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effect and the whole character and seeming of the agent: so that while the agency excited our grief by its perniciousness, it would not have outraged us by monstrosity. But what language can adequately express the revolting sensation with which we behold the mischief done-the first germinating principles of peace, knowledge, and civilization torn upby vastly genteel and polite inhabitants of London or Liverpool,-persons of reputation and weight in their circles,persons who acceptably bow and smile to ever so many fair and fashionable Christians,-have gilt volumes of poetry on all matters of sensibility on their shelves,and perhaps, on a Sunday, demean themselves with exemplary decorum amidst the reading of commandments and prayers.

From a diversity of facts, thus collected over the wide range to which the vigilance of the Directors had extended, it was become perfectly evident, by the time of the annual general meeting of the Institution in March 1810, that the abolition acts had in a very great degree failed to effect their purpose; and it also very soon became evident, that the several detections,and condemnations, effected in consequence of this vigilance, would be unavailing, without the aid of a law that should inflict a severer penalty than merely the loss of the captured property. The adventurers would not at all hesitate to run that risk, with so many chances in their favour as the wide field of the trade afforded them, and while the profits, according to a statement given in this report, were so great as to make them gainers by the success of one voyage out of three. It was therefore resolved, to move the legislature to mark the trafficking in slaves as a crime, and to affix to that crime a suitable punishment.' But

The session of Parliament was too far advanced for any legislative enactment for the repression of the evil. All that could be done, therefore, was to engage the attention of Government to the subject, by an address; and to induce both Houses of Parliament to pledge themselves to the adoption of such farther legislative provisions in the ensuing session, as might be necessary for giving full effect to the acts already passed for abolishing the slave trade.'

A simple humane stranger, from some very distant country, on hearing, first, in what light the 'evil' was unanimously regarded, and then, that the session was too far advanced to admit of an enactment for repressing it, would exceedingly lament that fatality of climate, or political constitution, through which it is rendered impossible for a session to be prolonged beyond a particular day or week, even for the most momentous concerns; and could be

consoled only by an assurance that, though the ravage which would in the mean time be perpetrated by the miscreants in question, and which such an enactment might have gone far towards stopping, would indeed be dreadful, yet the legislators, in their individual capacity, would, during the interval, be doing something much more necessary and important than preventing it.-And as to the pledge, holding out to the traders the threat of a severer law the next session; it might, certainly, tend to prevent the embarking of much new property in the trade: but, since the threatened future law would not be retrospective, and since the mere expression, in the mean time, of the disapprobation of the legislature, would evidently be entirely disregarded by the offenders pointed at; this pledge would operate as an advertisement to the traders, inciting them to work the whole of their apparatus that was in a state for prompt service, with unprecedented exertion, during the period of comparative immunity before them.

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At length, in May, 1811, an Act was passed by both Houses, without opposition, to the effect that subjects or persons residing in the United Kingdom, or any of the dominions of his Majesty, carrying on the Slave Trade, or any way engaged therein, shall be declared felons;' and subject to the punishment of transportation, for a term not exceeding fourteen years, or to confinement and hard labour, for a term not exceeding five years nor less than three. This guilt and penalty attach to owners of ships employing or suffering them to be employed in the trade-to those who fit them out for the purpose-to the master, mate, supercargo, and surgeon,-and to all who in any manner aid the shipping and transportation of Africans for sale;excepting petty officers, servants, seamen, and underwriters of policies of assurance,' who are guilty of a misdemeanor only, and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

At the view of the lofty and commmanding ground thus gained at last by the good cause, the Directors pause to express their just exultation;* and they add,

The members of the Institution may well feel encouraged, by such an example, not to relax their efforts, but to persevere actively and ur remittingly in the cause in which they have embarked. An extensive field lies before them; and benefits of the most momentous kind to Africa and the world can hardly fail to crown their persevering

exertions.'

* The bill was only in its progress at the time of the meeting, but its success was beyond all doubt.

The vigilance of the Directors, to which humanity and the civilized world are already so deeply indebted, will still be required without intermission, to see to the effectual execution of this law; which it is to be hoped will be followed by still stronger enactments, even to the last severity of avenging justice, if the iniquitous traffic should still be found in existence,after all that has thus far been done for its annihilation.

The next report of the Directors will be waited for with extreme interest, by every one that is anxious for the amendment of the human race; and we are confident that every successive report will bring additional proof, that this is one of the most important, and one of the most efficacious Institutions, ever formed in our country. There really seems reason to doubt, whether, but for its exertions, the slave-trade would at this hour have suffered any very material diminution from the enactments for its abolition. În accomplishing at length great object, it will have given a noble pledge of those ulterior and indefinitely progressive benefits, which we trust it is destined to be the instrument of conferring on Africa.

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The Appendix contains several papers of considerable interest; the act of last session for constituting the prosecution of the Slave Trade, or any participation in it, felony-several letters from the African coast-some instructions for detecting disguised slave ships-the Spanish slave code-a list of plants and seeds transmitted by Dr. Roxburgh, of Calcutta, for experiment on the African coast, with directions for their culture-memorial of John Wise, a free negro, illegally arrested at St. Vincent and the case of the King v. Edward Huggins, sen. Esq., of the island of Nevis, for cruelty to his slaves This case, of which short statements have appeared in our public papers, is here given at very great length; and may be considered as affording a sample, on a rather large scale, of a no very unusual state of the relations between the two classes of human beings, the whites and the blacks, in the West Indies, a state of relations affording as lively an image as poetry ever has afforded, of infernals torturing victims.-This Huggins is a peculiarly prosperous planter, the owner of more than six hundred negroes. It appears, that in consequence of his imposition of oppressive extra labour, and other cruelties, some degree of insubordination and desertion had taken place.

No insurrection, however, nor any forcible resistance of the_master's authority, was proved, or even pretended, on the part of Mr. Huggins; and had such crimes been committed, the civil magistrate in the West Indies is always ready enough to punish them; nor is the bringing slaves to judicial punishment attended with any trouble, expense, or delay. Mr. Huggins had therefore no excuse for taking the law into his

own hands, if the offence had been of a public kind. But, it is understood to have amounted to no more than the private fault of non-obedience to the master or his agents, or, at most, to desertion from the

estate.

Not content with gratifying his vengeance by punishment within the bounds of his plantation, where he might have laughed at public justice, by suffering none but slaves to witness his oppressions, he was resolved to shew his contempt of the law, and of the feelings of his more humane fellow-colonists, by the making the public market-place of Charlestown, which is the seat of the insular courts and government, the theatre of a dreadful execution upon his unfortunate slaves.

Accordingly, on the 23rd of Jan. 1810, he went, attended by his two sons on horseback, with upwards of twenty of his devoted victims, men and women, in custody of the drivers, through the streets, to the market-place; and there proceeded to indulge his cruelty to the utmost, during more than two hours, in the face of day, and in the sight and hearing, not only of free persons, but magistrates, who offered him no interruption.

To one negro-man, he gave, by the hands of expert drivers, no less than 365 lashes; to another, 115; to a third, 165; to a fourth, 252; to a fifth, 212; to a sixth, 181; to a seventh, 187. To a woman, 110; to another, 58; to a third, 97; to a fourth, 212; to a fifth, 291; to a sixth, 83; to another, 89; and to various other women and men, vari. ous other cruel measures of the same punishment.' p. 56.

To assist the reader's estimate of this transaction, a description is given of the usual mode and circumstances of this kind of execution, the position of the sufferer,-the size of the whip, and the manner, and effect of its application. The victim is stretched on the ground, and the lash is applied vertically to the bare back, the driver or executioner standing at the proper distance to put the utmost force into the application.

The report of the lash is louder than that of the long whalebone whips of our London carmen; and its effect so severe, (except when the drivers are humanely forbid to cut, as the phrase is) that blood is drawn, and the skin stripped off, at every lash; till at length, if they are numer ous, the poor victim's flesh, from the small of the back or hips down to the middle of the thigh, is not only excoriated, but cruelly mangled and

torn.

Such deep incisions are often made, that the parts, after they are healed, retain a shocking appearance during the rest of life.' p. 55.

Such was the kind of exhibition by which Huggins presumed, that he should not much offend a good proportion of the polished people of the chief town of the island; and the attending and subsequent circumstances shew he was not mistaken: for,

At the time of this outrage on humanity, public decency, and law, no less than seven magistrates were in Charlestown. Two of them, the Rev. William Green, who holds two livings in the island, and is a justice

of the peace, and the Rev. Samuel Lyons, who also holds two livings there, and is a member of the council, were within hearing of the lash, and must have known of the cruel and illegal cause, yet did not at all interfere. The same has been already remarked of the surgeon, Dr. Cassin.'

One of the constituted authorities, however, the House of Assembly, had the virtue to take cognizance of the fact, and to pass and publish some resolutions to the effect of censuring it, and subjecting it to legal investigation. An indictment was found, on an existing colonial law which, among other things, forbids the cruel whipping of slaves. Huggins was tried-he was acquitted-and he signalized and consummated his triumph, by successfully prosecuting, for a libel, the printer of the Gazette, in which the House of Assembly had published their resolutions. These transactions were represented, in a very dignified language of reprobation, by Mr. Tobin, a humane and courageous planter of Nevis, to Mr. Elliott, Governor of the Leeward Islands,-who bas since exerted himself so firmly, and much to the displeasure of the generality of the worthy planters, in the enforcement of the capital sentence against another most atrocious miscreant, the Hon. Arthur Hodge. The Governor transmitted a statement of the whole affair, with the requisite evidence, to the British Government; and in consequence received, along with expressions of abhorrence, an order to remove from the station of magistrates the persons who, sustaining that 'character, witnessed the barbarous spectacle without interference. How far this mere deposal is likely to have any thing like an adequate penal and preventive effect,-which it could have only in being a real degradation in the opinion of the society in which these men are placed,--may easily be understood from Governor Elliott's representation; that the state of the principles and feelings among the white inhabitants of these islands is so totally corrupt, that they zealously take the parts of such offenders; and that they are utterly unfit to be any longer entrusted with legislative and judicial functions.-By some of the communications to Governor Elliott, it should seem as if the European Government intended, at last, some real and serious interference to repress the flagrant enormities in these colonies. It remains to be seen, whether the arm of a powerful and self-called Christian state is to be always, when the protection of the negroes is the required exertion, in a state like that of Jeroboam. The case of John Wise, fixes infamy on several persons, who are allowed to think themselves of no small consequence in their respective situations in the West Indies: but we have no room left to notice the particulars.

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