any harsh or uncharitable censure of abuses which, though in a great measure discontinued here, are still tolerated in some of them with a demoralizing effect on the great body of the people. In this island, the cultivation of the garden or provision grounds of the negro on the sabbath is not required for his support, and it therefore is no blameable severity to enforce the laws which prohibit it. In the colonies alluded to, the necessity imposed on him of providing by extra labour for his maintenance, often compels him to work on the Sunday. But in this, and in every other case, in which the violation of the Lord's day is unavoidable, the guilt devolves on the master.

The Sunday market has been abolished by law in this island, though, in the excepting clauses of the prohibitory act, a licence is allowed for the sale of perishable articles, which, I am afraid, is open to great abuse. The duty of putting an end to the unchristian usage of marketing on the Lord's day, is now generally acknowledged throughout the British West Indies. The desire, however, still remains in some of the colonies, to compromise the duty by legalizing the partial breach of the sabbath, and authorizing by a specific enactment, public trafficking in the markets until ten or eleven o'clock. There is in this palliative of the evil something more injurious to religion and good morals, than the practice which existed before, of devoting the entire day to secular occupations. The offence, though connived at, and even sanctioned by custom, was, then, always regarded as an offence. It has now the solemn sanction of law. The statutes and ordinances of man are presumptuously arrayed against the positive and known command of God.

It has been urged in this colony-and possibly in other parts of the West Indies we may hear the same excuse— -that the master is unwilling to abridge the comforts of his slaves, by depriving them of the little gains which the privilege of a Sunday market affords them, or by forbidding the recreation of the Sunday revel or dance. There is something selfish in this boasted kindness. The master is favouring himself at the expense of God. He refuses to grant any portion of the time which is his own, while he gives away, with an ostentatious liberality, the time which is not his, but his Lord's. His own work is rigidly exacted, while the neglect of God's work is tolerated and sometimes encouraged on the day which He claims as his.' pp. 86-89.

Our readers will judge whether the improvement that has taken place in this respect, even in Barbados, one of the best regulated colonies, be of a satisfactory character. We pass on to the subject of the fourth lecture, the causes of the infrequency of 'marriage among the slaves.' Those which the Author adverts to are: 1. The indifference, and, in some cases, even the oppo'sition of the master to the marriage of his slaves,' and the 'ridicule with which the marriages of slaves are often treated by those who exercise authority over them, either direct or subor dinate. 2. The bad example which prevails in our colonies, 'by the licentious and unhallowed connexions which are openly formed between the superior and his dependent, -between the

white man and his black or coloured concubine.' 3. The opposition of the drivers and other influential negroes on the 'estates,' who are accustomed to regard a plurality of connexions as among the chief perquisites of office.' 4. The heathen ignorance in which the slave population are retained. 5. The want of legal encouragement to the marriage of slaves. Upon this last cause, Mr. Eliot remarks:

I attribute to this defect in our laws many of the hinderances which obstruct the discontinuance of their present licentiousness, and withhold them from the salutary restraints of the marriage bond. There is no legal distinction between the children of parents lawfully married, and those who are the offspring of an unhallowed and transient connexion. The parents themselves are in no way distinguished by superior respectability in the eyes of the public. They have none of the encouragements which exist among almost every other people, to induce a preference in favour of the marriage state. They are left without any security against a forcible separation by sale, or by the removal of the owners to a distant residence, or into another colony. Whether the men have one or more wives-for strange as it may appear, the term wife is in general use among them, whether they are constant in their attachments, or change with the caprice of the moment-whether they desert, or deny, or foster their offspring, is a matter of entire indifference as far as the laws of the land, or the influence of public opinion, affect them. Their habits, in every thing bearing on the moral decencies of life, are as little noticed as those of beings irrational and without responsibility.

"Marriage" (we learn from a high legal authority) "is a contract of natural law; in civil society it becomes a civil contract, regulated and prescribed by law, and endowed with civil consequences." believe I may say that, with very few exceptions, and these often of a restrictive + character, marriage is not regulated and prescribed by law in the case of the slave inhabitants of our West India colonies; nor am I aware that it is in any instance endowed with civil consequences. Being defective in what is justly considered essential to it as a civil contract, we cannot wonder that the slaves themselves regard it with indifference, and even prefer the degrading licentiousness in which they are allowed to revel at present, to a restraint which is attended with no obvious and practical good to themselves or to their children.' pp. 112-115.

Three other causes are adverted to; a supposed unwillingness on the part of the slaves to enter into an indissoluble contract, which, Mr. Eliot believes, has no existence; the remains of African prejudice in favour of polygamy; and, the serious dereliction of duty on the part of the clergy in the West Indies, in not having insisted on the duty of respecting the marriage bond.

By the law in Barbados, slave marriages are restricted to persons being the property of the same owner." In Antigua, those who are of free condition are not allowed to intermarry with slaves.

VOL. IX.-N.S.

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Although, by the law in Barbados, slave marriages are restricted to persons being the property of the same owner,' there is no law which secures those who, being the property of the same owner, have married, against being forcibly separated. Yet, one of the objections urged against compulsory manumission, is, that it would open the door to illicit concubinage! Is lawful marriage then, asks Mr. Eliot, common among the slaves in our colonies, or has it ever been so ?"

·

Is there any check from public opinion or public law, to open and notorious profligacy arising from connexions between slaves and white men? The circumstance of a freeman bestowing on a female slave the means of purchasing her manumission, is a strong presumption in favour of the permanency of his attachment, and of his securing the slave's well-being afterwards. The immorality, taking the worst possible view of the case, would not be greater than at present. p. 224. The plain and faithful admonition with which this lecture closes, does honour to the Preacher's integrity.

In the next lecture, Mr. Eliot adverts to a practice, as having prevailed, although he would hope that, in Barbados, it is now comparatively rare, which is immediately destructive of the domestic ties and relations; viz. the compulsory disunion of families by either public or private sale, the withdrawing of parents by violence from the natural care of their children, and the coerced and unauthorized separation (unauthorized with ' reference to the laws of God, not to the laws of man) of the husband from his acknowledged and attached wife. Let every Englishman hear this. Let the British peasant, who is told by the abettor of Colonial slavery, that his lot is far harder than that of the happy negro labourer, learn this condition of the felicity of the slave; that the laws of the colonies tolerate this shameful abuse, and that, under the shelter of those laws, a husband may have his wife forcibly taken from him, and sold to another master; a mother may have her child snatched from her for ever. Or should the wife or the child be sold to the proprietor of an adjacent estate, and the strength of affection lead either party to stray in search of the other, fearful is the penalty which awaits discovery. Not long ago, an advertisement appeared in a colonial newspaper,* offering a reward of ten dollars for the recovery of a runaway negro, and containing this clause :'He is supposed to be harboured by his wife.

Another distinguishing feature of the state of society in the Colonies, is adverted to in the following passage. It is often pleaded in palliation of the atrocious cases of cruelty that are brought to light, that they are mere exceptions of rare occurrence,

Antigua Register, May 29, 1832. Compare this advertisement with Deut. xxiii. 15.

and that even in this country, cases of barbarity and atrocious wickedness disgrace the columns of our daily newspapers. True.

In England, acts of cruelty are often perpetrated. It is the same in other parts of the world. But in England, and generally in civilized Europe, cruelty is punished by the law. The offender is dragged forth to public notice, and to public abhorrence. We must allow that it is not always thus in our West Indian settlements. There is an unworthy timidity in the merciful in exposing and in reprobating the offences of the unmerciful. Deeds of inhumanity are allowed to pass not only unpunished, but, from the veil which is studiously thrown over them, often even uncensured. The evil rests not with the individual case of oppression. The connivers at cruelty share in the guilt of it; and the guilt will inevitably draw down the displeasure of an avenging God.' p. 142.

In the Appendix, this subject is again explicitly adverted to. The Author states, that he would gladly have abstained from noticing it at all, could he have observed silence without participating in the guilt of connivance. He bears willing testimony to the kindness of many proprietors towards their dependants, but is 'forced to declare, that, at times, acts of cruelty are committed in the colonies, without either punishment or public censure 'falling on the offender."

'The excuse,' he adds, that the notice of these crimes will give a handle to those who oppose the colonial interests, is worse than frivolous. The real charge against the West Indian societies is, not that cruelties are committed among them, (for to this charge every society is more or less obnoxious,) but that the man who revels in violence and oppression, has no mark set upon him, and that he is allowed to vaunt himself in the land, without control and without reproach. I am aware of the extreme difficulty of bringing to justice the perpetrators of cruel deeds in the West Indies. The laws are in most cases defective in affording protection to the bondsman; and even where the laws might be enforced to check or punish an act of oppression, we have incurred the reproach, that the fear of becoming unpopular in the community deters many a person from prosecuting the offender, or from appearing as a voluntary witness against him. These things ought not to be. I am sure that I am a friend to our colonies in thus publicly noticing and reprobating the evil.' pp. 231, 232.

Another abuse slightly and incidentally adverted to, is the difficulty thrown in the way of the slave's procuring his own manumission. The apologists for slavery sometimes appeal to Old Testament precedents. Now one of the provisions of the Levitical law is, that in case of a person's selling himself into bondage, any that is nigh of kin to him of his family may redeem him, or, if he be able, he may redeem himself.' (Levit. xxv. 48, 49.) ‘It was no part of the religion of Christ,' Mr. Eliot remarks, to interfere with the existing institutions of society."

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Still, St. Paul has distinctly intimated his views of the subject, in forbidding the Christian freeman to become a slave, and in teaching the Christian slave to obtain, if possible, his own manumission. If thou mayst be free, use it rather.' 1 Cor. vii. 21. Connecting this passage with the one above cited from Leviticus, where freedom is unreservedly granted to the Jewish slave whenever he could purchase himself; and subjoining the great Christian obligation which requires us to do to another, that which we should wish to be done to ourselves under similar circumstances ;. the inference, the Preacher maintains, may fairly be deduced, "that the possessor of slaves is bound, on Christian principles, to 'grant, unhesitatingly, freedom to his dependents, whenever they or their friends are able to purchase it.' "The detention of any one in slavery who is willing and able to redeem himself, however it may be sanctioned by the usage of earlier times," is pronounced to be 'religiously and morally unjust. A hope expressed that few masters professsing the Christian faith would now refuse to admit this conclusion. But what say existing law and existing usage on the subject of manumission? This question receives an indirect answer from a note, in which Mr. Eliot combats the leading objections still urged against what is termed compulsory manumission. One of these hollow objections has. already been noticed, viz. that it would open the door to illicit 'concubinage; others equally futile are briefly referred to, which we need not mention; but the following remarks are highly important in their bearing upon general emancipation.

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It is assumed, that the slaves will become idle on obtaining their freedom; but this is mere assumption. The report of the privy council (1788) speaks, on the authority of witnesses from the British West India islands, of the "invincible repugnance of the free negroes to all sorts of labour." Messrs. Fuller, Long, and Chisholm declare, that "free negroes are never known to work for hire, and that they have all the vices of the slaves." Mr. Brathwaite states, that "if the slaves in Barbados were all offered their freedom on condition of working for themselves, not one tenth of them would accept it." Governor Parry reports, that "free negroes are utterly destitute of industry;" and the council of the island add, that "from their confirmed habits of idleness they are the pests of society."-Report, 1788, part 3.

Strange, that in the face of these declarations, proceeding from persons in high official trust and authority, the free blacks have, by their superior industry, driven the lower order of whites from almost every trade requiring skill and continued exertion. I believe that not one in twenty of the working shoemakers in Barbados is a white man. The working carpenters, masons, tailors, smiths, &c. are for the most part men of colour; and this at a time when a large white population are in the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness. In the application for casual charity the number of white persons soliciting relief is far greater than that of the free coloured. The free black and co-