is for those who have furnished such appalling data to give us the key to them, and to tell us how the sudden increase of women in 1825, and the other phenomena are to be explained. We look with much anxiety to the steps which Government shall take respecting the Mauritius. We may regard it as certain that, under the anomalies we have pointed out, a mass of horrors, of which this country has, as yet, no conception, will be found hidden. And yet it was to this colony, this Mauritius, this human slaughter house, that in that very year of 1825, the Government and Parliament of England persisted, in spite of every remonstrance, by relieving the sugar of the Mauritius from the protecting duty which they continued to levy on the free grown sugar of India, to give a new stimulus to the growth of sugar in that colony, and to that multiplica-tion of murders in which it could not fail to issue. The case must be searched into. It is a case of Blood. 3. MONTSERRAT. In the six years, 1821 to 1826, four slaves were imported and 57 exported; the number of manumissions was 59; and the number of slave marriages 9. The slaves sold in execution were 41, and were sold for £2142. 6s. 10d. currency, or at an average of £52. 5s. each, being about £23 sterling. The slave population is given in 1821 as 6464, in 1826 as 5956, being a decrease of 508: the real decrease, exports and manumissions deducted, is 396, being upwards of one per cent. per annum. The free black and coloured population is made to amount in 1822 to 274 men and 411 women, in all 683. The sum raised for the poor in the six years was £2500 currency. The number of paupers, all white, was 14. 4. ST. LUCIA. The number of Slaves imported is stated to be 83, exported 26. The manumissions from the 1st of January, 1821, to the 31st of May, 1827 were 686. Of these 132 paid for their freedom. The rest were manumitted by their masters.-No marriages of slaves have taken place.-The number of slaves sold in execution was 34; and the amount for which they were sold was 76,585 livres, or about £48 sterling each. The slave population in 1819 is stated to have been 14,280; in 1822, 13,788; in 1825, 13,717; and in 1826, 12,922. The free coloured population is stated in 1826 at 3983. There are no poor in St. Lucia. 4. CONDUCT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF JAMAICA. This Body met in November last, and proceeded to consider the two questions of the slave law, and the claims of the free people of colour to an extension of their privileges. These claims were refused by a majority of twenty-five to fourteen. With respect to the slave law, they have re-enacted that of 1826, without any alteration whatever even in the persecuting clauses. Considering the language of Government on that subject, and the express ground in which the former act was disallowed, they do, in fact, by this proceeding, bid a bold defiance to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. Bagster and Thoms, Printers, 14, Bartholomew Close. MONTHLY REPORTER. No. 46.] FOR MARCH, 1829. [No. 22. Vol. ii. 1. DR. BURGESS, THE PRESENT BISHOP OF SALISBURY, ON COLONIAL SLAVERY. 2. APPEAL TO THE BENCH OF BISHOPS ON COLONIAL SLAVERY, BY GRANVILLE SHARPE. 3. FRESH ATROCITIES IN BERBICE. 4. RECENT INTELLIGENCE FROM JAMAICA. 1. COLONIAL POLICY AT THE PRESENT CRISIS. 2. CONDUCT PURSUED TOWARDS MISSIONARIES. 5. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE-SOCIETY FOR REDEEMING SLAVES. 1. DR. BURGESS, THE PRESENT BISHOP OF SALISBURY, ON COLONIAL SLAVERY. In our last Number we adduced the testimony of many distinguished prelates of the Church of England against the evils of Slavery. There remains one living Prelate whom it would be unpardonable for us to omit; we mean the present Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burgess. In the year 1789, this learned and excellent person published a pamphlet, which we fear has been long out of print, and is only now to be found in such libraries as that of the British Museum, entitled, "Considera tions on the abolition of Slavery, and the Slave Trade, upon grounds o natural, religious, and political duty." A Liverpool Clergyman of the name of Harris, had published a pamphlet in defence of slavery, which he represented as a dispensation of Providence, a state of society recognised by the Gospel;--in which the reciprocal duties of masters and slaves are founded on the principle of both being servants of Christ, and are enforced by the Divine rules of Christian charity. The following are some of the indignant observations of the good Bishop, on witnessing such a prostitution of the sacred truths and obligations of religion: "Reciprocal duties!" he exclaims, "Reciprocal duties!-To have an adequate sense of the propriety of these terms, we must forget the humane provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as the liberal indulgence of Roman slavery, and think only of WEST INDIA SLAVERY! of unlimited, uncompensated, brutal slavery, and then judge what reciprocity there can be between absolute authority and absolute subjection; and how the Divine rule of Christian charity can be said to enforce the reciprocal duties of the West India slave and his master. Reciprocity is inconsistent with every degree of real slavery." "Slavery cannot be called one of the species of civil subordination. A slave is a non-entity in civil society." "Law and slavery are contradictory terms." The Bishop's treatise is one among many proofs that the Abolitionists from the first contemplated the ultimate extinction of slavery as the end of their labours. "Such oppression," says the Bishop, (meaning the state of slavery), "and such traffic" (meaning the slave trade), " must be swept away at one blow. Such horrid offences against God and nature can admit of no medium. Yet some of the more moderate apologists of slavery think that a medium may be adopted. They think that slavery ought not to be abolished, but modified and meliorated by good laws and regulations. It is well observed by Cicero, that 'incidunt multæ sæpe causæ quæ conturbent animos utilitatis specie, non cum hoc deliberetur, Relinquendane sit honestas propter utilitatis magnitudinem (nam hoc quidem improbum est,) sed illud, Possitne id quod utile videatur fieri non turpiter.' But it is impossible for slavery 'fieri non turpiter."" pp. 82, 83. The Bishop proceeds to observe, that "All the laws hitherto made, have produced little or no benefit to the slaves. But there are many reasons why it is very improbable that such provisions should produce any effectual benefit. The power which is exercised over the slaves, and the severe coercion necessary to keep an immense superiority of numbers in absolute obedience to a few, and restrain them from insurrection, are incompatible with justice or humanity, and are obnoxious to abuses which no legal regulations can counteract. The power which a West Indian master has over his slave, it is impossible for the generality of masters or managers not to abuse. It is too great to be intrusted in the hands of men subject to human passions and infirmities. The best principles and most generous natures are perverted by the influence of passion and habit." If these arguments of the Bishop be well founded, it follows, first, that the great mark at which every friend of humanity ought to aim, by all lawful expedients, is complete and irrevocable emancipation; secondly, that in the interim, as laws, when committed to the guardianship of the slave-holder, are merely waste paper, the Government and Legislature of this country should take the matter into their own hands, and shape their course to an ultimate extinction of an evil from which they cannot extract all the venom but by slaying the hydra itself; and thirdly, that too much weight should not be given to the representations of persons even of the "best principles and most generous natures," when "perverted by the influence of passion and habit," to apologize for, or wish to perpetuate, the enormities of this accursed system. The Bishop in reply to those who defend or connive at West India slavery as a "dispensation of Providence," and as, indirectly at least, sanctioned by the word of God, observes, "Many attacks," says his lordship, "have been made on the authority of Scripture; but nothing would more effectually subvert its authority than to prove that its injunctions are inconsistent with the common principles of benevolence, The poet Cowper seems to have entertained much the same opinion as the Bishop of Salisbury; for in one of his Letters, dated April, 1788, we find him saying "Laws will, I suppose, be enacted for the more humane treatment of the Negroes; but who shall see to the execution of them? The planters will not, and the Negroes cannot. In fact, we know that laws of this tendency have not been wanting, enacted even amongst themselves; but there has been always a want of prosecutors, or righteous judges, deficiencies which will not be very easily supplied. The newspapers have lately told us, that these merciful masters, have on this occasion, been occupied in passing ordinances, by which the lives and limbs of their slaves are to be secured from wanton cruelty hereafter. But who does not immediately detect the artifice, or can give them a moment's credit for any thing more than a design, by this show of lenity to avert the storm which they think hangs over them? On the whole, I fear there is reason to wish, for the honour of England, that the nuisance had never been troubled; lest we eventually make ourselves justly chargeable with the whole offence by not removing it. The enormity cannot be palliated: we can no longer plead that we were not aware of it, or that our attention was otherwise engaged; and shall be inexcusable, therefore, ourselves, if we leave the least part of it unredressed. Such arguments as Pharaoh might have used, to justify his destruction of the Israelites, substituting sugar for bricks, ('ye are idle; ye are idle,') may lie ready for our use also; but I think we can find no better." and inimical to the general rights of mankind. It would degrade the sanctity of Scripture; it would reverse all our ideas of God's paternal attributes, and all arguments for the Divine origin of the Christian religion drawn from its precepts of universal charity and benevolence." "That any custom so repugnant to the natural rights of mankind as the slave trade, or slavery the source and support of the slave trade, should be thought to be consonant to the principles of natural and revealed religion, is a paradox which it is difficult to reconcile with the reverence due to the records of our holy religion." His Lordship then proceeds to shew, 1st, That slavery and the slave trade are inconsistent with the principles of nature (in allusion to his opponent's argument), deducible from Scripture. 2d. That no conclusion can be drawn in favour of West India slavery or the African slave trade (which the Bishop always classes and brands together) from particular transactions recorded in Scripture; both because the trade in slaves bears no resemblance to the slavery and slave trade in question, and because transactions merely recorded in Scripture history are not sanctioned by the record. 3d, That no conclusion can be formed from Hebrew laws respecting West Indian Slavery, because the conditions are by no means analogous; and because, even if they were, laws neither introduce nor justify every custom which they regulate. 4th, That the clearest and fullest permission of slavery to the Jews under the Law of Moses does not make it allowable to Christians, because the new law has succeeded to the ritual and judicial ordinances of the old; and we cannot reason from one state of things to another when any great revolution has intervened in the progress of religion. 5th, That, however such permission might appear to make slavery in any degree allowable to the first Hebrew Christians under the Roman government, it does not by any means make it allowable under the free government of this country, because we cannot reason from one form of government to another. 6th, That whatever may be the commercial and national advantages of slavery, (which however the Bishop does not estimate very highly on the contrary, he strongly insists on its improvidence, and the vast superiority of free labour,) it ought not to be tolerated, because of the inadequacy of those advantages to their many bad effects and consequences. 7th, That slavery and the slave trade ought to be abolished on account of the good which would follow to religion, to mankind, and to ourselves. We have not space to condense the whole of the Bishop's arguments, but we shall present our readers with a few succinct notices. As for the atrocities of the African slave trade, or the cruelties of West India slavery, he says there is nothing in Scripture that is parallel to either; but he argues that "slavery itself (in every form) is inconsistent with the law of nature deducible from Scripture, and therefore with the will of God;" and that, therefore, “much more so are the cruelties of West India slavery, and the African slave trade." Slavery, he further remarks, "even in its mildest sense, considered as unlimited, involuntary, uncompensated subjection to the service of another, is a total annihilation of all natural rights." This forcible abduction of liberty, he contends, is inconsistent with the natural rights of society, as deducible from Scripture. In God's first commission to man he gave him dominion over the brute creation; but there is no expression by which Adam or any of his posterity could collect that they had a right of dominion over their own species. The extent of this primary charter, remarks the Bishop, cannot be more forcibly expressed than in the language of our great poet: O execrable son, so to aspire Above his brother! to himself assuming By his donation: but man over man To those advocates of slavery who would use in its favour the golden rule of doing as we would be done by, the Bishop in reply exclaims, "Detestable perversion... of the most benevolent of all precepts !" Yet there is one very obvious view, he adds, in which the precept applies to the case of slavery; "for as no person would wish to be reduced to slavery, or to continue so, no person whatever should reduce a fellow-creature to slavery or keep him in that condition." "The precept may enjoin the submission of the slave to his master, but it does not enjoin slavery: it neither makes the occasion nor justifies it. Submission is a virtue in a slave; but the exercise of this virtue neither justifies the making of slaves nor the keeping of them. Offences must come, and injustice will prevail; but woe be to them by whom the offences come! It should not be forgotten that, if the precept enjoins submission in the slave, it applies doubly to the master; for it enjoins humanity in the treatment of his slaves, AND CONDEMNS HIM FOR KEEPING THEM AT ALL.” That the slaves are in a happier condition, and "far better off than the British peasantry," is another old argument, which has of late been newly furbished; and the Bishop of Salisbury well replies to it, as well as to the absurd opinion, that where there is no positive physical cruelty, (and would there were nothing even of this!) there is nothing to complain of. "If no other circumstance could be proved," says the Bishop, "yet the mere privation of liberty, and compulsion to labour without compensation, is great cruelty and oppression. If no other fault could be alleged, the involuntary submission of so many thousands to a few individuals implies, beyond a doubt, the employment of means the most tyrannical and oppressive to secure such subjection." "The condition of West India slaves," he continues, "some of the apologists for slavery have endeavoured to recommend, by asserting that the slaves are happier than the poor of our own country. However inadvertently this opinion may have been admitted by many, it could have originated only from the possession of inordinate authority and insensibility to the blessings of a free country. Where the poor slaves are considered mere brutes of burden, it is no wonder that their happiness should be measured by the regular supply of mere animal subsistence. But the miseries of cold and want are light when compared with the miseries of a mind weighed down by irresistible oppression. The hardships of poverty are every day endured by thousands in this country for the sake of that liberty which the advocates of slavery think of so little value in their estimation of others' happiness, rather than relinquish their right to their own time, their own hovel, and their own scanty property, to become the pensioners of a parish. And yet an English poor-bouse has advantages of indulgence and protection which are incompatible with the most humane system of West India slavery. To place the two situations of the English poor and West India slaves in any degree of comparison, is a defamation of our laws, and an insult to the genius of our country." The Bishop goes on to point out that "the inconsistency between slavery and the slave trade, and the general principles of our law and constitution; between the permission of such usages and our high pretensions to civil liberty; appears to furnish arguments for the abolition of slavery, not less powerful on the one hand, than the injunctions of Scripture and the rights of nature on the other." "If slavery, however modified, is suffered to exist, British law cannot be in force. Why then attempt to modify what is in its very principle inhuman, unchristian, and inconsistent with British law, and the spirit of our constitution; and which, however its concomitant circumstances might be diminished, could never be rendered not inhuman, not unchristian, not unconstitutional? If justice to our nature, to our religion, and our country demand the sacrifice, why should an act of such accumulated duty be done by halves? Why not rather, by one generous effort of public virtue, cut off all occasion of inhumanity and oppression, with all |