence, its absurdities and inconsistencies, were well exposed in December, 1832, by Sir George Stephen, under the name of Legion, in a publication addressed to the Duke of Richmond.† The Commons committee also contained some West India proprietors, but their manœuvres were counteracted by Fowell Buxton, the chairman, and by the uprightness of Sir R. Peel, Lord John Russell, and other impartial men, and the inquirers, instead of diverging into the wide and discursive field of vague generalities, directed their investigations mainly to the two following points:

1st. Whether the slaves, if emancipated, would be likely to maintain themselves, and would be industrious and disposed to acquire property by labour. 2nd. Whether the dangers of convulsion were greater from freedom withheld than from freedom granted.

The evidence adduced was considered to afford so decisive an answer to these questions, that not even the ex parte statements made to the Lords could hinder the general conviction, that slavery was an unmitigated evil, which must be speedily extirpated throughout the British dominions.

In the ensuing session of parliament a bill was introduced for this purpose; and it was proposed to make a loan of £15,000,000 to the planters, at a low rate of interest, to assist them in cultivating their estates by means of labour obtained by the stimulus of wages instead of the whip. This arrangement was far from being satisfactory; the West Indian proprietors persisted in asserting that slavery had utterly unfitted the negroes for continuous voluntary industry, or for peaceful habits, and that a sudden transition to complete freedom was fraught with imminent danger to society and utter ruin to themselves. They alleged-unhappily with truth-that the purchase of slaves had been approved and encouraged by the British government and this was, in reality, their strongest argument; but against the flagrant iniquity of making slavery an hereditary curse, they could plead no law divine or human. save that of *Report on "Extinction of Slavery," by House of Commons' Committee, dated 11th of August, 1832;

p. 3.

+ Two Letters from Legion, &c. London: Bagster, Paternoster-row; 8vo, pp. 196 and 152.

Infamous, indeed, was that custom, which enabled

51

an infamous custom. They succeeded in inducing Parliament to convert the loan of £15,000,000 into a gift of £20,000,000, and to renounce the idea of immediate emancipation in favour of a system of apprenticeship. Before entering into the details of the new measure, it is necessary to return to Jamaica, and notice the changes there taking place. The recall of Lord Belmore in June, 1832, sorely disconcerted the Unionists; their leader, Mr. Bridges, having been well known to possess considerable influence with the Earl. This circumstance accounts, to some extent, for the miserable inefficiency of the administration of a governor whose private character was generally admitted to be amiable, and in many points deserving of respect. Lord Belmore, in tacitly permitting the fierce current of religious persecution to flow on unchecked, could not have been actuated by the culpable desire of obtaining popularity thereby, since, had he placed so high a value upon the short-lived applause of a colonial faction, he would hardly have dashed it to the ground by publicly expressing, when about to quit Jamaica, his opinion that "the resources of the island would never be developed till slavery was abolished." The records of the House of Assembly amply support the truth of this assertion.

It has been previously shown, by statements made at various intervals, that the condition of Jamaica before the abolition of the slave-carrying trade, in 1807, had for many years been gradually deteriorating. It now remains to demonstrate that the possession of upwards of 300,000 slaves did not enable the planters to cultivate sugar and coffee either so extensively or so profitably as to repay them for the heavy expenditure with which compulsory labour must ever be attended.

In 1808, a committee of the House of Commons recommended a suspension of the use of grain in the distilleries of Great Britain for one year, in order to "save the West Indies from the disasters that await them" in consequence of the depreciation in the price of sugar, and the increased expense attendant on its cultivation, the value of the produce being barely equal to the charges of production, leaving no rent for land and no interest for the large capital employed on it. (The price was, in 1807, 34s. per cwt.) The committee stated that 115 sugar estates were then in the Court of Chancery, that foreclosures had become unusually frequent, and that "annuitants dependent on West India property for their provision have in many instances been totally deprived of their income."--(Report, 13th April, 1808, p. 4.)

In 1812, a memorial from the Jamaica planters to the Crown states "that the ruin of the original possessors has been completed; exactions, debasement, and privations have been long and patiently endured by the proprietors; a large portion of them now see approaching the lowest state of human misery, absolute want to their families, and the horrors of a gael for themselves. Estate after estate has passed into the hands of mortgagees and creditors, absent from the island; until there are large districts, whole parishes, in which there is not a single proprietor of a sugar plantation resident." The non-residence of proprietors would certainly be no proof of their dis"the father to hold his own son in bondage, and the son to demand the wages of slavery from his own mother, and to claim the services of his own sister as his bond-woman.' (Madden, vol. ii., p. 171.) These practices took place in Jamaica, even under the apprenticeship system, and the special magistrates had no power to prevent them.