ordered to be laid on the table; but from the multiplicity of other business, it is not likely that its advocates will find an opportunity of bringing the subject forward in the present session; it is, therefore, only important as a record of sentiments which are every day gaining ground in the country, and to which no one would be more willing to give effect than His Danish Majesty, did the state of the finances allow any equitable compensation being made to the planters.

The Earl of Aberdeen, K.T.

I have, &c.

H. W. W. WYNN.

(Inclosure.)-Motion for the abolition of Negro Slavery in the Danish West India Islands, read in the Assembly of the Provincial States at Roeskilde, on the 30th of October, by Professor David.

Copenhagen, October 20, 1844.

IN the First Assembly of the Roeskilde States, in 1835, the late Count Holstein, whose noble character and lively feeling for the rights of humanity are generally acknowledged, brought forward a motion. to petition His Majesty "for the entire emancipation of the Negro slaves in the Danish West India islands."

He withdrew this motion, because he was informed that the Government had already commenced measures for defining more exactly the legal relation between the slaves and their owners. Now that 9 years have elapsed, and that the efforts of Government in this direction have, for the present at least, attained a final result, we venture to direct anew the attention of the Assembly to this object. We take this step because it is our conviction that the continuance of Negro slavery is as repugnant to Christianity and the natural rights of humanity as it is dangerous to the West India colonies, and detrimental to, and unworthy of, the mother country.

The reason why we in particular, among so many who share this conviction, should on this occasion come forward, is principally owing to an application having been made to us to exert our efforts towards the abolition of slavery. This application was addressed to us by Mr. Alexander, a native of England, a missionary and active member of that society which, with rare zeal and unwearied self-devotion, has laboured to put down slavery and the Slave Trade, and whose labours have already borne such happy fruits.

In the present age we need not demonstrate to an enlightened assembly that the possession by one man of the right of property over another and over his offspring is a relation as unnatural as it is unrighteous and un-Christian; for this is a proposition which has now obtained universal assent among civilized nations. We no longer believe that a certain colour of the skin, or a certain shape of the head, can deprive a human being of his natural liberty; we no longer listen to the idle talk, that the condition of the Negro slave is superior to

that of the day labourer of Europe; for we know that the emancipated Negro will not return to slavery, nay, that he will not even work in company with his unfree brother. We admit that it is not merely bodily sufferings and a curtailed life to which the slave is exposed, but that slavery also debases the soul; that the slaves become more or less degraded to the level of the brute creation; and finally, we are compelled to admit that slavery also exercises a baneful influence on the whites.

This antagonism of slavery to Christianity and to morality makes it a duty incumbent on us to abolish the same, a duty whose fulfilment the State has no more right to stave off for reasons of convenience, than the individual has a right to postpone his own moral improvement to a more convenient time and season.

Fortunate it is, meanwhile, that not only religion and morality enjoin the abolition of this disgraceful institution, policy also issues the command, in accents of continually increasing energy. Now that slavery has been abolished in all the English islands, it were folly to suppose that its existence can be maintained in the other islands; and the violent outbreaks which have lately taken place, especially in Cuba, where nothing but the most terrible measures have been able to suppress them for a moment, sufficiently indicate what we must be prepared to expect. It were in truth to mistake human nature were we to suppose that the Negroes will continue peaceably to toil for their masters, when they daily hear that the rights of such masters are no longer held good in the neighbouring countries.

Even if we suppose that formal insurrections may be prevented, still the fears of the planters will by degrees compel them to connive at laziness or immorality among the Negroes to such a degree as will make it impossible for them to calculate with any certainty on getting their field labour executed. The uncertainty which prevails as to when, and under what conditions, emancipation will take place (an event which the planters themselves now look upon as inevitable, and under certain conditions desirable), hinders them from making improvement on their properties, while it at the same time depreciates their value. If an emancipation is finally to be brought about by an insurrection of the slaves, or by their refusing to work, it will not be possible to effect it under such favourable circumstances as would be the case were it voluntarily offered to the slaves.

We duly appreciate the intentions on which the Government regulations have been based, particularly as regards the Ordinance of the 1st of May, 1840, and Rescript of the 18th February, 1843, and we rejoice at the happy consequences which these regulations will have for individuals; but we feel completely convinced not only that they are utterly inadequate to the attainment of their object, but that to a great degree they will even counteract it. These regulations

confer on the slave the right of disposing of what little he may possibly acquire, and of thereby purchasing his liberty; they protect him against the grossest acts of maltreatment; they attempt to secure for the young a certain degree of instruction, but which after their 8th year becomes very scanty; by abolishing the Sunday markets, they give the Negroes an opportunity of attending church and school; finally, they make Saturday a holiday, in order that the Negroes may have it in their power to earn something for themselves; but to this indulgence there is annexed the stipulation, that the master, under certain conditions, may deprive them of this Saturday holiday, as a punishment for offences committed.

From the Royal Rescript of the 1st of May, 1840, which was dispatched to the Governor-General along with the Ordinance issued at the same time, it is evident that it was His Majesty's paternal intention, in making Saturday a holiday, to put it into the power of the Negro to accumulate by means of his own assiduity and industry as much as would enable him to purchase his liberty, whereby in this way emancipation might by slow degrees have been accomplished. But now that the Governor-General, in lieu of the proposals to the planters enjoined in His Majesty's rescript, has substituted other proposals which have now in the main been adopted, it follows from the whole of the transactions that this plan of partial emancipation has been in fact entirely abandoned. It has been justly remarked by the planters, that in the case of a general and sudden emancipation the consequence would be, that the emancipated Negroes would be obliged to undertake field labour for the payment of wages; but, in the case of a partial emancipation, it is only the most vigorous and superior Negroes that can acquire their freedom, and the planters have consequently to retain the weaker and more inferior, without being able to fill up their deficient number with free labourers, it being a well-known fact, that no free Negro will perform labour along with slaves, because labour is the badge of slavery. Some of the planters complained, during the discussions, that even now too many manumissions take place; in reply to which remark the Governor stated, that only 33 are manumitted annually. But these planters themselves had at the same time taken for granted, that the new regulations would not much increase the number of manumissions. Neither is there any reason to expect that they will do so, for although the Negroes have got the Saturday free (excepting in as far as concerns work of necessity for the master and cases of transgression), still they have in a great measure lost Sunday as a work day, since they may not hire out their labour on that day, and may not work for themselves during the interval between 9 and 2.

The beneficial result expected from the new regulation consists, therefore in this, that by means of the measures adopted in pursuance

of them, hopes are entertained of promoting the intellectual and moral development of the slaves, and thus fitting them for being emancipated at some indefinite future period. It would be all right to expect such results, did not the very nature of slavery counteract all such development. The want of regular marriages, and of the domestic circle, are among the worst features in the condition of slaves. But how shall we instil into the slave a sense of these blessings, if it depends on the will of the master whether husband and wife are to live together; and whether the children are to remain inmates with them? How is the husband to assume the character of the head of his family, if it is another who supports the family and rules over it? and how are the father and the mother to retain the respect of their children, if in the presence of the latter a slave driver may flog them with a rope's end, even allowing that the said rope's end does not deviate from the standard measure? How shall we operate the intellectual development of the slave, when the acquisition of knowledge enables him more clearly to comprehend his unnatural position, and makes him feel more severely its hardship? How shall we teach him self-respect, when everything around him testifies that, like the live stock, he is the property of another? How shall we teach him Christianity, if we must suppress or adulterate that maxim of Christianity "That we must not do to others what we would not have them do to us?"

In truth, slavery, and the intellectual, moral, and religious development of the slaves, are ideas so diametrically opposite, that we need not be surprised if, with very few exceptions, slave-owners have at all times been opposers of the education of slaves, even their religious education, unless in so far as they might therein think they discerned a means of enforcing subjection. Now in the face of such an opposition, based as it is in the nature of things, the efforts of Government, howsoever well meant they may be, cannot effect anything great.

But, it has been urged by way of objection, it is dangerous all at once to confer freedom on human beings who are so rude, so immoral, and so denuded of all religion; nay, freedom will not even be of any advantage to them as long as they are not fitted to avail themselves of it. But even allowing that the present generation of slaves are as rude and as morally corrupt as they are represented to be (and in giving such representations a severe sentence is passed on the whites who have reduced them to this situation), still the objection cannot hold good against generations yet unborn, who cannot have rendered themselves unworthy of emancipation. The fear that the Negroes, on the occasion of a general emancipation, would overpower, massacre, and plunder the whites, a fear that was at one time very general, has now been proved to be entirely groundless, seeing that in the English

colonies several hundred thousand slaves were emancipated by a general measure without any such consequences having taken place, nay, there now exists so great a degree of tranquillity that in several of the English islands the military garrisons have been reduced; whereas in Cuba it is only by a system of terror that public security can be maintained. In like manner the fear that the manumitted slaves would become addicted to idleness, has on the whole proven to be without foundation. On the contrary, it has been proved that the Negroes have a taste for acquiring not only the necessaries of life, but also its luxuries and comforts; in evidence of which the great increase of imported articles furnishes a striking proof. They have shown no disinclination to work for reasonable wages; and the planters have been able to procure labourers, except in places where the Negroes had an opportunity of becoming proprietors, which, like other people, they naturally preferred to being day labourers. Since the emancipation marriages have increased in a considerable degree. These evidences of the results of emancipation are deduced from a period of 6 years, and in some cases even of 10 years.

That the people should first be matured for freedom before it was given to them, and that freedom, when abruptly conferred on the thrall, would only render him unhappy, was what was also asserted when bondage and villainage were abolished in this country, but experience has refuted this opinion. It is obvious that freedom, to a certain extent at least, must be given before it can be enjoyed. A child will not learn to walk by being continually held in leading-strings. Besides, a general and simultaneous emancipation does not surely, by any means, prevent the adopting precautionary measures, tending to guard against abuses of the freedom so conferred. The negotiations with the planters of the Danish West India Islands show that they will gladly assent to a general emancipation, on condition that the State compensates them for the value of the slaves. From which it is evident, that they are not so much in earnest about the dangers which, it is asserted, are connected with emancipation, or the evils which will thereby be entailed on the Negroes themselves.

But, it is further objected, that the planters will be entirely ruined, and consequently the whole colony; the Negroes will either peremptorily refuse to work, or will only work for such wages as the planters are unable to pay them. Our State is not like the English Government-it has not the means of allowing the planters a money equivalent for the value of their slaves.

Here, also, we have experience in our favour. In some islands, for example in Jamaica, where the Negroes could betake themselves to the hilly country, or to other uncultivated districts, or where they had an opportunity of acquiring property, many refuse to work, or asked an exorbitant hire. In such places the planters could not pro