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the Bishop be well-founded, it follows, first, that the great mark at which every friend of humanity ought to aim, by all prudent and lawful expedients, is complete and irrevocable emancipation; secondly, that in the interim, as laws, when committed to the guardianship of the slave-holder, are merely waste paper, the Government and Legislature of this country should take the matter into their own hands, and shape their course to an ultimate extinction of an evil from which they cannot extract all the venom but by slaying the hydra itself; and thirdly, that too much weight should not be given to the representations of persons even of the "best principles and most generous natures," when "perverted by the influence of passion and habit," to apologize for, or to wish to perpetuate, the enormities of this accursed system.

But we are forgetting Mr. Bailey, to whom we now recal the attention of our readers. Oiov de το πραγμα εγενετο ακέσατε και γαρ akov. This clergyman, then, is a decided enemy to slavery in the abstract: yes, he is "a warm and steady friend to freedom," and one "that would leave the human mind

as little fettered as possible;" and yet so it happens that his whole book is an apology for West-Indian slavery, and an apology founded on that most unmanly, canting, and Jesuitical argument, that Negro slavery is a Divine appointment. The professed purpose of his Dissertation is "to survey the dispen

sations of Providence in relation to

this unhappy people." The dispensations of Providence! Judas himself might have talked of the dispensations of Providence, and have quoted Scripture to his pur

cusable, therefore, ourselves, if we leave the least part of it unredressed. Such arguments as Pharaoh might have used, to justify his destruction of the Israelites, substituting sugar for bricks, [' Ye are idle; ye are idle,'] may lie ready for our use also; but I think we can find no better.?!

pose, when he betrayed his Divine Master: but did a permission, or even the pre-ordination of events, obliterate the guilt of the betrayer; or were his perfidy and injustice the less towards the Victim of his machinations? But we will present our readers with a string of extracts, partly for the purpose of shewing how the Curate of Burton-uponTrent conducts and enforces his Scriptural argument, and partly, and especially, with a view oppose to his remarks the counter arguments of the learned and pious prelate who has so ably confuted, by anticipation, his thread-worn hypothesis. Mr. Bailey writes as follows:—

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"Man was created by his Divine Maker a free agent. Why then should he become subjected to his fellow-men? Why should his freedom of action be restrained by so abhorrent a thraldom as slavery? A little calm attention to facts,-which can be only adequately supplied by the

Scriptures, and the fulfilment of their

predictions, and corroboration of their detailed facts by profane history,—will account for this apparent anomaly. And, I think, we shall discover in the sequel, that these facts necessarily grow out of the constitution of our common nature, as it was framed by the hand of God." p. 3.

"The whole continent of Africa, which has been successively galled by the rewas peopled by the descendants of Ham, lentless oppression of the Romans and the Saracens, and is now chiefly under the dominion of the Turks. But by what nations have not the miserable Negroes been enslaved? The very cattle of our markets have not been bought and sold in more cold-blooded traffic, more publicly and universally, and with less sense of

shame, than these wretched outcasts of

society. What ration of Europe, what

nation of the earth, is there that hath not

dealt in the blood of these denounced children of the wicked Ham? Had not God's providence, for the punishment of vice, been visible to the eye of religious faith; did we not look upon them as the victims of the crimes of others, and mysteriously fulfilling ancient prophecies for wise, though to us inscrutable, purposes; did we not behold them as living evidences of the earliest ages of the world; did we not contemplate this wretched people as an awful warning of the wrath of God,

and believe, that, in another state, they will be placed in a condition of progressive moral and intellectual advancement; did we not, I say, regard the sufferings of this ignorant and servile race with feelings chastened by religious faith [!!!] we could hardly endure the reflection of their sufferings without indefinable sensations of horror." pp. 22, 23.

"We have seen that, according to the course of Divine Providence, this wretched race hath been prostrated in subjection to their fellow-creatures from the earliest ages. We must not arraign God's providence, neither can we divert its course. To do the one, or attempt the other, were equally presumptuous. Man is a free agent, and is left to his own devices. But God will over-rule the event of his actions. We can as easily wield the thunder, as shape the will of God to the capricious or interested inclinations of men." p. 34.

"There is something repulsive to our feelings in the very idea of slavery particularly to Englishmen. Nor, until we look more deeply into the nature of service, can we at all reconcile our minds to

a species of service so revolting. But the knowledge of the course of Providence, and the various states of society in different countries, and at different periods of the history of mankind, corrects and chastens that exuberant passion for liberty, which influences all young and unsophisticated minds.”—Bailey, pp. 54, 55.

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The tenor of these extracts is, first, that God is the direct author of cruelty and moral evil; slavery in particular "was framed by the hand of God:" next, that though Negro slavery has been unspeakably dreadful, though "the very cattle of our markets have not been bought and sold in more coldblooded traffic," though the sufferings of this race have been such as humanity can hardly" (why this reservation?)" reflect upon without sensations of horror," and that though, to an Englishman in particular, there is something utterly "revolting" and "repulsive" in the whole system, yet that this Christian divine can contemplate "this course of Providence with a steady mind" (p. 23), that while nature shudders and reason stands aghast, faith, Christian faith, faith in the God of infinite mercy, "chas

tens these feelings" "the knowledge of the course of Providence" the inquisitors can sit with comcorrects such exuberant passions; placency and gaze on the writhings and throes of the tortured victim, because the penance is inflicted in majorem Dei gloriam! It is an auto da fe!

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Feelings chastened by religious faith!" Ye Paines, and Hones, and Carlisles, how powerless are your weapons! You would storm an impregnable fortress! Your shafts recoil on yourselves. But learn from a Christian divine how to sap religion! Assume that it makes men callous to the dictates of humanity; that it forces back the tear that rises at another's woe; that it paralyses the arm of benevolence, and inculcates a sublimity of faith that surveys with "steady" eye scenes which would impress a mere infidel, or "a young and unsophisticated mind" with "indefinable sensations of horror." Dip your deadly arrows in the waters of Trent. Reverse the glowing attributes of faith, as depicted by St. Paul in the eleventh of the Hebrews, and shew its power in supporting the mind to witness with calmness in others the " according to the Apostle's descripsufferings" which, tion, it enabled the victim himself to bear. Or if you would see faith in still more exalted development, go at once to the scene of "suffering" and "relentless oppression." The faith of the Curate of Burton preserves his "steady mind" at a distance: but then he hears the lash only as it echoes feebly across the wide waste of the Atlantic; he witnesses the blood and tears of the victims of this only when diluted by many a disoppression" tant wave: but what must be the faith of a Demerara planter, who can listen, within the sound of a murmur, to the eight hundred or thousand lashes inflicted on the naked and bleeding body of a misguided or refractory slave; nay, whose calm constancy is not shaken by the heart-breaking moan of the

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widow forbidden to follow the corpse of her martyred husband to its untimely rest? Here is faith indeed! But we will not express all we feel on this subject: we will only quote the words of the Bishop of St. David's, which are most fully coincident with our own sentiments, and which we recommend to the consideration of all who defend or connive at West-India slavery as a "dispensation of Providence," and, indirectly at least, sanctioned by the word of God." Many attacks,' says his lordship, "have been made on the authority of Scripture; but nothing would more effectually subvert its authority [the Bishop bas not, it seems, the strong faith of the Curate of Burton] than to prove that its injunctions are inconsistent with the common principles of benevolence, and inimical to the general rights of mankind. It would degrade the sanctity of Scripture; it would reverse all our ideas of God's paternal attributes, and all arguments for the Divine origin of the Christian religion drawn from its precepts of universal charity and benevolence." "That any custom so repugnant to the natural rights of mankind as the slave trade, or slavery the source and support of the slave trade, should be thought to be consonant to the principles of natural and revealed religion, is a paradox which it is difficult to reconcile with the reverence due to the records of our holy religion."

If these passages from the Bishop of St. David's work appear as interesting and conclusive to our readers as they do to us, they will not be displeased at our presenting them with the general heads of his lordship's discussion, which are as follow, To shew, 1st, That slavery and the slave trade are inconsistent with the principles of nature [in allusion to his opponent's argument], deducible from Scripture. 2d, That no conclusion can be drawn in favour of West-India slavery or the African slave-trade [which the Bishop always classes and brands together]

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from particular transactions corded in Scripture, both because the trade in slaves bears no resemblance to the slavery and slave trade in question, and because transactions merely recorded in Scripture history are not sanctioned by the record. 3d, That no conclusion can be formed from Hebrew laws respecting West-Indian slavery, because the conditions are by no means analogous; and because, even if they were, laws neither introduce nor justify every custom which they regulate. 4th, That the clearest and fullest permission of slavery to the Jews under the Law of Moses does not make it allowable to Christians, because the new law has succeeded the old in all its ritual and judicial ordinances; and we cannot reason from one state of religion to another when any great revolution has intervened in the progress of religion. 5th, That, however such permission might appear to make slavery in any degree allowable to the first Hebrew Christians under the Roman government, it does not by any means make it allowable under the free government of this country, because we cannot reason from one form of government to another. 6th, That whatever may be the commercial and national advantages of slavery, [which however the Bishop does not estimate very highly; on the contrary, he strongly insists on its improvidence, and the vast superiority of free labour,] it ought not to be tolerated, because of the inadequacy of those advantages to their many bad effects and consequences. 7th, That slavery and the slave trade ought to be abolished on account of the good which would follow to religion, to mankind, and to ourselves.

We have not space to condense the whole of the Bishop's arguments, but we shall present our readers with a few succinct notices; espe cially where he touches upon the old but newly vampt allegations of Mr. Bailey and similar writers.

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The Bishop begins with taking

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up the subject in as abstract a form as Mr. Bailey himself could wish. He does not commence with the atrocities of the African slavetrade, or the cruelties of West-India slavery, because he says there is nothing alluded to in Scripture that is parallel to either; but he shews that "slavery itself [in every form] is inconsistent with the law of nature deducible from Scripture, and therefore with the will of God;" and that therefore "much more so are the cruelties of West-India slavery and the African slave-trade." Slavery, he further remarks, "even in its mildest sense, considered as unlimited, involuntary, uncompensated subjection to the service of another, is a total annihilation of ali natural rights." This forcible abduction of liberty he contends is inconsistent with the natural rights of society, as deducible from Scripture. In God's first commission to man he gave him dominion over the brute creation; but there is no expression by which Adam or any of his posterity could collect that they had a right of dominion over their own species. The extent of this primary charter, remarks the Bishop, cannot be more forcibly expressed than in the language of our great poet: O execrable son, so to aspire Above his brother, to himself assuming Anthority usurped, from God not given. He gave us only over beasts, flesh, fowl, Dominion absolute. That right we hold By his donation: but man over man He made not Lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.

Mr. Bailey remarks (p. 29), that we do not find that "the Divine Founder of Christianity ever condemned that species of service which we denominate slavery." Let that pass for the present: Mr. Harris had intimated the same, and had gone so far as to maintain, that our Lord's golden rule, applied to the case of Christian masters and their slaves, serves to enforce their reciprocal duties in their different spheres." Our readers have already heard the Bishop's justly indignant exclamation

about "reciprocal duties." He is equally indignant at this application of the golden rule. "Detestable perversion," he exclaims, "of the most benevolent of all prêcepts !" Yet there is one very obvious view, he justly adds, in which the precept applies to the case of slavery; " for as no person would wish to be reduced to slavery, or to continue so, no person whatever should reduce a fellow-creature to slavery or keep him in that condition." The Bishop seems to consider that "all the reciprocity is on one side;" and though, for the sake of all parties, it may be, and is, expedient that the slave should be taught submission to his master, and none but a knave or a fanatic would preach any other doctrine amidst a slave population, yet if the slave should reply, that the compact between him and his master was not reciprocal, that he was no party to it, and owed no obedience, having neither forfeited nor yielded any natural right, we see not what claim but force any legislature or master could urge to retain him in servitude. Sure at least we are, that Mr. Bailey himself, if entrapped by an Algerine pirate, and reduced to slavery, would not make such a conscience of "the relative duties of master and servant founded upon religious principle" as to think it a sin to endeavour to escape from his prison. We are convinced that it is the consciousness of this natural principle of right that keeps our West-India cultiva

tors in a constant ferment, and makes them dread the diffusion of knowledge among their slaves. They well know, that neither "God nor nature" has given them a claim on their involuntary services;.and they dread, lest the slave, knowing this also, should refuse to yield what neither the master, nor the legisla ture that sanctions his claim, has any warrant but the law of force to demand. We are told indeed, that the children of slaves are naturally slaves: but would the assertors say the same of their own posterity to

the latest generation, in case they
had the misfortune to meet with
pirates on the northern coast of
Africa, as the West-India slave did on
the western. But without entering
further into this subject, we fully
coincide in the following remarks of
the truly philanthropic Bishop of
St. David's. "The precept above
mentioned," he observes, "may en-
join the submission of the slave to
his master, but it does not enjoin
slavery it neither makes the occa-
sion nor justifies it. Submission is
a virtue in a slave, but the exercise
of this virtue neither justifies the
making of slaves nor the keeping of
them. Offences must come, and
injustice will prevail, but woe be to
them by whom the offences come.
It should not be forgotten that, if
the precept enjoins submission in
the slave, it applies doubly to the
master; for it enjoins humanity in
the treatment of his slaves, AND

CONDEMNS HIM FOR KEEPING THEM
AT ALL."

Mr. Bailey considers the treatment of our colonial slaves "as much more humane than formerly, and their condition amended." There certainly was room enough for amendment; and though we are not by any means so clear (very far from it) of the truth or extent of this amelioration as Lord Torphichen's Chaplain seems to be, and would recommend him to look at the statements which have lately been published on this subject (particularly the pamphlet entitled Negro Slavery, and Mr. Stephens's publication before alluded to), yet suppose that we give him the full benefit of the concession, to what does it amount? The slave is viewed as a mere brute, and then forsooth if he is treated with a portion of the common care and humanity due to a brute, as directed by the interest of the master, he is in a most happy condition, "far better off than the British peasantry." This is another old argument, which has of late been newly furbished; and the Bishop of St. David's well replies to it, as

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well as to the absurd opinion, that where there is no positive physical cruelty, (and would there were nothing even of this!) there is nothing to complain of. "If no other circumstance could be proved," says the Bishop, "yet the mere privation of liberty, and compulsion to labour without compensation, is great cruelty and oppression. If no other fault could be alleged, the involuntary submission of so many thousands to a few individuals implies, beyond a doubt, the employment of means the most tyrannical and oppressive to secure such subjection." “The condition of West-India slaves," he continues, "some of the apologists for slavery have endeavoured to recommend by asserting that the slaves are happier than the poor of our own country. However inadvertently this opinion may have been admitted by many, it could have originated only from the possession of inordinate authority and insensibility to the blessings of a free country. Where the poor slaves are considered mere brutes of burden, it is no wonder that their happiness should be measured by the regular supply of mere animal subsistence. But the miseries of cold and want are light when compared with the miseries of a mind weighed down by irresistible oppression. The hardships of poverty are every day endured by thousands in this country for the sake of that liberty which the advocates of slavery think of so little value in their estimation of others' happiness, rather than relinquish their right to their, own time, their own hovel, and their own scanty property, to become the pensioners of a parish. And yet an English poor-house has advantages of indulgence and protection which are incompatible with the most búmane system of West-India slavery. To place the two situations of the English poor and West-India slaves in any degree of comparison is a defamation of our laws, and an insult to the genius of our country."

On the whole of this subject, we

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