TO THE READER. THE observations which we deemed it expedient to make in our last number, must have suggested to our readers the necessity of directing our energies in future to the condition of the professedly emancipated slaves of our own colonies. In suspending this monthly publication for the present, we must protest against the inference being drawn that we feel less interested in American Abolition movements, or that we shall watch with less anxiety the progress of the cause of justice and freedom there; but we do feel that, as a nation, we are too deeply implicated in the chicanery and deception which are practised in our own colonies, to warrant the withdrawal of any portion of our efforts to nations over whom we have no political influence, and where our national character is no ways implicated. But, while relinquishing this publication in its present shape, we shall have frequent opportunities, in periodicals, newspapers, and other mediums of a public description, of keeping the cause of the American Philanthropists before the eye of British Christians. This we shall ever consider our paramount duty; and we shall attend to it from a full conviction that no human instrumentality is so effective in showing the man-stealer his guilt, as in the constant exposure of his conduct before those, with whom he wishes to stand on terms of amicable and friendly equality. In a slave state, the whole atmosphere is tainted; one man keeps another in countenance; the heart is hardened by what the eyes every day behold; and it is only by bringing his arbitrary and despotic institutions into frequent juxta-position with the free and equal laws of other nations, that we can shame him out of practices which are as much a disgrace to his character as they are a clog to his prosperity. We must also warn our American friends from being in the least degree disheartened in their onward course by what is occurring in our Colonies. We there see a practical proof of what has been frequently asserted, both by American and British philanthropists, that the chief difficulty in effecting emancipation rests with the master and not with the slave. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the slave would do his duty, if the master could be made to do his. If any apprenticeship were required, it is the planter should be made to serve it; and if any legitimate motive could be urged for gradual, rather than immediate, emancipation, it would arise from the side of the master, and not the slave, in order to instil into a heart, which the system has depraved, the principles of justice, and mercy, and truth. It is, indeed, a very hard lesson for him to learn, when he is required to treat those as men and women, endowed with liberties and privileges equal to himself, whom he has from childhood regarded merely as beasts of burden, a kind of intelligent animal, made to serve the interests and obey the will of others. Our experience will also serve as an example to the friends of the oppressed in other countries, to show them how utterly futile is the attempt to legislate by foreign authority for the proper treatment of the slave, while arbitrary power is vested in the master; or so to leave the victim in his hands as to prevent his escape from ill-treatment, or to seek his own market for his industry. If this had been secured to the apprentices in our colonies, the entire apparatus of stipendiary magistrates might have been dispensed with. As the case now stands, so much is still left for the philanthropists of our country to accomplish on the behalf of our own slave population, that the whole moral force of the religious public must be again brought to bear upon the subject. Already have a great number of the old anti-slavery societies been re-organized; public meetings are being held in various parts of the country; strong demonstrations are made to those who solicit our votes as members of parliament; pamphlets and addresses are in free circulation; and we cannot but entertain the fullest conviction that, however the confidence of the British Parliament has been abused by the abettors of tyranny abroad, that ultimately the strength of the British arm will be felt, slavery will be abandoned in practice as it is now abolished in law; and that the example which Britain has set, will, in due time, be followed by other nations, till a system so accursed in its nature and its effects shall be altogether banished from the abodes of men. CONTENTS. ABOLITION IN THE UNITED STATES, BRIEF NOTICES OF THE PRO- GRESS OF Abolition Law, Working of the, at Barbadoes Abolitionists, the Conservators of American Liberty Address of the Baptist Missionaries in Jamaica, to the Marquis of Sligo Address to the Reader on the condition of the Apprentices in our Co- - 3, 25, 58, 76 232 202 28, 82 112 286 138 289 Antigua, State of Society in the Island of, the effect of complete Emanci- 91 207 95 112 88 261 Baptist Union, Letter of the Committee of, to the Board of the Triennial 107 17, 28 232 Bible Society Meeting, Riotous Interruption of a Blood, Trade in 227 215 94 Burning of the Rev. J. Howard Hinton's History of America 227 90 286 258 48 182 218 301 155 217 221 216, 239 166 24 Condition of the Apprentices in our Colonies, Address to the Reader on the 289 215 County Associations, Notice to the Secretary of the 265 Day of Especial Prayer for the Abolition of American Slavery, Observation Discussion between Mr. G. Thompson and Rev. J. R. Breckenridge Facts Illustrative of American Slavery Farmington, Quarterly Meeting of Orthodox Friends, An Address from, Influene Slavery in lowering the Tone of Moral Sentiment 47 16 |