being a decrease of 30,000 in 22 years! Had there been an increase of the colored population of Jamaica under freedom, in the same ratio in which those of the United States have increased under slavery, that island, in 1860, would have numbered about 640,000 souls, instead of having had a decrease of 30,000!

The total population of Jamaica, whites, blacks and mulattoes, at present, is 378,000,* of which, according to the above statistics, 350,000 are mulattoes and blacks. The cholera in Jamaica, as well as in the United States, was severe among the colored population; but their scattered condition in Jamaica, placing them beyond the care of the whites, and leaving them without proper medical attention, may have caused a greater proportional mortality among them, in that island, than occurred in the United States. This, however, was one of the consequences of freedom.

In turning to the other British islands, we find that Barbadoes, Antigua, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Tobago, Trinidad, Grenada, Nevis, Montserrat, St. Kitts, and the Virgin Islands, embrace an aggregate population of about 395,000, including whites, blacks, and mulattoes. The first six of these islands include nearly 21,400 whites, at present, but the number of the whites and free colored persons, and the number of slaves emancipated, in 1838, are not given; so that it is impossible to determine, with exactness, the extent of increase or decrease in their colored population. The last six of these islands seems to have afforded to Mr. Sewell-from whom the statistics are gathered-no means of determining their white population, either at present or before emancipation; nor has he given the number of free colored persons in them at the time of the abolition of slavery. One reason of the defect is, that, under freedom, many of the islands are careful to exclude all reference to color in the census returns.

By adding the present colored population of these islands 373,600-to the present number of the colored people in Jamaica

* Sewell, p. 177.

†Their white population stands thus, according to Mr. Sewell: Barbadoes, 15,824; Antigua, 2,172; St. Vincent, 1,500; St. Lucia, 958; Dominica, 850; Tobago, 160.

-350,000-the whole colored population of the British West India colonies, in 1860, is found to be 723,600. This, however, includes the whites in the last six islands enumerated, and emancipation has that advantage in these estimates.

The contrast between freedom and slavery, in its effects upon population, may be thus summed up:

723,600

Total colored population in 1860,....

Decrease of colored population under freedom,............. 56,400

Here we have the effects of emancipation upon the increase of population-resulting, in the aggregate, in causing a decrease in the population of the islands, during freedom, of more than 56,000 souls out of a population of 660,000, or more than eight per cent. of a loss in twenty-five years!

In reference to the production of the islands, and the economical failure of emancipation, especially in Jamaica, the late reports to Parliament fully sustain the assertions of Mr. Sewell, and corroborate the testimony we have collected from other sources. The report of the Governor, says the New York Independent, "gives a good account of the happiness of the population, so far as a mere animal life of independence is concerned, but holds out little encouragement to those who would hope that labor may be attracted to any system of combined enterprise, such as the growth of cotton, or of any produce in which joint-stock capital might be embarked. The four great staples of export are still sugar, rum, coffee, and pimento; but the quantities of sugar and coffee seem rather to diminish than increase. An export of sugar of about 30,000 tons, more or less, according to the nature of the seasons, is considered the best result that can be hoped for from the existing population. The obvious remedy is

considered to lie in efforts for obtaining contract laborers from India and elsewhere. In that manner the island may one day again become a valuable possession, and meanwhile it is gratifying to know that the negro population, although inefficient for co-operative purposes essential to raise a country to any commercial standing, are by no means retrograding to barbarism."*

From many other anti-slavery sources, from year to year, we have been assured that West India slavery had kept the negro population in the ignorance and degradation of their original barbarism. If the truth was then told, the Governor may safely say that the population is not now "retrograding;" and, if Mr. Sewell tells the truth, we cannot see how the great bulk of the people can sink to any lower depth of moral debasement than that in which he found them.

On the question of the economical failure of emancipation; there can no longer remain the shadow of a doubt upon the minds of candid men. It is admitted by the Governor of Jamaica; and his only hope of the ultimate recovery of the islands to a prosperous condition, is by substituting coolie labor for that of the negroes. We can give no more appropriate conclusion to this chapter, than to copy, from the London Times, a few paragraphs in relation to emancipation and its effects in the West Indies:

"There is no blinking the truth, and it must be spoken out loudly and energetically, despite the wild mockings of 'howling cant.' The freed West India slave will not till the soil for wages; the free son of the ex-slave is as obstinate as his sire. He will not cultivate lands which he has not bought for his own use. Yams, mangoes, and plantains; these satisfy his wants; he does not care for yours. Cotton, sugar, coffee, and tobacco-he cares but little for them. And what matters it to him that the Englishman has sunk his thousands and tens of thousands on mills, machinery, and plants, which now totter on the languishing estate, that for years has only returned beggary and debt? He eats his yams, and sniggers at 'buckra.'

"We know not why this should be, but it is so. The negro has been bought with a price-the price of English taxation and English toil. He has been redeemed from bondage by the sweat and travail of some

* New York Independent, September 19, 1861.

millions of hard-working Englishmen. Twenty millions of pounds sterling-one hundred millions of dollars—have been distilled from the brains and muscles of the free English laborer, of every degree, to fashion the West India negro into a free and independent laborer.' 'Free and independent' enough he has become, God knows; but laborer he is not; and, so far as we can see, never will be. He will sing hymns and quote texts; but honest, steady industry he not only detests, but despises. We wish heaven that some people in England-neither government people, nor parsons, nor clergymen, but some just-minded, honest-hearted, and clear-sighted men would go out to some of the islands, (say Jamaica, Dominica, or Antigua,) not for a month, or three months, but for a year-would watch the precious protegé of English philanthropy, the free negro, in his daily habits; would watch him as he lazily plants his little squatting; would see him as he proudly rejects agricultural domestic services, or accepts it only at wages ludicrously disproportionate to the value of his work. We wish, too, they would watch him, with a hide thicker than that of a hippopotamus, and a body to which fervid heat is a comfort rather than an annoyance, as he droningly lounges over the prescribed task on which the intrepid Englishman, uninured to the burning sun, consumes his impatient energy, and too often sacrifices his life. We wish they would go out and view the negro in all the blazonry of his idleness, his pride, his ingratitude, contemptuously sneering at the industry of that race which made him free, and then come home, and teach the memorable lesson of their experience to the fanatics who have perverted him into what he is."

Taking, then, the whole testimony on the subject-civil, social, moral, physical, economical,—and it is fully proved that West India emancipation, in its expected results, is a miserable failure.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

SECTION I.-EARLY LEGISLATION ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.

1. IN 1787, THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH · IN NORTH AMERICA, while yet acting under the title of the SYNOD OF NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA, announced its views on slavery. Six years later, 1793, when the General Assembly had been fully organized, the action of 1787 was re-affirmed and made the rule of the Church upon the subject. It was as follows:

"The Creator of the world having made of one flesh all the children of men, it becomes them, as members of the same family, to consult and promote each others' happiness. It is more especially the duty of those who maintain the rights of humanity, and who acknowledge and teach the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power to extend the blessings of equal freedom to every part of the human race.' (1)

"From a full conviction of these truths, and sensible that the rights of human nature are too well understood to admit of debate, overtured, that the Synod of New York and Philadelphia recommend, in the warmest terms, to every member of their body, and to all the churches and families under their care, to do every thing in their power, consistent with the rights of civil society, to promote the abolition of slavery, and the instruction of negroes, whether bond or free.' (2)

"The Synod, taking into consideration the overture concerning slavery transmitted by the committee of Overtures last Saturday, came to the following judgment:

"The Synod of New York and Philadelphia do highly approve of the general principles in favor of universal liberty that prevail in America, and the interest which many of the States have taken in