1820.3 Condition of the West-Indian Slave Populatio?i. 285 



of the sworn foes of the people against whom that rule Is to be esta- 

 blished. With respect to slavery, no man advocates it. As regards 

 Jamaica, no man is called upon to justify it; because it is by the law, 

 not of Jamaica, but of England, that it has been established in that 

 colony. Upon the question of amelioration, no doubt exists among free 

 and Christian men ; and that the legislatures of the several colonies, and 

 none more than Jamaica, have shown themselves ready powerfully to 

 assist that good work, their proposed enactments triumphantly testify 

 as honourably to themselves as the denial of their fair intentions is dis- 

 graceful to their enemies. 



We have provoked — in common with all persons who have ever ven- 

 tured to appeal on this subject from falsehood and prejudice, to common 

 sense and justice — the ireful invectives of a certain notorious periodical 

 called the "Anti-Slavery Reporter," and for which it would not be difficult 

 to find a more appropriate cognomen." The general character of the pub- 

 lication is so well known that we should have hardly condescended to 

 reply to it, but that the indolence of those whose business it ought to 

 be to expose its misrepresentations has given it a sort of currency ; and 

 when any of those members of the House of Commons who are the con- 

 stant antagonists of the colonies and the interests connected with them, 

 have occasion for a startling he, which they do not care to vouch for 

 themselves, they find it, or have it made for them, in the " Anti-Slavery 

 Reporter." The ingenious person who " does" it, is a sort of murder- 

 monger to the general body, and frightens the old ladies of Clapham 

 once a month with tales " most incredibly attested," of atrocities that 

 never existed but in his fertile imagination. The style is something 

 between that of Mawrvorm and Mr. Wilberforce, flowery as the one, and 

 vehement as the other. 



" Scarce so much learning as makes felons 'scape^ 

 Less human genius than God gives an ape," 



this worthy gentleman finds good enough for his purpose and for his 

 readers ; and, with a very accurate notion of the value of his produc- 

 tions, they are given away every month by the handful to any body who 

 will condescend to accept them. He has honoured us with his abuse, 

 and has, in his charity, consigned us already to that place in the public 

 execration which has been well deserved by the advocates of the slave 

 trade (we, who never did him harm, and who abominate the slave trade 

 and all that belongs to it, as much as we hate all canting hypocrites !). 

 This we might have let pass, but although we do some violence to our 

 own feelings, and little good, we suspect, to our cause, by noticing so 

 utterly contemptible an assailant ; yet, since he has brought against us a 

 charge of misrepresentation, we owe it to ourselves to waste three 

 words upon him. 



He says that our former article is an epitome of Mr. Barclay's ex- 

 ploded work. In the first place it is untrue that Mr. Barclay's work is 

 exploded, or that it has ever been satisfactorily contradicted ; it has on 

 the contrary, gone through three editions, which have not been given 

 away, and is well known to be a book of authority, written with honest 

 intentions, and displaying as much good feehng as information : two 

 particulars in which it differs from every thing the " Anti-Slavery Re- 

 porter" ever yet produced. In the next place, that our article is an 

 epitome of it, is a ])itiful falseliood, the satisfactory proof of which will 

 be apparent on looking at the two works, which have no other resem- 



