The punishments also in the workhouses are dreadful. He had never been in any of the gaols but one, and that was extremely filthy. It was that of St. Andrew, at Half-way Tree, near Papine. He had had occasion to commit a Negress there, and she was reported to be in so bad a state that he went to inspect the gaol, and he found it in a most filthy state, and the punishments little short of those of the inquisition: they were actually tortured there. The mode of flogging was to put a rope round each wrist, and a rope round each ancle, and then they were what the sailors call "bowsed out" with a tackle and pulley. He never saw this performed, but knew that it was done from his own Negroes, who had been sent there. He complained to the custos and magistrates of the parish of these proceedings. The result was, that the block and tackle system was defended as a humane practice, as it prevented the sufferer from turning in his agony, and getting a blow on a tender part. When he went to examine the gaol, a Negro was called to lie down and show how it was done. A skin was stretched on the ground, and he lay upon the skin, and then this tackle was applied to him; and, though Mr. W. and several others were looking, yet when the rope was tightened by another Negro, the man who was operated upon gave a yell, which made Mr. Wildman quite start. The yell was not from apprehension; but from actual pain. He represented all this to the custos, Mr. Mais; but no notice whatever was taken of it at that time, which was just before he last quitted Jamaica (p. 339, 340). Being further questioned as to his views of the effect of emancipation upon the slaves, he said he thought the Negro, though he would work, would not so work as to carry on the cultivation of sugar. A want of religious instruction was another obstacle. The Conversion Society, he said, had by no means been actively conducted.-He thought that, in case of emancipation, masters might be relieved from all responsibility as to the food both of old and young. The old people are now taken care of without the master, by the Negroes themselves. Old and young might be left to the operation of natural affection. The feelings of kindred, and the love of parents and children, he thinks, are as strong in the Negro as in the white. They even carry it beyond this, to those who came over from Africa in the same ship, whom they call shipmates, and always address with regard. There is no doubt they would support their sickly children and their aged parents. Their families now support them, with the exception

of the master's allowance of clothing, &c. When old and decrepit, and wholly incapable of labour, the master provides for them, the relations aiding. The propriety and advantage of emancipation, he still thought, would turn on the slaves' being instructed. He candidly confessed that he thought all profit to him as a proprietor would cease from that time. He admitted, however, that he might be mistaken in his expectations on this point. He certainly conceived free labour to be as cheap as slave labour; but he did not think that sugar would be cultivated by free labour, unless all the land could be ploughed(and why not all ploughed ?)—then cane might be cultivated; but not if the ground is to be dug, as now. The plough could not be applied, he thinks, to two-thirds of the island; but he does not assent to the injury caused to the land by ploughing and exposure to the sun. The digging of cane-holes is the most severe labour he knows, except, perhaps, felling trees with the axe. He would sooner dig an acre of hops than an acre of canes* (p. 541, 542).

XIX. THE REV. JONATHAN TYERS BARRETT, D.D. The Rev. DR. JONATHAN TYERS BARRETT is Secretary to the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction of the Negro

* It is true that there is a great deal of mountain land in Jamaica where the plough could not conveniently be used; but there are very extensive tracts of level and fair lying land in that island, more than sufficient for all its present sugar growth; and we can have no doubt that there are in Jamaica at least a million of acres on which the plough could be made to move as easily as in England.

But the point to which we chiefly object in the generally able, luminous, and truly interesting evidence of Mr. Wildman, is the strong opinion he has formed that full and effective religious instruction should and must precede emancipation, in order to render that measure a safe one. Mr. Wildman will not suppose that we undervalue the extreme, the paramount importance of religion in all states and circumstances of life. But to affirm, as he does, that the influence of real Christianity must precede a man's restoration to the enjoyment of his natural, and civil, and even political rights, is a proposition which we find it very difficult to understand how any man so intelligent and so observant as Mr. Wildman should have permitted himself for one moment to entertain. Would he then propose that men's natural and civil rights should be restrained in proportion to their want of Christian knowledge and Christian practice? One éffect of this would be that the masters in Jamaica would soon have to change

slaves. He has held the situation since 1822. He has corresponded with the Bishops of Jamaica and Barbadoes, and received from them various communications. Before the appointment of bishops, there were nine persons employed by the Society in all the West Indies. Since that time they do not send missionaries or chaplains, but only catechists. One chaplain was sent to Lord Seaford's estates, but he died. The bishops are averse to having chaplains of the Society in their dioceses, as it caused a collision of authorities, and was not quite

places with at least an equal number of their slaves. Besides, what man, or set of men, or what legislature, would Mr. Wildman entrust with the exercise of this vague and anomalous power of deciding the point when the influence of Christian faith shall have attained the measure that shall entitle a slave to freedom?— Look at the mighty masses which float along the streets of London, and of other great towns, and fill our villages throughout the length and breadth of this Christian land, how many of these would Mr. Wildman reckon to have reached the degree of religious knowledge which, if he were the absolute arbiter of their destiny, would constitute their title to freedom, or leave them still to fetters and the whip? Look, moreover, at the state and progress of society in all ages, and in all countries; in the present times as well as in the past; in states highly civilized, as well as in those advancing from barbarism; in polished France, or in less favoured portions of the globe. What statesman or even divine has ever supposed that, however religion might advance the well-being of states and individuals, the capacity to fulfil the ordinary duties of civil life, the exercise of a man's own limbs and faculties, the admission to the rights of nature and the protection of law, were to be suspended on the efficacy of certain schools, and the success of certain preachers of the Gospel? Some WestIndians, and we are sorry to say some bishops of the church, have wished to suspend the marriage tie, which from the creation has been enjoined by the Creator on the whole race of man, on their being able to understand the matrimonial service of the Church of England; but, if we understand Mr. Wildman correctly (and we should be sorry to do him wrong, for few men have a larger share of our esteem, and even admiration), his principle goes much farther even than this; and we might have slavery to endure for ever, if only the professors and teachers of Christianity shall be supine, or obstacles to their success shall be wickedly interposed. Surely, also, Mı. Wildman knows better than any man what indifferent lessons either of morality or religion are likely to be learned in a state of slavery; and that, though freedom may be, and too often is, abused, yet that, of all the impediments to the diffusion of the influence of moral and religious truth which are not common to the whole race of man, slavery is the worst.

compatible with ecclesiastical discipline. Dr. Barrett then delivered in several reports, remarking that the late accounts were scanty, owing to the hurricane in Barbadoes, and the rebellion in Jamaica; the communications at no time being copious. The persons now employed by the Society are lay catechists. There are about fifty in all the islands. These are appointed by the bishops, and the Society at home knows little of them. In Jamaica, some of them are bookkeepers, and some are persons of colour. He knows little about them, and does not even know the principle on which they are selected. Infant schools, on the plan of Mr. Wildman, were recommended by the bishop, but none have been established by the Society, though some have by a Ladies' Society, under the Duchess of Beaufort. Dr. Barrett thinks the bishops have not generally complained of obstructions, but, on the contrary, have spoken favourably of the disposition of the planters towards instruction. He cannot tell the number of slaves under instruction in Jamaica, nor can he furnish any return. Marriages are stated to have increased. He does not know whether the book-keepers employed by the Bishop of Jamaica are moral men or not. He does not believe that the Bishop thinks of extending that system ; Dr. Barrett says, he believes that reading is taught in all the schools of the diocese of Barbadoes, but not to the same extent in that of Jamaica.† All this is sufficiently frigid and unsatisfactory.

XX.-WILLIAM BURGE, Esq.

Mr. BURGE merely gave in a paper containing an account of the expenditure in Jamaica for ecclesiastical or charitable purposes, amounting, for the clergy of all descriptions, to £23,600 currency; for presbyterian teachers, to £1206; and for a Roman Catholic Priest, to £200; besides £6000 for the Kingston Hospital, and about £8650 for free schools and charitable seminaries, chiefly intended for poor whites.

*Thus the spiritual interests of the slave population are to be postponed to some ecclesiastical punctilio,

The fact is that, in Jamaica, the slaves who were taught reading by the Conversion Society amounted, in 1829, to the mighty number of 210. Neither is it true that in all the schools under the Bishop of Barbadoes reading is taught. His own reports show the contrary.

XXI. JOHN MACGREGOR, Esq.

This gentleman has never been in the West Indies, and knows nothing of them; but he has been in North America, and has written a book entitled "British America," which contains a chapter about free Negroes, in which he gives an unfavourable view of the state of some of that class, refugees from the United States, who are settled in Canada; but, as it contains nothing which at all tends to throw light on the present enquiry, we pass it over in silence.

We have now gone through the whole of the oral evidence taken before this Committee. There still remains, however, some documentary evidence to be considered. Of the population tables presented by Mr. Amyot, we defer the consideration for the present, until we have it in our power to exhibit a more full view of that whole subject than these partial documents would enable us to do; and, in the mean time, we refer our readers to the Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 100, as containing a comprehensive view of the slave population of the British Colonies, wholly unaffected by the tables now before us.

We omit also the meagre details extracted by Dr. Barrett from the Conversion Society's Reports, as the substance of them is already to be found in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, and there is nothing therefore to be drawn thence either new or interesting.

But we cannot pass over so lightly the remainder of the documentary evidence contained in the appendix to this bulky volume. One of them is entitled "FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR," and contains " an extract from the examination of Annasamy (a native of Madras, settled in the Mauritius), by the Commissioners who visited the Eastern Colonies, to enquire into the means of improving those Colonies." It is dated 16th August, 1827. We extract a few passages from this document (p. 588, 589).

"What was the condition of the slaves on the estate of Bon Espoir, when you purchased it in 1822?-Many of them were in bad health. Did they appear to have been hard worked ?—It appeared to me that they had; but I do not know the fact, as I had not been on the estate before I purchased it. It appears that, between 1822 and 1825, there were fifty deaths on the estate, or one-sixth of the