done, to some respectable inhabitant; who, attended by a medical practitioner, shall inspect the corpse and certify the result.

§ 26. Husband and wife, and children under sixteen years of age, are not to be separated by judicial sales.-There is no restraint imposed on any other kind of sale.

§§ 27, 28. No slave shall be deemed incompetent to purchase, acquire, possess, hold, enjoy, alienate, or dispose of property, as money, cattle, implements of husbandry, household furniture, or other effects of such like nature, honestly and lawfully acquired, save and except arms and ammunition, and such colonial produce as is prohibited to be sold by the existing law (being, in fact, all exportable produce). But it shall not be lawful for any slave to keep any stock or animals on the land of his owner, without the owner's consent; and if he should refuse to remove them when required, the owner may destroy them. Slaves may sue their debtors, through their owner, or through the Protector. Owners, or other free persons, unjustly withholding the property of slaves, shall on conviction be made to restore it, and be further liable to fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. Savings' Banks shall be established, in which slaves may deposit their property, being at liberty also to bequeath their deposits*.

§ 29. No duty, tax, or fee shall be taken on the manumission of slaves, except a fee of 22 guilders for registering the deed, to be paid out of the Colony Chest, under a penalty of from 100 to 1000 guilders.

§ 30. Any owner desirous of manumitting a slave shall give notice of his intention to the Protector; and if the Protector thinks the slave likely to become a burthen to the public, he is then to regulate the amount of the security or deposit to be given. He is also to give public notice of the intended manu

*The Trinidad Order empowers the slaves to hold land: the Demarara Draft does not. This is a most material omission. The Court of Policy defend the clause which forbids slaves to possess exportable produce, by the passage in Lord Bathurst's letter to Sir R. Woodford already alluded to. (See note, p. 35.) If this clause be maintained, farewell to all hope of productive industry and accumulation on the part of the slaves, whether in Trinidad or Demarara.

mission, with a view of enabling any one, having a right so to do, to oppose such manumission; and in case of an action, the slave shall be defended in such action by the Protector, and the decree of the court of justice shall be binding. If there be no opposition, then it shall be in the power of the owner to manumit his slave*.

§§ 31, 32. The law of evidence is pretty much the same as in the Trinidad Order in Council, except that in some

* This enactment is as far removed as possible from the spirit and tendency of the corresponding enactment of the Trinidad Order. That order enacts, that if any slave shall be desirous to purchase his own or her own freedom, or that of wife or husband or child or brother or sister, he may do so and if the owner be unwilling, or be unable, from mortgages, or minority, or lunacy, &c. &c. to grant his manumission; or if the owner demand a greater sum than his fair and just value; then the chief Judge shall summon the parties before him; and if either of the parties shall refuse, or be unable, to effect such manumission, then one appraiser shall be appointed by the owner and another by the Protector, and an umpire by the chief Judge, who shall value the slave; and, on the payment of this appraised value, the slave shall be manumitted; such value being lodged in the Treasury of the Island, to abide the claim of the party lawfully entitled to the slave. The Court of Policy enter into a laboured vindication of their refusal to adopt the principle of the Trinidad code in this respect. "The court have felt it to be beyond their power" " to give their sanction to any measure which could, even by construction, imply an acknowledged right on the part of the slave to demand his freedom, invito domino. They feel themselves called upon to avow the principle, that they have not the right to invade the property of their fellow-colonists, by admitting that they can in any manner be deprived of it contrary to the law by which it is secured to them, and which his Majesty has been graciously pleased to guarantee by the Articles of Capitulation" (as if articles of capitulation were at all binding subsequently to the cession of a colony in full sovereignty). "The Spanish law allows a slave to enfranchise himself by purchase: the Dutch law gives no such right whatever to a slave. Here the interest of an owner in his slave is that of fee-simple absolute." "Let the Spanish law be what it may, it can never alter the existing law of this colony." "Slaves in this colony are chattels, as much as any other movable property." "Neither is it the law that proprietors can be forced to dispose of their property, real or personal, when its value is offered to them by others. To give to the slave the right of purchasing himself, against the will and consent of his owner, will annihilate the right of the owner, and confer on the slave a power which no other person possesses." An attempt is then made to point out the injurious effect, even to the slave himself, of thus giving him the power of purchasing his freedom; but it is too absurd to require exposure. It is, in fact, an attempt to satisfy the people of England that slavery is a much better thing than freedom. The time is gone by for such fooleries.

respects it improves upon that order. It does not exclude the evidence of slaves in civil suits in which the owner is concerned, nor in cases where a White person may be charged with a capital offence. This blot in the Trinidad order is avoided in the Demarara draft.

§§ 33, 34. The salary of the Protector shall be in lieu of all fees; and if he shall take any fee or perquisite, he shall pay a fine equal to twice the amount, and be disqualified for the office of Protector. His salary is to be paid him halfyearly, but not until he shall have made all the required returns; namely, returns of the number and particulars of all actions and suits, or criminal prosecutions, in which he was concerned as Protector, with the accounts of the Savings' Banks, the record of punishments, &c.

§ 35 appropriates the fines and forfeitures.

§ 36. If any person shall be twice convicted of inflicting on a slave a cruel and unlawful punishment, he shall incur double the penalty of cruelty before mentioned, and shall be declared incapable of having the management of any slaves within the colony; and if he is the owner, his estate shall be placed under curators, who shall manage the same; the owner, however, being at liberty to sell or dispose of it.

§ 37. Nothing in this order is to be construed as extending to repeal any of the regulations respecting the treatment of slaves enacted the 23d March 1785, except in as far as they may be repugnant to these regulations *.

There is one entire omission in this draft; it is that clause which is numbered 21 in the Trinidad Order in Council, and which ordains that if any owner, &c. is prosecuted for cruelly and unlawfully punishing a slave, and if the slave alleged to be illegally punished is produced in court with the marks upon him of recent flogging or laceration, and such slave shall make a consistent statement of the circumstances, then the owner shall be bound to prove, either that the punishment was not inflicted by him or with his consent, or that it was a lawful punishment, and was lawfully inflicted; and, in default of such proof, shall be adjudged guilty of the offence imputed

• See above, second note p. 39.

to him. The Court of Policy labours hard to prove that it would be radically unjust to adopt this course of proceeding (p. 268); but Lord Bathurst will probably find as solid a reply to their reasoning on the subject, as he has given to the remonstrance of the Trinidad planters against the same regulation.

VIII. DOMINICA.

The legislature of Dominica was for a time very vehement in its denunciations against the efforts of the abolitionists to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, and took pains to produce a general confederacy of the West-Indian colonies for the maintenance of the whip in its plenitude of power. Of late it has been remarkably quiescent. The Parliamentary Papers barely notice its existence. In August 1824, the Governor, Nicolay, says he has reason to believe that the legislature will, on its meeting, carry into effect Lord Bathurst's wishes. His only subsequent communication is dated the 28th March 1825, and is as follows:

"It is matter of much regret to me, that I am still unable to report that the legislature of this colony has passed an act for the melioration of the condition of the slave population, though I have repeatedly and strongly urged the subject, both by public message and other means.

"A bill to that effect was long ago introduced, but, after much discussion, it has not been completed. A new bill is to be brought in immediately-and I trust no farther obstacles will arise—though I greatly fear it will not comprise all the wished-for amendments in the slave laws; for I plainly perceive, even among the best disposed of the proprietors, an apprehension, that, by going to the full-extent that has been recommended, they may relinquish what they consider to be necessary authority over the slaves.

"The only consolation under these delays, is the conviction, that, throughout this island, the slaves in general are contented and happy, and their treatment is certainly very good." (A. pp. 95, 96.)

IX. GRENADA.

The history of the progress of reform in this colony will also occupy but a very narrow space. On the 5th of September 1824, the President, Paterson, writes, that an amended slave code had been brought forward in the legislature, and would be further considered in October. The legislature met in October, but postponed the consideration of the subject till November. On the 2d of December, President Paterson states, that the Slave Act had been impeded by the great difference of opinion existing on some points; but he still hopes to see the work completed. The slaves he states to be perfectly quiet and contented, and the planters are anxious to make them so; he himself, of course, being one of them. On the 5th of March 1825, he writes, that the Bill had at length passed the Assembly, and was before the Council; but nothing further has since been communicated on the subject. (A. pp. 97-100.)

X. HONDURAS.

No report has yet been made to Parliament of the final fate of the Indians unjustly and cruelly enslaved in this colony, and whom Colonel Arthur had endeavoured to restore to the enjoyment of their liberties.

In this colony there are only 2,600 slaves, and 2,100 free persons of all descriptions. The peculiar circumstances of the colony render slavery much less oppressive there than in most other colonies.

Captain Maclean, a Naval officer, makes a report (see Paper G.) respecting this colony, dated 2d March 1824, in which, after praising the treatment of the slaves, he observes, that he has recently read reports which contradict his statement, and which he believes to be wholly erroneous. But this is rather a rash and unwarranted assertion on the part of Captain Maclean; the acts of cruelty, to which he