82 Voice of the Country Abolition of Slavery. [JULY, 



instant and effectual relief in the manner provided by the laws of the 

 island ; and that, -in fact, there were no slaves in the island requiring any 

 such eleemosynary aid ! It must be obvious, however, that between the 

 promulgation of these statements and their refutation from the West 

 Indies, a considerable time must always elapse ; and the anti-colonial 

 party are well aware of the advantage which is thus given to them. 

 Moreover, many persons see these slanderous charges, which, as in the 

 latter instance, are sometimes put forth not in a fugitive shape, but in 

 octavo volumes, and thus perpetuated, who do not see their subsequent 

 refutation. 



The London Anti-Slavery Society also held a meeting lately ; and as 

 this society has been rather falling into bad odour with the public, it 

 became necessary to make some effort to collect the usual audience ; and 

 it was therefore announced, by previous advertisement, that Mr. Wilber- 

 force was to take the chair. 



The room being quickly filled, the chairman supported by Mr. F. 

 Buxton, Mr. Macauley, jun., Lord Calthorpe, the Rev. Daniel Wilson, 

 and the usual squad of abolitionists, after a few words from Mr.Clarkson, 

 commenced the business of the day, by making a long speech, wherein in- 

 stead of candidly taking blame to himself for the hasty and precipitate 

 zeal with which he had originally hurried forward the abolition of the 

 slave trade, or lamenting the great extent and additional cruelty with 

 which it is carried on by foreigners, mainly in consequence of that pre- 

 cipitancy ; he complained that nothing had been done, and expressed his 

 fears that nothing could be done for the final abolition of slavery, except 

 at a very distant period. He adverted to the measures of 1823, which 

 he asserted were brought forward by Mr. Canning, with the concurrence 

 and by the suggestion of the West Indians ! who had, since then, per- 

 tinaciously refused, ce one and all," to adopt these proposals. Now we 

 assert, and we need only refer to documents quoted in former numbers 

 of our Magazine to prove the assertion, that with the exception of com- 

 pulsary manumission, a subsequent measure, against which the colonists 

 have indeed, " one and all," from the very first, opposed themselves ; 

 and with the exception of a very few of the resolutions of 1823, which 

 they consider dangerous or premature, almost every one of these re- 

 commendations have, in effect, been adopted.* 



He then proposed to take the whole authority out of the hands of the 

 colonists, abolishing their legislatures of course, and to proceed in the 

 work of emancipation without their concurrence ! He concluded by 

 praising the high mindedness of the blacks, and asserted that " should 

 England proceed as she had hitherto done making free with the rights 

 and liberties of those whom Providence had placed under her protection 

 the time of retribution could not be far distant ; for she could not 

 expect in that case that a great and just God would continue to her her 

 own abused blessings which she had so long enjoyed with so little gra- 

 titude." We do not presume to interpret the inscrutable decrees of Pro- 

 vidence, but we certainly do think that if England were to give way to 

 the indiscreet zeal of the anti-colonists, and to replunge the negro popu- 

 lation into that state of barbarism from which they are gradually emerg- 

 ing, she would add much to the responsibility of her present position. 



* Vide An Abstract of the British West Indian Statutes for the Protection and Govern- 

 ment of Slaves. Ridgway, 1830. 



