to religious instruction. Among the slaves too there is a strong desire to receive religious instruction, and he had never seen any general indisposition among them to receive it (p. 101, 102).

In the Wesleyan Society in Jamaica there are about 13,000 members, of whom 10,000 are slaves, a great many attending the chapels who are not members. The church in Kingston is generally well attended, so is the Kirk, but few slaves attend either. In the towns, and especially in Kingston, the proportion attending public worship is very considerable; but in the country places few attend, either slaves or free. They have few opportunities, few places of worship. It is Mr. Barry's firm belief that religion alone will keep the slaves quiet in the hope of ultimate emancipation, but nothing will ever extinguish their strong desire of freedom. As the slave becomes enlightened, his desire after freedom certainly becomes more intense, though religion will enable him to control his passions, and wait for the legitimate accomplishment of his wishes. This appeared strongly in the conduct of the Wesleyan slaves in the late insurrection. Religion must certainly increase the desire of freedom: this is in the nature of things (p. 102, 103).

Mr. Barry further declared his firm conviction that no missionaries of any denomination in Jamaica, whether Methodists, Baptists, or Moravians had ever had, even remotely, any thing to do with the late insurrection. There are circumstances in the constitution of the Baptist Society which gave a colour, though most unjustly, to the charges against them. Baptists give tickets to men enquiring about religion; but the Wesleyans only to those who are admitted as members. There was not the slightest ground for any imputation on the Baptist missionaries. The causes which appeared to Mr. Barry to have led to the insurrection were these:-The slaves had long known what had been passing in this country respecting their freedom, and had been led to entertain the notion that the king had given them their freedom, but that their masters withheld it from them. The parochial meetings that took place in Jamaica, the resolutions of which were published in all the island newspapers, requesting to be absolved from their allegiance, was one of the proximate causes. Some whites also travelling through the island frequently take newspapers with them, which they read to the slaves. Negroes attending at the tables of their masters hear their masters discussing the questions of freedom and slavery as freely as if no slaves were present. The parochial resolutions seemed to the slaves to shut the door against their hope of freedom. Then there was Mr. Beaumont's bill for compulsory manumission, which was at once rejected by the assembly. The slaves had been elated to the highest pitch of joy by its introduction, and proportionately depressed by its rejection. The uncalled-for publication of the king's proclamation, in December 1831, was also an unfortunate occurrence. It cooperated powerfully to promote the insurrection. Such were its main causes (p. 104 and 105).

His reasons for thinking that there was more danger in withholding than in granting freedom were, that the Negroes knew very well what

was going on in their favour in this country. Their minds have been long set on freedom, and they never will be satisfied without it. A feeling of liberty has gone abroad among them. Many of the Negroes who suffered during the insurrection died glorying in their death. And, with all this danger on one side, no evil bearing any proportion to it could possibly result from freedom (p. 106).

The Negroes who cultivate their own grounds are well fed, but their clothing would not be sufficient for decency, were it not for what they purchase for themselves. All this, however, is gained by the sacrifice of the slaves' Sunday (p. 106).

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III. The Rev. PETER DUNCAN was the third witness called. He had been a Wesleyan Missionary in Jamaica for more than eleven years; had resided five years in St. Thomas in the East, two in Kingston, two in St. Thomas in the Vale, and two in Montego Bay. In St. Thomas in the East, which was a great sugar parish, there were three chapels, in all of which he did duty. There were about 1000 slaves attending at these chapels, besides free people; but the members of the society were much more numerous, for all could not attend each Sunday. The chapels were as full as they could hold. There were no Sunday schools at first: they were regarded with an unfavourable eye by the planters. At Kingsto about 3000 attended in two chapels, a third has been added since; the majority of the slaves there were donfestics. In St. Thomas in the Vale about 300 attended, chiefly plantation slaves. At Montego Bay the average attendance was between 600 and 700, more than half being slaves, and of these a half being plantation slaves. There were Sunday schools at all these places, principally for children, but also for adults. At Kingston there were 300 children of both sexes taught. It was not till 1825 that the Sunday schools became efficient, and that reading was taught. A day school was opened in 1830, attended both by slaves and free, about half of each. The teachers were coloured persons. The aptitude of the scholars was pretty much as elsewhere (p. 106 and 107).

From all that Mr. Duncan saw of the slaves, he thought they were just as willing to labour as the people of any other country. Hard labour being performed by slaves in Jamaica stamps it with a kind of disgrace; but, when they get above that feeling, they are much more willing to labour when free than when slaves. Their desire too to acquire comforts and luxuries, beyond their allowances as slaves, is very evident. They have in general a stronger taste for these things than the lower classes in European countries. He had seen emancipated slaves with their little settlements so arranged, and their premises so regulated, as to indicate a desire for very superior comforts and luxuries in furniture and dress: this is quite obvious to the spectator. He is persuaded that if emancipation were general, and firmly established, the Negroes would be more industrious than at present: the unthinking and worthless among them might shrink from labour, but, if slavery were done away, hard labour would be stripped of its degrada

tion, and they would labour generally and industriously. As a body Mr. Duncan thought them the most industrious people he had ever seen. The free people he had known do not at all murmur at hard labour, but they would not submit to go and dig cane-holes, that being slaves' work. Many of them who have even had the advantage of a liberal education will pursue without complaint, and perseveringly, work as laborious as cane-holes. They have appeared to him to have energy little short of the people at home, though warm climates are less favourable to exertion (p. 108 and 109).

Mr. Duncan was well acquainted with plantation slaves, especially in St. Thomas in the East, but almost wholly in the way of religious communication. When he went on plantations he had no intercourse with the slaves, nor visited their houses, but he knew much of their habits and mode of living from conversation with themselves, and with attorneys, overseers, and others. The enquiries which were found necessary to be made into the causes of absence from divine worship revealed much of the interior of plantations, and pains were taken to substantiate excuses by the evidence of slaves on the same estate on whom reliance could be placed. The most general excuse was that they were bound to attend their provision grounds. He believed it to be quite indispensable at present for the slaves to labour in their grounds on a Sunday. He never expected to see them oftener than once a month, and this even in the case of such as had masters favourable to instruction. The number of slave members in St. Thomas in the East was 3000 or 4000, but only about 1000 attended each Sunday. It was absolutely necessary that they should devote their Sundays frequently to their provision grounds, to have even a bare maintenance for themselves and families. Indeed the slaves are compelled by their masters, in some cases, to go upon their grounds on Sunday. In one instance Mr. Duncan had to intercede with a humane master to save a Negro from being flogged, whose crime was that he had been to the parish church on Sunday, instead of going to his grounds. It was scarcely possible for the slaves to keep the Sabbath strictly, or to attend every Sunday. Some have attempted it, but have suffered materially. Religious instruction certainly tended to make the slave more patient of injury, as he had seen in many instances; but it also diffused a light which tended to make them long for its extinction. It cannot be that slavery should long continue in any country which is generally christianized, so that Christianity may be fairly said. to be at issue with slavery; but, if religion get hold of the slave's mind, he will submit to his lot till freed by legitimate means. It is the duty of slaves to obey their masters; but that does not justify slavery, nor will it prevent the light from flowing in on the slaves, whether religious or not, who have an education. They cannot be indifferent hearers of the discussions going on around them. Slavery cannot stand before the light of instruction. Mere oral instruction, indeed, would do little, as in Catholic slave communities; for no substantial knowledge can be communicated without letters. The work of Christianity, however, is

still in its infancy in Jamaica. The number of slaves religiously instructed is very small as compared with the population, and the proportion of them that can read is of course still smaller. The moral state of the uninstructed Negroes is awfully degraded. Marriage is almost wholly neglected by them, and indeed is not unfrequently opposed by the whites who are living themselves in the same low and vicious habits as the Negroes. But even those slaves that are uninstructed are very acute in understanding their own interests, and in making a bargain; and he would entertain no doubt of their ready subjection to the authorities over them (p. 111, 112.)

Mr. Duncan believed that wages would induce the Negroes to labour when free, and that they would labour harder in a state of freedom than they now do. They now want the stimulus of remuneration, and that makes the toil hard which would otherwise be light. Canehole digging, though hard, is not harder than the work of English labourers, nor harder than that which is voluntarily undergone by many free persons in Jamaica itself. He has known such exert themselves in their own grounds, and at their trade, more than the Negroes in the cane-holes. Whether sugar would be raised in the same quantity as now in Jamaica if the slaves were free, he would not pretend to affirm; but that sugar might be raised he has no doubt, nor that numbers would labour in raising sugar for wages. There need be very little change in the mode of remuneration; the labourers might have land and increased time for their own use, only having the Sabbath as a day of entire rest (p. 113).

Mr. Duncan further stated that he had had, over and over again, the testimony of masters, attorneys, and overseers, to the beneficial effects of religious instruction in improving the morals of the slaves, and in restraining the disposition to thieving and licentiousness, and he had seen it himself in a thousand instances. The very same moralizing effects are produced by it in Jamaica as in England (p. 113).

He doubted on what footing sugar cultivation might stand, in the case of emancipation; but he believed that a great number of the present slaves, attached as they were to their domiciles, and having their provision grounds already planted on the estates, would be desirous of remaining where they were, and would continue to cultivate sugar for wages. If they had money enough to obtain land of their own, they would doubtless prefer cultivating that. With the twenty-six week days they now have, and the Sundays, they are able to raise food for their comfortable subsistence. He had heard few complaints on that head, and he mentioned it with very great pleasure. A day and a half in the week, however, is the very least that can suffice, allowing Sunday free. Seven days in the week could not fail to put him in a state of the highest comfort, if he had land in possession; and if he had land, and his time, he would soon have property. In case of emancipation the money possessed by the slaves would be expended in buying land, and forming settlements of their own. Land would then rise in value, and at length be as much

out of their reach as it is now out of the reach of the peasantry of this country. The greater part of them, however, would not be able to obtain land. They have now provision grounds cultivated and ready to their hand; they would be reluctant to leave them, and, if encouraged by the master, they would be willing to remain and labour on the sugar plantations. They receive now no food from their masters that he ever heard of, but a few herrings or other salt fish, occasionally. If free, they might pay a rent, by labouring for their former masters. The black labourer might give, say four days' labour in the week to the master, to cultivate sugar, and employ two days for himself and family. If he could do better in any other way he might prefer it; yet those who had lived long on certain estates, where they had been born and brought up, and where they had become familiar with sugar culture, would, he believed, be willing to remain and give labour in return for a certain portion of land which the owner might let them have. But if they could purchase, or rent, land of their own, some might prefer it. He had no idea of their attempting to possess themselves forcibly of it (p. 113, 114).

He did not know how much time it took the Negroes to raise their food; but the time allowed them was not more than enough for that purpose, and the little additional comforts they required. Some were well clothed, others very badly, although all of them are desirous of appearing as fine as they can. In labouring on their own grounds they generally appear very diligent, but the labour is not severe. They work with the hoe. In general they are very anxious for conveniences, and even finery, and they work very diligently, and even laboriously, in their grounds; but they have often to go a long way to market; and what between this and planting their provisions, and keeping them clean, and gathering them, and preparing them, carrying them home, and taking them to market and selling them, their time is generally fully occupied.

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It is not possible for them, but in rare instances, to attend both church and market, even when the church is contiguous to the market. They cannot quit their marketing till it is finished, and then the forenoon service is over. In the afternoon they are obliged to return home early, especially in crop time, when they must be home to put the mills about on Sunday evenings. There is, therefore, no time to sell their provisions and attend chapel too (p. 115). In point of fact, they scarcely ever do attend market and chapel on the same day. In the former case their secular engagements seem wholly to engross them. In St. James some few attended both, but crop time lasts there for six months, and the necessity of being at home to put the mills about rendered it generally impossible. At Montego bay the market was chiefly supplied by slaves, and it probably may be so in Kingston and other places. The Negroes obtain money by selling hogs and poultry, as well as provisions, especially the head men.

There is a law against putting the mills about on Sunday evenings, in Jamaica, of which the Jamaicans make a great boast. This evidence shows how ill it is observed.