deen, whom he represented as almost deserving, in relation to this question, the character of an enemy of the human race. On the 27th of February, lord Mulgrave brought this subject before the House of Lords, particularly in relation to the appointment of local magistrates under the act. His lordship apparently was apprehensive that the new government would be anxious, without a cause, to gratify the planters by placing this authority in their own hands. He held the intention of the legislature, in passing the abolition bill, to have been, that the administration of justice, as between master and slave, should be placed in the hands of a certain number of gentlemen, who were to be sent out in the character of special magistrates from this country. That was one of the most important principles of the bill, because it tended to prevent arbitrary or unjust punishment. As a great degree of discretion was left in the hands of those gentlemen, it was necessary, in order to secure impartial justice, that the parties intrusted with the administration of the law should have no interest on the one side or on the other. But in the last session of the Jamaica legislature a representation was made by the House of Assembly and Council, calling on the governor to appoint a certain number of special magistrates to act in each parish. The governor, the marquis of Sligo, exercising the power with which he was invested, thought proper not to comply with this requisition. He approved of the conduct of the noble marquis; for, in his view of the matter, a compliance with the wishes of the assembly and council would have been distinctly at vari

ance with the spirit of the act; and the effect of such an alteration would be to restore the ancient power of the whip to the master. He thought it impossible to select, in the different parishes, any individuals unconnected with slave property to act in the capacity of special magistrates. He wished therefore to know whether the new government would maintain the rule on which the governor of Jamaica had acted, and continue to enforce the principle, that no person connected with slave property should be intrusted with the administration of justice. between the master and slave. He wished likewise for some assurance that protection and encouragement would be extended to the missionaries, a point intimately connected with the tranquillity of Jamaica. A great degree of prejudice had been manifested against them, and it extended in nearly the same degree to members of the established church dencminated evangelical. Encouragement and protection ought to be extended to these individuals, whose efforts were zealously exerted in the cause of religious education. Complaints had been made with respect to the conduct of those persons; but when he assumed the government of the island, he found that the complaints were not well founded. The religious teachers executed the duties of their different spheres with creditable zeal, and they were most useful in imparting instruction to the negroes. That instruction could be imparted with perfect safety to property; and the planters themselves, if they saw the question in its true light, were as much interested as any other body of men in extending education amongst the negroes.

Lord Aberdeen answered, that he would not yield to any member even of the government which had brought in the abolition bill, in anxiety to see its provisions faithfully executed. The first vote he had ever given in parliament had been against slavery; and his first act on now coming into office would, he thought, be admitted to manifest the same spirit. After having cursorily examined the correspondence of the governor of Jamaica, and satisfied himself with the general characterof his conduct, recollecting that changes of administration very frequently produced changes of functionaries abroad-recollecting that one of the noble marquis's predecesso s had relieved himself from the government of that colony without any disapprobation having been expressed of his conduct, and thinking that such might be the intention of the noble marquis-he wrote at once to him upon the state of the great cause in which he was engaged, and the administration of the law with the execution of which in that island he was intrusted. He had entreated the marquis of Sligo to retain the office he then held, and proffered to him the most cordial and hearty support of his majesty's government in the execution of his duty, and in every other thing which was calculated to produce the complete success of that cause. To that application he had received no answer, but he expected that a request so earnestly pressed would secure to him the benefit of the noble marquis's assistance. With respect to the intention of confining the execution of the law between master and slave to stipendiary magistrates sent from this country, he had already conveyed his majesty's ap

probation of the governor's exercise of his power on that point; and he had no intention whatever to alter any instructions which had been sent out. At the same time he must say, that the situation of the colony, in that respect, had furnished one great ground of complaint, which certainly had not been contemplated by the government. In the distribution of the stipendiary magistrates, thirty had been given to Jamaica. The duties were thus to be performed by a small number of persons, who were scarcely acquainted with the extent or the geographical divisions of the country. Urgent representations had been made on this subject, and his predecessor in office, acting on his own responsibility, made a considerable addition to the number of stipendiary magistrates from this country. He himself, on coming into office, had added a few more to the number; and he had the satisfaction of thinking, that a sufficient number was now appointed to perform the duty without inconvenience, the number of magistrates having been increased from thirty to sixty-one. As to the second point, he was aware that great animosity prevailed on the subject of missionaries in the island of Jamaica; and though he could not go so far as to say, that in no case had their zeal outrun their discretion, still they should receive the full protection of the law, whenever it was necessary. He was quite convinced, that if they did not, by strong and vigorous measures, provide for the education of the negroes during the period of apprenticeship-if they left them free in person, but enslaved in ignorance, as they were at present, the abolition act would prove a curse instead of a blessing

to them. Education was indispensable to the negroes, and every effort should be made to impart it; but if great care were not taken to get full information on many important points connected with it, before submitting any plan, that plan might be not only useless but dangerous. He was anxious, therefore, to see, in the first place, what could be done by the colonies themselves, by religious and patriotic societies, and by private individuals. He understood that recently he had been held up as a sort of enemy of the human race, and it was considered monstrous that in his hands should be placed the welfare and happiness of so numerous a class of men. All he would say was, that, whatever his enmity to the human race might be, he was certainly no enemy to the orator of the human race who made the accusation.

The duke of Wellington said, that he had opposed the abolition bill; but that measure having passed through that House, and having become the law of the land, from that time to the present day, their lordships might be assured, that no individual whatever, not even the noble earl himself, or any other noble lord, wished for its success more sincerely than he did. He was most anxious to carry into effect the intention of the legisla

by which the antagonists of ministers had laboured to render them odious during the elections, had consisted in holding them out as a faction who were prepared to set public opinion at defiance, and stake the royal prerogative against the voice of the country, by dissolving successive parliaments. Perseveringly to impute such designs is one means of conciliating credit to them; interested party spirit delights in creating suspicions and propagating rumours, to which it then gives still greater consistency by making them the apparently justifiable subjects of grave discussion. On the present occasion, the virulence of opposition went still farther, announcing that ministers had resolved to maintain the army even though they should have no mutiny act and stranger still, a political leader was found gravely to bring these extravagant fictions before the House of Commons, as matters which the ministry was bound to disclaim. Lord John Russell had hinted at the possibility of another dissolution in the debate on the address, and declared his intention of questioning the minister, now that two majorities had pronounced against him, regarding the probability of such an event. On the 2nd of March, on the order of the day for a committee of supply, his lordship said he had been informed by public rumour, that ministers, if they should not find reason to be satisfied with the result of his majesty's late appeal to the judgment of his subjects, would again appeal to the sense of the people, and endeavour to wear out and vex the country by repeated dissolutions. Nay, a rumour of a still more extraordinary character had got into circulation

namely, that ministers, if they dissolved parliament before the mutiny act was passed, would nevertheless take upon themselves the responsibility of maintaining the army. This rumour, his lordship admitted, was a very absurd one; imputing a course of conduct which it could hardly be said any minister of the Crown would adopt, though it might enter the minds of some sanguine projectors. He would not now even put the question, which he had formerly proposed to ask, respecting the dissolution of parliament, but would take it for granted, unless he heard something to the contrary, that no such measure was contemplated. In doing so, he rested on the royal answer to the address, in which his majesty, though he regretted that the House did not concur with him as to the policy of the late dissolution, added an expression of his confident trust, "that no measure conducive to the general interests will be endangered or interrupted in its progress by the opportunity which he has afforded to his faithful and loyal subjects of expressing their opinions through the choice of their representatives in parliament." He could not believe that ministers would have advised such an answer if they had contemplated a dissolution, by which all measures of reform would necessarily be delayed and endangered. He would offer no opposition to the merely formal motion before the House; but he did think that they ought not to go too far in the matter of supply, before receiving that full explanation which ministers, after the carrying of the amendment, were bound to give regarding the course which they intended to pursue. He agreed, that it was not fitting that his

majesty should have declared in the royal speech what was intended to be done in corporation and other reforms; but it was now necessary that ministers should state their intended measures precisely and definitely-more especially as every day was adding to the doubt whether those, who filled the highest offices in the state, seriously contemplated any such municipal reform as would give the people that control over corporations which they formerly exercised, and which indubitably ought to be restored to them.

As to the Irish church, Sir Robert Peel had already stated, that though he would lay the reports of the commissioners on the table, he did not mean to found any motion upon them. Now, he had heard from one of the commissioners themselves, that their first report might be expected in a few days. He therefore gave notice, that, before the conclusion of the month, he would call the deliberate attention of the House to the question of the Irish church, for the purpose of explaining the general course and principles on which the late government was prepared to have acted. He gave this notice, in order that ministers might be prepared to answer, either now, or at some future time, the call which the House undoubtedly would make upon them in regard to these two questions.

Sir Robert Peel said:-" I do not require any additional time to answer these questions. I have not felt it my duty, in consequence of the vote of the other night, to tender my resignation: and I do intend to persevere in that course which I consider it my duty equally to the king and to the public to pursue; and, notwithstanding that vote, to submit to the consideration