"Too often in regarding the countenance of a slave, it may be observed that, "Dark melancholy sits, and round her

throws

A death-like silence, and a dread repose;" but throughout Mr. Dougan's happy gang the more striking features are those of mirth and glee: for, here, the merry dance and jovial song prevail, and all are votaries to joy and harmony. Before the doors of the huts, and around these peaceful dwell ings, were seen great numbers of pigs and poultry, which the slaves are allowed to raise for their own profit: and from the stock, thus bred in the negro yard, the master usually purchases the provisions of his table, paying to the negroes the common price for which they would sell at the market. The conduct of Mr. Osborn to his slaves, and indeed, of many others I might mention, is also very highly commendable. The negroes at Arcadia have much cause of contentment: their happiness and welfare being guarded with a parental care. Were all masters kind and humane as Mr. Dougan, and his neighbour, slavery might have few enemies: and the peasants of Europe, amidst their boasted freedom, might sigh, in vain, for the happiness enjoyed-by slaves!" (vol. ii. p. 205-209.)

We have real pleasure in copying this charming portrait of West India philanthropy, and should be ready to admit to our author, that if all masters were like Mr. Dougan, slavery would be an evil only in name. Nay, if a large proportion of the planters resembled this truly benevolent character, humanity might find some compensation in the general system for the misery inflicted by such a minority of masters as abused their formidable power.

But, alas! there are comparatively very few planters who act at all on the principles here described; and taking the practical delineation to be correct, as from what we have heard of the extraordinary character of Mr. Dougan it probably is, we dare venture to affirm, that nothing resembling, or in any near degree approaching, this beneficent example, is to be found throughout the West Indies. It indeed sufficiently appears from many other parts of the work we are reviewing, CHRIST. OESERV. No. 55.

that the general treatment of slaves is diametrically opposite to that of Mr. Dougan, as an extract given in our last number, and others which we purpose hereafter to give, will evince.

Let, for instance, Dr. Pinckard's general account of the clothing and lodging of the slaves in Barbadoes, be compared with the domestic comforts or rather luxuries of the hap

Py negroes of "the Profit" plantations.

"It is not the practice to load the slaves with superfluity of clothing.-A shirt, and a pair of breeches, or only the latter for the men; and a single petticoat for the women, constitute the whole apparel. Bedding and bed-clothes find no place in their list of necessaries: they usually sleep on a hard plank, in the clothing of the day. Repose is both insured and sweetened to them by labour-and the head needs no pillow but the arm. Some who, by means of industry and economy, are more advanced in their little comforts, procure a kind of matting, a paillasse of plantain leaves, or some other species of bedding, to defend them from the rough plank; but this is an indulgence self attained, not a necessary provided by the master. The architecture of their little

huts is as rude as it is simple. A roof of plantain leaves, with a few rough boards nailed to the coarse pillars which support

it, forms the whole building. The lee ward side is commonly left in part open, and the roof projects to some distance over the door way, forming a defence against both the sun and the rain." (vol. ii. p. 113, 114.)

Still more opposite to our author's picture of Mr. Dougan's benevolence are the traits which he in many places gives of the feelings with which these poor fellow beings are regarded by their oppressors in general. Many shocking cases of cruelty in punishment are incidentaily noticed, but the following anecdote, though it exhibits nothing enormous or remarkable in the act of punishment itself, serves more clearly than most of the other facts related by Dr. Pinckard to mark the ordinary character and feelings of West Indians in the relation of masters and mistresses; and indeed he gives it for that purpose.

3 K

rather have excited in him new horror at a system which so cruelly frustrates the purposes of benevolence, and dashes its liberal bowl with poison, than suggested those hasty reflections by which he seems to extenuate the evils of slavery itself in the abstract, by the contemplation of this singular case. He has furnished such sad accounts of the sickness and mortality which prevail among the white inhabitants of the colonies, that it is strange he did not at least reflect how soon the fragility of human life, not to mention the great instability of West India possessions, might give a new owner, or what might be almost as dangerous to the happiness of the negroes, a new manager, to "the Profit."

With deep concern we are enabled by private information to add, that this plantation and its slaves did, in fact, meet the ordinary fate of such property, a quick succession of owners, soon after our author's departure from the colony. Their benevolent proprietor, who was scarcely more singular from his conduct as a master than from his constant residence on his estate, did not long survive that period; and "the Profit" plantation devolved by his will to his numerous children, some of whom were in the West Indies, but others resident in Europe.

adult successors to this property,three only we believe now remain alive; and these have fixed on England for their future residence. Should the estate still remain with the amiable family to which it belongs, executors, trustees, and attornies, with their limited powers and casual feelings, are likely to fill the chair of the late independent, experienced, and benevolent owner.

Can even the case of these singularly favoured negroes, then, furnish any sound exception to, or extenuation of the evils of slavery? or does it not rather suggest a new argument for the abolition of the slave trade?

We wish that such masters as possess in any degree the feelings and experience of Mr. Dougan might be allowed to decide that question.

Our author, in the course of his faithful and impartial minutes, had several times occasion to remark the gross insensibility of the female heart, naturally tender though it is, to the sufferings of a hapless race of beings, in respect of whom its feelings have been artificially hardened by the habits of colonial life.-We have already given one instance of this seemingly extraordinary feature in West India character, and will now add another extract of the same kind; for to the reflecting mind this shocking consequence of slavery may be highly instructive. We may judge of the obdurate system itself by the strange effects which its attrition has produced.

"Unfortunately, I am now enabled to speak of the punishment of a slave, which

Of the latter, we are happy to add that they are worthy representatives of such a father, and we doubt not that the other branches of his family, were they known to us, would be found deserving of equal praise. If so, the slaves of "the Profit" perhaps felt no worse immediate effects from was far more severe than that mentioned the death of their beloved master in my last letter; and, I am sorry to add, than such as necessarily flc wed from attended with similar marks of insensibithe loss of his personal superinten- lity, and want of feeling, on the part of a dance and management, This, white female. Happening to call one mornhowever, is no slight exception, as ing upon a lady at Stabroek, in company every planter can attest; and besides, fellow-passengers hither, we were scarcely their fortunate security against the seated before we heard the bleeding clang fullest reverse of their late happy of the whip, and the painful cries of a poor destiny, has, alas! been greatly and unfortunate black. rapidly diminished; for so extremely brittle is the thread of human life in the West Indies, that of six or seven

with several Europeans who had been my

"The lady of the house, more accustomed to scenes of slavery than ourselves, pointed to the spot, and, as if it were a

that might divert us, asked, with apparent glee, if we saw them Blogging the negre? Truly we saw the whole too clearly. A poor unhappy slave was stretched out naked,

upon the open street, tied down with his face to the ground before the Fiscal's door, his two legs extended to one stake, his arms strained out, at full length, to two others in form of the letter Y, and thus se

pleasant sight for strangers, or something to, as to the method of working the negroes, was totally false. Such a public assertion, from a person of such high respectability, could not fail to produce in uninformed minds a doubt at least of this important fact, if not an absolute disbelief of its existence; and yet it has happened that among many other elaborate defences of the colonial system since published, not one is to be found in which the author has ventured to countenance this Parliamentary champion of the slave trade, by denying the driving method, while several of them have in substance avowed it.

cured to the earth, two strong armed drivers placed at his sides, were cutting his bare skin, by turns, with long heavy lashed whips, which from the sound alone, without seeing the blood that followed, conveyed the idea of tearing away pieces of flesh at every stroke."

On the term driver, our author has here the following note:

"Slaves so termed from being promoted to the distinguished office of following their

comrades, upon all occasions, with a whip at their backs, as an English carter follows his

horses."

When a description of this ordinary method of working the plantation slaves in the West Indies was first given to the English public by the author of The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies, (see our review of that work, vol. for 1802, p. 307) it excited general horror and indignation. Though much had been already published on the subject of negro slavery, this dreadful feature of the system had remained unknown in Europe, only because former writers had thought the fact as notorious as the sooty complexion of the oppressed human beings who are the objects of such brutal treatment, and therefore supposed it as needless to notice the one as the other.

But as soon as the opprobrious fact was told, and was found to have excited just abhorrence in the minds of some Englishmen hitherto prejudiced in favour of the West India party, the latter, with more than their usual contempt of truth had the effrontery to deny the charge. It was even openly asserted in the House of Commons by a gentleman then high in office, and himself a West India planter, as well as agent for one of the Islands, that the statement in the pamphlet above referred

Doctor Pinckard in various places incidentally takes notice of the prac tice, and shews by his description that the account given in The Crisis is, in its most shocking circumstances, perfectly true. What is stronger still, his notices of this detestable method of coercion chiefly occur in parts of his Journal where our traveller's heart is overflowing with kindness and gratitude towards the planters of Barbadoes, for their hos pitality to him soon after his ar rival; and in with company in which he shews an eager desire to apologise for and applaud them. We give as examples the following extracts:

passages

"Near this place, our attention was arrested by a party of slaves, or, according to the language of the Island, a gang of negroes, who were employed in making a

road to the Governor's house. It was the

first large body of slaves we had met with toiling at their regular employment immediately under the lash of the whip, &c.A mulatto overseer attended them, holding a whip at their backs; but he had every appearance of being as much a stranger to industry as the negroes, who proceeded very indolently, without seeming to be at all apprehensive of the driver or his whip, ercept when he made it fall across them in stripes." (vol. i. p. 256, 257.)

Our author afterwards found occasion to give pictures of slave labour very opposite to the indolence here noticed, and on which he makes some erroneous remarks. The driver could have told him that in the sta

Hints for the Security of the Established Church. Humbly addressed to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. 8vo. pp. 39. London, Hatchard, 1806.

ALTHOUGH this pamphlet be anonymous, the author has contrived to give it a degree of personal interest, and to recommend it to the attention of the illustrious dignitary addressed, by alleging a considerable intimacy with his Grace's predecessor.