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and are in every respect more comfortable and independent. They form more steady connections, pay more attention to their families in the way of keeping them clean, and dressing them neatly; and, in short, have acquired more taste and desire for domestic enjoyments.

They are now perfectly free.

Now they are manumised and provided with an annuity for life; and magistrates are appointed a council of protection, to attend to their complaints.

Now the whole evidence and conviction must be transmitted to the governor: and, unless in cases of rebellion, the sentence cannot be carried into execution without his warrant.

There is not now more than one, and I think not even that proportion.

From the increase of the free population, the coasting vessels are now more commonly manned with free men.

This description of work is now performed principally by free people of colour.

It is now becoming common, and many of them are careful to preserve the sanctity of the institution.

The number of free persons

in Jamaica, in 1787, was estimated at only 10,000.

It is now 35,000, and rapidly encreasing by manumissions as well as births.

These few particulars will convey but a very inadequate idea of the progress made by the negroes, and how superior a people they are in every respect to what they were, when the slave trade was abolished in 1807. But if, as Mr. Stephen observes, every mitigation of slavery is a step towards freedom,' this brief statement may be sufficient to shew, that progress is making towards it; and those who have patience to peruse the following sheets, will better comprehend what the extent of that progress is, and what the actual condition of the labourers in the colonies.

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PRELIMINARY

India Colonies."

CHAPTER. Of the necessity and im

portance of describing the state in question.' p. 1.

In the task I have undertaken, it is not my object to defend slavery: far be it from me to say, that those who established it in our colonies did right, or that being established there, it ought to be perpetual. But the question, when or how slavery may be abolished in any particular country or colony where it exists, is one of no small difficulty, however easy it may seem to many benevolent enthusiasts; and before making an attempt which might produce effects very different from those we intended, it would at least be proper to enquire, first, whether those we would set free, are yet capable of conducting themselves as freemen, or of preserving their freedom,-in short, whether, all circumstances considered, they would be benefited by it; and secondly, whether we can effect

B

their freedom with a due regard to justice, which would be equally violated by our depriving a man of his slaves, as by depriving him of any other species of property which the laws of the land have sanctioned the acquirement of Mr. Stephen himself, though so hostile to the slavery in our colonies, that he seems to think it ought to be abolished at any sacrifice of life and property to the colonists, and even, it would seem, at the expense of some indemnity, to be made them by the mother country, is yet sufficiently moderate on the abstract question.*

The ardent lovers of freedom,' says he, 'will, I hope, pardon me. To no British palate has that rich produce of our soil a higher flavour than to my own. But yet I am not prepared to say, that in no other country, and under no supposable circumstances, ought one man to be bound to serve another for life; and to be liable to corporal punishment by the master. for withholding that service. Let me not be misunderstood, however, as holding the affirmative. I simply mean to decline the discussion of the question, as perhaps, of considerable difficulty; but if not, at least, as one of a speculative kind, which nothing in the arguments I mean to offer, will oblige me to decide.' p. 7.

Such are Mr. Stephen's ideas on this subject, on which I forbear to enlarge, as my business is not to defend slavery, or to discuss the abstract question, but to correct errors and misrepresenta

* Let parliament enter on the work, says he, and the advocates of the slaves will object to none of the necessary means. I do not except indemnity to their masters, as far as it is justly due. Pref. p. 42.

But as he afterwards labours to invalidate, or at least, to create doubts about the right of the colonists to their slaves, it is very questionable if he thinks any indemnity "justly due.”

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