grounds on Sunday were assembled in a gang, and compelled to do so, and fed in the interim by the master. In general the slaves work in their grounds on Sunday. The surplus they raise beyond their wants they carry to market. The daily duration of field labour in Jamaica is eleven hours and a half. In St. Thomas in the East they do not usually gather grass afterwards. In crop time there is no legal limit to their night labour. The usual time of sitting up in the night was six hours. When the gangs were large this labour was lightened. In general, the slaves in crop time worked 18 hours out of 24. Their labour, during the day, appeared to him severe and exhausting (p. 167-169).

The attendance of the slaves in his church was about 80. They were chiefly plantation slaves. They were clean in their dress; the head Negroes in white jackets and trowsers, the others in Osnaburgh. They did not wear shoes. The women generally appeared at church in a muslin dress. He had known two or three hundred emancipated slaves, and he knew them to be well behaved and industrious, not shrinking from hard labour-having a great desire for the comforts of life. He never knew them to work on sugar estates. He has known them to raise provisions, and bring them to market. He thought that the slaves, if emancipated, would be willing to work. His duties, as a curate, carried him occasionally to a few estates on which religious instruction, but only orally, was permitted by the owners. He visited 24 estates in this way, superintending some free brown catechists selected by the rector, Mr. Trew. He never visited the slaves in their houses. Reading was permitted to be taught on Sir George Rose's estates at Coley and Morant, but not during the owner's time. It was merely for half an hour during the dinner interval, twice a week. The number taught to read was only one in 38. When he went on the estates, he met the children at the boiling house, or at the house of the overseer. He knew no difference in the aptness of children to learn in Jamaica and in England: he had been much engaged in teaching the children of the peasantry in this country, both before and since his visit to Jamaica. The children were of the age of from six to fourteen. Their parents had a strong desire they should be taught. The adults did not attend on the estates, though they showed their desire for instruction by coming to the Sunday schools. The oral mode of instruction Mr. Thorp deems quite inefficient, but, when united with reading, the effect was good. He never had any conversation with the slaves respecting freedom, having been warned by Mr. Trew of the peculiar state of society in Jamaica. On the same ground he abstained from questioning overseers on the subject. He found, however, that the proceedings in this country about slavery were well known to both slave and free-they having access to the newspapers. Mr. Thorp, however, saw no symptoms of disaffection when he was there, except that he heard frequent complaints of the extent and exhaustion of labour, and of the consequent exclusion from the means of religious instruction. Those means were at that time more abundant than in any other parish, and there was an improved moral feeling among the slaves. For, in St. Thomas in the

East, not only was religious instruction to a considerable extent afforded by the rector, but the Wesleyans had three chapels largely attended by slaves (p. 170-172).

Mr. Thorp had seen the slaves cultivating their grounds and taking provisions to market, and not only supporting themselves, but their aged relations, by their own labour. He understood that the law compelled the owner to support the aged slaves; but certainly the law was not carried into effect; for, in cases he knew, they were supported wholly by the exertions of their relatives, without any thing from the owner but their small allowance of fish, and grounds which they were not able themselves to work, but which their relations assisted in working. He could not tell that the time so occupied was not made up by the masters, but his strong impression was that it was not* (p. 171).

Then follows a number of questions respecting the influence of general as distinct from religious knowledge; on the nature of police regulations proper to be adopted; and on the degree in which the emancipation under such regulations would be partial or complete : they elicited, however, few or no material facts, and therefore may be passed over (p. 172, 178).

VII. The Rev. WILTSHIRE STANTON AUSTIN is a clergyman of the established church. The insurrection in Demerara, in 1823, he conceived, arose from the ignorance in which the slaves were kept of the real purposes of government, and the excitement produced by their being led to believe that privileges had been conceded to them by the king which their masters withheld from them. Knowing, however, as he did, the feelings and habits of the slaves, he did not imagine that the grant of entire freedom to them would endanger the public peace, especially if the slaves were allowed to cultivate the land from which they now draw their food. There would be no danger of either the young or the old suffering from want with their fellows around them able to give assistance; he never had seen natural affection more strongly exhibited than among the Negroes. Their wants indeed are few, and the soil is fertile; but yet such is the desire of the Negro to improve his condition, that he would make equal exertions with the European, if his inducements to labour were the same. A slave working for himself is a very different being from a slave working for his master: in the former case he labours cheerfully and willingly. On his father's estate, in Surinam, he was in the habit of employing the slaves to execute the work of the plantation by task, and he found that a reasonable day's task would thus be performed in much less time; and that when a double task was assigned to a man and his wife, the wife was sent to attend to her domestic

• The law on this point sounds plausibly to an English ear, but in fact it goes only to prevent masters from permitting their infirm or diseased slaves to become mendicants, or to wander from the estates, and this obviously as a regulation of police, to prevent the annoyance to the public, rather than to secure a provision for the slave. See clause 17 of the Act of February 19, 1831. It does not interdict quartering them on their relatives, or prescribe the allowances to be made them.

affairs and prepare the comfortable meal, while the husband completed the task of both in the usual time allotted to labour. In Guiana and Barbadoes the slaves at present are fed by provisions raised by the gang as a common stock, which are dealt out to them by the master. If the slave were allowed to feed himself, and were paid wages for his labour, the master might be relieved from all his present heavy expenses for food, clothing, medical charges, and the cost of providing for children and for the aged and infirm, and the master would be greatly benefited by the labour of the slave. It was his father's opinion, as well as his own, that if his 250 slaves were emancipated, and he could place them around him as a peasantry, paying rent for their houses and grounds, and having also wages for all the labour they did for him, he should be a great gainer. That he could not carry this plan into effect was owing to a heavy mortgage on the estate, comprising the slaves. Had he tried to treat them as free labourers, while they were still in fact slaves, the experiment, under existing circumstances, must have failed; and if he had emancipated them the mortgagees would have interfered. He had seen in Hanover four instances of slaves emancipated and land given to them, on which they not only raised provisions, but also canes, which were manufactured into sugar at the master's mill for half the produce. In short he was convinced that the emancipation of the slaves might be made compatible with the cultivation of sugar, and probably in equal quantities as at present, and at no greater cost. This, however, was only opinion, not experiment. The desire of the slave for comforts and luxuries is very strong, and would induce him to engage in constant profitable employment (p. 179-182).

There are in Surinam two settlements of emancipated slaves, with which he had had much intercourse. Their employment was to cut and saw timber into planks, and bring it down from the interior; and also their surplus provisions, as rice and yams, and other articles, which they bartered for whatever they wanted, besides accumulating property. Mr. Austin had in his possession 10l. to keep for one man; and he knew a friend with whom as much as 3007. had been deposited by various individuals belonging to those settlements, the produce of very hard labour; at least as hard, if not so regular, as the cultivation of sugar. Under all the circumstances of the case, his own clear opinion was that West Indian property would be improved, and not injured, by emancipation; and, as for danger to the public peace, that, he thought, would be lessened, not increased, by it. So strong was his belief of this, that he should not hesitate to return thither with his family in case of emancipation, while nothing could tempt him to return to the West Indies if slavery is to continue. He has large reversionary interests in prospect both in Guiana and in Barbadoes, and though those interests are in slaves and not in land, so that he himself might be a sufferer by the change, it was his decided feeling that, with a view to the general interests, emancipation was desirable (p. 183).

The free settlements spoken of are not settlements of Indians, but of Africans who had forcibly emancipated themselves, as stated in Stedman's History of Surinam, and with whom the Dutch had entered

into a treaty, which has been pretty well observed on both sides; and instead of being a source of danger to the colony, they are now a great protection to it. He had never heard of any want among them; and, though he had had much intercourse with them, he had never seen one of them intoxicated. Their settlements were not very far from the cultivated parts of the colony, but they did not themselves raise sugar or coffee. They are a very handsome, well-formed race, with their features sharper and more raised than the Africans generally. They consist of persons from different parts of the colony, escaping from slavery, and uniting to defend their liberty. Their number is not known; they are jealous of enquiries on that point; but the reports vary from 10,000 to 20,000. They are very prolific, and their habits are very favourable to their rapid increase. They speak what is called Negro-English, a compound of English and Dutch and African. The Bible has recently been translated into it by the Moravian Missionaries, who have planted a mission there. The settlers allow no other Europeans to reside among them. Mr. Austin made one or two attempis, but did not succeed. He had, however, frequent intercourse with them on his father's estate for a few days or even a week at a time. Generally speaking, they were heathens, with the exception of those converted by the Moravian missionaries; but their mission commenced only 15 years ago, and since Mr. Austin's intercourse with them had ceased (p. 184 and 185).

Mr. Austin stated that his opinion of the safety of emancipation was derived from his knowledge of the character of the Negroes. They were naturally peaceable, and they would be still more so when the great boon for which alone they had to contend was conceded to them. Their habits of submission, and their respect for the superiority of the whites, he thought would remain with them. What course the planter might think it right to pursue he could not pretend to say, but it would be obviously his interest to hold out every inducement to the emancipated slaves to continue as labourers on his estate. As he could have no other labourers, there could be no fear of want of employment for a time, though indeed the richness of the soil would hold out temptations to persons emancipated in the other slave colonies to migrate to Guiana (p. 186).

In Demerara the slaves had little opportunity of attending religious worship. There were only two clergymen and four missionaries, for a population of 90,000 of all classes (p. 186).

Mr. Austin had never known slaves buy their own children's freedom; but he has known parents, after being emancipated themselves, redeem their children. As slaves, had they had the means, they would have been most eager to do so, even in preference to redeeming themselves (p. 186).

In the island of Barbadoes he had seen one or two cases of blacks begging about the streets; but whether they were slaves or free he could not tell. The number, however, of such persons was extremely small indeed; while white beggars swarmed in many parts of the island. He had even seen such relieved by the slaves (p. 187).

The free blacks and people of colour whom Mr. Austin had known were remarkably industrious as mechanics, hucksters, and in a variety

of ways, and though not indeed as field labourers for others, yet as labourers on their own plots of ground. He had known Negroes of good character, both in Demerara and Barbadoes, when emancipated, continuing to live near their former master; or some kind friend, raising small patches of cane, which when ripe were sent to the master's mill and manufactured for a half or a third of the produce, as might be agreed. This, however, is much disapproved of by masters generally, from the same feeling which, in this country, leads a farmer to disapprove of his labourer growing wheat or barley, suspecting that, if he had a bad crop, he would help himself from his master's field (p. 187). In Demerara, as late as 1822, the marriage of slaves was a thing unheard of, being considered as incompatible with slavery. This was his official reply to a question put by the government of that day (see the parliamentary returns for 1823, No. 89, p. 81). Such marriages were in fact discouraged by the planters and the governors. Two persons applied to Mr. Austin to be married, and the fees of the Secretary's office were so high that he was obliged to send them to the Methodist Missionaries to be married. They being desirous of marriage, and Mr. Austin refusing to admit them to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper till they were married, he saw no other course. Marriage appeared to him incompatible with slavery, because, under the law of Demerara at that time, the husband and wife might be separated so as never to meet again. The law may now be different; but, previous to 1824, the husband and wife might be separated. Marriage is now more encouraged than it was then (p. 188).

Mr. Austin said that his conduct, in respect of Missionary Smith of Demerara, had caused a wide breach between him and his relations in the West Indies, with all of whom, excepting his father, all intercourse had ceased for a time. He was not without fear that the evidence he was now giving might produce a similar result. But he was so deeply interested in the cause of Negro emancipation that he should be ready to promote it at any hazard or sacrifice. There was a time, he admitted, when he felt somewhat differently on this subject, or rather in his views of Christian principle and duty concerning it. As those views became clearer, he was more fully convinced of the incompatibility of religion with slavery. His opinions had never been opposed to those he now held; but they were so affected by early prejudices and views of interest, as to lead him at one time to regard Mr. Wilberforce, for example, as a great enemy to the West Indies. Reason, experience, reflection, and better feelings had led him to a different conclusion now. He then thought only of the injury emancipation might inflict on the planter; but he had latterly thought of the wrong done to the unfortunate Negro and his unoffending offspring, condemned to perpetual bondage. Even in 1821 he had expressed opinions in Demerara which Governor Murray considered as dangerous, and which proved a bar to his promotion, leading the governor to suspect his being connected with the African Institution in this country. The governor particularly objected to his opinions respecting the education of the slaves, and said he would banish any missionary who should attempt it. To these views, and to his advocacy of the