derable length, into the progress of religious instruction on his West India estates. Considering clergymen of the Church of England too highly educated for the ignorant negro, he applied to other missionaries, and had the satisfaction of finding very favourable effects produced by them on the habits of his black po pulation. In one estate, out of 120 males ten only were found to require punishment in the course of a year, and out of 120 females not more than one:-an encouraging example, certainly, of the power of the Christian doctrine over uncultivated but not perverse minds.

Mr. Marryat, adverting to the delicate question of admitting negro evidence in our courts of justice, took occasion to mention the commencement made in that respect in Dominica; while, in regard to another point, the general treatment of the negroes, he cited a number of favourable testimonies on the part of naval and military officers stationed in the colonies. Mr. Brougham, taking the opposite side, bestowed great praise on the pamphlet on 'Negro Slavery' noticed in the early part of this Article, but, like the author of that pamphlet, expressed little expectation of cordiality on the part of the planters, in giving effect to the recommendations of government. Sixteen years ago, when the further transport of Africans was abolished, he flattered himself that the improvement of the negroes settled in our colonies would proceed rapidly; but in religious instruction their progress had evidently been slow, while in point of labour he still apprehended that their health was occasionally injured. Why not take more decided steps for ameliorating their condition, and begin by exempting them from the distressing hazard of being separated from their associates, and from the spot to which they are attached?

Mr. Baring referred to the concurrent testimonies on the favourable condition of our negroes; and maintained that, as far as physical comfort is concerned, they suffer less than the majority of the peasantry of Europe, though in a moral and religious view they are extremely backward. Discussions so nearly affecting their condition as the present, could not, he thought, fail to excite their attention, and to cause a greater or less degree of agitation. Compensation to the proprietor was unavoidable; but the subject, viewed in whatever way, was extremely delicate, and could not be safely dealt with except by government.

The speech of Mr. Canning we notice in the last place, because he came forward as a mediator or arbiter between the two parties. 'I find,' he said, 'in the West Indies, a remarkable superiority in number of the blacks over the whites, and am doubtful how far we can communicate civil rights to the former without danger to the latter. Still I agree to several of the propositions of the aboli

tionists,

tionists, provided they be carried into effect through the medium of government. Thus, let the practice of flogging be abolished altogether in the case of women, and subjected to specific regulations in that of men. Follow this up by giving negroes a titlè to hold property, enabling them to do by law that which they at present do by a kind of sufferance or tacit admission. Endeavour, if possible, to frame an act to prevent them from being separated by sale from the spot on which they are established; and advance one or two steps on the very delicate ground of admitting their evidence in courts of justice. Such are the views of ministers; but I cannot add to them,' said Mr. Canning, any specific opinion in regard to the time when the children of the negroes shall be entitled to freedom. I am anxious to avoid giving any assurance which might afterwards require to be qualified, perhaps retracted. Lastly, I would have it understood that emancipation, when its season shall arrive, must not take place at the expense of a single class.' On this important point Mr. Buxton inti mated in his reply, that he never had meant to evade the question of compensation to the planter.

Such is the outline of a debate, which, without being of great length, excited very general interest, and was subsequently published not in the garbled state unavoidable in newspapers, but with the benefit of revisal by the speakers themselves. The composition, thus cleared, may be read without tedium, and is, on the whole, distinct and animated, each debater taking up the points discussed by his predecessor, and giving to his arguments the interest of a rejoinder. None of the speeches, however, offer a complete display of the subject; the reasoning being confined to detached points, and rarely expanded into general views.

We now proceed to lay before our readers an account of the actual treatment and condition of the negroes in our colonies-a subject on which, easy as it may seem to obtain explicit information, evidence of the most contradictory character has been adduced. While the planters maintain that the situation of the ne groes is, in general, more comfortable than that of the labouring classes in Europe, the abolitionists almost uniformly represent them as objects of commiseration, as victims of oppression. Of the length to which this contradiction may be carried, a curious specimen is afforded, in the notes appended to the printed report of the debate of 15th May, where (p. 204) we find a quotation from the evidence of Sir Ralph Woodford, governor of Trinidad, declaring that so far from the service in the West Indies being op pressive, he has frequently known negroes continue in it, rather than, with ample means, purchase their freedom, or even accept

it.' To the Reviewer of the debate,' this declaration appears not a little extraordinary. We trust,' he says, 'that in the next session of parliament Sir Ralph will be required to produce the names of the negroes who have acted thus.' No words, it is clear, can show more decidedly his doubts of the governor's accuracy; and yet we have no reason to believe that these doubts rest on any better foundation than the ardour of the writer for emancipation, and that deficient acquaintance with the West Indies so common among the abolitionists. The comparison of the state of our labouring classes with that of the negroes in our colonies, which to this writer appears so absurd, we have known deliberately made, and the preference given to the West Indies, not by planters or their connexions, but by clergymen of the church of England; persons who, before going abroad, had, in the capacity of country curates, ample opportunity of ascertaining the situation of our lower orders. In regard to temporal comfort,' observes a clergyman (writing from Jamaica, in October, 1821,) the situation of the negroes may be viewed with complete satisfaction.' As to the treatment of the negroes,' writes another clergyman (from the same island,) I am happy to declare, from ocular testimony, that it generally is humane, and every temporal comfort which their si tuation demands, is willingly afforded them; indeed, a great proportion of our poor at home might envy their situation."

Negroes who have the misfortune to belong to a jobber, or to a planter in embarrassed circumstances, are occasionally subjected to privation or severe labour; but the great majority are very differently circumstanced. To bring the question to a point, we shall begin by explaining their situation in regard to physical wants, their food, clothing and lodging.

With respect to food, it is customary for their owners to give them a regular allowance of salt-fish; while, for vegetables, each negro has a lot of ground to cultivate, the produce of which he may either sell or consume. In a tropical climate, vegetables are raised with surprizing ease, and are, indeed, so plentiful, that insufficiency of provisions can arise only from a hurricane, from long continued drought, or from gross indolence on the part of the cultivator.

As to lodging, the cottages of the negroes, small and scantily furnished as they are, afford sufficient shelter in a climate which has so little inclemency. In regard to clothing, the distributions, made once or twice a year, are ample on the larger plantations; while, to prevent the deficiencies that might occur on the part of small planters, or of persons who let out their negroes on hire, the law of Jamaica requires that a return of the delivery shall be made

annually

annually on oath to the vestry of the parish. This precaution is highly proper, for, warm as the West India climate is, it is essential for a negro to be provided with woollens sufficient to cover the whole of his body; though vigorous in the sun, he is ill-fitted to withstand damp or cold, and the temperature of that country is by no means uniform.

Plantation negroes generally continue at work between nine and ten hours a day; a longer time is prescribed by law, but it is seldom exacted, nor does the fatigue at all equal that of the labouring classes in Europe. In proof of this, we have merely to refer to the evidence given at different times on the subject before parliament, or to the use that is occasionally made by the negroes of the two hours allowed them for dinner. When their own little lots of ground happen to be in the vicinity of the field on which they are at work, it is not unusual with them, instead of reposing in the shade, to walk thither, and employ the interval in their cultivation. In crop time (from January to June), their attendance is required during part of the night, and their rest is frequently abridged. This appears a very serious hardship, but it is one which is shared by the white persons on the estate; and that it is not altogether so grievous as is imagined, may be inferred from the fact of negroes being known to decline purchasing their regular night's rest by a slight extra exertion during the day. Still it would be highly desirable that the night-work should be discontinued, and such, we trust, may be the result of the more extended use of machinery. That such an improvement is practicable, has been shown on several of the estates provided with steam-engines, where the work proceeds so speedily, that the negroes are enabled to withdraw, even in crop time, at an early hour; and the boiling, instead of being continued throughout the night, is suspended between eight and nine o'clock.

The use of the hoe for digging holes to receive the cane plants, is the most severe species of field-labour in our colonies, the soil being often hardened to a surprizing degree by the heat of the sun. The fatigue of this can be effectually lessened only by the more general introduction of the plough. The negro practice of carrying loads on their heads is now discontinued on most estates, and with evident propriety, whether we consider the expense to the master, or the waste of exertion in the labourer. Changes calculated to lighten labour would, it may be thought, be cordially promoted by the negroes; yet such is their habitual improvidence, so much do they look to the present and so little to the future, that many of them would continue the laborious routine of holing, rather than make a temporary exertion to familiarize themselves with the use of the plough; and negroes have been

known

known to place the loaded wheelbarrow on their head, rather than wheel it in the usual manner.

With respect to days of relaxation; Sunday has, by long usage, been at the disposal of the negroes, but it has hitherto been passed by them in a kind of traffic quite unsuitable to the character of the day. The intervals allowed for cultivating their little lots of ground have been the Saturdays during half the year, and a few holidays at Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday, making, independently of these holidays, twenty-six days in the year, exclusive of Sundays. To this it is now proposed to make an important addition, it having been inserted in the instructions sent out by government, that Sunday markets shall be abolished, and that day given up to the slaves for rest, recreation and religious instruction, equivalent time on other days being allowed for cultivating their provision grounds, so soon as the means shall be afforded them of employing the Sunday in religious duties.'

'The abolition of markets on Sunday,' says a very intelligent planter, has long been called for, and although that day may not for some time be better employed, it will be so eventually, when our places of worship shall become more numerous, and the attendance of both whites and blacks more general. Many of the former have as yet been prevented from such attendance by the distance of the churches, while, among the negroes, such as were Africans could not understand a discourse in English.'

In the important point of progressive population, our colonies have as yet presented a result altogether different from this country and the rest of Europe. The negroes, though abundantly supplied with provisions, and exempt, in general, from contagious complaints, seem hardly, even of late years, to increase in number. This circumstance is remarkable, and claims the most attentive investigation; it was long ascribed to an inferiority in the comparative number of women; but, with the exception of one colony (Demerara), that disproportion exists no longer. The proportion of deaths among infants was formerly and is still, in some degree, greater among negroes than among the cottagers of this country—a consequence, in most cases, of the ignorance of the women to whom the care of the mother and of the child is confided. Another difference between them and our peasantry is the smaller number of births, a circumstance attributed commonly to the prevalence of immoral habits, but which may, with more confidence, be ascribed to ignorance and inattention in the treatment of females in a state of pregnancy; as well as to imprudent exertion on their part, in undertaking long journeys to market for their own petty sales or purchases. If we are asked whether the field-labour of a sugar estate be unsuited to women in this state,

We