a manner too shocking, too brutal, too indecent for me to read. One witness saw this at half past twelve o'clock, and in that position he saw her again at five o'clock.

"Observe, too, not only the intensity of the punishment, but how often it was repeated. The same witness, Mr. Ratabeau, says, that at half past twelve o'clock Mr. Carty was flogging his wench for the third time that day. Another witness, M'Gregor, saw her tied in the same manner on the same spot at four o'clock, and Carty flogging her. Another witness, J. A. Portall, saw her undergoing this punishment at half past four o'clock. At five o'clock she is seen, for the last time that day, in the same position. Two days after, the 'wench' is brought before the magistrates, much flogged, much cut, with a large cattle-chain fastened about her neck with a padlock.'

"On Carty's trial all this is proved, and what exemplary infliction awaits him? Let gentlemen consider his guilt, and what measure of punishment they, or any men with feelings unblunted by slavery, would have dealt out to the convicted monster. Hear his sentence, in the words of Col. Arthur:

"Convicted of all this load of enormity; with the unfortunate young female before their eyes, lacerated in a manner the recital of which is shocking to humanity; her wounds festered to such a degree that her life was considered in the greatest danger; still this picture of human misery, and human depravity, could not rouse a Honduras jury to award such a punishment against the offender, (whom they found guilty to the utmost extent,) as bespoke their commiseration for the former, or their detestation of the latter. Fifty pounds, Jamaica currency, equal to about thirty-five pounds sterling, was the penalty deemed adequate to the crimes of the offender a man in affluent circumstances, worth thousands of pounds; and the poor female was doomed to remain the slave of this cruel wretch, still more exasperated against her than ever.'

I know not whether the act itself is more enormous than the verdict. The act might only speak the cruelty of an individual; the verdict betrays the tenor of feeling towards slaves which prevails among the leading

persons in the colony, the magistrates on the bench. Yes, Sir, it tells us, in language which cannot be mistaken, the degree of protection which the laws afford to the Negro, and the equal-handed justice which is dealt out between the slave and the master. Aye, and what a comment is it upon the enjoyments and advantages of the slave population of Honduras, a race of people truly to be envied by free labourers all over the world!' O wretched peasantry of England! how would you mourn your fate, if you knew the comforts of which you are debarred the indulgencies, denied indeed to you, but dealt out so liberally to the contented African in that terrestrial paradise for slaves,-Honduras!

"The testimony of a Mr. Stewart, an eye-witness of the state of things which he describes, is given in such a concise and forcible manner, that I cannot suppress it without doing violence to my own feelings.

"It may truly be said, that the treatment of the slave depends, in a great measure, upon the character and temper of his master or manager. How ineffectual to the slaves are humane and judicious laws, if a barbarous master or overseer has it in his power to evade them in various ways! There can be no hesitation in saying, that the slave who lives under the immediate superintendence of a humane and considerate master, enjoys a life of as much comfort and contentment as the condition of a slave is capable of. This, perhaps, is the utmost that can be said: for though the wants of the slave may be supplied by the beneficent provisions of such a master, and he may, consequently, be said to be, so far, more desirably situated than many of the poorer peasantry of Great Britain; yet to argue generally, that he is happier than they, an assertion which one frequently hears, is certainly saying too much.' 'But very differently situated is the poor slave who is doomed to toil for a master of a character directly opposite to the foregoing. Undoubtedly this is a state of grievous hardship. It may be said, that there are few masters of the character here described. It were to be wished it were so; but men's hearts are not likely to be softened by habits of too uncontrolled dominion over their fellowWith respect to interest prevailing over a disposition to oppress; while we allow all due weight to this

men.

motive, in the prudent and judicious owner, it will not always counteract the petty injustice to which the slave is subject, from ignorant masters, and unfeeling overseers. A slave may complain, and justly complain, that he is made to labour at unseasonable hours, and on days which the law allots to him; and that he is neither fed nor clothed as the law directs; but who is to prove these transgressions? The slave cannot; for the law does not recognize the validity of his testimony against a white man. If the master were put upon his oath, equally nugatory would be this expedient; for the man who wants rectitude and feeling to be just to his slaves, will hardly scruple to serve his ends by perjury. Again; if a slave is punished or beat with improper and illegal severity, or even cut and maimed, not to mention the numerous acts of petty tyranny to which he is subject under a cruel master, and there is no legal evidence to prove those enormities, the offender cannot be convicted of them. He may, then, go on with impunity in this system of oppression, as long as he can contrive to keep without the reach of the laws. Extreme cases of this nature, it may be said, seldom occur; but such a supposition is no argument that the law should not provide effectually against them. Even murder may escape condign punishment, while this defect in the slave laws is suffered to exist. There is only one way of removing this obstacle to the more effectual amelioration of the condition of the slave; and that is, by rendering his evidence, under certain modifications, legally admissible against Whites. Such an innovation would, indeed, probably raise an outcry among a certain class of persons, who see danger in every boon of kindness extended to the slaves; but a day will arrive, when it will be a subject of wonder, even in the West Indies, that human beings should have been precluded the means of procuring legal redress against injury and oppression; that the shadow and mockery of justice should have been held out to them, while an insuperable bar was placed between them and the reality.'

"On the trial of a Mr. Bowen, a senior magistrate of Honduras, for the inhuman punishment of one of his own slaves, the following circumstances Colonel Arthur, the Governor of the island, who was in court during the

trial, states, in his dispatches to Earl Bathurst, were clearly and distinctly proved, indeed not denied :

"That on the bare suspicion of having made away with some handkerchiefs committed to her care to dispose of, a poor female slave was tied up by order of her owner, and severely flogged, and then handcuffed and shackled, placed in an old store infested with vermin, and the noisome flies of this country. After being in this situation for five days and nights, Serjeant Rush, a military pensioner, interceded with Mr. Bowen for her release; and having pledged himself, if the handkerchiefs were not found, to pay the exorbitant sum de manded, the poor creature was liberated on Sunday, about mid-day. On the following morning she left her owner's house, to make her complaint, and seek redress: for this, and on no other ground whatever, she was again seized upon, tied down on her belly to the ground, her arms and legs being stretched out, and secured to four stakes with sharp cords; and in this shocking attitude, in the heat of the sun, exposed before the men in a perfect state of nature, she was again severely flogged, in of her inhuman master and his brother, upon presence her back and posteriors, and then sent back to her place of torment, and there again confined in handcuffs and chains, and subsisted on the wretched pittance of twenty plantains, and two mackrel per week, for above fourteen days. Occasionally, indeed, it appeared, the miserable being was led out by day, and chained to a tree in the yard, and there compelled to wash.' What punishment was inflicted on this unrighteous and unmerciful magistrate, for his cruel conduct? What?

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This was an offence,' to quote the language of the dispatch, for which the magistrates could find no law on which to charge the jury, nor the jury any under which to find the prisoner guilty.'

"The following instance of cruelty, which is given by an eye-witness, the Rev. Mr. Gilgras, a Methodist Missionary, ought to be reported through the whole civilized world, to excite universal sympathy on behalf of the poor oppressed Negroes.

"A master of slaves, who lived near us in Kingston, Jamaica, exercised his barbarities on a Sabbath morning, while we were worshipping God in the chapel; and the

cries of the female sufferers have frequently interrupted us in our devotions. But there was no redress for them or for us. This man wanted money, and one of the female slaves having two fine children he sold one of them, and the child was torn from her maternal affection. In the agony of her feelings she made a hideous howling, and for that crime was flogged. Soon after he sold her other child. This "turned her heart within her," and impelled her into a kind of madness. She howled night and day in the yard-tore her hair-ran up and down the streets and the parade, rending the heavens with her cries, and literally watering the earth with her tears. Her constant cry was, “Da wicked massa Jew, he sell my children. Will no Buckra massa pity Negar? What me do? Me no have one child!" As she stood before the window she said, lifting up her hands towards heaven, “ My massa, do, my massa minister, pity mẹ! My heart do so, (shaking herself violently,) my heart do so, because me have no child. Me go to massa house, in massa yard, and in my hut, and me no see 'em.” And then her cry went up to God.' (Watson's Defence of the Methodists, p. 26.)

"Can human beings who are thus oppressed and degraded, and whose few domestic comforts are liable to be torn from them by the shameless adulterer, be deemed happy? Can their state and condition be regarded as equal to that of the English peasantry? Indeed, who can avoid lifting up his voice in condemnation of the system under which they groan and expire?-who can refuse to intercede with the Government of the country for their speedy emancipation? Who? No one but the merciless men who are the agents of torture, or those who derive their wealth from the sweat of the Negro's brow. We have been silent long enough, while this daring outrage has been committed on the weak and the defenceless; and now it behoves us to speak out, in unqualified terms of reprobation and sympathy, if we wish to absolve ourselves from participating in the atrocious evil.”

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