284 Our Colonies. [Sept. 



they have succeeded in raising a cry against them which they keep up 

 with that blind and untiring industry which as often characterises the 

 machinations of bad men as the enthusiasm of good ones. One mo- 

 ment's reflection ought to convince every man who can think for him- 

 self, that since, by the operation of English laws, and under the expiess 

 and often repeated sanction of the British Government, the slaves have 

 become the property of their owners, the latter are not very likely wan- 

 tonly to ill-treat the former. No person of common sense can beheve 

 that the owners of slaves will, by cruelty or severity, by flogging or 

 over-tasking them, prevent their increase or destroy their capability of 

 making those exertions on which the very bread of their owners depends. 

 It would be a tale just as credible, that the old ladies who subscribe to 

 the Anti-Slavery Associations would throw the dividends they receive 

 vipon their stock into the river Thames — or that the man who breeds 

 cattle should wantonly torture or dismember his beasts — as that a slave- 

 owner should ill-treat his slaves. But the case does not rest upon pro- 

 bability. Here are a series of laws framed, by the Colonial Government, 

 tendered by them for the sanction of this country, in which they ex- 

 pressly pro\'ide for the security of the persons, for the comforts, for the 

 gradual amelioration of the condition of the slaves, and for their liberation 

 when that may become practicable. Let any one look at the provisions 

 of these several laws, and if he dare afterwards say that the several legis- 

 latures, as well those which have been approved of as that of which the 

 proposed law has been so strangely rejected, have shown themselves un- 

 willing to aid the progress of improvement or to meet the wishes of this 

 Government, he must be one who has no reverence for truth and candour, 

 no regard for the opinions of honest and thinking men, or else he must 

 be sti'ong in the belief that the affectation of sanctity and charity can 

 impose upon all the world. 



It will be said — it has been said — that the legislature of Jamaica has 

 not gone far enough ; that the provisions they have made fall short of 

 the purpose to which they ought to be directed. That is a point very 

 much open to discussion: the diversity of opinion which prevails on 

 these subjects cannot, perhaps, be easily, and ought not to be hastily 

 settled. It may happen, as it always does in such matters, that the con- 

 solidation of the laws has not been perfectly accomplished. Does not 

 the whole history of jurisprudence, particularly of modern jurispru- 

 dence, show that the task is a very difficult one, that the wisest and most 

 cautious provisions want revising, and that experience alone only can 

 shew in what respect a code may chance to be defective, and where it 

 ought to be amended .'' What has been the result of the recent attempts 

 in France > what has been the success of fllr. Peel's attempt to consoli- 

 date some branches of the criminal law of England ? what has been done, 

 after years of labour, with the commission for inquiry into the equitable 

 jurisdiction? why, if the work be an easy one, are the labours of some of the 

 most enlightened lawyers perhaps in the world now being exercised on the 

 several branches of the law relating to real property in this country .? Who 

 can judge of local interests so Avell as the persons who are most conver- 

 sant with them } What statesman, following his own notions of abstract 

 right, would compel a whole community, of whose habits he can know 

 little or nothing, to conform to a rule of local government prescribed by 

 himself? or, what is worse, and applies more directly to the present case, 

 prescribed by the ignorant, prejudiced, and, sometimes^ dishonest views 



