found already propounded in the case of the law of the Bahamas. "The offence for which such disproportionate punishment is provided by the former of these clauses cannot be considered as of a malignant nature; yet it would be aggravated rather than palliated, both as regards the delinquency of the act, and its danger to society, under the circumstance of being committed by a person of free condition, as contemplated by the latter clause, which, nevertheless, provides a minor punishment." (A. p. 112.)

The Governor laid Lord Bathurst's communication before the legislature. The Council, in reply, "cannot refrain from expressing a hope that precipitance may be avoided in introducing untried innovations into this tranquil, happy, and hitherto contented country; and that our rulers will deign to recollect the wise opinion on government, left to his country, by one of its most profound reasoners and writers, • It were good that men in innovations would follow the example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees."-The Assembly resolve that the whole matter do stand over. I have been unwilling," observes the Governor, in his letter of the 10th of September, 1824, "to press the matter on the immediate consideration of the legislature, for two reasons; first, I am confident it will be much more satisfactory to your Lordship and creditable to themselves, that all these improvements should be voluntary; secondly, that were I instantly to have directed their attention to this subject, I might, perhaps, have acted with some precipitancy, and, by irritating the public mind, rendered them more obstinate opponents than it is your Lordship's desire. They have, until December next, 1824, time sufficient to weigh the nature and principles of the measures proposed." It does not appear, however, that a single step has since been taken towards the desired reformation.

XVIII. TOBAGO.

In 1824 the legislature of this island passed an act containing some improvements on their former slave code. It ad

mits slave evidence in the only case in which the Trinidad Order in Council has rejected it; viz. in the case of the wilful murder or mayhem of a slave by a White or free person, provided no White or free person had been present, and provided two slaves unimpeached as to credibility, concur in their testimony. Clauses are also introduced for securing the personal property of the slave; for abolishing Sunday markets, and substituting Thursday; for allowing to the slaves thirtyfive week-days in the year for their provision grounds; and for limiting arbitrary punishment to twenty stripes; any number more than twelve requiring the presence of a free person besides the person who inflicts the punishment.

In this act, however, there are many omissions, and many objectionable clauses. To these Lord Bathurst calls the attention of the Governor, Sir F. P. Robinson, in his letter of 26th July 1824, referring him to the Trinidad Order, to which he wishes the law to be assimilated, and pointing out some specific objections to the act recently passed. He objects to the inflicting of capital punishment for the crimes of "compassing the death of a White or free person," "maiming of cattle," and "enticing other slaves to run off the island." Receivers of stolen goods are punishable with corporal punishment; but it is not specified that a knowledge of the goods having been stolen is of the essence of the offence. The powers of slave courts are too extensive for courts which are not courts of record. Other defects are pointed out, in addition to which there are the very serious. omissions of the inadmissibility of slave evidence, except in a particular case: the marriage of slaves; the removal of all obstacles to manumission; and the regulation of the sale of slaves nearly related.

Sir F. P. Robinson, on the 27th October 1824, informs Lord Bathurst, that "there is great reason to fear the Colonial Legislature will not attend to the suggestions submitted to them respecting amendments and additions to the slave act." "To press them farther on the subject this session would answer no good purpose, and therefore it will be better to wait the event of the January sessions." But even this qualified hope lasts only a single day. On the 28th October

"that

the Governor writes, that it is his decided opinion, nothing more will be done towards the melioration of the condition of the slaves in this colony by the legislature." He transmits at the same time a message from the House of Assembly rejecting the Trinidad Order entirely. It could not, they say, be adapted to the island of Tobago, without equal prejudice to the interest of the master, and the good government and happiness of the slave population. The House is fully convinced that in the late act, they have gone as far as prudence and propriety can justify, and that in the present state of the slave population, to adopt all the measures recommended by his Majesty's Government, would be equally destructive of the interests of the master, and the happiness of the slave."

XIX. TRINIDAD.

The whole of the papers connected with Trinidad, which are contained in the book A., have a reference to the promulgation of the Order in Council, which took place on the 24th May 1824, and to the subsidiary regulations which were found necessary either for giving effect to its provisions, or for supplying its defects. Into these it will be unnecessary to enter much at large. The substance of the Order itself, as it originally stood, will be found in the Appendix to the Second Report of the Anti-slavery Society, p. 71.

Two proclamations have since been issued: the first, of the 23d June 1824, directs that, instead of being punished by flogging, female slaves shall thenceforward be liable to be punished, by their owners, by solitary confinement, with or without work, not exceeding three days; by field-stocks for the hands, during the hours of labour, not exceeding thirty minutes for each offence; by house-stocks for the hands and feet, with or without seats, during any period of the day, not exceeding six hours; by bed-stocks for the confinement of the feet during the night; handcuffs; distinguishing dresses, with or without stocks; distinguishing marks to be suspended from the neck; confinement, either solitary or otherwise, with or

without task-work. These punishments may also be inflicted on male slaves in lieu of flogging: offences requiring a higher punishment are to be referred to the magistrates or tribunals according to their enormity. Regulations are also promulgated for the management of the Savings' Banks.

The second proclamation is dated the 29th October 1824, and directs that nothing in the Order of Council, prohibiting compulsory labour on the Sunday, shall be construed to authorize any slave to hire himself to work, either to his owner or any other person, from sun-set on Saturday to sun-rise on Monday; provided, however, that in case it shall be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the crops or produce on any plantation, or for the prevention of essential injury to the same, slaves may be employed for hire between these hours, provided they voluntarily consent to do so, and provided they are so hired by their owner, or by other persons with the owner's special consent in writing; the lowest rates of wages, which shall be payable to slaves so hiring themselves, shall be fixed and made known by a public notice from the Protector and Guardian of slaves, and it shall not be lawful to pay them less than this fixed rate. It is further directed, that nothing in the Order shall be construed to prevent the employment between sun-set on Saturday and sun-rise on Monday, of watchmen, nurses, domestic servants, &c.; it being understood that no field labour, or labour in any of the ordinary works of the plantation shall take place, on any pretence of irreparable injury from delay, unless the slave shall voluntarily engage in it and be paid for it. It is further declared, that female slaves under the age of ten years may be corrected for faults as children of free condition are usually corrected; that the expenses of appraisement, on the manumission of a slave, are to be equally divided between the owner and the slave; that when a person's interest in all his slaves shall, by reason of his cruelty and unlawfully punishing his slaves, become liable to forfeiture, the sentence shall not take effect until the whole case, with all its particulars, shall have been reported to his Majesty, and his royal pleasure thereon shall have been signified; and that the rights of third parties shall not be affected by such forfeiture.

P

In the Order, as thus framed and modified, Lord Bathurst remarks, "there is nothing which can give to the planters any just claim for compensation. I am as ready as any man to acknowledge and maintain that the slave must be considered as the property of his master. But the slave has his rights. He has a right to the protection of the master in return for his service, and the law must secure to him that protection. There is nothing in the provisions of this Order which goes beyond the limits which this principle prescribes. In most cases they do little more than what practice has sanctioned * or the law has already enjoined. The master is not deprived of the service of his slave on any day except Sunday; and it is to be hoped that no Christian master will so far forget himself as to claim indemnity for the loss of that which his religion must have taught him he ought never to require."

The Second Report of the Anti-slavery Society has already stated the grief and dismay which the promulgation of this Order in Council produced among the planters in Trinidad. In reply to the strong remonstrances of the colonists, the Governor refuses to suspend the Order; and he affirms, that, "the points comprized in it were recommended to his Majesty's Government by the whole body of West-India planters and merchants in London, as fit concessions on the part of the slave proprietors." It is important to bear this in mind. The remonstrants in Trinidad affect to regard the Order as the work of the abolitionists, while it is in fact the work of the West-India body in London.

In one of the many remonstrances presented to Sir R. Woodford by the inhabitants, and in which they ransack the English vocabulary for words sufficiently strong to express their dissatisfaction and their alarm, we find the following passage: "It is avowedly a measure by which the assumptions of theory are to be subjected to the test of experiment, to be falsified or confirmed; by which the philosophic legis

* Lord Bathurst, we fear, has not been well informed as to the extent of improvement which practice, in the colonies, had previously sanctioned; perhaps from his having taken the unfounded statements of some even respectable West-Indians to be true representations; such a statement, for example, as that the whip is used not as a stimulus to labour, but as a mere badge of authority.