surely be put to death." And if Revelation has not abolished slavery positively in direct terms, it has done so in effect, commanding every man to love his neighbour as himself.

The injustice, then, of the West Indian system is manifest from this, that man, by right, can have no property in man: but the whole West Indian system is founded on a property in man; hence, with them, wrong must be right, and right wrong. The order of nature is perpetually reversed-the rule of eternal justice for ever violated. What is praised in Britain is execrated in the West Indies ;what is here the object of reward, is there the subject of punishment. The very laws themselves are the worst part of the system, being a violation of all law. There the innocent become the victims, and the criminals are the judges and the legislators. Tyrants alone talk of liberty and independence, and those who have the hearts of Tell and of Bruce, must either live branded as slaves, or be massacred like dogs. In Britain all presumptions are in favour of liberty,-in the West Indies of slavery. Whoever touches the soil of Britain is free; whatever Black, without the required certificates, touches the soil of the West Indian Islands, is, according to the proper form, seized, put into "the cage," advertised ten days, and, "if no owner or claimant appear," is sold to pay the expenses; so that, if he has no master upon his arrival, he is sure by this admirable process to find one sooner or later. pp. 13-15.

Mr. Douglas proceeds to answer the inquiry, For whose profit does this miniature of hell exist? Not, according to their own shewing, for that of the planters. As far back as the twenty years from 1772 to 1792, the Committee of the Jamaica Assembly reported, that there had been in the course of that time 177 estates sold for debt, and 55 thrown up; while, at the end of that period, 92 estates remained in the hands of creditors. Their present bankrupt condition is, then, of too long standing to be ascribed to anti-slavery agitation with the slightest shadow of truth. Not for the profit of the Bristol merchants. The merchant, for the most part, prefers the risk of losing his money, to the greater risk of becoming the proprietor of the mortgaged plantation.

If, then, continues Mr. Douglas, neither the planters nor the merchants are gainers by the colonial system, is Britain a gainer? If squandering life and money be a gain to her,-if adding to her taxes, and providing graves for her soldiers,-if becoming a party to wrongs which are crying to Heaven for vengeance, be gain to Britain, then has she found in the West Indies an inexhaustible treasure. If it be for her advantage to uphold a body of men ready to plead for every abuse, so that their own enormities may remain untouched, such a corps she has had during many a sitting of Parliament. It is to be hoped, under a reformed Parliament, the case is different; but it was formerly calculated that the West India interest alone supplied fiftysix members of the House of Commons, the well-disciplined phalanx,

VOL. IX.-N.S.

X X

the constant advocates, of corruption, ready to support any ministry that would connive at their violation of all laws divine and human.

While things continued in this state, little could be hoped from the British Legislature; but now that public opinion is allowed to bear upon the election of members of Parliament-now that the public voice possesses the means of commanding attention-we may hope that a speedy end will be put to this most absurd and cruel waste of British blood and treasure in the West Indies.

No folly could be equal to the folly of Britain, to say nothing of inhumanity, if the present ruinous system is continued even during the course of another year;-it is the supineness of the British nation alone that can permit to slavery a longer existence, and can suffer her own burdens to be increased, in order to enable the planters to continue to extort a prolongation of their present ruinous misgovernment, out of the aggravated wrongs of the wretched Africans.

The most extravagant individuals find their vices the most costly of their luxuries, and nations are most impoverished by their political crimes. The West Indies have proved one great source of debt and expenditure to Britain. We may depend upon it, that nothing but the bounties and protections granted year after year upon West Indian produce, could have enabled the slave-holder to compete with the labour of free men in the East Indies, and on the African coasts. It is out of the pockets of this nation, heavily as we are taxed, and grievously as we complain of our burdens, that the money comes, which enables the West Indian planter, with his monopoly and bounties, to resist the natural effects of that universal law which dooms to unproductiveness the labour of slaves, and curses with barrenness, the soil, however fertile, where the labourer is deprived of his just share of the produce. Had slave-labour in the West Indies been left to the untroubled laws of nature, slavery would by this time have died a natural death throughout the British colonies. But Britain intercepts this benevolent provision of the Author of Nature for the emancipation of slaves; and, by bounties and taxes, wrung out of the productive labour of free men, prevents the unproductiveness of compulsory labour from telling to its full extent in favour of the slaves; while two-elevenths of her whole military force go to the maintenance of that unjust and inhuman tyranny, usurped by a handful of white men over thousands of their fellow creatures.

By an elaborate and moderate computation, the military and naval expenses of maintaining the West India Islands in a state of slavery, especially if the Mauritius and the Cape are added, cannot fall short of two millions sterling annually. The duties and drawbacks on sugar have been estimated, with equal care, at one million two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and, if we add the loss that we suffer from excluding the productions of the richest countries of the east, the total amount of Britain's loss cannot possibly be much overstated at four millions a-year. When England is so anxious about economy, that even the reduction of a few thousands a-year is esteemed a matter of great moment, and members are forced to make all sorts of excuses to their constituents for not voting in favour of any measure which would produce a saving of even an inconsiderable sum, shall four millions

a-year be quietly suffered to be wasted, and wasted upon a system alike destructive of British property and British life?

The loss of money, however, be it ever so great, cannot compare with the cruel waste of life occasioned by sending our soldiers to those pestilential regions, whose very atmosphere is, in many cases, death to the uninured whites, and certain loss of health to all. In 1826, of the eighty-three regiments then in the British service, twenty were placed in the West Indies, being only three less than the number of those which were then stationed in distracted Ireland, (excluding the reserve corps,) and only six less than are in Ireland at this present eventful crisis. While twenty regiments were required for the West Indies, nine were deemed sufficient for Britain. If we inquire, against what enemy so large a force was accumulated, we find the West Indies threatened with no danger from without; their only danger was from within. The British fleet had possession of the sea; Britain was at peace with the world; but slavery could not be maintained without the presence of a force, which might have spread the influence of Britain over the farthest east, but which, without a battle or an enemy, was wasting away under the influence of a West Indian cli

mate.

'In June 1829, when Parliament ordered the returns to be laid before them of the mortality of our army in the West Indies, those returns were withheld; and Parliament acquiesced in the non-production of them, on the implied understanding that they contained details too horrible to meet the public eye.

The then Secretary of War, Sir Henry Hardinge, was reported to have said, that the inspection of these returns would be too horrifying for the public." What, then, are we to think of the iron nerves of those rulers who can calmly surrender their fellow-citizens to evils too horrible to be contemplated?

season!

Will the Secretary of War exult in having nerves to execute that, which the body of the nation are not supposed to have nerves to bear the recital of? But has Britain much cause to rejoice in rulers who possess so extraordinary a pre-eminence above their fellow citizens, in the intrepidity with which they can contemplate human life unprofitably squandered away? Anxiously, however, as they were concealed, a part of those horrors have transpired. The then Secretary of War is understood to have allowed that, out of three regiments, consisting of 2700 men, sent to one of the islands, one-third had perished in one If the choice had been offered to those unfortunate regiments to decline the duty, on the condition of having every third man of them shot upon the spot, they would have been gainers, had they preferred the horrible alternative. They would have been spared the previous pangs of wasting sickness, they would have died in their own land, and in the sight of their friends, bedewed with their tears, and buried by their hands. Nor let us suppose that the loss of these regiments was limited to a third. Death did not cease his work the following years, though his havock may be most dreadful on the first. Who more might have perished, or what feeble remnants of these devoted regiments might have returned to their country, is known only to the Secretary of War, and those of his colleagues who

have, nerves to face the greatness of the disaster, No doubt, if the present colonial system were abolished, we might still be obliged to, keep up some military force in the West Indies, but a much less might suffice, and the regiments might mainly consist of blacks, upon whom the climate does not produce such baleful effects, and who might relieve the white troops of the most wasting part of their duty; but, while slavery exists, so large a white force is absolutely necessary to maintain the system of compulsory labour and the lash.

The planters, indeed, in their rage against our legislature, for the very moderate restrictions it has attempted from time to time to impose upon their cruelties, talk loudly of asserting their independence. How capable they are of doing so, is abundantly evident from the fact, that when, upon an alarm of insurrection, they flew to arms, their bullets were found not to have been adapted to the bore of their guns; and, upon another occasion, they were forced to entreat a British vessel accidentally lying off the coast, to come near to the shore, that the terror of her cannon might awe into obedience the slaves, whom they had it no in their power to reduce to submission by their own efforts. These are the men who threaten to shake off the British yoke, and are enraged at the mention of any interference between them and their property! When they talk of rising against Britain over their sangaree, no wonder their slaves talk of rising against them. Without the arm of power which Britain has stretched over them, it stands to reason that a handful of white men could not have restrained thousands of blacks from asserting the natural rights of humanity; and, but for her ill-judged bounties and protections, they must long since have thrown up their plantations in despair. There are not, two thousand sugar planters, and they receive one million two hundred thousand pounds of British money, to enable them to set the laws both of nature and humanity at defiance. These magnificent paupers, by the help of Britain, can at once evade the benevolent provisions of Nature, and blaspheme the hand that feeds them; for a part of their pensions are allotted to a secret, fund, whieh rewards the hired invective, calumny, and falsehood, of the advocates of slavery in Britain, pp. 17-24.

We will not offend our readers by offering any apology for the length of these citations. Should the language be thought by any person too strong, Mr. Douglas is able to answer for himself. We must transcribe one more paragraph from this part of the address.

We pray for immediate abolition, because gradual emancipation is now ont of the question. The planters themselves have solved the difficulty; they have left us no alternative between immediate emancipation, or certain insurrection. Gradual, means step by step, but the planters will not take the first step towards emancipating the Negroes.

Education and religion are the preparatory measures which haye long been pointed out as the safest and surest mode of fitting the slaves for the blessing of freedom. Education, however, (except teaching

them to repeat the Church Catechism by rote), the planters deny to their slaves, and the teachers of religion they every where persecute or forcibly expel. The planters are, indeed, preparing a gradual abolition of their own, but it is one not to our British tastes. They are gradually abolishing slavery, because they are gradually exterminating the slaves. They have proclaimed but one liberty for them, and that is, to the death. The grave has been the only door of emancipation opened to these wretched beings by their masters, and, it has opened its mouth without measure. The time for gradual emancipation is past; to attempt any such process now, would be only to irritate both the planters and the slaves, and hasten the dreaded crisis of insurrection. It is safer to grant all than to grant a part; to make the slave completely free, than to give him merely such a portion of freedom, as should make him more impatient of the remaining restrictions.' p. 29.

The second part of the address includes a beautiful argument for the Sabbath, in its twofold character of a religious duty and a civil privilege:

The greatest privilege which the majority of our nation possess ;a privilege without which all other privileges would be vain ;-for, at this moment, it is the great barrier against the degradation of the race; a reserve in spite of themselves, of the liberty of the community, which, if left unbefriended by the Legislature, pressed as they are by the approach of famine, and beset by every form of misery, they would be too apt to barter away; though they would not obtain for it even the bribe that wrought upon Esau, an additional mess of pottage; since the more labour that is brought into the market, the harder are the conditions on which it will be purchased..

It is from the want of attending to this distinction, that the Sabbath is both a religious duty and a civil privilege, that most of the objections against Sabbath protection proceed. As far as it is a religious duty, it must be enforced by the. Pulpit and not by the Laws. Religion is a voluntary and, reasonable service; men cannot be compelled by human enactments to give their hearts unto God, and to live to the great ends of their being; all that can be done, is to propose right motives for this voluntary surrender of their homage to the King of Kings. When the State interferes in matters of religion, its interposition is both awkward and ineffectual. In such matters, we neither desire nor require its aid. But the Sabbath is a civil privilege, and so far is the proper object of state protection. pp. 41, 42.

To Mr. Douglas's remarks on Church Reform, we shall advert in our next Number, in noticing a few of the pamphlets that have accumulated on our table since we last adverted to this prolific subject.