1830.] Fate of the Colonies. 419 



them by faint opposition and temporizing explanations. The colonists 

 have thus had to fight an unequal battle, and to undertake duties, for 

 the proper discharge of which, ministers, virtually, became responsible 

 to the country when they accepted of office. 



In the late debates on colonial slavery, Sir George Murray, although 

 he expressed himself adverse to the measures of spoliation contemplated 

 by the anti- colonists, namely, to deprive the West Indians of their 

 property without compensation, and although he declared that " the 

 property in a slave is as much property as any other species of posses- 

 sion, and as much under the protection of the law, as any other deno- 

 mination whatever ;" yet he stated other propositions to which we 

 think every sober-minded man must demur, and it is to be regretted 

 that he had not more fully considered the subject. He is said to have 

 asserted that the condition of slavery is injurious both to the master and 

 the slave ; and is equally inconsistent with humanity, and the religion 

 we profess ; " but it will not do," says he, " to travel into abstract princi- 

 ples." However we may agree with him upon those abstract principles, 

 it is only by practical experience that this question ought or can now be 

 properly considered ; and when we look at the actual progress which 

 has been made in the religious instruction and civilization of the negroes 

 in the West Indies, under a state of mild coercion, and compare their 

 progressive advancement, with the stationary condition of their savage 

 and brutal ancestors in Africa, and also with that of the negroes liberated 

 and instructed according to the theoretical plans of the abolitionists at 

 Sierra Leone and elsewhere, it will be found that abstract principles 

 and practical experience are widely different ; and that by the amelio- 

 rated state of slavery now in existence in the West Indies, the negroes 

 are gradually acquiring those habits of industry, and that mental energy, 

 which is absolutely necessary to enable them to sustain all the relative 

 duties of industrious freemen. If this improvement has taken place 

 therefore, in the West Indies, and if every other attempt to improve the 

 negro character has failed, who can with justice affirm that our colonial 

 system is injurious to the slave ? Sir George Murray cannot be igno- 

 rant of these facts ; and if he forbore to state them with a view of conci- 

 liating the anti-colonists, he acted unjustly towards the planters, and to 

 those persons throughout the country who look to official quarters for 

 correct information. 



His other assertion is equally liable to great misinterpretation. It is 

 true that slavery may be contrary to the spirit of the Christian religion ; 

 but, certainly, although slavery " was a part of the civil constitution of 

 most countries when Christianity appeared, yet no passage is to be found 

 in the Christian scriptures by which it is condemned and prohibited ;"* 

 on the contrary, a reference to the epistles of the great Apostle of the 

 Gentiles, will shew that the state of slavery was expressly recognized 

 by him ; and obedience to masters strictly enjoined as the duties of a 

 slave. In short, " Christianity hath left all temporal governments as it 

 found them, without impeachment of any form or description what- 

 ever," and if we thus find a state of bondage expressly sanctioned, must 

 not that individual be at least presumptuous who affirms that slavery 

 is forbidden by Christianity ? 



The best method of conveying religious instruction to the slaves was, 

 for a long period, a desideratum in the West Indies. The exertions of 



* Dr. Paley. 



3 G 2 



