1831.] Colonial Affairs. 181 



of before ; they give the requisite explanations, exculpating themselves, 

 and indignantly add, that they are ready to meet any charge which 

 may be preferred against them in a court of justice, where their actions 

 "will be investigated before a legal tribunal of twelve honest men/' 

 The accuser is then called upon to substantiate by evidence the accus- 

 ations made : he, as in the case before us, refuses to do so, and there 

 appears to be no law to compel him. In the meantime, his injurious 

 allegations are made public ; they are printed and bruited forth at anti- 

 colonial meetings in all parts of the United Kingdom as indubitable 

 facts ; and, ultimately, out comes a parliamentary document on the sub- 

 ject, printed at a considerable expense to the country, in the same 

 manner as if it were a treaty of commerce and amity with some sove- 

 reign state, or the particulars of a negociation upon which depended the 

 fate of kingdoms, giving a quite different version of the affair ! 



The document before us, which has given rise to these remarks, is 

 properly enough entitled " Copies of all communications relative to the 

 reported maltreatment of a slave, named Henry Williams, in Jamaica," 

 but it is headed in large characters, as being " relative to the maltreat- 

 ment/' &c.. the word " reported" being left out, thus at once creating an 

 unfair impression, by assuming as a fact prima facie that which, in 

 truth, and according to the proper title, is only mere report ! 



This "Return" commences with a long memorial addressed by the com- 

 mittee of the Wesleyan Missionary Society to Sir George Murray, the 

 main object of which was to persuade government to disallow a bill 

 which had been passed by the legislature at Jamaica under the sanction 

 of the governor, the Earl of Belmore, of which we gave some parti- 

 culars in our last number. This application, as our readers are aware, 

 was but too successful, and in consequence the slave population, to use 

 the words of Sir George Murray, are still deprived " of the many 

 advantages which the wisdom and humanity of the colonial legislature 

 proposed to confer upon them," and of that legal protection which the 

 Earl of Belmore characterizes as being more favourable to the slaves 

 than any former act ! 



In this memorial the Wesleyan committee, after Reiterating former 

 alleged grievances, long ago investigated and put to rest bring for- 

 ward new matter of accusation against the colonists in this distinct 

 form. " The committee have before them the case of a slave, of 

 excellent character, who but a few months ago was almost flogged 

 to death, and is not yet recovered from his barbarous treatment, for 

 no other causes than attending at the services of a Wesleyan chapel. 

 They have a still more recent account of another slave who was seized 

 when passing the house of the rector of St. Ann's, and laid down and 

 flogged, by that reverend Gentleman's orders, because he was a notorious 

 Methodist ; an outrage which, upon the complaint of the owner of the 

 slave to the custos, the rector was obliged to compromise, thereby rendering 

 the fact indubitable." The memorial then proceeds to state, in pretty 

 plain terms, that even if an act did pass prohibiting night-preaching, 

 the negroes would set it at defiance. " Nor is it at all probable that the 

 missionaries themselves would forsake their charge through fear of fines 

 and imprisonment, unless directed so to do by the committee." In other 

 words, that the sectaries and their 20,000 followers (for that is the num- 

 ber said to be attached to them) would obey no law but that imposed 

 by the committee at the Wesleyan Mission-house, 77> Hatton Garden ! 

 Without noticing this apparent defiance of government, let us proceed to 



