Desertion and

vagrancy.

cution, and this often in cases when the law of England would consign him to transportation or to the public executioner.

'SECONDLY: He is treated as an offender against society, for acts which amount only to violations of his private duties as a slave.' p. 287.

This broad and general charge rests wholly on the punishment of desertion; and desertion, we are told, is not an offence against society! If Mr. Stephen had himself had an opportunity of acquiring a little practical knowledge of what he thinks he is capable of teaching others,—if he had had his poultry-house robbed, his sheep carried off, and his provision-fields destroyed by wandering vagabonds, it is not unlikely he would have discovered that desertion is a sufficiently grievous injury to society, independently of the mere loss of labour to the master.

In a subsequent page he acknowledges that desertions may be of dangerous consequences to the public safety, but this seems only for the purpose of aggravating the charge.

It may perhaps be alleged, that these violations of the private duties of a slave are not punished by the law as such, but rather as offences dangerous to the public safety of the Islands. Some of the meliorating acts have speciously recited such views, as apologies for their severity against runaways, or wandering slaves; and I admit that apprehensions of public danger may in some islands, as in Jamaica, where maroonage in the mountains was of a troublesome extent, have been among the true motives; but that the loss sustained by the

owners, in the privation of their property in the fugitives, or through the suspension of their labours, was the leading consideration with an assembly of slave masters, cannot well be doubted; and might clearly be discovered so to have been, from a particular examination of the provisions of these runaway laws. To what other principle, for instance, can we ascribe the severity, still adhered to, of punishing with death a departure from the island? As far as the public safety is concerned, the migration of the runaway from the colony is a deliverance from, rather than aggravation of, the dangers arising from his desertion.' p. 291.

And, he might have added, that, but for this cruel and impolitic punishment, the deserter would have been able to spend a few weeks or months occasionally in St. Domingo.

In ordinary cases of desertion, masters are always satisfied with the power of punishment they have in their own hands, without incurring the expence and trouble of going into a court of law. When it has been found impossible to keep a wandering vagabond of this kind at home, and it has become an absolute tax upon the master to be constantly sending people into the woods after him; besides, as is most commonly the case, having to pay for the depredation he has committed; then, but not till then, he is taken before a court, and may be committed to the workhouse for life, or transported, as the case shall seem to require, when established by proper evidence, and upon the oath of his master, that he has been found altogether incorrigible. The latter punishment is inflicted only on very bad characters, such as are

Desertion and going off the island.

thieves as well as deserters. When a slave is thus condemned, although a healthy young man in the prime of life, the compensation to his master cannot exceed fifty pounds currency, about thirty-five pounds sterling; of course, it is a great sacrifice, and never submitted to but in a case altogether incorrigible, and where example is absolutely necessary.

A slave going off, or attempting, or conspiring to go off the island, by the law of Jamaica may be punished with death; upon which Mr. S. thus expresses himself:

Now let it be shewn that human oppression and cruelty have, in any parts of the known world, except in these Christian colonies, punished desertion, though beyond the territory, with death, except when to a public enemy. * Such also is the equality and justice of these last and best fruits of the best colonial legislation, that while the servile accessory to this offence is punishable with death, and the free coloured accessory with transportation, the white accessory's punishment is limited to a fine of three hundred pounds currency, and imprisonment not exceeding twelve months.' p. 289.

In a preceding page our author takes notice of a Roman law, by which, if the master was murdered in his own house, all the slaves resident therein at the time were liable to be put to death;

* An English soldier who, even in time of peace, shall be convicted of having deserted the service, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as shall ⚫ by a court-martial be inflicted.'—Art. of War, sect. vi. a. 1.

and mentions, that, on the assassination of Pedanius Secundus by one of his own slaves, this law was actually put in force against four hundred persons! But in the usual spirit of his work, palliating the severity of the slave laws of every other country and age, and aggravating that of the British colonies, he adds: But the law though thus once executed, was probably 'made in terrorem only.' p. 284. Such a surmise with regard to this law of Jamaica (although he does not say that it has been even 'once' executed), of course never could present itself to Mr. Stephen, although it can obviously have no other object, or effect any other purpose, but in terrorem.' If a slave has gone off the island, it signifies little to him what punishment the law denounces against him, when beyond its reach; and as to attempting to go off, it is manifest there can scarcely ever be proof of this, until he is outside of a harbour making the attempt, and when there is little chance of being detained. That many slaves do go off, is true; nor can this be prevented in an island where there are so many free people of colour, and where the police laws are so little attended to. These laws require that a slave leaving home, or permitted to find employment for himself, as they often are by persons who own only a few (paying a stated sum weekly or monthly to their masters), must have a ticket to shew; and it is falsely maintained in England,

that every free negro found without testimonials of freedom, is forthwith apprehended and sold into slavery: but the truth is that a black man who calls himself free, going on board a ship in any port of Jamaica to seek employment as a labourer to assist in taking on board the cargo, is engaged as such without any questions being asked, much less any testimonials of freedom demanded. It is true some precaution is used in employing blacks to go away with the vessel as seamen or stewards; but the master of a ship ready to sail, if at a loss for hands (as not unfrequently happens), will not ask documentary proof' of freedom: it is enough for him, that the person is reputed free in the port.

Under this provision of the slave code, so triumphantly selected to prove oppression and cruelty, I have never seen - never read nor heard of a conviction against principal or accessory, notwithstanding Mr. Stephen's belief and assurance, that in practice the laws are not likely to be more humane than in letter;' and notwithstanding that thirst for blood which he must suppose exists among the colonists, when he infers that the words in their acts of Assembly- such other ⚫ punishment as the said justices shall think proper to inflict,' are intended covertly to confer a right to take away life:'-' although with the • usual address of the ostensible law-makers, the ex

press mention of death is omitted.' p. 288.

What