fire. He had heard of trials proving these facts in St James but he had not been present at them himself* (p. 657).

Mr. Dignum did not believe there was any truth in what was said of the attachment of slaves to the missionaries, or their regret for the burning of the chapels; he thought it was quite the contrary. To prove this, he told one of his strange stories, as follows: "On my way to the assizes, in July last, I staid a day or two with Mr. Jobson, of Cotton Pen, in St. Ann. He told me it was very unpleasant to himthe constant singing during the night of psalms and hymns by the slaves; that he could not rest, and he thought it injurious to their health. But he did not like to prevent it; for rather than be troubled with questions from the Colonial Office, as Mr. Betty+ was, he preferred the annoyance going on to interfering with it. On my visit to him in March last, on my way to the assizes, I heard the gomby and the slaves dancing to it; and, on my making the remark that the sounds were very different from those I heard last July, his answer was that he had been speaking to his head driver that morning and asking him how Methodism was going on; his answer was, 'Massa, I am very glad Methodism is all over, chapel down, and minister gone, for so long as the chapel was standing and minister there we were obliged to give our money, or we should be read out of the chapel, but now we have our fowls and our money, and do not spend our money as we did before, and we go to church.' While he was saying this, a man passed, and addressed him 'Daddy,' the name he was called among the Baptists, he being a Baptist; he said, 'Do not call me daddy now call me father, as you used to do.' Mr. Jobson added

that since the chapel was destroyed the slaves were more cheerful, and had their amusements of dancing and gomby, and were attending church. He had heard complaints about losing rest by singing psalms at late hours, ever since the missionaries had been in the island (p. 958).

Mr. Dignum had never heard the slaves complain of the courts that tried them. The slaves were many of them very ignorant; but it was their feeling that they could obtain justice against acts of oppression, though the oppressor was their master. He does not believe that of late the slaves are disposed to suppress their complaints from a fear of not having redress; but frivolous complaints have of late been so much attended to by Government that complaints multiply: and this Mr. Dignum thought a strong argument against having protectors (p. 559). There is no bias which prevents a slave obtaining justice. He has seen, by the newspapers, of overseers being fined for misconduct. He has heard also of many frivolous complaints being dismissed. He had never heard of slaves being oppressed by overseers for having made frivolous complaints to magistrates, or of their having been punished for the evidence they may have given.

* This must also be untrue. We have seen the Jamaica newspapers and have met with no such trials.

+ See Anti-Slavery Reporter, vol. iii., No. 69, p. 431; and vol. iv., No. 76, p. 136; No. 77, p. 145.

15. JAMES SIMPSON, Esq.

He

This gentleman's evidence was confined to one or two points, and did not go to the same extent as in the House of Commons. seems to have been called chiefly to weaken, if he could, the powerful effect of Mr. Taylor's evidence, by representing him on his oath, to the Committee, as a weak and chimerical visionary, unworthy of attention: an attempt, we doubt not, in which he completely failed. And he took the occasion to declare also, on his oath, his belief that any overseer who should be mad and profligate enough to punish a woman for refusing to sleep with him would incur the risk of being driven from society and punished. This, however, is quite as true

as that Mr. Taylor is a weak and chimerical visionary.

16. Mr. EDWARD JOHN WOLSEY.

Mr. Wolsey, a native of the United States, resided in Hayti six months as a merchant, collecting debts for his father. He had been on estates growing the sugar cane; but sugar is badly manufactured, from the ignorance of the Negroes who manage the estates. The labourers are indolent and do little, but are happy in their indolence. They grow a great deal of coffee, which does not require much labour, but not sugar. They trade much both with the United States and with England. Many of the population, both black and coloured, wear shoes. The blacks and browns do not seem to like each other. The trade, he thought, had fallen off from the very low price of produce, added to the indolence of the people. They were expecting there might be a French invasion, but had no fear of the result. He saw much of the blacks. Reading and writing are the chief branches of education, and music, of which they are fond, and play well. Pianofortes are very common among them. Music is taught by blacks. The religion is Catholic. The proportion of the married is small; but their manners are not dissolute, for they maintain a kind of matrimonial connection among all classes, high and low. They call it placing themselves, and, though no legal ceremony takes place, they raise and educate their children and treat them as if they were legally married (p. 1057–1060).

Mr. Wolsey lived on a plantation which grew cane, the juice of which was boiled into thick syrup and made into rum. The labourers worked but little, though they were partners in the estate, every one receiving his share. All the cultivators were partners in the produce of the estate, but he did not know the proportions. He has, however, seen beautiful sugar made in Hayti; but in general they use syrup instead of sugar, and the syrup is so thick that it does not ferment. He has not seen any of them work hard. A few hours' labour in the day is enough for their wants. He never knew any instance of coercion but one, where a man was brought back to the estate, having quitted it, but he was not flogged (p. 1061, 1062).

Mr. Wolsey was also on a cotton estate man, worked by slaves, in South Carolina. used there, though they worked indolently.

belonging to an EnglishHe never saw the whip Rice and tobacco are

also grown by slaves. He believed very little of either would be grown if the blacks were made free. The blacks were lazy, but it was possible the whites might be equally lazy, if they were placed in the same situation in that hot climate. The climate enervates the system; he found it so himself (p. 1062, 1063).

The public works and roads in Hayti are very good,-beautiful. The French, he believes, made them. He saw the Haytian troops; they are not in a bad state; they looked very well. He understood there were 45,000 of them. The Hayti tobacco is very good. Coffee, mahogany, and logwood are their chief exports. He had no fear of insecurity in Hayti. A man may safely avow himself a Protestant there. The missionaries are chiefly in towns (p. 1064,1065).

17. THOMAS WILLIAMS, ESQ.

Mr. Williams resided 15 years in Berbice as a planter, and left it in May, 1832. A body of slaves, called the Winkels, chiefly artificers belonging to Government, were emancipated lately: their number is about 300. A great many are men of very good character, well disposed; some are vagrants. Most of them were educated, particular attention having been bestowed on them by Mr. Wray, a missionary. This, therefore, Mr. Williams thinks, is no fair experiment. These men too are artificers. It does not follow that emancipated persons will work as agricultural labourers for hire. He offered a free man a dollar a day to cut canes, but he refused with disdain (p. 1066, 1063).

Mr. Williams had 370 slaves, and his estate made 500 hogsheads of sugar. They work by task. The plough is not used: it does not answer. No whip is carried in the field in Berbice, and having tasks assigned it may be dispensed with. The hours of labour are from six to six, with intervals of three hours. There are two missionaries in Berbice, and in some places education is beginning (p. 1068, 1069).

Being asked if the Winkels had become a burden to the colony, he said, Not so much as they will be. Freedom is a novelty to them at present, and many of them have it in view to procure fine clothes and luxuries, but, having obtained these, many will become indolent. He thought only one-fourth of them would work industriously.-That is saying, in fact, though reluctantly, that they are not burdens on the colony, and are industrious (p. 1070).

Mr. Williams has known £500 paid for a valuable slave, a boiler, and for a good field slave £300; but their price would now be not more than a third.

18. WILLIAM BURGE, ESQ.

We come now to the last remaining witness who was examined on the pro-slavery side in the House of Lords, Mr. Burge, the late Attorney-General of Jamaica, and now the salaried agent of that colony. Much of this gentleman's evidence, if evidence it can be called, more resembles the ex parte pleading of an advocate than the testimony of a sworn witness deposing to the facts of a case; indeed, it is avowedly a defence of his constituents as well as of himself personally, and was

evidently prepared and arranged with considerable care. But we are willing to accept it even on these terms; for we are far from thinking that it has had any very great effect in bolstering up the sinking cause of slavery, but rather has aided in its subversion.

Mr. Burge was 20 years resident in Jamaica, and is owner, by right of his wife, of a coffee plantation in Manchester, with about 130 slaves upon it.

Mr. Burge first produces a statement to the Committee the object of which is to show that the property in slaves had been created by this country. This statement contains the following heads :

A. Origin and foundation of the African trade, and proceedings of Government and Parliament relative thereto.*

B. Respects laws and other proceedings for the melioration of the lave population.

C. Laws for the melioration of the free people of colour.

D. Papers relative to certain instances of maltreatment of slaves, and proceedings thereupon.

E. Papers relating to the late rebellion in Jamaica.

F. Miscellaneous papers.

All of these, with the exception of that part of the last head which relates to the condition, in 1825, of three estates belonging to Lord Seaford, and the list of manumissions granted in Jamaica between 1817 and Dec. 1830, are a mere transcript of papers already on the table, and in the hands of every member, of Parliament; and, with respect to the exceptions, they are papers destitute of any adequate authentication, the agent of Lord Seaford, whoever he may be, being alone answerable for the one, and no responsible officer of the Crown being answerable for the correctness of the other, as has always been the case in every return of the same nature from other colonies. The Jamaica returns come to us in this instance from the Assembly through Mr. Burge, instead of coming through the Governor to the Secretary of State, under the official signature of the proper officer, who, we believe, is the Secretary of the island. The omission of this necessary formality, in the case of Jamaica alone, renders the accuracy of the document an object of some suspicion, especially as there are variations, in the different returns which have been received from Jamaica respecting manumissions, which cannot be reconciled except by explanations which the proper officer is alone competent to give; and in the case of bequests of freedom especially, dependent on conditions, no distinct information is given as to the fulfilment of such bequests. See papers of 1823, No. 347, and of 1826, No. 353, &c., compared with the document now furnished by Mr. Burge.

A part of these papers relates to the transactions of the Jamaica Assembly in 1774, on the subject of a duty which they levied on slaves imported, but which was disapproved by the then Board of Trade. The whole turns out to be a mere financial operation, an easy mode of replenishing the Jamaica treasury, which the Government at home disallowed, but which had not the slightest mixture of any philanthropic desire to lessen the horrors of that trade, or to deprive Jamaica of what were supposed to be the advantages of its importations. It is downright hypocrisy to refer to it in that view.

We have so often exposed the defence again set up by Mr. Burge for the conduct adopted by the Assembly of Jamaica, in regard to the pretended amelioration of their slave laws, and generally of their intolerant enactments in respect to religion, that we should only be repeating what we have already said over and over again, even to satiety. All we think it necessary to do, therefore, is to refer to our former pages, viz. vol. ii., No. 29, p. 103-111; No. 33, p. 177-182; and No. 38, p. 261-270; vol. iii., No. 65, p. 349-361; vol. iv., No. 82; and vol. v., No. 93. Mr. Burge admitted that, officially, he had never known of any pecuniary contributions to the mission fund which were not perfectly voluntary, free-will offerings on the part of the slaves, or that any inconvenience to the police and good government of the island had arisen from the nightly meetings of sectarian congregations (p. 968, 969).

Mr. Burge states that "the two particular clauses which caused the act of 1826 to be rejected by his Majesty are not contained in the act of 1831." He is then asked, "Are there clauses of a similar nature in the law of 1831 ?" His reply is, "I will beg to refer your Lordships to the clause itself. By the 84th clause, the practice of nightly and other meetings is declared unlawful, and punishment inflicted on persons attending them." Now this clause 84 in the act of 1831 corresponds, verbatim et literatim, with clause 88 of the act of 1826, and has no relation whatever to the three-(not two, as Mr. Burge asserts) particular clauses which have been expunged from the act of 1831, viz. clauses 85, 86, and 87 of the act of 1826. Does Mr. Burge, then, mean to say that the clause 88 of the act of 1826, which is retained and now forms clause 84 of the act of 1831, was directed by a side wind against religious meetings? If so, then the proceedings of the Assembly are still more insidious than we were disposed to believe. Both these clauses are directed against the practice of nightly and other private meetings of slaves. Was it meant that in the term private meetings were to be comprehended meetings for public religious worship with open doors? If not, then the object of his reference is not very obvious; because this cannot be said to be a law of "a similar nature" to the rejected clauses, which were directed exclusively to religion. But if he does mean that the term is to be understood as comprehending nightly public meetings for religious worship, then we should be at a loss for words to designate as it deserves such atrocious obliquity of legislation, such a fraud on the government, and parliament, and people of England. Mr Burge, we conceive, is bound to clear up this ambiguity, if it were only for the sake of his constituents.

Mr. Burge very dexterously suggests to their Lordships, as an apology for the existing slave legislation of Jamaica, viz. the law of 1831, the consideration that, "if they looked merely at the written laws which regard the condition of the slaves, they would do great injustice; they must enquire, not only for the written law, but the usage" (p. 970). Now we do not deny that, if we were contemplating an enactment which, being of ancient date, had become obsolete, and being superseded by usage, like the old laws against witchcraft in tais country, had fallen into total desuetude, the argument of Mr. Burge might be a very