ing of a shell, and on others by the crack of the whip; they seldom assemble till halfpast six o'clock, and they quit their work again at six in the evening. During this period they have two hours to dinner, and one hour to breakfast, the latter of which meals is carried out to them by women appointed for that purpose, and who also carry water during the heat of the day to such as may require it to drink. If a heavy rain falls, they are ordered to their houses, and if they get wet, they receive, each who may choose to take it, a dram. Women who have families are allowed to remain in their houses till nine o'clock, in order to take care of their children, and cook their husbands' breakfasts, which they carry to the field warm, leaving their children under the care of an old woman, who receives a quantity of rice and abundance of milk to feed them with. "She, the mother, is allowed to go home half an hour before noon, to stay half an hour later than the other negroes when they turn out in the afternoon, and again gets liberty to go home half an hour before sunset; she never works above six hours in the day, nor does any negro out of crop work above nine hours." I remark here, in order to prevent all cavil and dispute, that what is meant by nine hours' labour each day, applies to the average time the slaves are actually at work, and does not include the time which is taken up in coming from and going to their work, which is more or less, accord ing to the distance which the fields are from their homes; but which may average on estates thirty-five minutes more; while the nine hours also is applied to the average of the year, exclusive of the extra labour which is performed by the able-bodied slaves on some estates during crop, six hours more every third night. But this night labour is, I understand, generally abandoned, from the introauction of improved machinery. Mr Stephen spins out eighty closely printed octavo pages with miserable quibbles, to which a few words are a sufficient reply, beginning (p. 109) his labour with a senseless and silly sneer, thus: "The courageous Mr Macqueen assures us, in what he calls a plain and undeniable statement, that the days and nights in the West India islands are so nearly equal, that the difference is not worth taking into account, and may be taken at twelve hours each; and from which, and other premises equally undeniable, he concludes, and expressly asserts, that no negro out of crop works above nine hours!" The slaves work from sunrise till sunset. Any nautical almanack will determine this time. In three parallels the length of the days stands thus: Shortest Day. Sun rises. 6h. 10m. 5h. 50m. Sun sets. 6h. 10m. Sun sets. 5h. 50m. Garbling, dislocating, and suppressing documents and words in the manner mentioned, Mr Stephen makes up his work, extending his own labour without being able to extend the daily labours of the slave. What that is has been seen, and is well known. Compared with the labours performed in this country, how does it stand? Exclusive of the time taken up in going and in coming from his work, the day labourer in Britain works twelve hours each day, with only two hours out of the twelve for his meals. Agricultural servants and house servants work still longer hours each day, exclusive of the extra hours which the former labour in harvest, and on other emergencies. Individuals, and even children employed in cotton and other manufactories, 6 32 5 28 including two hours set apart for meals, and exclusive of the time occupied in going to, and in coming from, their labour, work fourteen hours each day. Hand-loom weavers work sixteen and eighteen hours each day, and housekeepers of the middle classes frequently work twenty hours each day, and a portion of Sunday besides, without one day's relaxation throughout the year, unless their wages cease; and all this without a single whimper or whine ever being heard from any anti-colonial mouth about it. "Judge not, lest ye be judged:" -"with the same measure which ye mete, it shall be meted unto you again," says the highest authority. Mr Stephen has subjected himself to be judged by this, when he comes be fore us, Preface, p. 15, in the following character, forcibly drawn by him. self: "When I first knew the West Indies I was a very young man, and no less ignorant and regardless of Christianity, as of all at least that exclusively belongs to it, than young men in my own sphere of life then too generally were. I had early imbibed such theological opinions as are commonly called liberal, and though religion was not wholly left out of my scheme, either in theory or practice, it was a religion in which not only Christians of the lowest standard, but enlightened heathens, might have concurred," &c. True Christianity, my Lord, is that system of theology-" which thinketh no evil-which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." Mr Stephen, in all his colonial warfare, never rejoices but in iniquity, nor mourns but at the appearance of truth. Consequently, his boasted Christianity cannot be genuine Christianity. This liberal Christian and half-enlightened heathen system of theology, Mr Stephen informs us, first induced him to turn his attention and his energies to the emancipation of the Colonial slaves. The world, it appears from history, has aforetime had in it individuals guided by similar "theological opinions" and objects. The Apostle Paul in the course of his ministry was much annoyed with men professing similar principles and opinions, and who, acting upon those principles and opinions, wished, by rash, precipitate, and unjust acts, to break asunder hastily, and by violence, the bonds of civil society then subsisting. In 1st Timothy, chap. vi. ver. 1-5, he has drawn their character in a very forcible manner, and which equally applies to all men in every age who follow their footsteps: "Let as many servants [slaves] as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, EVEN THE WORDS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, [Greek, a fool] knowing nothing, but doting Greek, sick] about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings [Greek, gallings one of another] of men of corrupt minds, and is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." destitute of the truth, supposing that gain Mr Stephen denies that, in his anti-colonial proceedings, he is actuated by religious enthusiasm; but if the following is not religious enthusiasm, and that of the most dangerous description, I confess myself ignorant of the terms. In pages 395-6-7 of his new work, Mr Stephen tells us, that the murder of Louis the XVI., the dethronement of Louis the XVIII. by Bonaparte, in 1815, the misfortunes of two Kings of Spain, and two of Portugal, and the Prince of Orange, and also the exile of Charles the X., were all produced because the nations which they ruled bought African slaves, and maintained colonial slavery! He further informs us, that this country, from the same cause, was unsuccessful in the war in which she was engaged, until she abolished the African slave trade in 1807; after which," the favour of Divine Providence continued manifestly to be with us," causing Napoleon to go to Spain, Portugal, and Russia, when we were derfully rescued from dangers more alarming than the country had ever known, and by means not less extraordinary than unforeseen. Public credit, national prosperity, commerce, and manufactures, flourished and increased until within the last six years, when lo! because we have not emancipated the African slaves which we have in our colonies, “Divine vengeance" is "armed against us;" and we consequently have a "licentious, seditious press, poorlaws, taxes, debt, depressed landowners, farmers, and agricultural peasants," and dissatisfied "starving labourers," and "the portentous movements on the continent," the forerunners of revolution and civil war!! won Mr Stephen forgets that colonial slavery existed during all those years in which, by the "interference of a righteous Providence," Europe saw Napoleon overthrown. Mr Stephen also forgets that all our glorious naval victories, which swept the navies of all our foes from the ocean, had been gained before this country abo lished the slave-trade, and I leave him to reconcile the facts according to his doctrine; how comes it to pass, that while this country is suffering in the way he describes, because she maintains slavery in her colonies, the American President only the other day is found ascribing thanks to the Most High, for the peace and prosperity which these States are enjoying, although, by their laws, they maintain personal slavery in them to a much greater extent than that which exists in the colonies belonging to Great Britain? According to Mr Stephen, if this country had not abolished the slave-trade in 1807, Bonaparte would not have invaded Portugal, Spain, Germany and Russia, nor France, and he have been humbled after such a prodigious expense of blood and treasure on the part of all concerned! Such doctrines, my Lord, are truly distressing, when we thus see the Creator of heaven and earth brought into action as the heated, prejudiced, and erring mind of a human individual thinks proper to point out and to determine; and Mr Stephen must consider the intellect of the people of this country very limited, or very disordered indeed, before he could call upon them to take such doctrines for their guide; and which, if put in practice, will most assuredly cover our empire with anarchy and destruction. It is sickening to contemplate such proceedings and such principles, more especially on the part of one who, from the interest which he has gained by calumniating our colonies, has fastened himself, his family, and his relations, upon the richest quarter of the British Treasury; and having done so, proceeds with impunity to defame and to ruin those vast and valuable appendages of our empire, from which a large portion of the heavy taxes raised in this country is procured to fill that Treasury. Away with the stupidity of a nation and a Government which can suffer themselves to be rode rough-shod over by such mischievous fanatics! The party to which I allude are in fact the rulers of our colonial empire. The heroes who bore our flag in triumph through blood and death at Trafalgar and at Waterloo, if appointed to command in our colonies, tremble before the cabal which assembles in Aldermanbury Street, and which has been allowed to beard our Government, to insult our Legislature, and to trample upon our laws, and to endanger the existence of our colonial empire. It is a fact, notorious to the most attentive observer, that they seek to have every authority in the colonies the creature of their hands. Governors, judges, lawyers, protectors, customhouse officers, &c., must either all be their slaves, or, if they presume to do their duty, and to tell the truth, submit to have themselves traduced, and rendered obnoxious in the eyes of their fellow-countrymen, by those periodical vehicles of falsehood which the faction I allude to patronise and control. All the disturbers of the public peace, incendiaries, canting tyrants, and legal plunderers, which the colonies are compelled to see and to suffer-every discontented knave, clerical and lay, who has been driven in disgrace from colonial society, has only to throw himself into the arms of the party alluded to, and commence a system of calumny and falsehood against the colonies, when he is instantly taken by the hand and provided for, and set beyond the reach of the laws and the indignation of an insulted people.* * The Anti-Colonists pitch upon as champions all weak heads and heavy purses, and flatter the one while they fleece the other, and especially they call to their aid all clergymen who like to hear themselves declaim everywhere rather than in their own pulpits,-young ones seeking churches and wives, and widowers seeking widows and jointures,—all, in short, who have influence with the fair sex, and both these they doze with their publications till they render them incapable of discovering between truth and falsehood; and joining to these cunning Quakers, old sinners pretending repentance, and needy liberal lawyers, they form a noisy body which guides and misleads the public, or prosecutes individuals as may suit their purpose. If it was worth while, many remarkable examples of this kind might be adduced. About the commencement of the anti-colonial crusade, an Episcopalian clergyman, who had been Every thing is done to and for that party which they think their interest requires. They pitch upon the coast of Africa, as a gutter through which they may draw the wealth of the British Treasury into their purses, and it is accordingly fitted up for them. To secure, as they think, wealth from its shores, the African black, liberated in our other tropical possessions, is prohibited from being employed in the labours of agriculture. To secure this object, the labour of free men in the Mauritius has, as I shewed in my last letter, been annihilated; and to secure the same object, the labour of free agriculturists in Hindostan is secretly and insidiously discountenanced and opposed. In order to throw the tropical commerce of Great Britain into the coast of Africa, which they control and direct as they please, the industry of the West India colonies is everywhere crushed, and the population of them in many places is fixed by law to barren rocks, where even the wild goat can hardly find food sufficient to live. Their interest, their contemplated interest, hatched the oppressive and iniquitous law, which, in several colonies, plunges master and slave into equal want and misery, while they have dared and been suffered to tell some of your predecessors in office to their faces, that though they knew the law to be oppressive and unjust, and as much so to the slave as to the mas ter, yet that it should be maintained as it is, in order to compel the ruined master to emancipate his slave on impoverished land, where they know well no labour could ever raise any thing to injure that forced labour, which they could readily obtain, and which competition done away with, they would just as readily seek on the coast of Africa. These are the real springs which direct the proceedings of our domineering anticolonists, and which deceive, and are suffered to deceive, the population of this country. The colonial regulations are, in fact, their regulations; and the colonial appointments too frequently their appointments; and when enquiry is sought into colonial matters, the government is obliged to consult them, and even to saddle every commission with individuals of their stamp, and of their choosing. Whenever the government proceeded to deliberate on colonial affairs, they were obliged, as the compulsory manumission laws shew, to inform that party of their proceedings, and it would appear, to follow their directions, otherwise the enacting of these laws in the teeth of the evidence brought forward upon the enquiry, remains inexplicable. To the disgrace of our country, the government have, in every colonial proceeding, been forced to truckle to that party, while a dozen of men, which the same number of old wo obliged to leave St Kitt's on account of the detestation in which he was held for severity to his slaves, comes to England. He got acquainted with Mr Wilberforce, and by representing the general treatment of the slaves as most barbarous, he ingratiated himself with the party, got a good fat living by their influence in the west of England, where he continued a bitter anti-colonial enemy to the day of his death! Amongst those who in Parliament and out of Parliament last year declaimed most loudly and violently against the colonies, we find EDWARD PROTHEROE, jun. in order to catch Bristolian radical votes. This gentleman's whole fortune is derived from the West Indies; and at the moment he was declaiming most loudly against West India slavery, the proceeds of the sale of estates and slaves were daily tumbling into his coffers, or into coffers from which he partakes, and which will be wholly his if he live!! A similar instance of inconsistency and popular vanity lately occurred in this city. Dr WARDLAW, a clergyman of some celebrity in the Independent persuasion, has, during the last six years, allowed himself to be made the slave of Quakers and other Anti-Colonists, and has on every occasion stood forward a most violent enemy to the colonies, denouncing all West India property as the "accursed thing," and "meat offered to idols." Dr Wardlaw, however, when he was about twenty-three years of age, and about the time he was licensed for the ministry, sold, along with other branches of his family, to a gentleman in the vicinity of Glasgow, his share of an estate and slaves in Jamaica, left by an uncle, and for which he received L. 2000 sterling, and stating, when the bargain was made, that it was a most advantageous one for all concerned! In this way the colonies are black-balled by men who have been enriched by them. VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXVIII. 2 G men, in any part of Great Britain, would not think it worth their while to drive out of their way, have been allowed to goad this country into madness and injustice, to make Liverpool shake, Canning quail, and the hero of Waterloo, as a matter of expediency, to leave the wrongs of our colonies unredressed, and unattended to. By the resolutions of 1823, the House of Commons, driven by the party so often alluded to, levelled in the dust the barrier that guards private property, and adopted the hideous principle, that it might be invaded, and regulated whenever, and as the nation pleased, without the perils of the state calling for or requiring it. The orders in Council, consequent upon these, made bad worse, and the arbitrary act of this country commenced that interference which goes to take away, or to deteriorate private property, without compensation, as circumstances, prejudices, and sudden impulses, may lead the nation to demand. Disguise matters as we may, my Lord, this is the plain and constitutional English of this interference, of these resolutions, and of these orders. The firmest stone of the British constitution was undermined and shaken in its place by these proceedings. Where, my Lord, I will ask, is the British Minister who would, upon resolutions of the House of Commons, venture to issue an order in council, to take away, or to pull down an old building, or any building, in any one of our cities, to drive a road, a canal, or a railway, as they might direct, through any private property, without compensation, and without the damages having been, under the judicial tribunals, and the laws of the country, previously fixed and paid? The property of the colonies is just as much the creature of the law, and as much under its safe-guard and protection, as any description of property in this country; and why then should the colonies be subjected to proceedings against, and an interference with, private property, to which no one in this country can be subjected? The nation stood silent while the injustice proceeded. The declaimers had it all their own way. The colonies suffered-they remonstrated-they complained-but their re monstrances were treated with contempt, and their complaints proclaimed "contumacy." Your predecessor in office, Mr Canning, threatened their destruction by a wag of his hand, and by "Fiscal regulations." The weak heads in the British legislature applauded his unconstitutional and anti-British threats and bravadoes, and the anti-British threats and bravadoes of the anti-colonial fry which followed in his footsteps, while Europe saw, with astonishment, and a part of it with secret satisfaction, a large portion of the British empire subjected to measures enacted by authority as arbitrary as the decrees of the Czar of Russia, or the Sultan of Constantinople, and the consequences of which, they know, are certain to sap and destroy the resources and the naval preponderance of this country. Legislation, my Lord, to be right and to do good, must be founded on truth, and truth can only be ascertained on important questions relating to countries at a distance, from practical information, and by sober and solemn enquiry. If this course be neglected, tremendous evils must ensue. Now, in all that concerns our Colonies, this country has, during the last fifteen years, legislated without previous enquiry, and the results hitherto have been irritation, error, and wrongs innumerable. Within the metropolis of this country, we behold an irresponsible and unconstitutional society established, with branches extended into almost every town in the kingdom; and under the very eye of our government, and in the very teeth of our laws, we find this society advocating and calling for the invasion and destruction of private property, in vast appendages of our empire, as a measure of prudence, justice, and humanity, and which society and its branches exclude from their deliberations every individual who refuses to give his most unqualified assent to their hideous and destructive principles! In consequence of the exertions of this society, this country believes, and is taught to believe, that the Slave Trade carried on by Europeans with the States of Africa, is the cause of African ignorance, debasement, and barbarity, instead of these being, as they really are, the cause of the |