strained to accomplish their great object-the Abolition of Slavery. If there was any truth in philosophy; if they were to place confidence in the sacred Word of God himself it was impossible to believe that such a system could continue to exist. It was never given by God to man, to hold his fellow-man in Slavery. He had early embarked in this cause, and he pledged himself never to retire from it until the objects they had in view should be attained. Every thing short of a total Abolition of Slavery, he considered as unsatisfactory, and ending only in disappointment and discontent. Almighty God, in his wisdom, never gave it to frail man to adopt a course of iniquity, and then to stop short and say, so far will I go and no farther; the evil, if not altogether rooted out, must go on increasing, and producing still added misery and distress. The learned Doctor, after a splendid and well merited eulogium upon the worthy Chairman, proceeded to point out Mr. F. Buxton as the most fit and proper person to tread in his steps, and present their Petition in the House of Commons; in the House of Lords, he conceived, they could not intrust their Petition to any more zealous and undeviating friend than His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. The supporters of the Abolition of Slavery took their stand upon the eternal principles of truth and justice, and it would be next to blasphemy to doubt of their success. The supporters of the Question in Parliament, would use their best exertions-they only sought the aid of the people; so supported, they would fight the battle, and, please God, would achieve the victory. The learned gentleman concluded by moving the fourth Resolution.

Mr. Cropper, in seconding the Resolution, pointed out, in strong and forcible terms, the great advantage which free labour had over the work performed by Slaves, and in support of his argument alluded to different cases in the East and West Indies, and North Carolina.

A Motion of thanks to the Chairman was then put, and carried unanimously, when

MR. WILBERFORCE rose and said, I will not detain you long at this late hour. I shall simply say that I have endeavoured to do the best I could I hope all of you will do the same, with spirit and resolution. How long shall this abominable system continue? We are answerable to God and our country for its prolongation, and are bound to call out the sense of the country, were it only for the sake of the Planters themselves. The slaves know they have rights; they have had reason to hope for the restoration of them-the cup of freedom has been held to their lips, and has been dashed down again before they could taste it. That there be no more of this cruel trifling with their feelings-let Parliament itself enact laws for their emancipation. The same objections were made to the abolition of the Slave Trade that are now urged against the emancipation of slaves; yet they who urged them then, afterwards expressed their approbation of that measure. Let us do our duty, and Parliament will do theirs, and universal satisfaction and happiness will be the result.

This, and all other publications of the Society, may be had at their office 18, Aldermanhury; or at Messrs. Hatchards, 187, Piccadilly, and Arch's, Cornhill. They may also be procured through any bookseller, or at the depots of the AntiSlavery Society throughout the kingdom.

No. 9.

ANTI-SLAVERY

MONTHLY REPORTER.

The "ANTI-SLAVERY MONTHLY REPORTER" will be ready for delivery on the last day of every month. Copies will be forwarded, at the request of any AntiSlavery Society, at the rate of four shillings per hundred. All persons wishing to receive a regular supply are requested to make application to the Secretary, at the Society's office, No. 18, Aldermanbury, and mention the conveyance by which they may be most conveniently sent.

JAMAICA.

WE beg to call the attention of our readers to the following extract from the Speech of the Duke of MANCHESTER, the Governor of Jamaica, delivered on occasion of the prorogation of the Legislative Assembly of that Island, on the 21st of December last.

(EXTRACT.)

"Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly,

"Another year has-been allowed to pass away without any effectual measure having been adopted for the improvement of the condition of the Slaves. It does not become me to anticipate what the result may be of the great disappointment His Majesty's Government will experience, when they learn that the reiterated representations which have been made to you, to do what your own interest calls for as much as a due regard for those who look up to you for protection and relief, have totally failed. In obeying the instructions which I have received, I earnestly pressed upon your consideration the necessity of doing something, if not to disarm your enemies, still to satisfy friends, and, more than all, to convince Parliament that the urgent representations of His Majesty's Government had not been entirely disregarded."

The same speech might be addressed, with equal propriety, to every Legislative Assembly in the West India Colonies. It is highly important, at the present moment, as showing how vain are the expectations of those friends of the Negro race, who look for effectual co-operation from assemblies of men who are themselves holders of Slaves, and who are the representatives of a privileged class, brought up, and living under the influence of West India Slavery. For our own part, we must ay, that we are not at all disappointed by this result of the experiment which has been again made of the spirit and conduct of these assemblies. Such a result was foretold in the House of Commons, when the task of devising and executing measures calculated to give effect to the memorable resolutions adopted on the motion of Mr. Canning, was committed to the Colonial Legislatures. Those resolutions acknowledged the Slaves, in the British Colonies, to be fellow subjects of the

honourable men who occupy the benches of St. Stephen's Chapel. They admitted the principle, that these Slaves ought to participate in the civil rights and privileges enjoyed by other classes of His Majesty's subjects. This was strange language for the ears of white men in the West Indies, who have been habituated from infancy to regard their Slaves-not as fellow subjects--not as persons, but as chattels, things to be branded with a mark as their property, to be bought and sold at their pleasure, and to be driven like cattle, with a cart-whip, to uncompensated labour. Our slaves, our fellow subjects! Rights and privileges for our chattels! Surely the Right Honourable Secretary is beside himself. Surely he has never breathed in the West Indies!

We are not sure, however, that, but for the awful delay which it has caused in the work of Colonial reform, the course of again making trial of the disposition of the Colonists to carry into effect the recorded wishes of Parliament, may not, upon the whole, be attended with advantage. He now knows from experience, that the Colonists are spoiled children, ready to insult and malign the generous country which has too long forborne to restrain their petulance. The reception which they have given to the recommendations of His Majesty, framed in accordance with the resolutions above referred to, will enable him and his colleagues to come down to Parliament for counsel, under very advantageous circumstances. He can now say, that notwithstanding the forbearance and lenity exercised towards the Colonial assemblies, "contumacious resistance" has been made by them to the recorded wishes of Parliament*, and he can recommend, without hesitation, "the determined and persevering enforcement" of measures for meliorating the condition of the Slave population, and for extinguishing slavery in the Colonies.

The British public appear to have foreseen that an application for counsel would be made to their representatives by His Majesty's Ministers, and they are pressing forward, in all parts of the Kingdom, with Resolutions and Petitions to the two Houses of Parliament, in which they express their determination to support the servants of the Crown, in the execution of the arduous and important work which has been committed to them. That the work in which they are engaged is arduous as well as important, will be felt by all who consider that the principles recognized in Mr. Canning's resolutions are strenuously opposed, not only by the Colonial Legislatures, but by that very numerous and opulent, and closely confederated body of West India proprietors, who have promulgated to the British nation, and to the world, an uncompromising assertion of right to the persons of their Slaves. These proprietors, with their agents, and consignees and mortgagees, form a very considerable component part of the legislature of this country, and cannot be succesfully encountered unless the ministers of the Crown be powerfully and promptly supported by the voice of the British people.

Let, then, the British people, high and low, rich and poor, who are not infected by West India interests, and West India connections, combine their efforts in the great cause of justice and humanity: let them stand forth, in Petitions to the two Houses of Parliament, as the

See Speech of Mr. Canning in the House of Commons, on the 15th May, 1823.

avowed friends and advocates of their wretched fellow subjects, the Slaves in the Colonies, who are not permitted to speak for themselves -who have no tongues but their bleeding wounds to plead their cause. Let the British people acquit themselves manfully of an awful duty which they owe to God, the author of all the blessings which they enjoy, as Christians and as Britons. Let them especially declare their unwillingness any longer to uphold, by bounties and protecting duties, that system of Slavery which they abhor as cruel and unjust. Let the British people do this; and let them withhold their votes, at the approaching general election, from those candidates who will not unequivocally promise to promote the mitigation and extinction of Colonial Slavery by parliamentary enactments. And let them, moreover, discourage the consumption of West India produce, and require from those tradesmen with whom they deal, to be furnished, as far as possible, with the produce of the labour of free men. Let them do this;

and the system of Slavery in the Colonies, which is the curse and the bane of their country, must and will be done away. It cannot subsist without artificial and very expensive support, administered to it gratuitously out of the pockets of the poor, as well as the rich of the United Kingdom. By giving such support to a system of Slavery, and Heathenism--for no attempt has yet been made to reclaim the great mass of the Slave population from the state of heathenish darkness in which they were born and have lived-the people of England are sinning against God, and against human nature. They are frustrating the purpose of Him who would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. They are keeping on a level with brutes those whom the great Creator made of one blood with themselves, and who are capable of participating in all the enjoyments of intellectual and immortal beings.

SAMPLES OF JAMAICA JURISPRUDENCE.

"Why should that wrong be tolerated in the West Indies, for which a man would be hanged in England?"-C. J. Fox.

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR.

As the exposure of abuses in a free country is usually the first step taken to secure their reformation, I shall be particularly obliged by your inserting the following extracts from some Jamaica newspapers of re

cent date:

“Public Advertiser, Kingston, Jamaica, April 22d, 1825

"Sentence.-For Manslaughter. The prisoner was put to the dock, and by his Counsel, Mr. Recorder, pleaded his clergy. His Honor then passed sentence:- You were indicted for the wilful murder of a female slave, but the jury only found you guilty of manslaughter. It appeared in evidence, that you were amusing yourself by discharging a loaded gun through the window of your dwelling-house; after some time, this gun was reloaded by one of your companions, and you proposed firing it over an assemblage of negroes; he declined, when YOU

POINTED OUT A NEGRO OF YOUR OWN PROPERTY, AND PROPOSED TO FIRE AT HIM, he again declined; you then renewed your proposal to fire it over the crowd, and upon his refusing, you seized the gun, and he had hardly time to utter an exclamation of surprise, when you discharged the gun; the result was, that this female slave, who was sitting in the crowd, was shot, and the melancholy event was soon announced to you by the cries and lamentations of her mother. By your HEEDLESS CONDUCT, you have hurried a fellow creature out of existence; you have bereft a mother of a child, and you have affixed a stain upon your own character, which it will require a long life of prudence and humanity to obliterate. The humane jury who tried you, accompanied their verdict with a recommendation to mercy. We will give that recommendation its due weight, and not inflict the full extent of punishment upon you; we hope, however, that the punishment which we shall inflict will act as a warning to others, and make a due impression on yourself.' The prisoner was then sentenced to TWELVE MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT!!!”

Such is the estimate given by Jamaica jurisprudence of the guilt of murdering a fellow creature, and that too in a case of the most aggravating character-" A DAUGHTER SHOT IN THE PRESENCE OF HER MOTHER," whose cries and lamentations were the expressive voice employed by suffering nature to proclaim to her oppressor the extent of her own bereavement, and of his crime. To what a depth of degradation must not that man be sunk, who, without any kind or degree of provocation, openly invites another to take away the life of an unoffending fellow creature, and subsequently himself undertakes the public perpetration of it. Does not every circumstance in this tragical affair loudly proclaim, that Slavery does deeply degrade those exposed to its baneful influence; that it is a system, which, depressing one class to the abject condition of a brute—of a chattel—of a saleable commodity, and promoting the unrighteous exaltation of the other class—corrupts justice at the very source-perverts the good order of society, opens the door to every degree of despotism and cruelty, and occasionally leads to this dreadful consummation of it? Can we not also

reasonably infer, that if the most heinous crime is thus committed for mere wantonness-that when interest prompts or provocation excites— all the catalogue of minor woes will be inflicted with the most unsparing hand? If their sufferings are not regarded in the first instance, what claim to consideration are they likely to have in those which follow?

I will now give the substance of two other sentences passed at the same time, and recorded in the same paper as the preceding. The first was for shooting a slave, who was severely injured; but, as the wound did not prove fatal, the Court deemed six months' imprisonment α commensurate punishment” !!!!!

In the next case, it appeared that a poor abandoned black girl, who had, for the worst of purposes, been invited into the prisoner's house by his own brother, was so cruelly beat by the prisoner, that two medical men declared the girl's life had been in great danger. For this gross outrage, the Court felt it their duty to award an adequate punishment; the prisoner was then sentenced to one month's imprisonment!!!

With these accounts of the punishments awarded to the Whites for