slave in our colonies the same stupid and rude being that the newly imported African savage was? Did possession of slaves debase Abraham, and any of the great characters which appeared in the world from his day to the day of the illustrious Washington? Did it degrade and debase the Hebrews-the Egyptians-the Babylonians-the Persians-the intelligent Greek-the manly and noble Roman? Did it degrade and debase the Saracen? Does it debase and degrade France-Great Britain -or the United States of America? History answers, No! The degradation and debasement of all the ancient nations proceeded from other causes; and if ever the degradation and debasement of Great Britain and the United States take place, these will be found to proceed from other causes also.

Naming the United States, brings me properly to notice the opinions of the legislators of that country upon this great question, for the reasoning which applies to them applies equally forcibly to the point at issue between this country and her colonies, as these were delivered by some of their ablest legislators, thus:—

Mr RANDOLPH said, " he would earnestly request, that no member south of the Ohio, and west of the Mississippi, would debate this question; that no one would deign, would condescend, to debate the point which had now arisen, whether persons can or cannot be property; or allow that the Federal Government can at any time, or under any circumstances, touch it directly or indirectly. It was a question with which the Federal Government had nothing to do; for the moment it lays its unhallowed hands on that ark of our safety, it ceases to be a government. The gentleman had said that this question was settled forty years ago. It was settled 200 years ago. It was settled when the first cargo of Africans was sold in our market. And what is the difference between persons and property, as if there was an incompatibility on that point? There is no difference.

There can be no difference. PROPERTY IS THE CREATURE OF THE LAW. What the law makes property is property. What it does not, is not property. Here, and here alone, exists the distinction. The point was settled more than half a century ago, at the same time that we threw

off our allegiance to Great Britain. Slaves are made property by law, and you can

not make them other than property. We may cavil about religion, but whether Jew or Gentile, we cannot interfere with this property. If ever the time should arrive when those persons shall be considered other than property, our business will not be here, but at home."-Mr STORRS "The United States constitution said, had nothing to do with this property. We may debate as much as we please upon abstract metaphysical points, but it must at last come to this, what are the rights which the owner has in the slave? It is an absolute right of services, and an uncontrolled and uncontrollable custody of his person, free from all interference by individuals or by the United States government, or any other authority but that of the state on unusual occurrences. On the sacredness of this depends the security of a great portion of our union, and he who would interfere with it, is guilty of a great violation of individual rights. This government cannot touch it. It is not a question to be debated. No man of any reflection in his state, thinks for a moment that the United States government is competent to touch it." Mr DRAYTON, of South Carolina, said, "What were the doctrines? Why, that the inhabitant of any southern state holds his personal property at the will of the United States-who can take it when they please, allowing no compensation therefore! What security, then, have the inhabitants of the South, that all their property will not be taken from themthat they may not at a breath be reduced to ruin and beggary? And when the inhabitant of the South is brought to this situation, will he sit, and count and calculate whether he is to gain or lose by submission to such invasion of his rights? No, sir, he will not count and calculate upon such a question. He would rather perish, than submit to such degrading vassalage. If I know my countrymen, they would sooner perish with arms in their hands-arms dyed with the blood of those whose oppression shall have brought upon them such calamitous necessity."

My Lord Duke, if the West Indians, at home and abroad, in Parliament and out of Parliament, had adopted similar constitutional, rational, honest, and manly language, they would not have stood in the perilous, and apparently helpless, situation that they do this day. John Bull despises the man who is afraid to defend his property; and when the legislators and government of Great Britain adopt the rational and statesmanlike language of Mr Ran

dolph and his fellows, then our country and our colonies will be safe, prosperous, and happy.

Mr Brougham's speech, delivered on the 16th July last, and most extensively circulated over the country, scarcely deserves notice. It is in character-full of unconstitutional invective and forensic insolence. It is made up of falsehood, misrepresentation, and fabrication-of statements which have often been made, and often refuted, and put into his hands, cut and dry, by that great father of lies, the Anti-slavery Reporter, which, as Colonel SIBTHORPE justly observed, had " in five thousand words" hardly one word of truth!

According to his instructions, Mr Brougham made the most that he could of the case of MR AND MRS Moss of the Bahama islands. This case has afforded the anti-colonists food for a considerable time. It has become one of their "stock stories," with which they work upon the passions of the multitude. I enter upon this case with reluctance. I notice it, not to justify severity or cruelty, but to lay the simple facts concisely before the British public, free from that malignant misrepresentation and exaggeration with which anti-colonial rancour has clothed it.

The

Mr and Mrs Moss, of the Bahamas, were indicted for murder. Grand Jury threw out the bill. By a bare majority they afterwards found a true bill for a misdemeanour. They were tried, and convicted, and sentenced; Mr Moss to pay a fine of L.300, over and above the costs of the prosecution; and both to imprisonment for five months in the common jail of Nassau, amongst thieves and prostitutes of all grades and colours, but chiefly blacks. The prosecution originated in private malice on the part of a worthless, discarded black driver; and the transmission of the documents connected with the trial to this country, garbled, and mutilated, and imperfect as they are, had the same despicable and dangerous origin. There are two names which appear in the papers, as published by order of the House of Commons, and which now lie before me, namely, John J. For bes and President Munnings, whose feelings, when they reflect upon this subject, I do not envy, and shall not

attempt to lay open. The cause of the prosecution, or, as I may call it, persecution, was this: Mr and Mrs Moss had a female domestic slave, named Kate, who having been detected in theft, was, as a punishment, sent to labour in the fields. This labour she most obstinately and positively refused to perform. She was, in consequence, ordered into confinement in the stocks, where she remained seventeen days; and though well supplied with food, no threats nor punishment could induce her, during that period, to do the work she was required to do, and which was by no means heavy, no, not even to mend her own clothes. Not even the entreaties, the commands, and punishment inflicted by her own father, could induce her to do so. During the time she was in confinement, she received at different times sixty-four stripes, "all over her clothes," twenty-four of which were by her own father, "of his own accord!" At the end of the period mentioned she was again sent to the field-her obstinacy continued, and on the fifth day she was suddenly seized with a disease in the head, dropped down, and died. This disease was very common, and also fatal to many slaves in the Bahama islands at that time.

It does not appear from the evidence of a single witness adduced, that this woman's death was at all occasioned, or in the remotest degree occasioned, by the punishment which she had received. Nay, the evidence for the prosecution, on examination and cross-examination, decidedly proves the reverse. I shall condense a few of the leading and more material passages of it, for the consideration of your Grace and the public, as follows:

"Kate was not severely flogged while in the stocks.'Never heard Kate,' says James Spencer, witness for the prosecu tion, ask to be forgiven. Witness told her that if she would mend her own clothes, she would be forgiven. She replied she would not, and did not care whether she was let out of the stocks or not. He advised Kate to mend her clothes. She was insolent to him for doing so. It would not have occupied her more than two hours.' She would not mend her clothes, nor do any thing,' says another witness. While her father

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was punishing her of his own accord,' says a witness, Mr Moss came out and PREVENTED HIM, saying it was of no use flogging her; it was better to put her in the field;' and he further adds, Kate did not mind the flogging.' Once, while in confinement, she had, in order to keep her from sleeping, cayenne pepper rubbed into her eyes, a practice that Africans frequently resort to with their children; but says the witness who rubbed it, does not know whether any of the pepper got into her eyes. She shut them when he was going to do it ;' and another witness says, does not think any got in. It was done to prevent her from sleeping.' A witness for the prosecution says, ' does not think Kate could have died from any ill-treatment she received while in the stocks. Never heard any surmise that such was the case, until three weeks afterwards. Never heard any surmises that the body of Kate exhibited any marks of lashes, bruises, or injuries.' Any one could have seen the body. Does notthink she was lacerated by the floggings. There was a fever raging at that time on the island, and particularly on Mr Moss's plantation. The fever was attended with dizziness, that made the patient spin round and fall. Every one of Mr Moss's people had had the fever in the course of two months. Kate's sister, Eliza, died of it after an illness of four days. She was five or six years old. The general conduct of Mr and Mrs Moss towards their slaves, was that of great humanity. They are particularly attentive to them in times of sickness. Mrs Moss personally attends them. He imagines many of the negroes would have fallen victims to the fever, if it had not been for the attention of Mr and Mrs Moss.' Several witnesses of great respectability, and wholly unimpeached and uncontradicted, gave Mr and Mrs Moss the highest character for humanity and attention to their negroes; and one witness, ELIZA CAMPBELL, who had known them twenty years, states, they are very kind to their negroes both in health and sickness; when they are ill, they are as attentive to them as if they were their own children.'"

Such are the facts and real merits of the case and trial of Mr and Mrs Moss, except Kate's statement, that she had a slight fever on the day before she died, but which does not appear to have been correct, nor does any other matter elicited in the examination, or the cross-examination of the witnesses, alter the general features of the case, one way or the other; and according to the evidence,

the instrument with which Kate was punished, was the mildest in use.

A copy of the proceedings on this trial was sent to this country by VESEY MUNNINGS, President of the Bahamas, accompanied by a letter to Lord Bathurst, in which that humane functionary informs his Lordship thus:-" I have been solicited to remit or to shorten the term of Mr and Mrs Moss's imprisonment, but I shall in no degree whatever alter the sentence of the general court, by the extension of mercy to those by whom it appears none was exercised!" This was a noble ruler for the purposes of those who, in anticolonial phraseology, drive Downing Street! Soon after this, however, GENERAL GRANT came to the government of the Bahamas, and that gallant officer readily transmitted to Earl Bathurst two memorials addressed to him, one from Mr and Mrs Moss, and one from the principal inhabitants of New Providence, praying that the Crown would liberate Mr and Mrs Moss. On this subject General Grant, under date 3d July 1827, writes Lord Bathurst as follows:

"I had the honour to inform your Lordship, that I had every reason to think that the case of cruelty towards Kate from Mr and Mrs Moss, was not in accordance with the general treatment, but an especial exception, which would appear to have resulted from a persevering obstinate disposition on the part of the slave Kate, and an equal determination on the part of her owners, to carry their authority into effect. This I truly believe was the case of Mr and Mrs Moss. I will be candid, and say, my Lord, that I regret the nature of the sentence which has been past on them." And in a letter, dated 16th January, 1828, written to his friend the Honourable CHARLES GRANT, soliciting his friendship to turn aside Mr Huskisson's anger, as will presently be more particularly noticed, the governor says; "I had an opportunity, when going round the several governments of this island, to see Mr Moss's treatment of his slaves, and certainly they appeared to me to have MORE than ordinary indulgence, and their condition in all that met the eye, seemed particularly comfortable; he gave them as much land on their own account as they could cultivate, and he allowed them a fair proportion of time to work it. Mr Moss bestowed most praise and encouragement on those who were

most industrious; and the children,as soon as they were of an age fit to be taken from their mothers, were usually brought up about the family, and in this way acquired a degree of CIVILISATION FAR BEYOND that which is to be found on most other properties."

Such are the simple facts of this case, which the anti-colonists have so dreadfully exaggerated and misrepresented. Governor Grant, and the inhabitants of the Bahamas, considered mercy to be due. Mr Huskisson was compelled to think otherwise; and in a letter filled with special pleading, remark, and twisting, (on my conscience, I believe Dr Lushington and Mr Stephen, not Mr Huskisson, were the concocters of this letter,) severely reprimands the governor for being so stupid as to recommend a white man and woman to mercy! This letter terrified the governor more than the appearance of a regiment of Napoleon's old guard ever did or could, and in alarm he wrote his friend, the Honourable Charles Grant, as has been already adverted to, earnestly soliciting him to express to Mr Huskisson how "much he had been instructed by the contents of the dispatch, as to the manner of viewing both faults and offences," and imploring his friend to procure pardon and forgiveness for him! But had the gallant General merely returned to the jesuitical advisers of the Colonial Secretary, the calm dignified reply that, as the representative of his sovereign, he had only done his duty in recommending to mercy where he conceived mercy was due, he would have required no friend to have interceded for him, nor left himself exposed to the sarcasm and reproach which Mr Brougham, when he mentioned this case in the House of Commons, levelled against him.

When Mr and Mrs Moss were liberated, the respectable inhabitants of the Bahamas welcomed them with satisfaction. The Anti-slavery Reporter sets this conduct down as proceeding from a hardened feeling, and a love of cruelty. Charity and common sense would lead us to believe and to say that it proceeded from better motives, and from a conviction that they had been hardly dealt with. The praise which the Honourable ADMIRAL FLEMING, in his

reply to their address, 13th May last, bestows upon the inhabitants of these islands for their treatment of their slaves, bears us out in this view of the subject. He addresses them thus:

"The local situation of these islands, and their valuable productions, will at all times render them of great importance to the British Empire; while the praiseworthy morality, sobriety, and industry of the inhabitants will ensure the respect of, and endear them to, their fellow-subjects;" and "the KIND AND HUMANE TREATMENT of the black population, will ever be acceptable and admired by all those whose prejudices do not lead them into those errors which you have dispelled, by raising that class of the inhabitants to an intelligence, probity, and industry, far above that of any of their colour, and EQUAL to those in the same sphere IN ANY COUNTRY."

Bitterly and unjustly, however, as our western colonies have been traduced, still the accusations against them have been light, compared to those which have been directed against that important and more distant colony, the Mauritius. The most savage venom of the pen of the Antislavery Reporter has been directed against this appendage of the British Empire. The conduct of its free population has been presented to the British public, as exceeding in wickedness and ferocity the conduct and the actions of people the most savage and barbarous. Its late governor, Sir ROBERT FARQUHAR, was long the butt of Buxtonian venom, while the official authorities, who, knowing the truth, ought to have vindicated and defended him, remained silent before his implacable foes, until the persecutions of the latter, and the labour, grief, and anxiety which these persecutions entailed upon him, brought him to an untimely grave! In my former letter, I gave your Grace shocking proofs of the cruel persecution which was directed against Sir Robert. It would therefore be a work of supererogation to advert to them here, simply observing that the Buxtonian accusations were drawn from the testimony of men outcasts from society, as appears from the papers printed by order of the House of Commons, received from SIR LowRY COLE; but as these convict informers will, in their proper characters, be presently brought before

your Grace in another case, it is unnecessary to state any thing more regarding them here.

Two individuals of great respectability in that colony, namely, MR and MRS TELFAIR, the owners of an estate called Bel Ombre, stand without cause exposed to the blackest venom of the Anti-slavery Reporter. The author of this vile publication possesses an advantage over every honest man, as he can tell so many lies in a page, as will require a volume on the part of the accused to answer, and hence his wicked works are read, while the defence is neglected. It is impossible for me to enter upon all the atrocious accusations which have been brought against the people of the Mauritius in general, and of Mr and Mrs Telfair in particular; and still less can I go into the clear and manly defence of the latter, occupying, as it does, nearly 300 octavo pages; but I shall endeavour, and as shortly as possible, to bring the leading features of both before your Grace and the public. It would be easy for me to knock the head of Mr Pringle against the brains of Mr Macaulay, and to smash them with their own contradictions; but I prefer giving the worst parts of their charges, and breaking them down with the unimpeachable testimony adduced by Mr Telfair.

The Reporter, No. 44, gives lengthened details respecting Mauritius slavery in general, and this plantation, Bel Ombre, in particular, where the free population are represented as torturing and murdering inch by inch the cultivators of the soil," in " a regular business-like daily march;" but as my limits render it impossible for me to give all his details, so I must in a condensed form bring, and nearly in his own words, his charges before you thus:

"On Bel Ombre the slaves received over night their food for the following day. This wretched and scanty aliment was manioc cakes." Even out of crop the daily labour extended from sixteen to nineteen hours. No time was allowed

them for breakfast. A great part of the two hours allowed for dinner was taken up in collecting wood or grass. When at work, the slaves were followed by drivers, and were continually receiving blows and lashes. They were occasionally taken out from the line and punished with twenty or thirty lashes, and then sent back to work. These inflictions were

merely regarded in the light of discipline. The regular punishments were reserved on Bel Ombre for Sundays. The of fenders of the week were reserved in chains (in which they were made to work) for that day, and they were often numerous, generally about thirty, and amounting on one occasion to about fifty. informant often counted the lashes, and never knew any of the offenders to receive less than one hundred, excepting two youths, who received about seventy each.† Salt and pepper were rubbed into the wounds to prevent them from festering,

The

or to enable the sufferers to return sooner to labour, or to bear a repetition of punishment. The pain of this application is described as excruciating. The instrument of punishment was either a whip or split rattan. Either instrument would make incisions into the flesh, and lacerate it at every blow. The sharp edge of the rattan would divide the flesh like a knife.

Military floggings were nothing to these. The whip was a very ponderous instrument. One was seen on Bel Ombre the slaves fell asleep during night laweighing upwards of seven pounds! If sometimes their hands were drawn into bour, they were severely flogged, and the mill along with the canes, and completely crushed and mangled. In proof of this, three of the slaves on Bel Ombre are described as 'estropie des deux mains,' mutilated in both hands. Marriage was unknown amongst the slaves. The most open prostitution prevailed universally among the females. Ladies hired out their negresses to the soldiers by the month for this purpose. The slaves were generally excluded from all moral and religious instruction. In July, 1821, an eye-witness saw a Mosambique negro receive 150 lashes when he left the spot, and cannot tell how many more he received. The same person saw two young women who had run away, the one for one month, the other for two years, in the woods, and who were both advan