In Barbados, the murderer of a slave suffers death without the benefit of the clergy, and no negro is tried for a capital crime without the presence of three judges and a regular jury.

Thus we find that all those measures which Mr. Coleridge, in 1825, tells us should be the preludes to emancipation, in 1829 have actually passed into laws, and that not only those, but that further and greater privileges have been granted to the slaves, and that even better things are in agitation, and these are facts which I think eminently prove that slavery has been vastly and wonderfully ameliorated since the introduction of education and religion, and, still more, since the time when cruelties of a horrid nature were too often practised without meeting with the punishment they deserved.

All this, however, only tends to strengthen and confirm the truth of the assertion, that gradual emancipation should be the object of all those who profess to be the friends of negroes. If, as I have already stated, education and religion have begun to produce a good effect in the minds of the slaves, and if the planters, in proportion as they observe that good effect, proceed, in consequence, to limit their punishments and extend their privileges, there is little doubt but that the work which, in the first instance, proceeds gradually, will, in a short time, advance rapidly towards its completion; but if, by some hasty and inconsiderate measure, the slaves in our colonies receive their emancipation suddenly, they will proceed in their ignorance to commit the same follies as their

brethren in St. Domingo; and there is little doubt of their insuring to their masters the same proportion of wealth, and to themselves the same share of happiness.

And

What the state of St. Domingo was, is, I believe, well known, what it is may be known also, and sufficiently proves the bad effects of a hasty emancipation. And what was she? She was the fairest gem in the fair cluster of the tropic islands; the finest colony of France, the wealthiest and the most fertile, her crops flourished, her population was great, her exportations were immense, her commerce was extensive. what is she now? You will say she is free. She is, but has her freedom made her happy; are not her white inhabitants annihilated or dispersed, her crops reduced, her exportations diminished, her wealth vanishing, and her commerce destroyed. Are not the wild hogs revelling on the lands that were once fertile but now uncultivated; are not the emancipated people too idle to perform their tasks of labor and to cultivate their own plantations. Nay more, are not the very roads in a miserable and rugged condition for want of proper attention, and do not the military authorities find themselves necessitated to enforce the trifling portion of work that is performed, because this race, emancipated in their ignorance, and freed before they knew the use of freedom, will not voluntarily execute even that little.

With these examples before us, and with the failure of other experiments which have been tried for the

encouragement of free labor without force, let us be content; let us not, like a bad physician, who administers to his patient a medicine that will render his condition worse instead of better, administer to the unenlightened slave that glorious freedom which future years may fit him for, but which he could not now support.

CHAPTER XLVI.

EMANCIPATED SLAVES.

"I have more than once witnessed how much an independent wealthy slave can look down upon a poor free man of his own color."

Barclay.

WHILST pursuing my arguments in favor of gradual emancipation, it may not be amiss to give the reader an idea of the personal comforts and mental improvement, in short, of the general condition of those emancipated slaves, who are now residing in and about the towns and capitals of the West India Islands as free persons; hoping, at the same time, that he will bear in mind, the distinction between these and those blacks who were born free.

I have already stated, that slaves who seek freedom, seek it with no other view than that of being emancipated from labor; they have none of the fine feelings of Englishmen on the subject; they cannot reconcile to their minds the idea that freedom can be either great, glorious, or desirable, when there is work in the case; they do not believe it; nobody can convince them, and nothing but religion and education will ever

"Teach the young idea how to shoot."

Ꭰ Ꭰ

They think the free man is the man who has nothing to do but to eat, drink, and sleep.

It is with such notions, that the slaves who are now free, have been emancipated; we may, therefore, easily suppose, that they have put themselves to no trouble to gain the good opinion of the world, either for their morality or their industry. A livelihood, a bare and insufficient, and not a pleasant and comfortable livelihood, is their only object.

business of their existence.

Eating, drinking, and sleeping, form the main From their natural idleness, their unconquerable unwillingness to do any thing they can avoid doing, they do not find the two former of these so plentiful as they could desire, they however get enough to satisfy nature, and with that they are contented. It is from this It is from this cause, that we observe them dwindling away from the stout, hale, and hearty appearance, that commonly characterizes the slave, to that lean, thin, miserable, and dejected condition, which too often distinguishes the emancipated negro.

They generally pass their lives in the following manner. They obtain work for two, or perhaps three days, though they are seldom known to labor for so long a period at a time, and this work is of the lightest and least laborious kind. The particular kind of provision on which they support themselves is bought for a trifle; a few plantains, yams, taniers, and okros, with their accustomed mess of pepperpot, or calilou, are sufficient to maintain them for a week or more, though it may be supposed they do not grow very fat on such nourishment.