would have enjoyed many advantages, during the course of the proceedings, of which he was arbitrarily deprived; and would, at the close of the whole, have still had a complete right of appeal to the king in council. 3. The circumstance which chiefly impressed the minds of the people of this country with an apprehension of Mr. Smith's guilt, was the statement, so boldly and confidently promulgated by his enemies, that the chief conspirators and agents in the Demerara revolt were leaders and members of his congregation. This statement was received as true, because it was uncontradicted. The means, however, of giving it a contradiction have since been fortunately obtained. The register of Mr. Smith's church has been examined; and of about 2000 individuals, whose admission to the congregation by baptism is recorded in that register, only five or six were convicted of being concerned in the rebellion; and only one communicant out of about 200. This single communicant was a Negro of the name of Telemachus. He belonged to the family of Rogers, and was on the point of being sold by auction, with a view to a division of their property. He was employed at the time on a plantation called Bachelor's Adventure, on which he had a wife and child. Anxious to remain near them, he had been eagerly seeking, on the very day before the revolt, for some one to purchase him who lived in the neighbourhood of that place. This did not look as if he had any sanguine expectation of taking his freedom by force. At the same time, the circumstance of his being about to be sold will account for no small share of dissatisfaction.

Besides Telemachus, the only baptized slaves who suffered were as follows:

i. Billy. He also belonged to the family of Rogers, who were then, as has been already said, about to sell and divide their property. He

lived on Ann's Grove, and was the man referred to by Mr. Buxton, in the debate of the 16th March 1824, as having a wife with whom he had lived for nineteen years, and thirteen living children by her, from whom he might be separated for ever by the sale, which was advertised for the 26th of August.

ii. Paul, belonging to the estate called Friendship. His late owner, Mr. Postlethwaite, had been a kind. master, and friendly to instruction ; but sequestrators, since his death, had taken possession of the property; and the estate, with all the Negroes, and Paul among the rest, was advertised to be sold at the end of the month in which the insurrection broke out. This would account for some dissatisfaction.

iii. Daniel.These two men beiv. Philip. longed to Plantation Foulis. They had been baptized, with four others, only in May 1823, just three months before the rebellion. None had been baptized on that estate before that time,-a proof that religion had made but little progress among the slaves belonging to it.

v. One other individual is mentioned, belonging to an estate near the chapel, who had been baptized, and who was sentenced to have his flesh torn from his body by a thousand lashes.

Jack Gladstone, who appears to have been the chief ringleader, but who was pardoned, in consideration doubtless of what was deemed his important testimony against Mr. Smith, had been baptized when a child, and had learnt to read, but seldom attended chapel, and was not a member of Mr. Smith's church at all; although, by way of giving himself the influence he sought among those whom he wished to seduce, he caused a letter to be written in the name of the brethren of Bethel chapel, for which they had given him no authority-To such narrow dimensions, therefore, on a full investigation, has dwindled

down the charge of a conspiracy said to be formed by the deacons and members of Mr. Smith's congregation.

Twelve of the ringleaders, who were convicted and executed, lived on estates where none at all had been baptized by Mr. Smith: namely, on plantation Plaisance, four; on Triumph, one; on Coldingen, one; on Non-pareil, one; on Enterprize, one; on Porter's Hope, one; on Nabaclis, three. The other ringleaders who suffered death came in general from estates where very few had been baptized; the convicts themselves, those excepted who have been specified above, not being of that number.

There are in Demerara two estates of a Mr. Baillie, each managed by a different attorney. The slaves of one of these, Non-pareil, on which Mr. Smith had not baptized a single individual, was deep in the revolt. The slaves belonging to the other, the Hope, on which Mr. Smith had baptized upwards of fifty, did not join the insurgents at all, and continued quietly at work, carefully preserving the property of their owner and manager from plunder. "A trunk of one of the overseers was broken open by the insurgents on visiting the estate; but a houseservant, who had been baptized by Mr. Smith, took out of it some money which escaped their rotice, and presented it to him on his return from militia duty."

On the next estate, which is not named, but it is believed is Dochfour, Mr. Smith had baptized 190 Negroes, and they all stood by their master. On the plantation Brothers, many of the slaves had attended chapel and been baptized, and some of them were communicants. They defended the estate, and the Whites upon it, even at the risk of their lives. The manager, when he returned home, found not one absentee. The former proprietor, Mr. Semple, had encouraged religious instruction, and had assisted

to build the chapel. Various instances of the same kind might be given; as plantations Vigilance, and Industry, and several others, where instruction had taken effect, but where none of the Negroes were executed, or appear to have been engaged in the insurrection. All the persons who were executed, belonging to Mr. Gladstone's estate of Success, were men who had not been baptized. Jack indeed had been baptized, but was not a member of the church, and seldom attended the chapel; but he was pardoned. Quamina, one of the deacons, was accused of being a ringleader, but not proved to be so. The only evidence we have respect ing him, tends to shew that his efforts were directed to restrain rebellion, not to foment it.

All these facts sufficiently demonstrate both the highly beneficial effects of Christian instruction in general, and of Mr. Smith's instruc tions in particular; and, taken in connexion with Mr. Austin's testimony of the solicitude evinced by the slaves generally not to shed the blood of the Whites, they furnish in. controvertible evidence to that effect.

4. The preface further repels the charge of enthusiasm, into which an attempt was made, during the debate in Parliament, to resolve the criminal conduct which was imput ed to Mr. Smith, and for which it was felt that no other motive could be assigned that would give the slightest shadow of probability to the accusation. The charge of enthusiasm, however, is very satisfactorily repelled, by a reference to his journal, his letters, and other authentic writings, all of which convey to the mind of the reader the impression, not of a hot-headed, hairbrained enthusiast, but of a sound, sober, and discriminating, though ardent, mind. As Sir James Mackintosh justly observed, his was the enthusiasm "which, though rejecting the authority neither of reason nor of virtue, triumphs over all the

vulgar infirmities of men, contemns their ordinary pursuits, braves dans ger, and despises obloquy which is the parent of heroic acts and apostolical sacrifices; which devotes the ease, the pleasure, the interest, the ambition, the life, of the gene Tous enthusiast, to the service of his fellow-men!""

The Report of the Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society gives a calm and dispassionate view of their past proceedings, and of the present state and future prospects of their cause. It is accompanied by an account of the speeches delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Society, and which will be found to be highly interesting. We shall quotes only one passage from the Report. It is a reply to the argument employed to justify bounties and protecting duties in favour of the West-Indian sugar-grower, namely, That they prove beneficial to the slaves, by affording additional pecuniary resources to their masters, who are thus enabled better to supply their wants. This is a specious and captivating argument, but one most unfounded in fact. All experience is against it. It as sumes, what is most contrary to Aruth, that the object which the owner has in view, in enlarging his income, is the comfort and well being of the slaves, and not the augmentation of his own wealth, or the increase of his own personal comforts and enjoyments. The Committee observe, in reply

it for the

to remark,

the enhance thee of produce grown by slave labour, must tend to enhance the value of the slave, and to render his manumission more difficult. It must also tend to postpone those economical reforms which are essential to his improves ment. A high price of produce naturally has the effect of giving an impulse to the exaction of slave labour. A low price of produce leads to a directly contrary result, To establish this point satisfactorily in argument, though it would not be difficult, would on this occasion occupy too much time. A single fact, however, may be CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 273.

stated, which will serve to illustrate the truth of the general-principle maintained by your Committees in eroding ban

"The Bahama islands are the poorest and least productive of any of the WestIndian colonies. They exportable produce. Their productions scarcely any are chiefly confined to cattle, live stock, and provisions! Hence the pecuniary re sources of the proprietors are generally small. In the Bahama islands, however, the slaves are far better off than they are in any other British colony. They are better treated, more lightly worked, and lowance of food is from two to three times more abundantly fed. The common alas great as in the Leeward Islands. The consequence is, that the slaves in the Bahamás have increased at a rate which would have doubled their population in about twenty-two or twenty-three years, but for the cruel, drains which have been made from them to cultivate the sickly swamps of Guiana, where numbers of them have perished.

Demerara, on the other hand, is the most productive slave colony belonging to the Crown. But the slaves are certainly much worse off there, than in the far poorer islands of the Bahamas. The treatment of the slaves is more severe in Demerara than in any other colony; the quantity of labour exacted from them is greater; and their general condition still inore degraded. What is the consequence Instead of increasing, as in the Bahamas, so as to double their numbers in twentythree years, they decrease at a rate which would unpeople the earth in less than half a century. 27

子

the

"It is impossible to explain this fact, on any hypothesis which is consistent with duties tend, not to the injury, as the Comargument, that bounties and protecting mittee maintain, but to the benefit of the slave."Report, pp. 34, 35.1

66

The Report thus closest Your Committee cannot conclude without reminding the meeting, that the cause they have undertaken cannot be efficiently conducted without considerable expense; and that therefore liberal contri butions are essential to its success. What ever funds may be placed at their disposab will be husbanded with care, and employed to the best of their judgment in promoting their great object an object which, they Committee believe, under the blessing of God, is to be attained by firmness, activity, and perseverance on the part of the friends of humanity unid justice."

4 D

"Confiding as they do in the upright intentions and concurrent views of his Majesty's Ministers, however they may differ with respect to some of the means of carrying their common purposes into effect, the Committee have at present no specific measures to propose to the adoption of their friends, beyond that general vigilance which the large interests involved in the question call for, and those occa sional efforts which may be required to obviate any attempts made to mislead the public mind through the medium of the press. With this exception, their part seems to be to wait the course of events, and to be guided in their future proceed ings by the circumstances which may arise. It would argue insensibility, however, to the goodness of Providence, if they were to close their Report without expressing their gratitude for the progress already made, and for the brighter prospects which they trust are opening upon them; and without declaring their firm and settled conviction, that a cause resting on such principles is absolutely certain of eventual success." Ibid. pp. 37, 38.

Two hundred and twenty associations have been already formed, in different parts of the country, to aid the Society's object.

In our next number we mean to consider, at some length, the view which some persons have taken of slavery, as a practice sanctioned by Scriptural authority. In the mean time we will only remark, that we have so little charity for such reasoners, as not to be able to allow them credit for sincerity in their appeal to Scripture. When we hear men at tempting to defend West-Indian 'slavery by such an appeal-and that in the face of the most express and unequivocal injunctions to "love our neighbour as ourselves," and "to do to others as we would they should do to us," &c. &c.—on the ground that slavery existed in ancient times, or on the ground that the Levitical law regulated slaverywe regard them precisely in the same light with those who, in the face of such a declaration as, "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge," and such commands as,

Thou shalt not commit adultery,"

"Flee fornication," &c. would justify their licentiousness by a reference to the Patriarchs, or to the permission of concubinage among the Israelites; or would quote David's example, not for the sake of his penitence, but to palliate or defend their own adulterous violation of the purity and peace of a neighbour's family. The common sense and common feeling of mankind must almost instinctively reject and reprobate all such appeals, as manifesting, instead of respect for the word of God, a determined obduracy in guilt, and a hardened contempt of the Divine authority. We feel not the less indebted, however, to those who employ their erudition in sweeping away the cobweb sophistries, which impiety and avarice have combined to weave, and by which too many well-meaning but weak minds have been entangled.

our

We have introduced into list the Sermon of the Rev. Henry Grey, which in other respects is excellent, merely for the sake of a single passage which it contains on the subject of Slavery, and which we are most happy in believing to represent the general feeling on that subject of the clergy and people of Scotland.

"It is grievous," observes Mr. Grey, "to witness the protracted struggle that right principle has still to maintain with cupidity and power, in regard to the final abolition of slavery in the British colonies -a contest that on the one side supports itself by no better arguments than a claim of pretended right on the part of the strong to tyrannize over the weak, to perpetuate robbery and violence, and to profit to the utmost by these; to exclude from the rights of humanity, and to imbitter with hard bondage, the lives of a certain race of men, and that through interminable generations-a right, like that of Pharaoh, to usurp possession of the persons and services of foreigners, and these foreigners not, as they were in that instance, voluntary settlers in the land a right, in short, secured by purchase money, to commit enormous crimes!"

It seems to me manifest, in a religious point of view, that we have arrived,

or are arriving, nationally, at a great crisis as to this question, and that high moral interests are at stake in the decision it is to meet with. The state of slavery as it

exists in our colonies is inimical to the influence of Christianity in nearly as high a degree among slaves as among slave holders; the one class being held under bondage to other men's wills, and the other, with exceptions the more honour able for being rare, in that of a resolved and wilful iniquity. Is it not striking to observe, in their speeches and publications, on both sides of the water, the thrill of

instinctive detestation awakened in these men at the very names of the best men and leading philanthropists of the age? And though we may believe them not averse to the introduction of such moral habits among Negroes as might operate to their own advantage, it is manifest how far they must repel from themselves the precepts of that religion that enjoins us to do to others as we would have them do

to us. I doubt not that the cause of justice is that which will ultimately prevail, and that many years will not have elapsed ere those polluted islands will be inhabited by a free, and probably by a mixed Negro population; but whether this will take place, according to our prayers, by the preponderating influence of right sentiment, or whether that hardness of heart so long

retained in sin may be continued in judg ment, and Jehovah, disdaining a tardy repentance and a reluctant compromise with necessity, may assume the decision to himself, with a high hand and a stretched-out arm delivering these his captives from their bondage, the issue of pending efforts and deliberations may determine." Grey, pp. 20-22.

The fourth article in our list would have surprised us by the vigour of its style and the comprehensiveness of its views, had we not previously known what the mind of the writer was capable of effecting. Mr. Watson's Defence of the Wesleyan Missions in the West Indies, in reply to Mr. Marryat, which was published in 1817, produced a very powerful impression of his talents. It is a work which, besides answering the purpose for which it was more immediately designed, that of a refutation of the calumnies and misrepresentations that were then promulgated against Methodist mis

sions, has given a most correct and interesting general view of the moral and religious state of the West Indies. With respect to the sermon now before us, it is so ably and attractively written, and is also so full of important information, and of able and conclusive reasoning, on a subject still but imperfectly understood, that, if we followed our own inclinations, we should transcribe the whole of it into our pages. We should be glad to put it into the hands of every individual in the kingdom; and we trust that the Society before whom it was preached, and whose cause it so powerfully advocates, will be sufficiently alive to their own interests, or rather the interests of universal humanity, to cause a copy of it to be laid, during the present recess, on the table of every member of both houses of Parliament.

Where all is so excellent, and so useful, and so impressive, selection is far from being an easy task. We must, however, attempt it; for it would be unpardonable on this ground to withhold all quotation, and to quote the whole would be incompatible with our limits. Mr. Watson's text is from 1 Peter ii. 17, Honour all men. Time was when the right of the Negro race to be considered as men, was openly questioned. A doubt on this subject is the bosoms of some of their oppresstill, we fear, secretly cherished in sors in this country, and is often avowed by many in the colonies. The argument of Mr. Watson, in is no less affecting then it is proproof of their full title to humanity, foundly philosophical. It is drawn from the identity of their religious experience-in other words, of their religious sentiments and affectionswith those of their White brethren.

"But our Scriptures have not left us to determine the title of any race to the full honours of humanity by accidental circumstances. To man has been given the law, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart; and to be capable of loving God is the infallible criterion of our