1829.] Condition of (he West-hulian Slave Pojndaiion. 283 



ultimate consequence of the meliorating process that has been begun is 

 certain, unless the rash measures Avhich are threatened shall prevent 

 it. In the mean time it will be remembered that the use of the whip 

 has been discontinued for any other purpose than those which the laws 

 allow, and the manner in which the protection of those laws is secured 

 to the slaves we have already shown. 



The twelfth resolution relates to the establishment of savings' banks, 

 respecting which we believe nothing has been done, for the best of all 

 possible reasons ; but there can, we apprehend, be no objection on the 

 part of the colonists to adopt it, if any necessity or use for it should 

 arise. 



Such are the steps which have been taken by the British West India 

 Colonies to fulfil the wishes of Government. Some of them, as we have 

 shown, have been commended ; nearly all their regulations have been 

 approved, with the exception of those proposed by Jamaica, and these 

 latter have been disallowed for various reasons stated by Mr. Huskisson, 

 (as we mentioned in our number for Rlay last) ; the principal of which 

 is disclosed in the instructions which have been sent to the Governor to 

 allow no bill which shall contain any enactment on the subject of re- 

 ligion* without a suspending clause : a condition which is contrary to 

 the constitution of Jamaica, and which the legislators of tliat colony, 

 who are as jealous of their rights as free men should be, are not likely ever 

 to submit to. That their attempts have miscarried, must be a subject of 

 deep regret to every one, and to them more so than to any other de- 

 scription of persons. They have, however, the consolation of knowing 

 that this lamentable consequence has been produced by no fault of their 

 own. 



The great disadvantage under which the colonists have hitherto 

 laboured, is that their intentions have been wholly misrepresented, that 

 their honest endeavours to ameliorate the condition of their slaves have 

 not been fairly and fully laid before the public, that they have been 

 stigmatized as the pertinacious and incorrigible advocates of a system 

 which, for their gain, inflicts a load of misery and oppression on a class 

 of human beings, who have rights as indefeasible, and feelings as much 

 entitled to protection, as any other creatures made in God's likeness. A 

 crowd of mistaken and designing persons — for of both descriptions 

 are the enemies of the colonies — have laboured to represent them 

 in this light to the British public. Availing themselves of that natural 

 sympathy which Englishmen have for the sufferings of their feUow- 

 creatures, and of their detestation of the very semblance of oppression, 



• The influence of sectarians, which has of late been most disastrously exercised 

 against the best interests of this nation, has never been more openly or more impudently 

 apparent than in the disallowance of the Jamaica consolidated slave law, solely because it 

 restrained missionary dissenters from extorting money from the slaves, and from holding 

 nocturnal meetings. A passage of Sir (ieorge Murray's letter, above quoted, forms an 

 amusing commentary on Mr. Huskisson's dispatch, in which the disaUowance is notified. 

 Sir George Murray says, " I am aware, however, tliat whilst provision is made for se- 

 curing to the slave suiHcient time and opportunity for religious instruction, and every 

 latitude is allowed with respect to the mode of his instruction wliicli the spirit of toleration 

 demands, it is very fit, notwithstanding, that certain local regulations should be established 

 to guard against those abuses and that misapplication to which the best institutions are 

 liable ; and to obviate those disorders which might be occasioned, or the apprehension of 

 which niiglit at lejist be occasionally entertained, if an imrcstricted liberty were permitted, 

 to assemble considerable bodies of tiic slave population at unreasonable hours, or without 

 tlie previous consent of their owners." 



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