tion which every friend to humanity must contemplate with unmixed satisfaction, the complete enfranchisement of the Negroes in all cases where it can be brought about with security to life and property,— the most effectual preparation for which important change is, to instruct the Negroes in the principles of Christianity, and to encourage them in the observance of its duties.

"At present the regulations, necessary for this end, have not assumed that form in which it would be expedient to present them to the public;-the importance of the questions under consideration, render it advisable to obtain the best opinions upon the subject, both from practical men, and others whose attention has long been directed with a benevolent anxiety to secure the emancipation of the Negroes. It will be sufficient at this time to observe, that they are dictated by an anxious desire to effect every practical improvement in their civil condition, as well as to encourage the formation of virtuous habits.

"The provisions, which may thus be made for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, it is conceived, will not be liable to the charge of precipitation, while it is to be hoped they will be found effectual to the end in view,-it being intended that they should operate in the way of reward for good conduct and industry; and it may be fairly presumed, that habits thus engendered will prove a sufficient security against the abuse of freedom when once obtained.

"The society are willing to believe that the property entrusted to them, when thus employed, may be converted into an instrument of the greatest good, as affording an opportunity of exhibiting to the public, upon a limited scale, and without endangering the existing relations of society, an example how far the system of compulsory labour may be exchanged for that which prevails in European countries, where every branch of industry is carried to its utmost extent, under the powerful encouragement of perfect freedom; they will be guided in the discharge of their duty as trustees of the Codrington estates, by a steady regard to these considerations, and they look with confidence to the Divine blessing upon their honest endeavours."

Now, on reading this passage, most cordially do we rejoice that the auspicious words," complete enfranchisement" and "perfect freedom," have at length appeared in the society's documents: their very admission, though clogged in the unhappy manner which we are about to point out, is a hopeful indication. In the days of Bishop Porteus all idea of enfranchisement was utterly rejected, as well as every measure that might eventuallyconduce to it. Nay, when, so recently as some four years ago, the Christian Observer first invited the notice of the society to its Codrington

estates, we were told, again and again, in public and in private, that the society wished to Christianize its slaves, but that no suggestion would for one moment be listened to that pointed towards their "enfranchisement." So far, indeed, from it being admitted or suspected that any thing was wrong on the Codrington estates, we were informed on high authority that they were an admirable model of a WestIndian Christian village; nor could we, after many private solicitations, induce the members of the society to investigate the subject, so that we were constrained in truth and honesty at length to notice it in print: since which period it has undergone ample investigation, particularly by the Anti-Slavery Reporter, whose statements, though accused of being severe, we must say owed all their severity to the appalling truths which they disclose.

We have alluded to these points, partly in reply to the animadversions which have been cast upon ourselves and others, as if we had wantonly drawn odium upon the society by unnecessary public expositions; whereas such was the peculiar nature of the case; such the general ignorance of the great majority of the members of the society, of what was passing on their slavecultured estates, or even that they held such estates; such the conscious innocence, not to say displeasure, with which the alleged facts, now so amply admitted, were denied, that no way remained open to arouse their attention, but a public and repeated exhibition of the opprobrious circumstances of the case.

But a more pleasing reason for alluding to the past history of the question is to exhibit with due honour the present wishes and intentions of the society. In the growing, enlightened, and Christian state of feeling among humane and religious persons on the anti-slavery question, the passages which we have quoted from the Report before us, will justly appear liable to serious objection: but comparatively they are full of hope; for if in three or four years so much has been done, if the subject has begun to awaken public attention and interest, if the enormous evils of the past system are now freely admitted, if all former palliations are discovered to have been inefficient, and the society has at length publicly avowed its conviction that "complete enfranchisement" is "a consummation which every friend of humanity must contemplate with unmixed satisfaction," we feel assured that nothing is wanting but a still fuller understanding of the case to carry on to perfection what is now honestly and anxiously begun.

We therefore proceed to our remarks upon the statements which we have quoted, and which, we regret to say, are as vague as any of which we have had to complain in former documents of the society. And, by the way, we are at a loss to discover who is responsible for them; for

the Report in which they appear is not signed by the president or secretary, or stated to have emanated from a representative committee, or to have been adopted at a public annual meeting of the society. We should be very unwilling to call some of these remarks the statements of the society; both because we have inquired of various members, who never heard of the Report till it was printed, and some of whom might probably have urged objections, had it been read in the usual manner of the reports of charitable institutions at a public meeting of the subscribers, and put to the vote in the regular form; and because the writer has so interwoven his own sentiments with the official statement of the society's intention of forming a plan for the enfranchisement of its slaves, that he has given to the measure quite a different aspect to that which we think it must have been meant to wear by the best friends of the society, more especially those who have most at heart the welfare of the enslaved population. It is as if the society's secretary, being directed to communicate to the public a measure of grace and bounty-or rather ought we to say of common justice and Christian duty, -had consulted a West-Indian attorney as to the manner in which he should clog the communication with sentiments the most ungracious and exceptionable.

But let us proceed to the document. It begins as follows:-"The accounts transmitted by the chaplain shew the progressive improvement of the Negroes in religious and moral conduct, and prove that the measures adopted last year, with a view to the encouragement of marriages, have not been without a beneficial influence." Is it possible the public, or the friends of the society, can be satisfied with this vague statement, from which no one fact can be grasped, except the wish of the writer to put the best construction upon the matter? "The accounts transmitted," he says, "by the chaplain." What accounts? Where are they? They may be in the secretary's desk, but they are not in the Report. Why, after all the complaints so justly made of the vague, irresponsible way in which the writer of the society's Reports has, from year to year, given his own comments on the Codrington affairs, instead of the facts of the case, did he not boldly publish these accounts transmitted by the chaplain ? In other instances he gives the accounts themselves, as well as merely his inferences from them: why, then, be so parsimonious in this particular instance? We have more than a hundred closely-printed pages of minute memoranda, from the bishops and clergy of North America, besides a copious synopsis of all their stations, their missionaries, the population, male and female, baptisms, marriages, burials, communicants, schools, and number of scholars, distinguishing

boys and girls: all which tables, though important, scarcely any person thinks of looking at; while, from the Codrington property, where every eye is fixed, and the public ask for facts, simple, hard, dry facts, the anonymous reporter locks up the chaplain's letters, and gives us his own comment, that all is well, and hopeful, and progressive. But this he had done often and often before: all was well, he told us year after year, when marriage was never thought of, and the cart-whip was the real, though strongly denied, incentive to labour; and the communicants were admitted to the Lord's Supper, living in open licentiousness and concubinage. The confidence, therefore, of the public, and of the members of the society, in his judgment or impartiality as a reporter, has been so long and grievously weakened, that more will be required than his comment, however well meant and honest; and the least that will satisfy any welljudging subscriber to the institution is, the production of "the accounts transmitted by the chaplain," authenticated as ungarbled, and with whatever of disappointment or drawback they may be accompanied. The friends of the society are honest and in earnest in providing a remedy for the evils that exist, whether at Codrington or elsewhere; and they can have no desire to have any part of their transactions concealed. Or even if the full production of the chaplain's accounts, instead of the reporter's gloss on them, were thought not desirable, the subscribers might at least have been favoured with the statistics contained in them. They might have had, as in other instances, the usual "notitia" of "population, baptisms, marriages, burials, communicants, and scholars." But not one syllable of this kind is afforded; the reporter's inference is all that is given, and even that is so worded as to mean little or nothing. The chaplain's accounts, it is alleged, shew the progressive improvement of the Negroes, but whether they shew that it is great, or next to nothing, is not stated; and of the measures mentioned as adopted last year, with a view to the encouragement of marriage, all that is asserted is, that "they have not been without a beneficial influence,"a vague generality, which conveys no idea, and means nothing. If they have not been without a beneficial influence, why not state the measure of that influence? If it amounted to any thing really tangible or capable of being embodied, why not report it?

But this is not the whole of the ambiguity of this brief sentence. The accounts of the chaplain, it is said, prove that "the measures adopted last year, with a view to the encouragement of marriages, have not been without a beneficial influence." But what were those measures? The last Report only told us (see the passage in our Number for last March, p. 187),

that the society had suggested to their attorney to encourage those "who continue to live strictly in the connexion thus formed; some superior advantages, either in their habitations or their clothing;" and that they had written to the Bishop of Barbadoes, to consult with the attorney on the subject, and to co-operate with him "even, if it should be found necessary, at considerable pecuniary sacrifice." But what measures his lordship contrived with the attorney, or what was done in consequence, the subscribers are not informed. The reporter thinks it enough to tell us, that, whatever they were, they were not without beneficial influence. But the members wish to know what they were, and what was their influence. The facts and figures at least could be detailed.

Having thus alluded to last year's Report, and the subject of marriage, we cannot but again express our astonishment at the views of the society's agents on this important point. Can it be necessary to offer pecuniary bribes to persons to be married? Must there not be something radically wrong in the whole administration of the society's Barbadoes concerns, to render this a point of such difficult acquisition? Is any Moravian, or Methodist missionary in the habit of admitting persons living in promiscuous licentiousness to the Lord's Supper? Yet the society's chaplain gravely palliated the offence; and the writer of the society's own Report, even so recently as twelve months since, catching the trans-atlantic infection, says, "It is not surprising to find that some of the criminal indulgences and habits of the Black population still continue to resist the power and force of every admonition of the minister, whether given in public or renewed in his private conversations; and remain as a proof that they are not yet fully sensible of their Christian obligations." It is not indeed, we admit, surprising that sin and imperfection are found even in the most favoured spots; but of such "criminal indulgences and habits" as the reporter alludes to, it is surprising that they should have been so long permitted on the estates of a religious and missionary institution, after more than a century of occupation, and with every facility for their suppression. Not surprising why, every part of the statement is surprising and astounding; and, most of all, is it surprising that the society's secretary, or the writer of its Report, sees nothing surprising in the matter. Every other person was surprised; so much so, that when we first stated the fact it was treated as an incredible calumny. We appeal to every right reverend and clerical friend of the society, whether he was not horrified at the announcement that the society's slaves, after all that successive Reports had stated to have been effected for their moral and religious wel

fare, were living in a state of brutal licentiousness, forgetting even what they had learned by the common light of nature in their own pagan land. Yet the writer of the Report softens the matter down with the mild and extenuating admission, that these "criminal indulgences "remain as a proof that they are not yet fully sensible of their Christian obligations." Not yet! When then will they be? More than a century has been already tried in the experiment. But it was not the matter of the slaves not "being yet fully sensible of their Christian obligations" that the objectors to the society's management had animadverted upon; it was not the absence of this sublime scale of attainment that was pointed out; but the absence of common decency; nay, a retrogradation of character since their contact with a Christian community; for even savages do not of necessity live like brute beasts. The Report-writer adroitly uses the qualifications, “ yet ” and “ fully ;” as if they had been on the right road, and much had been already done, though something remained imperfect; whereas the facts of the case shew that this palliation was not deserved: they were on the wrong road; and the only manly, honourable, and Christian course was to confess the fault, and to amend it, instead of these awkward and unsatisfactory apologies. As to what is said of "the force and power of the minister's admonitions in publie and renewed in his private conversations," we can only reply, that the fruits do not bear any evidence of the labour alleged to have been bestowed in their culture. We do not mean to blame the society's chaplains we are quite willing to take for granted that they have been as laborious as the reporter describes; but then why did they not do their duty in honestly telling the society that their labours were in vain, and originating those inquiries which have now been forced upon the board from extrinsic quarters? Either the society's agents in Barbadoes have kept their employers at home in gross ignorance, or the writer of the society's Reports has for years kept back from the subscribers the information which was familiar to himself; so familiar, indeed, that it ceased to create in him any surprise. The truth, we fear, is, that while the subscribers at home were in earnest in propagating Christianity, the lay agents abroad seem to have thought of little but cultivating sugar; the society's human cattle being treated and described by them as "stock," and working, like other WestIndian stock, under the lash, with little difference, except that they were working upon the property of a religious and charitable institution, and experienced a somewhat milder treatment than the slaves of indigent or cruel owners.

We should not have touched upon the above statement in the Report of 1828

1829 (for a further account of which our readers may refer to some just and valuable remarks in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 56, appended to our last January Number), if the Report now before us, of 1829-1830, had not appeared to us to partake of the same unsatisfactory character. This we shall shew to be the case, in proceeding to notice what is said on the subject of the enfranchisement of the slaves; respecting which, though we rejoice that the question has been thought worthy of solemn consideration, we deeply lament to say, that the hope held out in the Report has utterly disappointed our just expectations. Let us hear the writer:

"Other steps, however, of a more direct character are now under consideration for the promotion of the same object (namely, encouraging marriage), having a tendency also to that consummation which every friend to humanity must contemplate with unmixed satisfaction, the complete enfranchisement of the Negroes in all cases where it can be brought about with security to life and property; the most effectual preparation for which important change is, to instruct the Negroes in the principles of Christianity, and to encourage them in the observance of its duties."

Now, the whole of this statement, whatever may be the intended measures of the leaders of the society, is most mournfully unsatisfactory. In the first place, the object proposed by enfranchisement, as here stated, is merely to promote marriage! a new bribe for what, with right management, needed no bribe at all. The mere absence of marriage is not the great stain. It is that wretched state of brutal debasement of which this is but one of the indications, that the society should seek to counteract; and this is not to be effected by bribes upon marriage. Suppose that in an English village the population had been grievously neglected; that their landlords lived on the other side of the Atlantic, and were obliged to consign them to middle men; that they had been made beasts of burden, working all day and, during part of the year, a portion of the night, in gangs under the cart-whip; that they had not been allowed (such was some years ago the case on the Codrington estates) to learn to read the word of God, "because," as the society's agent said, "it would take up too much time; " that, even now, they were not permitted to attend the reading-school after nine years of age; and that, thus degraded, there was a large number of illegitimate births among them ;-what should we say, if, to prevent this evil, an effect flowing from the immoral state of the population, the proposed remedy were, to offer every married couple five hundred a-year from the parish funds? Yet this is very similar, to what the society is doing-and with CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 347.

and

"

the best intention-in proposing "superior advantages,' "habitations,' "clothing," "considerable pecuniary sacrifice," and ultimate "enfranchisement," as a bonus upon marriage. The measure is most unwise it may lead, probably, to a crop of marriages; but of what avail is this? The evil lies far deeper; the absence of marriage is but one link in the chain; nor will the promise of a dowry, to stimulate to conjugal unions, fit or unfit, promote the graces or virtues of the Christian character. The missionaries of other societies have not found such costly boons necessary to cause their people to live in the common decencies of even savage life. We may add, however, that marriage was not likely to be held in much estimation, where it was only to give birth to a race of captives, to live and die under the iron yoke of slavery.

But not only is the object aimed at by enfranchisement merely an incidental benefit, and not by any means the sole or primary blessing of that "consummation which every friend to humanity must contemplate with unmixed satisfaction;" but the hoped-for enfranchisement dwindles down into a mere "tendency;" and even this tendency is hedged in with restrictions which, we fear, will render it in most instances an unattainable boon. The proposed regulations are not yet before the public; and the current report, that the basis of them is to give to married persons one day in the week on which to labour for themselves, with liberty to purchase with their savings another and another, till they are free, may not be true. We therefore offer no remark upon conjectural details; but we feel bound to offer a few remarks upon the restrictions laid down by the writer of the Report, and which, we must say, are either unjust or unnecessary. First, the favoured person must be married; secondly, he must have the "preparation" of being a Christian in principle and practice; thirdly, his enfranchisement must be "brought about with security to life;" fourthly, with "security to property;" fifthly," without endangering the existing relations of society;" and, lastly, his liberation is not to originate in measures bona fide leading to that wished for consummation, but only having "a tendency how remote a tendency is not said-to promote it. Let us examine these preliminary conditions.

I. Marriage.--Unless the reporter has mistaken the views of the society, "the promotion of marriage " is the chief, if not the exclusive object, of the measure. This would indicate that none but married persons, or persons about to be married, were allowed to be candidates for this "tendency to enfranchisement. But surely the apparent intimation in the Report must be wrong; for what connexion has the marriage state with the right to liberty? Is the unborn babe to be born a 4 X

slave? is the child to be educated as a slave? are the young men and women to be initiated in all the vices of slavery; and then, when old enough to be married, to start in the race for freedom? If any person should suggest to the society a plan so absurd and futile, it would be quite clear that he either did not understand the subject, or wished virtually to frustrate the great object-emancipation. In no part of the known world has marriage been made a passport to freedom. If any class of persons were to be selected in preference to others, where all have a full right to their liberty, being retained in bonds for no offence, and only by the power of the strongest, the child, the infant, the unborn babe, would be the right persons to begin with; they might then be educated for freedom; but to restrict freedom to married persons, would be adding absurdity to injustice; the absurdity of releasing those who have no claim above their fellows, but one wholly fanciful, to the injustice of keeping others in bondage who have that best of all claims, the gift of God, forcibly wrested from them by the hands of man. And after all, as the boon is only a "tendency," it would not be very likely, even under favourable circumstances, that the married pair would attain freedom in time to render their children born in wedlock free. But we are convinced that this cannot be the intended plan of the society, however necessarily it may appear to flow from the words of the Report. Such a professed boon would be in most cases a mockery.

mere

The writer of the society's Report ought to have been the rather aware of the incongruity of making marriage the qualification for a "tendency" to enfranchisement, as the Anti-Slavery Reporter (No. 48), in its unanswered and unanswerable reply to the British Critic on the subject of the Codrington estates, had discussed this very point, as well as many others con nected with the present argument; and among them that extraordinary notion urged by the society's chaplain and attorney, and applauded by the British Critic in excuse for the neglect of marriage on the society's estates, that Mr. Clarke and Mr. Pinder did not think it right to encourage matrimony till the slaves had learned like good Christians, what are the obligations of marriage, and had resolved to observe them; as if even heathens did not, and might not form conjugal unions; and as if it were not better that the most ignorant slaves should live in marriage than in lewdness. There was, however, no excuse for their not having been taught those obligations long ago; but the first neglect in not teaching them ought not to be pleaded as a palliation for a second neglect, in allowing gross vice among them, under the plea that they were too unenlightened to be married.

II. Another restriction apparently intended to be laid down in the Reportwe say apparently, for the whole passage is singularly vague-is, that there should be the "preparation" of Christian principles and Christian practice; for, says the Report," the most effectual preparation for which change is to instruct the Negroes in the principles of Christianity, and to encourage them in the observance of its duties." But why should this be of necessity a pre-requisite? May not this even operate as a bounty upon hypocrisy ; and bring the slaves to the holy communion as a pre-requisite to civil benefits? What is the profession of Christian principles worth under the force of such a temptation? And who is to certify their "preparation"? Is it to depend upon the society's attorney? or would the society delegate so serious a trust even to their chaplain? The man and woman may be married, and live honestly, and yet the chaplain may not think them "prepared" by Christian doctrine and precept to be the owners of their own flesh and blood, even for one single day in the week. Besides, judging by past events, when will these poor unhappy persons become thus "prepared?" Themselves or their fathers, many of them, have been on the society's estates for more than a century, even the more recent for many years (for the society has not of late bought any new slaves); and yet, born, baptized, and brought up on these favoured estates, they are still in the wretched and immoral condition which has been so often described. What hope, then, is there of their "complete enfranchisement," if, besides all the other contingencies, this is to be added that they shall have been virtuously and godly educated; the neglect of which, by the chaplain, or the difficulty of which by any regulations which may be made by the attorney, is to vitiate their title to ultimate liberty. The whole, indeed, of this alleged preparation proceeds upon a false principle, as if no man had a right to his own body, who could not stand a chaplain's examination, and was not armed with a colonial attor ney's certificate. We are far from meaning to overlook the importance of distinguishing what is right and virtuous by suitable rewards; but the test here laid down is no just criterion of a man's right to liberty. Our readers may refer on this point, with edification, to the Anti-Slavery Reporter, before mentioned (No. 48), in reply to the arguments of a paper in the Christian Remembrancer, in which "Christian character" was laid down as the "qualification for the boon" of civil liberty; from which it would result that all but Christians ought to continue slaves, slavery being the penalty of refusing to embrace the Gospel. "We fear," says the AntiSlavery Reporter," that many Barbadian Whites, as well as Blacks, would have to