And will it be endured by the British people, now generally awakening to a full conviction of the miserable impolicy as well as the awful national guilt of longer upholding the system of colonial slavery, that even its proposed MITIGATION shall be indefinitely postponed, and the claim for its ABOLITION virtually abandoned! And for what? To enable the West India planters to persist in their insane career, till this system of iniquity shall be broken up with a crash which must involve their own destruction; until it be too late, in short, for legislative wisdom to interfere, and slavery be extinguished not by the decree of a repentant nation, but by the judgments of an offended God.

IV. MR. BUXTON'S MOTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

The discussion of Mr. Buxton's motion in the House of Commons, for the speedy and total extinction of slavery in the British colonies, has been finally fixed for the 24th of May. It is confidently expected that all sincere friends of that object throughout the kingdom, will unite in strongly urging upon their representatives in Parliament the duty of strenuously supporting Mr. Buxton in the important debate anticipated at this eventful crisis of the Question.

V. THE ANTI-SLAVERY RECORD.

The Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society, in compliance with the often expressed wishes of numerous respected correspondents, have commenced a new and cheap periodical publication, adapted for general circulation. We subjoin the following introductory notice from the first number, which is to be issued on the first of May, and recommend the work to the cordial support of the friends of

our cause.

"The Anti-Slavery Record is issued at the request of many zealous friends of Negro Emancipation throughout the country, and is intended to meet the increasing demand for fresh information on every topic connected with this great question. Its purpose is not to supersede, in any respect, other more important publications of the Anti-Slavery Society, but to act as a useful auxiliary, by supplying, at the cheapest possible rate, intelligence adapted for popular circulation, on a variety of points to which the Society's Reporter cannot always conveniently advert.

"The RECORD will appear on the first day of every month, should public encouragement warrant it. The price will be One Penny; each number consisting of 12 pages duodecimo. The topics will, of course, vary with the current of events; but an abstract, more or less extended, according to circumstances, will be regularly given of the REPORTERS, and of other Anti-Slavery publications, as they issue from the press-for the information of such readers as, either from necessity or choice, direct their attention more to matters of fact than to the argumentative discussions arising in the progress of the controversy. In a word, the special business of the Anti-Slavery Record will be to collect and communicate authentic intelligence; while, as its title imports, it will at the same time be a general register of all interesting information connected with the cause of Negro Emancipation."

VI. GENERAL MEETING OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

A General Meeting of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, and of the Friends of that Cause, will be held at Exeter Hall, Strand, on Saturday the Twelfth of May, 1832. The doors will be opened at eleven o'clock, and the chair taken at twelve precisely.

Tickets of admission may be had on application after the 28th of April, at the Society's Office, 18, Aldermanbury; at Messrs. Hatchard and Son's, 187, Piccadilly; Mr. Nisbet's, 21, Berners Street; Messrs. Seeley's, Fleet Street; and Messrs. Arch's, 61, Cornhill.

London: Samuel Bagster, Jun. Printer, 14, Bartholomew Close.

THE

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER.

No. 96.]

MAY, 1832.

[VOL. v. No. 5.

I. PROCEEDINGS OF A GENERAL MEETING OF THE ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY AND ITS FRIENDS, HELD AT EXETERHALL, ON SATURDAY, THE 12тп OF MAY, 1832, JAMES STEPHEN, ESQ., IN THE CHAIR.

II. DEBATE ON MR. BUXTON'S MOTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

I. PROCEEDINGS OF A GENERAL MEETING OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY AND ITS FRIENDS, HELD AT EXETER-HALL, ON SATURDAY, THE 12TH OF MAY, 1832.

THIS meeting, in point of respectability, number, and ardour in the cause, was calculated to afford the highest gratification to the friends of humanity. Notwithstanding the absorbing interest of contemporary occurrences in the political world, which deprived the Society of the personal presence and support of some of its most distinguished members, we have on no former occasion witnessed so much eagerness among the intelligent classes of society to be present at the discussion of the cause of the Negro. In consequence of this eagerness, the passages leading to the place of meeting were thronged at an early hour, and it was found requisite to open the doors long before the time announced in the advertisement. The capacious hall, calculated, we believe, to contain not fewer than three thousand persons, was crowded to overflowing in every part; and many hundreds went away without being able to obtain entrance. Among those present on the platform we observed Lord Suffield, the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, Hon. G. J. Vernon, M. P., Dr. Lushington, M. P., Messrs. James Stephen, William Smith, T. F. Buxton, M. P., Z. Macaulay, W. Whitmore, M. P., Daniel O'Connell, M. P., P. C. Crampton, M. P., Solicitor-General for Ireland, W. Evans, M. P., J. Wilks, M.P., J.W. Pendarvis, M.P., A. Johnstone, M.P., J. Bennett M. P., Rev. J. W. Cunningham, Rev. John Burnett, Rev. Joseph Ivimey, Rev. Dr. Cox, Rev. Dr. Bennett, Rev. Mr. James of Birmingham, Messrs. Samuel Hoare, W. Allen, J. and R. Forster, W. A. Garratt, G. Stephen, H. Pownall, and many other persons distinguished by their long services or their ardent zeal in the cause of Christian humanity.

LORD SUFFIELD having moved "that the old and tried friend of negro emancipation, James Stephen, Esq., be requested to take the Chair," that gentleman was called by acclamation to preside, and, after a few introductory words from Mr. Buxton,—

Mr. STEPHEN rose and briefly addressed the meeting. It was not, he said, an unnecessary introduction with which he had been favoured by his friend; for, however singular it might appear, it had unfortunately happened that of late he had not attended any of the VOL. V.

T

Annual Meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society, nor indeed had taken any public or prominent share in its proceedings for the last four or five years. It was, therefore, reasonable to conclude that to many persons, in the large assembly in which he had the honour of presiding, he might be personally unknown. Those, however, who were in possession of his sentiments would, he was persuaded, do him the justice of believing that his absence from the scene of their deliberations was not attributable to a want of inclination--to an abatement of zealbut to an overwhelming necessity, which barred the indulgence of his wishes. The truth was, that the infirmities of increasing years had unfitted him for taking an active part in the proceedings of a public meeting; and he had abstained from attending, lest, sitting as a silent spectator, he might cast a damp upon the exertions of others. If he now consented to occupy the chair, it was from a conviction that, in such a meeting, his labours must be light, and because if they proved too heavy for him he had the kind promise of his noble friend, Lord Suffield, that he would act in his place and allow him to retire. He had made this explanation, as some of his friends might have deemed him inconsistent. On this occasion he had certainly departed from his general rule; but it was an occasion of extreme urgency, and he could not refuse to come forward, probably for the last time in his life, at a period when it was imperative on every faithful friend of the slave to lend his cause all the countenance he could. (Applause.)

Lord SUFFIELD rose to propose the first of a series of resolutions, to be submitted to the meeting. His Lordship was happy to congratulate the friends of the cause upon the number and respectability of the assembly by which he was surrounded; but mingled with his congratulations must be the expression of some surprise and of great regret. His surprise was not awakened by the cheering sight of so large an audience: for last year also the Hall was crowded, and sure he was that crowded it would be if it were twice as spacious; that was not the cause of his surprise, still less of his regret; but his surprise and regret were excited by the fact that at this period-that in the nineteenth century-in the year 1832-that in a land of libertyin England, a country proverbial for its love of freedom-they should be assembled to do what?-why, to debate upon the existence of slavery among British subjects! (Hear.) He was persuaded that the meeting would sympathise with him in expressing his surprise and regret at the nature of the question which had called them together. What, he demanded to know, was the subject they were now to discuss? Was it a topic on which any human being in any corner of this vast empire could entertain or dare to avow a difference of opinion? (Hear.) Would not one and all say they were averse to slavery, and ardent for the liberty of 800,000 of their fellow-subjects, at a moment when Britons were struggling for what they conceived to be their inalienable rights? (Great Applause.) Warmly as he was known to feel on this subject-strongly as he had declared himself to be in every way a determined reformer (renewed applause)-resolute as he was in retaining that course of public life on which it was unneces

sary for him further to expatiate--still he should reserve his observations on these points to a more fitting opportunity, and keep to the object immediately before them. He begged not to be misunderstood. It was not his design to introduce any political theme-and, if he had adverted to events then in progress, it was only incidental to his mention of the word liberty. Britons were, he repeated, struggling to recover what they conceived to be their just rights;-on the nature of those rights he would forbear to enter;-but were they, he would ask, struggling for the redress of personal injuries-such redress as was contended for on behalf of their fellow subjects in the West Indies? Whence arose the necessity of all this ceremony? Whence the necessity of this meeting with its Committee, and Chairman, and Secretary, convened formally to express the detestation with which the British public regarded slavery? He was bound to admit-and herein lay the cause of his regret-that there existed among a certain portion of the community (a portion not confined to the much calumniated and contemned lower classes of society) an apathy on the subject of slavery which filled him with astonishment, and which could only be accounted for by supposing them ignorant of the question. Now, it was the object of the Anti-Slavery Society, by holding public meetings, by distributing tracts, and by every other practicable method, to inform people who would read (and he suspected that the love of reading was now more general among the lower than the higher classes) not only of what slavery actually was, but of what it must necessarily be so long as it was suffered to exist. Hence the use of the Anti-Slavery Society, and the importance of its efforts in dispelling the clouds of darkness which veiled the deformities of the system against which it pronounced judgment.

It was impossible for any person, however superficial might have been the view he had taken, not to contemplate with horror the atrocious cruelties inflicted on the unhappy slaves in the West Indies. He did not wish to excite their feelings by a recital of those unhallowed acts, or by a reference to their details. He touched upon them merely for the purpose of introducing that which he considered of consequence to their case; namely, the way in which the statement of these cruelties was met by the colonists. He hardly recollected one occasion on which he had made a statement of the kind that he had not been met by the reply, "These things are bad enough ; but are there not cruelties in England as well as in the West Indies? Are there not cruelties in every country under the sun?" For the sake of the argument he would admit the truth of the replication; he would concede the position, that cruelties were unfortunately committed here and elsewhere-though he was not prepared to believe that our domestic misdeeds equalled in atrocity those perpetrated in the West Indies. But then (and he would press this point upon the attention of his audience) what was the popular feeling in regard to the perpetrators of such deeds in England and in the West Indies respectively? In the one country a case of cruelty excited the greatest indignation, and exposed the perpetrator to the vengeance of the public; in the other, the culprit was shielded and protected, and sometimes pub

licly rewarded. His Lordship, in corroboration of this statement, referred to the case of Mrs. Brownrigg, who was accused in England of starving her apprentices; and to the case of the Mosses, in the Bahamas, who had been found guilty of committing the most horrid and revolting cruelties upon one of their female slaves. In the former case, it was with difficulty that the delinquent was saved from the fury of the populace; in the latter the most respectable inhabitants of the island petitioned the government to remit the sentence of a fine of £300 and six months' imprisonment; and, not succeeding in their petition, they recompenced the parties by a grand dinner to celebrate the occasion of their coming out of prison! It was thus that cruelty to the slave was looked upon by the " respectable" inhabitants of the Bahamas! and these occurrences took place not at a distant date-not at a time when attention was little directed to the condition of the Negro-but in the year 1829, when the colonists professed their readiness to soften the hardships of their bondmen. This example (and it was only one out of innumerable instances) showed that, not only were acts of inhuman atrocity committed in the West Indies, but that the slaves in these colonies were peculiarly liable to their infliction, from the indifference with which such offences are regarded, even when a conviction (and that was a matter of extreme difficulty) could be obtained. It had been stated by the advocates of the planters that the cases of atrocity were rare. He would admit

that the number of cases which came to the knowledge of the public were compartively few, and thus far they might be pronounced rare; but how could it be otherwise, when almost the only means of information were derived from parties universally interested in the concealment of the facts? (Hear, hear.)

His Lordship then adverted to the general question of slavery, and remarked that it embraced a great number of points, many of which he must pass by, both for the sake of time, and on account of other gentlemen prepared to speak upon them. He had a memorandum of ten points upon which he would have liked to dwell:-1. The general neglect of the moral, intellectual, and religious instruction of the slaves. 2. The profanation of the Sabbath, as a day of rest, ordained by a beneficent Providence for relaxation from labour as well as for spiritual improvement. 3. The licentious and indecent treatment of females. 4. The excess and barbarity of punishment to which the slaves are subjected. 5. The discouragement of marriage. 6. The shameful neglect or perversion of the laws intended to restrain cruelties. 7. The hardship of the present law, which enables the colonists to separate families, or the nearest kindred, by sale. 8. The incompetency of slave evidence, which makes it almost impossible to secure the conviction of the perpetrators of acts of cruelty. 9. The extreme difficulty thrown in the way of a slave recovering his freedom by purchase. 10. The uncertainty in which he held his liberty, even if it was procured. These points, his Lordship remarked, he must leave to be handled by other speakers, whose line of argument he would not preoccupy. He would confine himself to a few observations upon two others; namely, the excess of labour to which the slaves are sub