1824.] 
[341 J 
PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC SOCIETIES, 
a E 
Sunstance ofthe Revort of the Com- 
mMITTEY, and of the’ PRocEEDINGS of 
the GENERALMEETING Of the Society 
for the 1v1Ga TION and GRADUAL ABO+ 
LITION of Stavery. throughout the 
Britis Dominions, held on the 25th 
day of June 1824. 
LA | ee Report observes, that, 
In their circularaddress of August 1823, 
the committee, wliile they, expressed their 
Satisfaction that the Government and Par- 
liament, had so, clearly recognized the prin- 
ciples embodied in these resolutions, could 
not refrain from regretting that the pro- 
posed plans of reform, instead of being 
made the subject of parliamentary enact- 
ment had been referred to the decision of 
the colonial authorities, as experience dis- 
couraged the hope of, effectual co-operation 
on the part of the colonists. The event has 
justified these apprehensions: the proceed- 
ings of. popular meetings in some of the 
colonies, and the calamitous events in De- 
merara, too, clearly illustrate the danger of 
such a mode of proceeding. If the su- 
preme power of the state had at once pre- 
scribed the course to be pursued, there 
would have been no ground to apprehend 
any inconvenient results, the effect would 
have been submission on the part of the 
planters, and gratitude on the part of the 
slaves; the evidence on the trial of Mr. 
Smith, ‘the Missionary, and of the slaves 
implicated in the insurrection at Demerara, 
shows that the proximate cause of that un- 
happy event was the delay of the colonial 
authorities in. giving publicity and effect to 
the measures of grace recommended by his 
Majesty’s, Government. . In the mother 
country alone can laws on.this subject be 
effectually and safely made. 
It has been contended that the British 
Parliament has no right to interfere with 
the internal concern of| the colonies, which 
have legislative assemblies of their own ; 
for though we involve ourselves in the guilt 
of every oppression. which it requires force 
to maintain, even in punishing that crime 
peculiar to the West-India Statute Book 
*“ of imagining the death of a white man,” 
yet the colonists would deny to this coun- 
try the liberty of controuling and directing . 
the system it thus upholds, 
One conspiracy indeed appears, to have 
been formed, and one insurrection has most 
calamitously taken place, namely, the re- 
volt of the slaves at Demerara. In that 
colony ‘there were some peculiar. predis- 
posing causes to such an event, arising from 
the harshness of the slave system prevail~ 
ing there ; for in Demerara the slaves, in- 
stead of i increasing, decrease at a rate Which 
would unpeople the earth in less than half 
a century, and also from the religious per- 
secutions to‘ whieh} in aidan i their 
other’ sufferings many ‘ofthe slaves were 
subjected last year. Yet it'is the testimony 
of Governor Murray himself, that! he had 
“not heard of ‘any whites! having been 
deliberately murdered’ ‘by. the imisguided 
slaves.’ 
The public has a fair opportunity of ap- 
preciating the spirit’ in ‘which’ justice was 
‘ administered to these slaves, by the ample 
details published respecting ‘the trial of Mr. 
Smith, the missionary. 
In these transactions, and others which 
occurred elsewhere, particularly at Barba- 
does, the committee had the pain to recog- 
nizé a spirit hostile to the religious instruc- 
tion of the negro population. The ¢om- 
mittee are most happy at the same time to 
state that there are many exceptions ty this 
too prevalent disposition. 
On the 16th of March, the papers. on 
this subject, alluded to in the King’s speech 
at the opening of the session were laid be- 
fore parliament, and among them an order 
of the King in Council. prescribing various 
measures of reform which it had been de- 
termined to institute in the island of Tri- 
nidad, which is professedly the model. by - 
which all ulterior measures of colonial re- 
form are to be regulated. 
If the reforms, however, prescribed by 
this Order in Council were to be confined 
to Trinidad, not more than a fortieth part 
of the slave population in the British do- 
minions would be benefited, but it is the 
declared intention of his Majesty’s minis- 
ters to extend the same system to St., 
Lime, Demerara, Berbice, and the Mau- 
ritius, and also as far as it has not been 
already anticipated to the Cape of Good 
Hope. ‘These six colonies comprehend a _ 
population of. about 220,000 ‘slaves ; but 
there will still remain about 600,000 re- 
siding in colonies which have local legisla- 
tures whom the proposed reforms by Royal 
authority will not reach. It seems to be 
the present purpose of Government to pro- 
ceed with these colonies in the way of re- 
commendation and example. Besides the 
dangers to be apprehended from. suspense 
and agitation, the nation contracts: addi- 
tional guilt by the postponement of those 
reforms, the moral obligation of which has 
been admitted ; the delay is also a real ca- 
lamity to the great mass of the slave popu- 
lation. The committee cah see no good 
reason, for, instance, why women should 
continue liable to be shamelessly exposed 
and flogged in Jamaica, Barbadoes, &e. ; 
why the driving, whip should be still em— 
ployed there ; why marriage should still be 
without any legal sanction in these colonies, 
why facilities should not be given there also 
to manumissions ; and why the exclusion of 
the © 
