whether a deacon must not, as the law now stands, remain such during a whole year, it may be observed, that no such necessity exists. The 32d canon states, that no bishop shall make any person deacon and minister [priest] both together upon one day; but not that every deacon should be kept from the ministry a whole year, when the bishop shall find good cause to the contrary. Upon this principle, bishops now occasionally, indeed frequently,act*. It may be proper to add, that formerly the powers of a deacon appear to have been more limited than they are at present. Burn

states, that anciently the deacons officiated under the presbyter in saying responses, and repeating the Confession, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer after him, and in such other duties of the church as now properly belong to our parish clerks; who were formerly real clerks, attending the parish priest in those inferior offices. By the same authority it is stated, that at present he who is no more than a deacon, can use his orders only either as a chaplain to some family, or as a curate to some priest, or as a lecturer without title. H. G.

NEGRO SLAVERY.-No. VI. PREDISPOSING CAUSES TO INSUR

RECTION IN DEMERARA.

In the year 1816, during the controversy occasioned by the Registry Bill, several little tracts were published, under the title of "WestIndian Sketches," intended to illustrate the state of feeling, with respect to the Slaves, which prevailed in West-Indian society. In the first of these, an account was given, from Dr. Pinckard, of an insurrection of the Slaves, which took place in Demerara, in 1796; on which occasion, we are told by this intelligent writer, that, "as an encouragement to the able and new raised troops" (formed partly of Negroes, partly of Indians) employed to suppress the insurrection," a premium was offered for every right hand of a Bush" (or revolted)" Negro that should be

• Our correspondent seems to have overlooked the rubric appended to the form of Ordination of Deacons, by which "it must be declared unto the deacon, that he must continue in that office the space of a whole year, except for reasonable causes it shall otherwise seem good unto the bishop."

EDITOR.

brought in; and when they returned from the woods, they appeared with seventy black arms displayed upon the points of their bayonets, causing a very singular and shocking spectacle to the beholders. Three hundred guilders each had been paid as the price; but it was found necessary to reduce the premium, lest the Slaves should kill the prisoners, or even destroy each other to obtain it."

Such of the revolted Slaves as were taken, he tells us, were tortured to make them betray their associates; but, faithful to their cause, they suffered torture, and death itself, without betraying them.

"The cruel severities inflicted upon these miserable Blacks," he goes on to say, "have been such as you will scarcely believe could have been practised by any well-ordered government: for, however strongly punishment was merited, the refinement of torture with which it was employed ought never to have been tolerated in any state professing to be civilized. Humanity shudders at the bare recital of it.

"Most of the ringleaders were

taken, and brought to Stabroek, where they were afterwards tried and executed; the majority of them suffering with a degree of fortitude and heroism worthy a better cause. One in particular, named Amsterdam, supported the extreme of punishment with a firmness truly astonishing. He was subjected to the most shocking torture, in the hope of compelling him to give information regarding the remaining encampment-but in vain! He despised the severest suffering, and nothing could induce him to betray his late companions, or to make known their yet undiscovered retreat *.

"He was sentenced to be burnt alive, first having his flesh torn from his limbs with red-hot pincers; and in order to render his punishment still more terrible, he was compelled to sit by, and see thirteen others broken upon the wheel and hung; and then, in being conducted to execution, was made to walk over the thirteen dead bodies of his comrades. Being fastened to an iron stake, surrounded with the consuming pile, which was about to be illumined, he regarded the bystanders with all the complacency of heroic fortitude, and, exhibiting the most unyielding courage, resolved that all the torture ingenuity or cruelty might invent, should not extort from him a single groan, or a syllable that could in any way impeach his friends.

"With the first pair of pincers, the executioner tore the flesh from one of his arms. The sudden infliction of pain caused him to recede, in a slight degree, from the irons; and he drew in his breath, as if to form it into a sigh, but he instantly recovered himself. His countenance indicated self-reproach, and he manifestly took shame for having betrayed even the slightest sense of suffering; then, resuming more, if

Such readers as have not nerves capable of enduring a tale of horror, will do well to proceed no farther in the nar

ration.

possible, than his former composure, he patiently waited the approach of the next irons; and, on these being brought towards him, he stedfastly cast his eye upon them, inclined a little forward, and with an unshaken firmness of countenance deliberately met their burning grasp! From that moment he shewed himself capable of despising the severest pain. Not a feature was afterwards disturbed, and he preserved a degree of tranquillity implying absolute contempt of torture and of death.

"Finally, when the destructive pile was set in flames, his body spun round the iron stake, with the mouth open, until his head fell back, and life was extinguished. I am told, by a gentleman who had the melancholy task to attend the execution, that the most horrid stench continued for many hours to issue from the roasting body, and was extremely offensive throughout the town, penetrating so strongly into the houses to leeward, as to make many persons sick, and prevent them from taking food during the remainder of the day."

Several other facts were drawn from the interesting narrative of Dr. Pinckard, to shew both the perversion of law and justice which was apt to take place in Demerara, whenever a matter between a Black

man and a White man came to be decided by the magistrate, and the cruelties to which the Slaves were exposed from the unrestrained exercise of the power of the owner or his delegate, cruelties in the infliction of which, according to Dr. Pinckard, even the ladies of Demerara did not scruple to participate.

Soon after the "West-Indian Sketches" began to make their appearance, a similar set of tracts was set on foot, by the colonial party, entitled "Antidote to West-Indian Sketches." The first of these expresses the strongest indignation at the monstrous injustice of deducing any inference, to the general disadvantage of West-Indian society, from

what might have occurred at Demerara. It rejects with scorn and resentment the very idea of any analogy between the mildness and humanity of English bondage, and the opprobrious harshness of that state in the Dutch colonies: and, after noticing, in the usual style, the "defiance of truth," "the unparalleled effrontery," "the wilful falsehood and calumny," "" the fanaticism and prejudice," by which "a small party" was preparing for "the rapid march of murder, anarchy, and desolation in our West-Indian possessions," it proceeds thus. "Having described the shocking punishment that was inflicted on the Bush Negroes, the editor of the West-Indian Sketches says, The object of the present paper is to give one of those graphic represen tations of West-Indian manners and feelings, in respect to the Slave population, which Dr. Pinckard's work has furnished. Well may humanity shudder at such a recital. But if the transaction be too horrid even to be told, what must it have been to be witnessed, and still more to be felt? And is it in the uncontrolled power of persons, capable of perpetrating such atrocities, that the British Parliament and Nation will be content to leave the destinies of so many of their fellowsubjects? We must no longer squeamishly turn aside our view from these spectacles of horror. This nation can no longer decline the duty of examining them, aye, and of remedying them too."

The comment of the organ of the West-Indian party (the "Antidote"), on the above passage, is to the following effect :

in Demerara, are to be visited on the heads of Englishmen, who are eminently humane, both individually and as a nation! As well might all the horrors of the French Revolution be brought up in judgment against the present generation in England, as the cruelties of the Dutch planters of 1796 be a subject of reproach to the English of 1816."

The writer then proceeds to "inquire into the justice of identifying the feelings and acts of Dutchmen with those of our own countrymen. Hear, in the first place," he says, "what Mr. Brougham says of the Dutch, in his Colonial Policy, vol. i. p. 75: The Dutch, on the other hand, who grovel after every kind of profit, whose spirit for gain is tempered by no dignity of character, and prompted by the competition of large capitals, are of all nations in the West Indies the most inhuman masters, and the most pliable in worming themselves into the various habits of gainful speculation.' And again, p. 361; most unfortunate circumstance in the colonial policy of the Dutch has always been, their bad treatment of the Slaves."

The

In another place, the same writer represents the editor of the "Sketches " as vilifying "the British West Indian community, by falsely applying to them the acts and feelings of foreign colonies; of those foreigners too whom Mr. Brougham and Dr. Pinckard represent as infinitely less humane and indulgent to their Slaves than any other nation of Europe."

The object of quoting these statements of the West-Indian body, is not to controvert the allegations of unfairness in the reference made to Demerara, though that were easy, and was in fact done at the time; but to shew that, even in the general estimation of that body, the rigour of Negro Slavery in Demerara was SO great, when compared with that state in the British colonies, as to warrant their loud

and vehement indignation, at its being supposed possible that the feelings and acts of the Demerara planters could form any just illustration of their own.

We have therefore the important sanction of the West-Indian body in this country, by whom the work from which these extracts have been 'made was printed and circulated, and that at the recent period of 1816, to the statement of Mr. Brougham, which they quote as unquestionable, that the Dutch are, of all nations in the West Indies, the most inhuman masters."

66

It will, without doubt, be alleged, that the frame of society in Demerara has been much changed of late, and that a larger intermixture of English with the Dutch planters has tended greatly to ameliorate the condition of the Slaves. Doubtless there may have been a considerable change in this respect: but then it is to be remarked, that the laws and institutions are still Dutch; and that, although the numbers of English proprietors may have been increased, yet that these are, for the most part, non-resident, while a very large proportion of the overseers, and petits blancs, are still Dutch. But, even if this were not so, there are certain habits and feelings, and modes of thinking and acting, which become the inheritance of a community, and which it is not easy to eradicate even by great and sudden changes, and still less by that occasional and gradual accession or removal of individuals by which the constituent parts of the White society in Demerara have changed their proportions. Persons thus joining themselves, from time to time, to a community already formed, are powerfully and almost irresistibly operated upon by the prevailing habits of that community into which they merge, and to which they become almost insensibly assimilated. So that, even at this moment, the manners and feelings of the generality of the Whites in Demerara will be found, and

more especially in all that relates to the discipline of plantations, as essentially Dutch as are their laws. The English language has obtained a greater currency; but the spirit and tendency of the colonial institutions have undergone no substantial alteration. What change, for example, has been made in the legal condition of the Slaves at Demerara, since it was annexed in 1814 to the British crown? We know of none. It wears now the same harsh and severe aspect which West-Indians themselves only a very few years ago contended that it wore, as compared with the English colonies

A still more palpable proof of the peculiar rigour of slavery in Demerara, is to be found in the great waste of human life which even now takes place there. A most incorrect statement, proceeding on very partial premises, has lately appeared from the pen of the Registrar of that colony, in which he labours to deliver the administration of the slave system in Demerara, from the irresistible conclusion to which the great mortality among the Slaves would conduct us. He conveniently chooses to found his reasonings on a part only, and not on the whole, of the returns; for which he surely might have waited, had he not been eager for the opportunity of producing such an impression on the public mind as suited his purpose.

Having no accurate census of the population of the colony during the last three years, it is necessary to go back to the preceding census, which was taken in 1820. The number of Slaves returned for registration in 1817, was 79,197: the number returned in 1820, was 77,376, exhibiting a decrease of 1821. From this decrease, however, we ought in fairness to deduct the manumissions which took place in that time, amounting to 127, and the Slaves exported from the colony, amounting to 59. The decrease is thus diminished to 1635,

Sce, for a delineation of it, our vo lume for 1823, p. 542.

But to this number must be added, on the other hand, the Slaves imported into the colony during the same period, amounting to 3746; making the real decrease to be no less than 5381, or nearly 7 per cent. The Registrar of Demerara will find it difficult, with all his ingenuity, to get rid of this stubborn fact, which proves that the slavery of that colony is peculiarly hostile to the health and life, and therefore to the comfort and happiness, of its captive subjects.

But, independently of this general reasoning, which seems to establish the peculiar harshness of the Demerara system of bondage, there are some further ci cumstances connected with that system which have given a more than ordinary aggravation to its evils. These we shall now specify.

1. The Slaves are, for the most part, either native Africans, brought thither by the slave-trader, or Creole slaves, who have been transported from the islands in which they were born or long settled, and torn from many of their beloved connexions there, victims of that inter-colonial slave-trade which has too long been suffered to subsist. It cannot be doubted that these persons will in general, be inclined to feel discontent with their new situation, and resentment for the cruel exile to which, without a crime, they have been condemned. They have been removed from such places as the Bahamas, where the labour was light, the soil dry, and the climate salubrious, and where population, from the comparative mildness of the system, was rapidly progressive, to a colony where the labour is peculiarly onerous, the soil swampy, the climate most unhealthy, and where, owing to these circumstances, and the comparative harshness of its slave code, the mortality is excessive *.

The very fertility of the soil in Demerara tends to aggravate the misery of the Slave. The labour extracted from

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2. The planters of Demerara have, in general, shewn themselves preeminently hostile to the religious instruction of their Slaves. prove this, it would be only necessary to read the colonial journals, which have been filled from time to time with the most violent abuse of those who made the attempt to instruct them. At one time the Government was obliged to interfere in favour of the Missionaries; and the recent treatment which they have received (of which more hereafter), is a decisive proof that the hostility to their efforts subsists without abatement.

3. A third point to be noticed is, that Demerara is now among the few British colonies which have not repealed their cruel and despotic laws, restraining the masters' power of voluntary manumission. Taxes continue to be imposed on acts of enfranchisement, by the mere authority of the Governor and Court of Policy, to an enormous extent. It appears from recent returns to Parliament, that even 1000, and 1100 guilders have been charged for a single manumission, and 3000 guilders for the manumission of a mother and two children. And the Governor, in his official letter accompanying the returns, appears to approve of these cruel restraints on a species of beneficence which a humane and wise legislation would most anxiously encourage. Many a Slave doubtless finds this tax to be the only obstacle to his freedom, and cannot but feel disaffection to wards a government which thus stands between him and the bounty of his master.

4. The constituted guardians of the slave population of Demerara, are the Governor and the two Fiscals. It is to them that the law commits the delicate and important task of interfering between the master and the slave, and of protecting

him turns to better account than in the other colonies, and is therefore more unsparingly required.