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ment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks among them like something that is more noble and liberal. Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such, in our days, were the Poles; and such will ever be, all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In them, haughtiness combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.'*

The

"It would be degrading to the memory of that great man, who wrote and spoke on colonial subjects with a prophetic spirit, to compare his observations, founded on a deep knowledge of human nature, with the superficial and flippant remarks of the Edinburgh Reviewers. Whether the haughty spirit of the White inhabitants in the West Indies, may or may not submit to superior force, one thing is certain, that Great Britain cannot make the experiment, without forfeiting the confidence, and alienating the affections of that class of her subjects. British West India colonies labour under greater disadvantages than those of any other European power; for although exempted from direct taxation, the double monopoly to which they are subjected, of receiving all their supplies from, and shipping all their produce to the mother country, comprehends within itself every possible species of taxation, and renders the whole of their industry contributory, in an unexampled degree, to the increase of her commercial greatness and naval power. Their only compensation for this disadvantage, is, that they enjoy the blessings of a free Government; that they are admitted into a participation of the privileges and benefits of the British Constitution. Deprive them of these, and the tie that attaches them to the mother country will at once be broken; the charm that has secured their loyalty, under the most trying hardships, will at once be dissolved. They will brood, in sullen silence, over their lost rights; and meditate the means by which they may hereafter be regained.

"The Abbé Raynal has predicted, that the West India Islands will one day belong to America, on account of their natural dependence upon her for the great necessaries of life; and the accomplish

ment of this prediction is likely to be hastened, by the intemperate counsels of the African Institution. When the constitutional rights of the colonies were invaded, the Stamp Act was burnt as publicly in the British West India Islands, as in the American colonies, though the contest between the mother country and the latter, afterwards turned upon points in which the former had no concern; and nothing can be so likely to bring about an union between the remaining, and the revolted colonies of Great Britain, as a new dispute concerning legislative rights. The hostile spirit of America towards this country, and her ambition to become a great naval power, would induce her to watch the first favourable opportunity of supporting the West India colonies, in asserting that independence which she herself established; and to fan the embers of rising discontent among them into a flame, in or der to sever those valuable possessions from Great Britain, and unite them to her own Government.'

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We confess that the general aspect of the New World at this particular time, has no tendency to make us view some of these matters more easily than this highly intelligent person was able to do seven years ago. On the contrary, who can be blind to the fact, that the whole of that immense region is, at this moment, in a state of most alarming confusion? who has not had some fears that England may be called upon to arm herself in consequence of events not yet developed, nay, of influences not yet capable of being analysed?-And if she should be so called upon, who but a fanatic can be fool enough to doubt-who but a Whig can be base enough to pretend to doubtthat there are powers, ay, more than one, which, in seeking to derive advantage from the agitated state of feeling, that already has been excited in our colonies, and that may, unless a very different tone be taken in certain quarters, be pushed very easily to a degree of excitement as yet happily unknown, would do nothing but what abundant precedents have heretofore shewn them quite capable of doing, and that under circumstances by no means so favourable for their views, as are, or may soon enough be, exhibited? Who has not dreamt, at least, of the possibility of a North

* Burke's Works, 8vo, vol. iii. p. 354.

American alliance against Britain, purchased by the bribe of all others the most likely to captivate the imagination of those sagacious, not less than ambitious republicans? And who, supposing such a bargain to be really in posse, would voluntarily court the risk of contemplating it in esse and in opere? Some of the publications which the recent march of events has called forth from among the British colonists themselves, deserve, however, to be referred to for many things, besides the information they afford concerning the present state of feeling among our own fellow-subjects in that quarter of the world. In one point of view, therefore-we must admit, to be sure it is a very subordinate one-the agitators at home have done some good by their new outcries. They have compelled, so to speak, the production of the only thing that was wanting for their own destruction—a mass of really genuine and authentic facts, illustrative both of the actual condition of our own negroes now, and of the effects of which rash revolutionary experiments have actually been productive among the negro population, and upon the commercial prosperity of the great Island of St Domingo. It was only the culpable state of ignorance (for we must call it so) in which we had been suffered to remain by those who ought to have laboured in furnishing us with knowledge,-it was this alone that put in the power of the Clarksons, Wilberforces, and other wellmeaning dupes of Brougham and the East Indian free-traders, to excite that measure of public feeling, of which we all witnessed the unhappy effects during the last session of Parliament. Happily, there is no need for lamenting what is past and irrevocable -happily, no such excuse remains now. The English planters have vindicated themselves with a modesty that adorns their firmness-and they have shewn us, in their genuine views of Hayti, something very different indeed from the paradisaical creations of Mr Clarkson's Muse.

Into this wide field we cannot at present enter. We shall merely make two short extracts from two distinct works that have just appeared, in reference to the vaunted Utopia of revolutionized St Domingo,-And first, what says "the Official Letter from the Bahamas ?"

"It is absolute trifling with the people of Great Britain, and worse than trifling with the colonies, to persist thus in holding out the absurd idea, that negroes, when emancipated, (the writer means if emancipated in their present, or in anything like their present state,) would continue to employ themselves in the cultivation of West India produce upon wages. Does the experience of any one island in the West Indies justify it? Not one; let Mr Wilberforce say what he pleases about his disbanded soldiers and American deserters; or, to come still closer to the point, do the present situation of St Domingo, and the dreadful aspect of affairs in that abyss of anarchy, kept down only by arms, justify it? On the contrary, to raise a twentieth part of what once was the produce of that unfortunate island, the peasantry had to be reduced to a state of worse than military vassalage, infinitely more degrading, unjust, odious, sanguinary, and cruel, than Mr Wilberforce himself, even under the malignant influence of one of his worst West India nightmares, could possibly dream of finding in any portion of the western world. The cultivators of the soil in Hayti, we understand, are not, like our slaves or our soldiers and sailors, exposed to the horrors of the cat-o'-nine-tails. No, they are free-and therefore they are only sabred or shot when they fail to bring the expected quantity of produce into the quondam royal, but now presidential, exchequer.

Mr Wilberforce's allusion, indeed, to the present state of St Domingo, is most unfortunate for his cause; particularly with respect to the religious improvement likely to be the result of suddenly manumitting any large body of slaves. In that ill-fated island, our missionaries, reasoning possibly with Mr Wilberforce, calculated no doubt on a rich harvest of grace among negroes, now no longer restrained by the chains of bondage, from the means of religious instruction. Let the mission speak for itself. While, in nearly every other part of the West Indies, the missionaries boast of increasing success and brightening prospects, the modern St Domingo stands alone impregnable to the real truths of Christianity. On the 15th of January, 1821, the Rev. Mr Evariste, the missionary sent thither, writes thus:- Every door is shut against us, and we are deprived in every possible way of liberty to act either according to the Gospel or our own conscience, or the light of truth.' Again, This city is a burden to me, on account of the fearful and horrible things which I see; particularly the habitual

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and sinful violation of the Sabbath.' Again, We are like sheep exposed to the fury of the wolves.' Again, For me, I am considered by them as one deprived of reason, a fool, and enthusiast.' And again, towards the conclusion of the letter, The only thing that keeps me here is our dear society, which languishes like a tree planted by the side of a FLAMING FURNACE!'-(See the Methodist Missionary Report of 1821, p. xcIv.) The melancholy fact is, that St Domingo, once the garden, the Queen of the West Indies, is now inhabited, not exactly by savages, but by a race of beings, infinitely worse, degraded, in fact, beneath what they ever were before. The unsophisti

cated denizen of the African wilds is ennobled in comparison with the wretched degradation of his Haytian brethren; not merely relapsing into barbarism, but sinking fast under an odious combination of the darkness, ferocity, vices, and superstitions of all colours and all nations; unredeemed by the virtues of any. To this state of terrific desolation it is, that Mr Wilberforce and his friends are now finally labouring to reduce the whole of the British West Indies."

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Our other extract on this head shall be from a letter addressed to Lord Liverpool by a West Indian," (Mr S. P. Hurd.) It consists of a precis made from the Custom-house books of St Domingo.

"The island of Domingo, previously to the French revolution and the emancipation of the negro population, exported to France, in 353 ships, of from 800 to 1000 tons each, the under-mentioned pro

Quintals.

all ages and both sexes; 6500 persons of free condition; and between 3 and 400,000 slaves.

"In the year 1813, this once beautiful, rich, and happy colony was reduced to a miserable population, not exceeding 150,000. Its flourishing plantations, populous towns, and elegant residences, were fallen into one general mass of ruin. The soil produced barely sufficient to support its wretched inhabitants, under idleness and accumulating poverty. Instead of occupying in its trade 353 large vessels, the American merchants of the United States could barely obtain a return freight, for from 15 to 20 schooners and square-rigged vessels of about 180 tons each; and England sent about onethird of that number; and, in the room of growing 1,230,673 quintals of sugar, the inhabitants were then supplied with that article from Jamaica."

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We earnestly entreat such of our readers as really wish for complete and satisfactory information as to all these matters, to peruse without delay this "Official Letter" to Mr Chalmers: the 'Report of the Debate in the Council of Barbadoes on the receipt of Lord Bathurst's Letter:" and last, not least important, "Remarks on the Condition of the Slaves in Jamaica, by William Sells, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and many years practitioner in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica."* The number and obviously total want of connection and concert among the writers of these, and the other recent pamphlets, take away everything like suspicion from the strong, uniform, overwhelming, and unanswerable evidence which they 17,000 give, in regard to the rapid and deci1,500 sive improvement that has been going on in all our colonies, under the eye and through the exertions of the much calumniated planters, and their equally calumniated legislatures. The brief abstract in the Quarterly Review, as well as that given in our own last paper on this subject, will be found, on comparing them with these authentic documents of evidence, (for we can consider them in no other light,) to have stated the case throughout rather less favourably for the planter's management than the facts would have warranted.

1,239,673, which sold for L.1,900,000
459,350,
1,009,000

duce:

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18,080,

Cocoa,

5,790,

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650,000

300,000

7,000

2,000 40,000 160,033

L. 4,086,333

"This exportation arose from 385 sugar plantations for raw sugar, and 263 for clayed, or dried sugars; from 2587 plantations for indigo; 14,618,336 cotton plants; 92,893 coffee trees, and 757,000

Cocoa trees.

"At that period, the cattle of the colony amounted to 76,058 horses and mules, and 77,904 head of horned cattle. The labour occupied 33,000 white persons of

Throughout this discussion we have

* Published by Richardson, Cornhill, and Ridgeway, Piccadilly. VOL. XV. L

abstained from everything that could bear the least semblance of personal attack upon the individuals whose schemes we have been compelled to expose and denounce. Some other journals, and in particular, the Sunday paper JOHN BULL, have adopted a somewhat different course: and Mr Bull, we observe, has seen a prosecution commenced against him by Mr Zachary Macaulay, the great Solon, or perhaps he would rather have us style him, the great Moses of Sierra Leone. Of the facts of the case between John Bull and Mr Zachary Macaulay we know nothing. One thing, however, we do happen to know, and that is, that statements not very dissimilar, so far as we could observe, and certainly quite as strong, were made against Mr M. seven or eight years ago in certain pamphlets, to which a gentleman well known in the House of Commons put his name at the time when they were published. Now, we humbly think that if Mr Macaulay was resolved to prosecute, he ought to have attacked the first, the open, and the equal enemy-not the Sunday paper-but gentlemen will no doubt follow their own feelings in matters where they suppose, rightly or not, their personal honour to be concerned.

The Rulers of the African Institution, however, have sometimes had the fortune to stand in situations at least as undignified as Mr Bull can on the present occasion be exposed to: and we venture to refresh their memory, in case that faculty should be more inert than their imagination appears to be, with a short abstract of what occurred in regard to a certain Mr Hatchard, who, we observe, still continues to act as bookseller for the African Institution and its pamphleteers.

Among many other goodly matters, then, we find, in a Report made at a meeting of the African Institution in 1817, some allusions to what is designated as 66 the unfortunate and singular circumstance, of an innocent man, Mr Hatchard, the publisher of their 10th Report, having been convicted of a libel against the Aides-de-Camp of Sir James Leith, and the Courts of

*

Criminal Justice at Antigua." It is stated, "that the Directors, on being made acquainted with the proceedings instituted against Mr Hatchard, had come to certain Resolutions, and had addressed letters to their correspondents, in order to ascertain the truth or falsehood of the allegations contained in their 10th Report; but had obtained no satisfactory answer. The Directors then thought it expedient to acquaint Mr Hatchard of this, and recommended him to contradict the statement he had published, through every channel, and by every means in his power, and to advise with Counsel on the subject."

Mr Hatchard put in an affidavit in mitigation of punishment, in which he swore that "he had used all possible diligence to discover the author, but was unable so to do."-In what light this transaction was regarded by the Judge who tried the case, the following sentences of his speech will sufficiently shew:

"It is insinuated, that this originated in a letter from the West Indies. There is no affidavit that any such letter existed. That somebody is very highly criminal in this case, no one who has read the publication can at all doubt. That it has originated in wilful and wicked fabrications, no man alive can doubt. That it is defeating the purpose of justice, to prevent the information by which the wicked calumny might be traced up to the original author, is obvious.” *

This is what Mr Stephen in his speech at the Anniversary meeting of 1817, called "a singular and unfortunate case." The African Institution libelled the administration of criminal justice in Antigua in their tenth report, and their bookseller was púnished severely for the publication of their production: and this they call unfortunate. If Mr Hatchard was unfortunate, it is easy to see who ought to have stood between him and his misery; and if the punishment was a singular instance in Mr Hatchard's life, perhaps the offence was not quite so in the career of the "great and good men," (to use their own phrase,) who have so long employed him.

Trial of the King v. Hatchard, p. 122 & 133.

NOTE ON THE QUARTERLY REVIEWERS.

WE cannot allow the preceding article to pass through the without embracing the opportunity which it affords us of saying a single word in regard to the last number of the Quarterly Review. Our much esteemed correspondent has had occasion to bestow his energetic eulogy upon one particular paper in that number; but we cannot refuse ourselves, the gratification of speaking our mind as to the whole of it. We have no hesitation, then, in saying distinctly, that we consider this as the very best Number of the Quarterly Review that ever yet appeared; and the pleasure we have had in observing this, has certainly not been the less, in consequence of various circumstances of what we may call an external kind; more especially, of the rumours that have been of late so widely circulated, concerning the failing state of Mr Gifford's health, and the malevolent joy with which the writers of the Whig, Radical, and Infidel Journals, have been expatiating upon the supposed likelihood that the best days of the Quarterly would be at an end whenever that gentleman ceased to be its principal conductor. Earnestly do we hope that Mr Gifford's health and strength may endure much longer than these cowardly ruffians flatter themselves; but the fact is evident enough, that Mr Gifford has done, comparatively speaking, nothing about this number of the Quarterly-which, nevertheless, is, and will be universally admitted to be, more than equal, taken as a whole, to any of those which Mr Gifford ever wrote or superintended. It is the assurance which this gives us of a wide and increasing store of intellectual vigour, far above the chance of being impeded in its exertions by anything that can happen to any one person, however eminently gifted and distinguished-it is this assurance that has filled us with a proud pleasure—a pleasure not a bit the less, because we very well know we shall not obtain credit for really feeling it in certain quarters.

There is not, from the beginning to the end of this Number, one single article of a mediocre kind. Talent the most various, erudition the most various, are here displayed; but there is always just that talent and that erudition which the particular subject in hand ought to have engaged. The Review seems to have paid off a host of heavy worthies, whose lumbering virtue acted as a dead-weight upon the spring of intellect, both within the work and among its readers. Above all, there is displayed throughout (what our correspondent has observed in regard to the article on his own subject) a certain LIBERALITY of thought and feeling, which, as a general feature of this work, is certainly somewhat of a novelty. There is almost nothing of the old monastic leaven perceptible. The writers shew themselves to be learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, at least as much as heretofore; but they seem to have laid aside their caps and gowns, and written their respective contributions, not within the cold vaulted chambers of Cambridge and Oxford, but amidst the hum of St James's and the Park. In short, we feel that we are in the society of people of the world, and enjoy the talk of gentlemen, scholars, and Christians, with considerably the greater zest, because our eyes have not been awed by a long row of "fire-shovels" on the hall table, as we entered the house.

The first article, on " Pulpit Eloquence," for example, we pronounce to be, in spite of the theme, not the work of a clergyman. It is a very admirable paper, exhibiting a thorough acquaintance with the whole stream of our literature, a severe and scholarly taste, and the generosity, at the same time, and open candour of a man of genius, above being kept in intellectual leading-strings by any authorities, however grave and ve

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