LII. Rules so inrolled may be removed or amended.

LIII. Rules when confirmed and inrolled shall be of the same validity as if enacted by Parliament.

LIV. Rules so enrolled shall be observed by the Commissioners in making their Awards.

LV. Persons interested in any Slaves manumitted by this Act may prefer Claims before the Commissioners, who are to make rules for the Conduct of all Proceedings under the Commission.

LVI. Commissioners to adjudicate on all Claims preferred to them. Appeal may be made against adjudication. His Majesty in Council may make Rules for the Regulation of such Appeals. In adverse Claims, any Claimant interested in the Adjudication may undertake its defence.

And be it further enacted, That the said Commissioners shall proceed in the Manner to be prescribed by any such general Rules as last aforesaid, to inquire into and adjudicate upon any such Claims as may be so preferred to them, and shall upon each such Claim make their Adjudication and Award in such Manner and Form as shall be prescribed by any such last-mentioned general Rules; and if any Person interested in, or affected by, any such Adjudication or Award shall be dissatisfied therewith, it shall be lawful for such Person to appeal therefrom to His Majesty in Council, and Notice of any such Appeal shall be served upon the said Commissioners, who shall thereupon undertake the Defence thereof; and it shall be competent to His Majesty in Council to make and establish all such Rules and Regulations as to his Majesty shall seem meet, respecting the time and manner of preferring and proceeding upon such appeals, and respecting the Course to be observed in defending the same, which Rules shall be so framed as to promote, as far as may be consistent with Justice, all practicable Economy and Dispatch in the proceedings upon the decision thereof; and in cases in which any Two or more Persons shall have preferred before the said Commissioners adverse or opposing Claims, and in which any or either of such Persons shall be interested to sustain the adjudications or award of such Commissioners thereupon, then and in every such case it shall be lawful for any Person or Persons so interested, to undertake the defence of any such appeal in lieu and instead of the said Commissioners.

LVII. His Majesty in Council may confirm or disallow, or alter or remit, Adjudications appealed against.

LVIII. Failing any Appeal, the Award of the Commissioners final,

LIX. And be it further enacted, That the Lord High Treasurer, or the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, or any Three or more of them, for the time being, may order and direct to be issued and paid out of the said Sum of Twenty Millions of Pounds Sterling any Sum or Sums of Money for the Payment of Salaries to Commissioners, Officers, Clerks, and other Persons acting in relation to such Compensation in the Execution of this Act, and for discharging such incidental Expences as shall necessarily attend the same, in such manner as the Lord High Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or any Three or more of them, shall from time to time think fit and

reasonable; and an Account of such Expence shall be annually laid before Parliament.

LX. And be it enacted, That a Certificate containing a List of the Names and Designations of the several Persons in whose favour any Sum or Sums of Money shall be awarded from time to time under the Provisions of this Act by the Commissioners, as herein-before mentioned, shall be signed by Three or more of the said Commissioners, who shall forthwith transmit the same to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State then having Charge of the Affairs of the said Colonies, for his Approbation and Signature, who shall, when he shall have signed the same, transmit it to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury; and the said Commissioners of the Treasury, or any Three of such Commissioners, shall thereupon, by Warrant under their Hands, authorize the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to pay the said Sums, out of the Monies standing upon their Account in the Books of the said Bank under the Title of "The West India Compensation Account," to the Persons named in such Certificate; and the said Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, or the Comptroller General or Assistant Comptroller General acting under the said Commissioners, are hereby required to pay all such Sums of Money to the Persons named therein, under such Forms and Regulations as the said Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt shall think fit to adopt for that Purpose.

LXI. And whereas in some of the Colonies aforesaid a certain Statute, made in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Years of King Charles the Second, intituled "An Act for preventing the Mischiefs and Dangers that may arise by certain Persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawful Oaths ;" and a certain other Statute made in the Seventeenth Year of King Charles the Second, intituled "An Act for restraining Nonconformists from inhabiting in Corporations ;" and a certain other Statute, made in the Twenty-second Year of King Charles the Second, intituled "An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles ;" and a certain other Statute, made in the the First and Second Year of King William and Queen Mary, intituled "An Act for exempting Their Majesty's Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws;' and a certain other Statute, made in the Tenth Year of Queen Anne, intituled "An Act for preserving the Protestant Religion by better securing the Church of England as by Law established; and for confirming the Toleration granted to Protestant Dissenters by an Act intituled An Act for exempting Their Majesty's Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws, and for supplying the Defects thereof; and for the further securing the Protestant Succession, by requiring the Practisers of the Law in North Britain to take the Oaths and subscribe the Declaration therein mentioned;" or some one of those Statutes, or some Parts thereof or of some of them, have and hath been adopted, and are or is in force; be it further enacted, That in such of the Colonies aforesaid

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in which the said several Statutes or any of them, or any Parts thereof or any of them, have or hath been adopted and are or is in force, a certain Statute made in the Fifty-second Year of His late Majesty King George the Third, intitutled " An Act to repeal certain Acts and amend other acts relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preaching therein," shall be and is hereby declared to be in force, as fully and effectually as if such Colonies had been expressly named and enumerated for that Purpose in such last-recited Statute: Provided nevertheless, that in the said several Colonies, to which the said Act of His late Majesty King George the Third is so extended and declared applicable as aforesaid, any Two or more Justices of the Peace holding any such Special Commission as aforesaid shall have, exercise, and enjoy all and every the Jurisdiction, Powers, and Authorities whatsoever, which by force and virtue of the said Act are within the Realm of England had, exercised, and enjoyed by the several Justices of the Peace, and by the General and Quarter Sessions therein mentioned.

LXII. His Majesty in Council may make all necessary Laws for giving effect to this Act in the Settlement of Honduras.

LXIII And be it further enacted, that within the Meaning and for the Purposes of this Act every Person who for the Time being shall be in the lawful Administration of the Government of any of the said Colonies shall be taken to be the Governor thereof.

LXIV. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this Act contained doth or shall extend to any of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company, or to the Island of Ceylon, or to the Island of Saint Helena.

LXV. And be it further enacted, That in the Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope and Mauritius the several Parts of this Act shail take effect and come into operation, or shall cease to operate and to be in force, as the case may be, at Periods more remote than the respective Periods herein-before for such Purposes limited by the following Intervals of Time; videlicet, by Four Calendar Months in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and by Six Calendar Months in the Colony of the Mauritius.

LXVI. And be it further enacted and declared, That within the Meaning and for the Purposes of this Act all Islands and Territories dependent upon any of the Colonies aforesaid, and constituting Parts of the same Colonial Government, shall respectively be taken to be Parts of such respective Colonies.

NOTE BY A FRIEND.-Many of the Friends of the oppressed Negroes have regretted that this proceeding, carried as it was through the Legislature by the aroused voice of the nation, which would have supported the Ministry in a complete measure, did not go the length of introducing in our Colonies entire and immediate abolition. Nearly one half of the term of apprenticeship has now passed, and time has brought these fears to the test of experience. Within the last few

months, one of the most active of the Abolitionists, my Friend Joseph Sturge, accompanied by three others, has paid a visit of investigation to the Islands; and a brief summary of their observations may not be inappropriate here:

In the first place, the Island of Antigua with a population of 30,000 slaves, and producing a large quantity of sugar, adopted the alternative of immediate abolition. It possessed, it is true, some local advantages; especially that of being greatly dependant upon imported provisions; which makes it necessary for the negroes to work for money, to purchase their food: instead of being able to support themselves by the produce of their provision grounds, with very little labour, as in some other islands. It had also been for a long time the scene of much Missionary labour. Half a century ago, the Moravians had gained a footing in the island; which they have maintained ever since. And, with the aid of other societies introduced of later times, a large proportion of the population is now receiving Christian instruction.

With these deductions from the fairness of making a comparison between Antigua and other islands, let us now see how freedom has answered in Antigua.

All parties agree that it is a benefit: the Estates are worked in many cases more economically, and to much better profit: the masters are relieved from many sources of annoyance in the conduct of their labourers; who now work for wages with spirit and diligence. The negroes are, as may be supposed, much better off, and happier: though at present suffering from the circumstance of the wages given by the masters being somewhat too low; compared with the present unusually high price of provisions. Almost the only exceptions to this bright state of things are found on five Estates, on which the Managers had obtained so bad a reputation, that on the introduction of freedom, the negroes would not remain upon them. In a few cases, two-thirds of the people left immediately; and the Estates are still feeling the effects, in not having been able to bring others to supply their places; whilst the imperfect cultivation, consequent upon the. want of labourers, is rapidly injuring the property. Of the infatuation with which some of the Managers were possessed, one instance may suffice. A Manager of one of the estates, considering it necessary, on the declaration of freedom, to be strict with the people, actually turned the cattle into their provision grounds. The people had now, however, the remedy in their own power, and they left him, and the Estate; which has been almost ruined in consequence. In the other islands, in which the Apprenticeship has been adopted, as a professed preparation for freedom, it would appear to have very much failed of its object. Too many of the masters, instead of making the best use of it to conciliate the affections of the people, and to induce them to remain with them when free, are acting on the system of getting as much out of them as they can, during the six years of apprenticeship; leaving the future to take care of itself. Things have consequently a strong tendency, in many places, to the state to which they have been brought in the cases described above. In Antigua, and (it may be anticipated) elsewhere, from the increased irritation which is growing up, and from the great facilities which the fruitfulness of some of the Islands offer for living without hard labour, many will cease to work in the cultivation of sugar after 1840. Still, the attachment of the Negro to his home, and his already acquired artificial wants, are strong counteracting principles; and, with the improvements in management which freedom allows, may probably prevent much diminution in the produce of

the Islands.

The moral and intellectual condition of the Negroes has made wonderful advances; they are rapidly acquiring education and self-respect; and though much cruelty is still exercised, it is no longer the hopeless bondage of interminable slavery.-R. H.

Arr. II. Notice of Thoughts in Water-Bagno

In my last Number but one I treated the mijern of Water-bagtím, and gare, with the argument of two Friends in favour of the “Ordinances, a portion of my own thoughts; in which. I have been since tod, I have left the subject rather vague. And I will fly confes that at present my own thoughts are in that state, as regards what is beat for Friends generally to do in the case. I may be obliged to return to the consideration of this; but in the meantime should say that I have had sent me by the dear Friend who write it, “Twaghts on Water Baptism, by Robert Jowitt," just pubished. This tract of 22 pages 12 mo. is written in an admirable spirit; but it offers nothing new as quaker-argument on the subject. The main position assumed by the author is, that Christian baptism the baptism enjoined by our Lord before his ascension,-is the baption of the Holy Ghost: a most desirable and salutary experience to be sure, as here in part figured out to us-for every Christian to undergo. But this is what should be; and belongs to spiritual cleansing-not to modes of teaching and initiation; where we have to consider what has been and is, and here the argument fails-for the author takes much pains to prove (what may be admitted at once, without satisfying his desire) that our Lord did not institute water-baptism as an ordinance in His church. Certainly, Christ found water-baptism already instituted among his countrymen, and submitted himself to it, thus to fulfil all the righteousness of an Israelite. Having received it himself, he bestowed it by the hands of his disciples on others, to designate publicly the associating of such converts to the body of believers. This thing (which it is absurd, and a begging of the question, to call by the name of John's baptism) he enjoined, I believe, on his apostles when he was about to be taken up; and it has continued in point either of form or intention (we may as well candidly admit) in the Church to this day but in such hands, and so charged with superstition in the practice, and overcharged with false doctrine in the exposition, that we need not wonder that the quakers should have thrown it up, (for reasons already given) substituted nothing of their own.-ED.

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and

J. LUCAS, PRINTER, MARKET-PLACE, PONTEFRACT.