of evil. We will endeavour, rather, to overcome the misgivings with which we have hitherto regarded the present policy of Ministers, and, to the utmost of our power, co-operate in realising its predicted advantages. It was with this view we entered into the details which fill the preceding pages; and, by some arrangement comprising which, it is our conscientious persuasion the Church of Ire land can be alone secured. If it be suffered to go "the way of all flesh," or reserved as the capital by which Government may purchase Parliamentary influence, IT WILL NEITHER BE POSSIBLE TO PRESERVE IT, NOR WILL IT BE WORTH PRESERVING. Learning must be encouraged, piety must be promoted, parochial efficiency must be secured; zeal and industry, in their sacred calling, must be made a solid ground for the reasonable expectation of professional advantages to the inferior clergy; the working curates, whom it is unnecessary, and would be pernicious, to encourage by any immediate increase of their stipend, must not be eternally condemn ed to a life of cheerless drudgery, in a region of the profession "blank and bare," """where Hope, that comes to all, comes never," but must be cherished in proportion to their worth, and visited by those beams of kindly patron age which may best requite their toil, and be, at the same time, its recompense and its alleviation. Were these things done, but little would remain undone for the security of the Church of Ireland.* It would thus be placed as a city that is set on a hill, and that cannot be hid." And "its light would so shine before men, that they would see its good works, and glorify its Father which is in heaven." All the Church wants, is JUSTICE. Do it but justice, and it will put you to but little trouble in providing for its defence. Never was there a system of national faith which, if well and truly administered, was so perfectly calculated for commanding the respect and the veneration of the people. But, " corruptio optimi est pessima;" the best things, when corrupted, become the worst. In the same degree that, if well administered, it may be made an instrument of good, will it, if ill-administered, become an instrument of evil; nor can any temporary expedients which may be devised for its support, prevent the ruinous consequences of those abuses by which it may be profaned and desecrated. As soon as it begins to taint the air, it will be scented afar off by those birds of prey whose ravenous rapacity would almost have anticipated the period of its dissolution; "and where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." God grant that better things may be in store for it! and if the late measures should have the effect of tranquillizing the country, and Government should be more at leisure and better disposed to take some efficient step for improving the administration of the Church of Ireland, we are persuaded they could do nothing which would tend more to re-conciliate Protestant confidence, and to justify them, for what they have already done, in the eyes of their country and their God. HIBERNICUS. Dublin, 14th April, 1829. * We are gratified at being able to state, that the first clerical appointment of the Duke of Northumberland is most creditable to him; and that, if his administration be marked by many such, he will be a blessing to Ireland. The Reverend Mr Murray, rector of Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, is not, we are persuaded, unknown to our readers as the zealous and indefatigable Apostle of the Reformation in that part of the country. He is a man altogether devoted to his sacred calling, with a singlemindedness that reminds us of primitive times, when the professors of Christianity "thought not their lives dear unto them," if by the sacrifice of them they might promote the Gospel. It is, therefore, with no ordinary satisfaction, that we hail his promotion to the Deanery of Ardah. Having said thus much, in cordial attestation to his personal worth, we cannot conclude without adding, that we do not pledge ourselves to a perfect agreement with all his theological principles. A SHADOW OF TRUTH. BY DELTA. I HAD a wondrous vision-a dream, but not of night- The gloomy smoke-clouds spired aloft; beneath were fagots piled; 1 Sadly, from latticed convent grey, the hooded Nun look'd out There sages stood with earthward eyes; upon each reverend face, Men, by false doctrines dazzled, quite forsaking God and Truth, There scowl'd the proud old barons brave, a thousand fields that won, Then saw I banners on the breeze-and, as their lengths unroll'd In Liberality's right hand, Sedition's scrolls were borne ; To that poor country, woe-woe-woe! where Commoner and Peer Through all, I heard a warning voice, and mournfully it said- THE BRITISH COLONIES. A SECOND LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, FROM JAMES M'QUEEN, ESQ. MY LORD DUKE, I again presume to address your Grace on that most important subject, the Colonial Establishments, and the Colonial interests, of Great Britain. In my first letter, under date the 22d of May last, I particularly pointed out the value and the importance, in a political, in a commercial, and in an agricultural point of view, of our Colonial Establishments, situated in the West Indies. From facts and from proofs, which have not been, because they cannot be, challenged, disputed, or contradicted, I laid be fore your Grace, not merely the importance and value of these possessions, but at the same time, the manner in which they have been unjustly accused, vilified, calumniated, neglect ed, endangered, and injured, by their natural and political protectors. The object of my present letter is to bring before your Grace, shortly, a few of those dangerous and popular errors, on which the crude system of West Indian Legislation-or rather, Colonial persecution,-has been founded, and pursued; and with which, and upon which, a specious but baseless fabric of Colonial policy has been attempted to be raised. The British Anti-Colonists asserted and assert, that sugar cultivation is pernicious and destructive to human health and life,-that the mortality among the labourers employed in the work, is in proportion to the quantity of sugar raised ;-they asserted and they assert, that wherever the measures devised in this country are enforced, the evils complained of are not only removed, but that the quantity of produce is at the same time increased; and they furthermore asserted and assert, that there are no personal slaves in the British territories in India, and that consequently the sugar there produced, is the produce of FREE LABOUR, and being so, that it ought to be preferred and consumed in Great Britain, instead of the sugar which is produced in the West Indies by British capital vested in, and commanded and encouraged by Great Britain, for her advantage, to be vested, in these posses sions, in sugar cultivation by the labour of African slaves. From 1822 till 1828, West Indian Legislation in Great Britain proceeded upon these false assumptions, the law-makers being all the while prompted and impelled to their labours by senseless theories of expediency, error, interest, and malevolence; and some of which being immediately and intimately connected with the subject in hand, require to be noticed as I proceed. Foremost and conspicuous among these stands a pamphlet, addressed by Mr DWARRIS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year. It may be taken as a correct specimen of Colonial-Office ideas, labours, and pursuits on these subjects, before your Grace-let me hope-began to arrange them, to clear them up, and to give them a better direction. Mr Dwarris is a Commissioner employed under the Colonial Department, and unless his work had been consonant to the views of the reigning powers, it is fairly to be presumed that it would never have seen the light; more especially when it is remembered, that at the period when Mr Dwarris was beating his brains to arrange, to write, and to bring it forth, that faithful and honest officer, Major MoODY, who had been employed under the same Department at a smaller salary, was turned adrift; and I believe he was so, because, in the discharge of his duty he had, on Colonial subjects, told a different, and a more rational tale. Be these things as they may, however, it is pleasing and satisfactory to get hold of a document like the one in question, because, while it shews us what is left undone in the Colonial Office, it shews us, at the same time, the labour in which the working machinery of the place has been engaged. The pamphlet in question is, beyond doubt, a Government feeler of the day. As such, it discloses to an astonished nation the incomparable and incomprehensible nonsense which occupied the time and the labour of the Department in question, and as such, it is worth a moment's attention, to cut up and to expose. One-half of the pamphlet, and the only part of it that is worth any thing, is occupied in proving that all the statements put forth and published by the reckless Anti-Colonists are false and unfounded,-points which few sane persons in Great Britain will now venture to dispute. Having done this, Mr Dwarris, while he proves how much and how greatly the African savages have been civilized and improved under West India bondage-improvements so rapid and so great," says he, page 15," that the short space of a quarter of a century has effected a revolution in feelings and manners in these remote colonies, more extensive, signal, and complete, than, I firmly believe, was ever before known in the same time, in the HISTORY OF MAN!" -having, I say, stated these important facts, Mr Dwarris goes on to recommend the policy, the propriety, and the necessity, of rooting up that system of control and of government under which all this good has been effected, in order thereby to accelerate, to improve, and to perfect, the prosperity of our Colonies, and the minds, the morals, and the industry of the Negro population! Now, my Lord Duke, common-sense would dictate, and prudent and prac tical statesmen would advise, that the savage and half-civilized slave should be retained in that state which improves and civilizes him the most rapidly, at least, till he arrives at that pitch of knowledge, industry, and wealth, when he ceases to be a barbarian, and when, Mr Dwarris admits, that his freedom would become, and could only become, advantageous to himself, and useful to the community at large. Because the West Indian Colonists have done the good which Mr Dwarris says they have done-because they have improved and civilized the African savage to the extent to which they have civilized and improved himthe West India proprietors, my Lord Duke, deserve the favour, not the hostility, of Government-the praise, not the reproach, of the country. They deserve this, my Lord Duke, because Mr Dwarris assures us, page 40," that there is reason to believe the condition of the slave, in any colony of the West Indies, to be preferable to that of the African in his native country." during the late Anti-Colonial mania, Mr Dwarris, page 46, justly states, "regarded only the advantage of the slave, without a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property;" and at page 48, be informs us, "that the scheme of coм PULSORY MANUMISSION, however specious, (and I was one of the persons first captivated by it,) IS ILLUSORY;" -"it seems to me," continues he, page 49, "sufficient ground for the resistance of the Colonies at the present time, that the experiment is new and hazardous; that the result is doubtful; that the attempt at substituting free labour for the services of the slave may be unsuccessful; that in case of failure, the mischief is IRRE PARABLE; that for such irretrievable injury, no compensation is provided, or as yet unequivocally pledged; that ALL EXPERIENCE IS AGAINST ITS SUCCESS; that with the fullest opportunities afforded, and the most pressing invitations given, no evidence was or COULD BE adduced in its favour." These, my Lord Duke, are important and undeniable facts; and to have these facts wrung from the pen of the pioneer of that conclave of legislators who first contrived the scheme "bazardous," and pregnant with "mischief irreparable," and who, by all the aid of power unconstitutionally, despotically, and unjustly applied, sought to enforce it, even though it was contrary to the dictates of "ALL EXPERIENCE," is most important indeed. But it is time to shew the errors and the absurdities uttered by Mr Dwarris." It is," says he, page 40, "from the era of the abolition of the slave trade, that civilisation and improvement, (notwithstanding the incu rable vice of absenteeism,) has dawned upon the West Indies." These few words are of themselves sufficient to shew, and to convince any man acquainted with the West Indies, or with the history of the West Indies, that Mr Dwarris knows scarcely any thing about them; and moreover, that he either takes his opinions from the works of others as ignorant as himself, or that he makes his statements to suit the opinions of those, who, with some new scheme in hand, are completely ignorant of Colonial history, and of the real state of society in the The measures devised and adopted Colonies. My Lord Duke, the march of civilisation proceeded, among the African savages landed in our colonies, from the day they were landed in those colonies; but it was less visible before the Abolition than AFTER it, because great numbers of savages were annually introduced into each colony, whose ignorance, superstition, indolence, and vicious habits, corrupted, and to a very considerable degree, their countrymen who had previously been introduced into those islands, and also their progeny. This state of things naturally neutralized, to a considerable extent, the progress of civilisation. Mr Dwarris himself proves the fact, that it was these things, and not the severity of the master before the Abolition, which retarded the march of civilisation among the slave population of our Colonies, when he states, page 41, that it was the newly imported African who required to be COERCED AND TREATED WITH SEVERITY." Mr Dwarris, in his censure of "absenteeism," that is, the residence of West India proprietors in England,gives, contrary to the theory of Professor Macculloch, whose White errors were much in vogue about the time Mr Dwarris wrote, a knock-down blow to his argument, and proves that civilisation must have advanced in the Colonies with greater rapidity before the era of the Abolition," than after it, because it is notorious to every one acquainted even in but a slight degree with the history of the Colonies, that the number of resident proprietors previous, and long previous, to "the era of the Abolition," was fifty to one to what it is at present. In those days, also, the resident proprietors were not only independent in their circumstances, but also men of great knowledge, talents, and judgment, and moreover, in many instances, either immediate descendants of noble British families, or nearly related to such, Their humanity, also, was undeniable, more especially when it is recollected, that a very great number of the first settlers in our Colonies were Quakers, who had been compelled to abandon their native country during the days of Cromwell and Charles the Second, when Great Britain was, under the first, cursed with a canting, and under the second, as a matter of course, Scourged by a profligate government. Mr Dwarris cannot deny these facts; and admitting them, he destroys his more important statements and arguments. 66 as - "Slaves should be attached to the soil," says Mr Dwarris, page 54, the FIRST STEP to improvement;"in other words, in many instances we must ruin the master and beggar the slave, in order that the latter may be improved, and the other enriched! In the Bahamas, and in several of the Leeward Islands, there are probably about 60,000 slaves, at this moment, fixed to the respective islands, under similar insane and inhuman enactments. The consequences are as follows: British capital, to the amount of ten millions, is annihilated, or rendered not merely unproductive, but burdensome; whereas, if permitted to be sent to other islands, and there vested in and applied to the same species of labour, on a rich soil, it would return to the proprietor and to the parent state ONE MILLION annually. But the mischief does not stop here. ORDERS IN COUN CIL oblige the master to lay aside an annual income for the old or maimed The master slave he emancipates. He is a has nothing. He cannot borrow upon I defy Mr Dwarris, or any one else, to contradict what is here stated. But the plan recommended by Mr Dwarris is not his own. It originated with Mr Buxton and his friends. The latter |