1830.3 V ce f the Country Abolition of Slavery. 81 



the tickets." The poor deluded creatures had mistaken this clergyman 

 for a baptist preacher, who had settled in the place, and who, as it 

 appears, was exchanging his tickets for ten penny pieces every Sunday." 



According to the Wesleyans, a ticket is " the certificate of continued 

 membership given or withheld as the character for morality and industry 

 is satisfactory or otherwise. What idea the slaves have of ' f member- 

 ship, I know not," says Mr. Barclay ; " but a certificate of moral charac- 

 ter from the ministers of God (for such the ticket is described) for 

 which they pay money, can hardly be otherwise viewed by such igno- 

 rant creatures than as a passport to Heaven, if they should die within 

 the current quarter !" No person acquainted with the implicit faith 

 placed by the superstitious natives of Africa in the efficacy of amulets 

 and charms (gris-gris), can for a moment doubt the accuracy of this 

 conjecture ; and we would ask the " philanthropists" of England 

 whether these artifices for raising money are not rather more likely to 

 perpetuate than to expel the Pagan superstitions of Africa? And 

 whether this is a proper method of dispelling pagan darkness by the 

 pure lights of the gospel ? Mr. Barclay gives several examples, showing 

 that comparatively enormous sums of money are extorted from the 

 negroes in this manner ! Yet it was for endeavouring to check such 

 practices, and to preserve the health and morals of the negroes, that the 

 humane laws enacted by the legislature of Jamaica in 1826, were 

 rejected at home. 



We consider it necessary to notice these things at the present moment, 

 because from the renewed activity of the anti-colonial party, we have 

 reason to apprehend some new attempt, under the usual pretence of vin- 

 dicating the rights of humanity, about to be made upon the property of 

 our already impoverished colonists. Meetings of anti-slavery societies 

 have been held in various parts of the country, and although the " saints" 

 have been very chary about publishing all the slanderous and often re- 

 futed charges habitually brought forward on these occasions, enough has 

 been printed to indicate their intentions ; and it has become necessary 

 to put the public on their guard against their deceitful representations. 

 Whenever the saints have made specific and tangible allegations, they 

 have been as promptly met as the distance between this country and 

 those communities whom they habitually slander will admit. For in- 

 stance, a statement which appeared some time ago in a London Jour- 

 nal, entitled " Cruelties of West India Slavery at this Moment : by 

 an Eye- Witness," has been investigated; and the slanderer, a Mr. 

 George Hamilton Smith, a custom-house officer in Jamaica, disco- 

 vered, and forced, at a public examination, to acknowledge that his 

 whole statement was a gross falsehood and fabrication, and that altera- 

 tions were even made at home upon his letter before it was published 

 and circulated, under the patronage of the anti-colonists, who still de- 

 fend it on the ground of verisimilitude. A statement made some time 

 ago by Mr. Clarkson in his correspondence with Mr. Green, published 

 in 1829 ; namely, that " several aged, worn out slaves, would have died 

 of hunger in Antigua, if it had not been for a committee in London, 

 which supports them annually," has been fully investigated and success- 

 fully refuted. It turns out that Mr. Clarkson has been deceived by 

 certain designing knaves of his own party, who had embezzled the 

 money, and who, on the institution of a regular inquiry, acknowledged 

 that they had never known any slave in distress, who did not receive 



M. M. New Series. VOL. X. No. 55. L 



