1829-3 Condition of the West-Indian Slave Population. 279 



convinced them is necessary, but they also adhered to the law of England 

 relating to the same subject. 



The fifth resolution concerns the acquisition and transmission of 

 property by slaves. By the fifteenth section of the proposed act, 

 which recites that the usage of Jamaica has always been to permit slaves 

 to possess personal property, and that it is expedient that such laudable 

 custom should be established by law, a penalty is inflicted on any person 

 who shall take away from, or deprive a slave of any species of personal 

 property ; and the next section provides, that any pecuniary bequest or 

 legacy of a chattel to a slave, shall be valid. In this respect, it must be 

 admitted, that the act falls somewhat short of the recommendation of Par- 

 liament, inasmuch as the slave has no personal remedy for property v/hich 

 may be withheld from him. This, however, is a defect which must be 

 ascribed, not to any unwillingness on the part of the colonists to do all 

 that has been required of them by this Government, but to an unfitness 

 in the present state of things, on the part of the slaves^ to receive all 

 the advantages which the benevolence of the British legislator intended 

 to confer on them. The very essence of the condition of slaves is their 

 dependence on their masters ; that condition secures for them many 

 immunities, and brings with it some unavoidable disabilities. Consis- 

 tently with that condition, they can neither have the time nor the means 

 of engaging in litigation ; but, again it must be observed that the ame- 

 lioration of the condition of the slaves must be progressive ; that the 

 operation of this act is intended to be only temporary ; and that even if 

 any immediate alteration were necessary, that alteration might be shortly 

 and easily made. In the mean time, no honest man can deny that a 

 sincere desire has been evinced by the Legislature of Jamaica to go as 

 far, in this particular case, as their own convictions, and a due regard 

 to their own interests, justified them in complying with the terms of the 

 requisition. To give the slaves the means of acquiring landed property 

 while they remain slaves, would be wholly absurd, because they cannot 

 have either the means of enjoying such property or of making it pro- 

 ductive ; and they would be at the same time placed in a condition 

 wholly inconsistent with all the relations and incidents that now belong 

 to them. 



The sixth resolution is devised to facilitate the manumission of slaves. 

 This point is an extremely debateable one, and that upon which the 

 greatest difficulty of the whole case rests. It is that to which the advo- 

 cates for general emancipation look with an eager interest ; but, as it is 

 also one which involves to a considerable degree the property of the 

 colonists, they are naturally desirous that such protection should be 

 afforded to the rights they possess, as is consistent with those laws, and 

 that policy of the British government under which they have been 

 induced to invest their capital, and to bestow their enterprize and exer- 

 tions in the acquisition of such property. At the same time, that they are 

 neither slow in their endeavours, nor insincere in their expressed readi- 

 ness to co-operate with the government in the design wliich has been 

 formed, is clear from the enactments they have proposed on this subject. 

 The question of compulsory manumission, forms no part of the parlia- 

 mentiiry resolutions, has been in no shape agreed to by the West India 

 body, and has, moreover, been by common consent postponed for the 

 present. From the necessity, induced by the state of society in Jamaica, 

 it in requisite to provide, that the owners of slav^« =1'"^' not get rid of the 



