Being asked whether he went on estates to obtain information respecting the Negroes, he answers, "decidedly not," but to gain information as to working sugar, and general management, as he would visit a farm here. He thinks marriage is more protected in Jamaica than in England! Being asked whether a wife or daughter may not be flogged by the overseer before her husband's or father's eyes, and whether he would prefer being a labourer on these terms rather in Jamaica than in England; he said he had not thought, in making his answer, of wife and children, or any fine feelings about them, but about food. As to immorality and concubinage, never being guilty of these things himself, he made it a rule never to enquire into the doings of others. He did not think the Negro would work for wages if wages were given him : he could get enough by working on his own grounds, and he does not think it natural that a man, in a warm climate, should exert himself for more. With respect to the Negroes who worked at his pen, he admitted that he offered them pay for extra work, and, the pay being their own, they did it. (Now what is this but working for wages?)-The Negroes are a very cheerful people, much more happy than labourers here: that made him say he should prefer being a labourer there. He thinks Mr. Barrett has misnamed the driver's whip, in calling it a cart-whip; it is more like a postillion's whip on the continent; but, whatever be its proper name, Sir Charles adds, "decidedly the whip is a very cruel whip; there is no doubt of that." He knew many gentlemen in Jamaica, but he knew none more competent to give evidence than Mr. Shand and Mr. Simpson (p. 506–508).

XVIII.

JAMES BECKFORD WILDMAN, Esq.

JAMES BECKFORD WILDMAN, Esq., has three estates in Jamaica, with 640 slaves upon them. He was there in 1825; and in 1826 he went out again and staid two years and a half. When he went he found the slaves perfectly destitute of all religious instruction, but by no means inferior in intellect to the labouring classes in this country. They were particularly astute in driving bargains, and perfectly acquainted with the proper prices of commodities. Between domestics and field Negroes there was a difference; but it was of the kind which exists between our servants in the house, and a ploughman or a girl taken out of a cottage. The first step he took was to give

them religious instruction. He watched its progress, and the effect far surpassed any thing he had expected, and was quite as satisfactory as any thing that could be found in this country. Their morals also have improved under religious instruction. When he first went out there was not one slave that was married on the estate; by a letter lately received from a young man sent out by the Church Missionary Society as a teacher, there are only two living in concubinage. The change for the better from religious instruction was decided, and there was as great eagerness for it, if not more, in many instances, than he found in his own village in England. And not on his own estates only, but throughout the island, the desire for both religious and general knowledge is too strong to be eradicated. It cannot be eradicated. They will have it some way or other. If there were encouragement given to it, it would spread rapidly. At present it is not only not encouraged, but thwarted. There is a decided hostility to instructing the slaves in letters. Many will give nothing but oral instruction, which he regards as a farce and deception. An hour is fixed for visiting the estate to give oral instruction; the Negroes may have a mile or a mile and a half to walk home; the teacher gets them together slowly enough, and begins catechising them, but they have scarcely entered on business when the hour is expended, and away they go again. He regards it not only as wholly inefficient in itself, but as carried on by most unfit agents, by book-keepers generally, who are themselves living in the grossest immorality, and who thus bring religion into contempt.

To employ persons living in open immorality to inculcate morality is surely a gross absurdity. In the case of his own people the effect of instruction was very gratifying in respect to their exertions in the labour of the estate it was all done in a gratifying way. Looking only at his own interest, and without any higher motive, the proprietor will best promote those interests by the religious instruction of his slaves. His first object was to do away with the driving whip as a stimulus to labour, and he found that a most valuable change. The whip was used, not as a stimulus to labour, but only as a corrective of crime and he thought all proprietors might pursue this course with advantage, if they would only treat their slaves as Christians would naturally treat their fellow-christians. The estates have certainly been less productive since he went out; but for that he thus accounts:The system when he arrived, was severe to a degree that was quite

revolting and horrible, and, when he went to the other extreme, the Negroes relaxed altogether, and therefore at first little work was done; but, when they found that work must be done, though in a different way, they came into his plan, and it went on perfectly well. He effected this by talking to them, and making them understand that, if their work was not done, they must be punished for neglect of duty and this lenient mode of proceeding had a great influence upon them. The hire of a field Negro in Jamaica is 3s. 4d. currency, or nearly 2s. 6d. sterling, a day. Now, what is actually given to the slave by the master is very little, as in fact he maintains himself by his provision grounds. Herrings are the chief allowance besides, in the way of food. All charges included, the cost of a slave to the master may be about £5 a head, besides the rent of house and grounds. This calculation includes the women and children. Hired labour is dear; for there is none to be got but that of jobbing gangs. And certainly a most miserable life is that which is led by those who compose such gangs. He tried the plan of giving allowances to his slaves for extra work, but he never could get overseers to enter heartily into the plan: the slaves were most ready to adopt it. His experience led him to say that they were quite disposed, while slaves, to work for money; but he was not equally convinced that they would do it when perfectly free; for then the stimulus to labour, which now operates, would be entirely lost. He talked with one of his head men on the subject, and explained the circumstances in which the slaves would be placed, giving up their grounds, and supporting entirely themselves and families. He shrunk back from the change, and this led him to think they would rather remain as they are than be free, if compelled to work. The impression on his driver's mind evidently was that he might lose all he now possessed, and lose, besides, the protection and friendship of his master, and gain nothing* (p. 509–513).

The chief difficulty which Mr. Wildman had seen in the plan of wages was the want of a circulating medium. The only feasible plan

* The case could hardly have been stated quite fairly to this slave, if such was his impression. He was not led to contemplate the possibility of retaining his house and land, paying a reasonable rent for them, and having wages besides—and all this, as might be the case, without losing his master's friendship, as his landlord, though no longer his master.

that had occurred to him (for he had not looked to entire emancipation) was to bring the slaves into something like the condition of our labourers, but withholding the name of freedom, freedom implying in their view an exemption from labour. The admission of slave evidence has now been effected, which is most material; for the slave's life was in the master's hand before. He would totally put an end to trafficking on Sunday, and give him another day in lieu of it; for the

master has now the whole seven days; and, if the slave does not work on Sunday, he starves. It would thus be in his power to keep the Sabbath. He would also provide a paid magistracy, it being absolutely essential that the magistrates should be wholly unconnected with the island. In that case the slave would get redress, which he cannot get now. The same should be the case with all judges, as the system now pursued of appointing planters to be judges is a mere farce. He would take away all power of corporal punishment from the master, and place it with the magistrate; and he would protect the slave from being separated from relations, or dispossessed of property, and make them in all respects like the peasantry of this country, except as to the name of freedom, being unwilling to break the link which now connects the master and slave with each other. Mr. Wildman's impression is that the only thing the slave sees valuable in freedom is exemption from labour; and he will be able to maintain himself on a piece of ground so easily that he will not be stimulated to labour beyond a bare subsistence,-a course to which he would be encouraged by the example of the low whites, and the free black and coloured classes also* (p. 514, 515).

* We must here make a few remarks on these views of Mr. Wildman. In much of what he says we entirely acquiesce ; but surely he sees difficulties where none really exist, if he deems that arising from the deficiency of a circulating medium to be insuperable.-But is Mr. Wildman quite correct in the view he has taken of the law as to slave evidence? He has not, we apprehend, read that law: he would otherwise have passed a very different judgment upon it. He is perhaps not aware that the present law on the subject, that of 1831, clauses 130, 131, and 132, are almost verbatim the same with the corresponding clauses of the Act of 1826, which was disallowed by Mr. Huskisson. Mr. Huskisson's observations upon it are as follows:-" This law appears to contemplate the admission of the evidence of slaves in those cases of crime only in which they are usually either the actors or the sufferers, excluding the evidence in other cases; a distinction

Mr. Wildman was then questioned about Mr. Taylor's management and its effects on his property. He complained of it, saying that Mr. Taylor was so carried away by his feelings and his scruples that great

which does not seem to rest on any solid foundation." "The rule which requires that two slaves at the least shall consistently depose to the same fact on being examined apart, before any free person can be convicted on slave testimony, will greatly diminish the value of the general rule. In the case of rape, for example, such restriction might secure impunity to offenders of the worst description. The rejection of the testimony of slaves twelve months after the commission of the crime would be fatal to the ends of justice in many cases; nor is it easy to see what solid advantage could result from it in any case. If the owner of a slave is convicted of any crime on the testimony of that slave, the court has no power to declare that slave free, although it may exercise the power when it proceeds on other evidence. Highly important as it is to deprive a slave of any motive for giving false evidence against his owner, that object might be secured without incurring the inconvenience of leaving the slave in the power of an owner convicted of the extreme abuse of his authority." In these remarks of Mr. Huskisson, Lord Goderich entirely concurs. But neither of them pointedly notices the defect that the evidence of slaves is wholly excluded in all civil cases, and in all matters of wrong affecting their persons and property, and not involving certain crimes that are specifically mentioned in it. The whole range, therefore, of plantation discipline, not involving those specified crimes, is wholly excluded from the operation of this boasted law of slave evidence.

As it is of the very utmost importance that this subject should be fully understood, both as it respects the unintentional misapprehensions of such a man as Mr. Wildman, and the intentional sophistications of such men as Mr. Dignum and Mr. Burge, we will give the law as it actually stands in the statute-book at this moment.

"CXXX. And be it further enacted, That from and after the commencement of this act, upon any complaint made before a justice of the peace of any murder, felony, burglary, robbery, rebellion, or rebellious conspiracy, treason, or traitorous conspiracy, rape, mutilation, branding, dismembering, or cruelly beating, or confining without sufficient support, a slave or slaves; or in any cases of seditious meetings, or of harbouring or concealing runaway slaves, or giving fulse tickets or letters to such runaway slaves, to enable them to elude detection; or on any inquisition before a coroner; the evidence of any slave or slaves, respecting such complaint and inquisition, shall be received and taken by such justice of the peace or coroner; and on any prosecution in any of the courts of this island, for any of the crimes before mentioned, the evidence of a slave or slaves shall also be admitted and received: provided always, that, before such evidence shall be re