whilst a discretional authority could not be exercised, in opposition to local prejudices and passions, without sacrifices of a very painful kind. The proceedings of popular meetings in some of the colonies, and the calamitous events in Demerara, too clearly illustrate the danger of such a mode of proceeding. And while this danger was obvious, it seemed no less obvious, that if the supreme power of the state had at once authoritatively prescribed the course to be pursued, there would have been no ground to apprehend any inconvenient results. To sup pose that the Slaves would rebel against the Government, because it had taken measures for alleviating the rigours of their condition, would be absurd and irrational. Was there any thing, for instance, in the gift of Sunday as a day of rest; or in the smitigation of corporal punishment; or in the removal of restraints on manumission; or in the admission of their evidence in courts of justice, which could have a tendency too promote discontent and insurrection among the slaves? Had the mode of authoritative enactment, therefore, been adopted, instead of that of mere recommendation, the probability appears to be, that the effect would have been submission on the part of the plant ers, and gratitude on the part of the slaves." M

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ed: "Even if the right of interference were not essential to the very notion of supremacy in the parent state; if it were not expressly re served to Parliament in the very declaratory act which renounces the right of taxation; if it had not been acted upon in a multitude of instances, from the first formation of our colonies down to the present time; and if it were not recog nized by every statesman and every jurist, the reason and the moral necessity of the case would still be decisive. We give to the slave owners a monopoly of our markets at an annual cost of at least a mil lion and a half; and we employ our fleets and armies to keep their slaves in subjection. We involve ourselves, therefore, directly as well as indirectly, in the guilt of every oppression which it requires force to maintain; and yet the colonists would deny to this country the liberty of controlling and correct+ ing the system it thus upholds."

After remarking, that the reforms prescribed by this Order in Council, if confined to Trinidad, would not comprehend more than about a fortieth part of the slave population in the British dominions; and that even when extended, according to the declared intention of his Majes ty's Ministers, to St. Lucie, Deme rara, Berbice, the Mauritius, and the Cape of Good Hope, (contain

220,000 slaves); there will still remain about 600,000 slaves, residing in colonies which have local legis latures, whom the proposed reforms by royal authority will not reach the Committee, go on to say,” It seems to be the present purpose of his Majesty's Government to proceed with these colonies in the way of recommendation and examples The Trinidad Order in Council is to be presented to them sas ya model for their imitation, and they are to be invited to copy it. The Com2 mittee will most sincerely rejoice should this expectation be realized: The condemnation, however, of the

benevolent purposes of Government, continues to be too loud and indignant to justify the hopes of the early and effectual co-operation of the colonial assemblies. And let it not be forgotten that the delay thus produced, to the length of which there is no express limit, is of itself a great evil. Besides the dangers to be apprehended from suspense and agitation, the nation contracts additional guilt by the unnecessary postponement of those reforms, the moral obligation of which has been unequivocally ads mitted. The odelay is also a real calamity to the great mass of the slave populationYour Committee cant discover no good reason for withholding from the slaves in the other islands the same alleviations, atsthe toleast, which have been granted to those in Trinidad. They can see no good reason, for instance, why women should still continue liable to bbe shamelessly exposed and flogged in Jamaica, Barbadoes, &c; why the driving whip should be still employed there; why mar riage should still be without any legal sanction in these colonies; why facilities / should not be given there also to manumissions; and why the exclusion of the evidence of slaves should continue to be upheld there in all its rigour, making it confessedly impossible to give to apparently protecting laws their just effect. to The friends of Colonial Reform are accused of impatience and precipitation. They are told that an evil which is the growth of ages cannot be cured in an hour, and that the termination of slavery, in order to be safe, must be very slowly progressive. But admitting this proposition, the duty is so much the more urgent to commence the necessary work without delay; and it has not even been pretended that what may be safely done in Trinidad or Berbice is altogether unsafe in St Vincent's, Barbadoes, or Jamaicad 96 The argument for delay, which has been drawns from the alleged inveteracy and cantiquity of the estil

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to be cured, appears however to your Committee to have no force whatever when applied to the case of infant or unborn slaves, or even to colonies of recent formation. What, indeed, in the oldest colonies, constitutes the obstacle to emanci pation, but the effects produced by the habits of slavery on the character of the individual who has been long subjected to it? To prepare the slaves for the proper use of freedom, is not more difficult because slavery has existed for ages, than if it had first begun at their birth. It is idle therefore to talk of slavery being an ancient institution, or of its having been known in all ages and countries, as if these circumstances augmented the diffi culties or the necessary delays of its termination in the colonies of Great Britain. So to reason against those who chiefly aim at the free, dom of the rising generation and of children yet unborn, is altogether irrelevant and misplaced. nd there really exist any evils for the cure of which a single generation isɔnot sufficient, let them be pointed out; and in the mean time be it recol lected, that the difficulty of curing a moral malady, when inveterate, is clearly the strongest argument, not for delay, but for speed, in checks ing its further progression."

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In reference to the alleged ruin to the master from the emancipas tion of his slaves the Committee remark Those, who have advos cated the cause of emancipations have been regarded as actuated by a hostile spirit towards the planters, or at least as totally regardless of their interests, and insensiblesto their dangers. Suelt, most unquesi tionably, are not the views and feelings of your Committee.Ads though their urgent and irresistible motives to exertion in favour of the African race be the inherent and incurable injustice and inhumanity of slavery universally acknowledged when Whites are the subjects of it, but equally true when the Negro is its victim; and although they bes

lieve that emancipation, while it is called for by every moral and religious as well as political obligation, will prove an unspeakable blessing to the slaves; yet they are persuaded that the masters will be pro portionably benefited by the change. Supposing only that freedom is wil lingly conceded by the master and not extorted by force, your Committee are satisfied that, in a pecuniary point of view, the result would be still more advantageous to the higher than to the lower classes of society. If there be any one axiom in political science, your Committee repeat it, which is more impregnably founded than another in the nature of things, and which is more satis factorily confirmed by the experis ence of ages, it is this, that the labour of the Freeman is more profitable, not only to the state but to the capitalist who employs him, than the labour of the Slave. Has the English lord or the Livonian or Esthonian noble less reason than the villein or the serf himself to rejoice in the emancipation of the labouring classes, which has taken place in those countries respectively, though at very distant periods of time? Your Committee conceive that the conversion of their slaves into a free peasantry would more effectually relieve the colonial pro prietors from their almost universal state of pecuniary embarrassment, than all the bounties and protecting duties which they at present enjoy.?" The Committee strongly urge the abolition of those bounties and protecting duties which have been granted by Parliament to what is actually the produce of Slave la bour, in preference to that of Free labour; by means of which boun ties and duties alone, the system of slavery is upheld, and without which it would of itself cease.There is now an almost universal admission," say they, that the slavery which exists in our colonies is contrary to justice and humanity, and repug nant to the principles of Christianity Indeed that that species of slavery

and Christianity cannot co-exist, is the undisguised and avowed opinion of those who best know its real nature, the planters of Demerara. But has it been sufficiently considered by the people of England, in what degree every individual amongst them is instrumental in upholding this condemned system? Every man, woman, and child in Great Britain consumes more or less sugar. By means of bounties and protecting duties, the price of that article is enhanced to the consumer to the extent of at least a penny a pound, which on the whole con sumption amounts to one million and a half of pounds sterling. The people of Great Britain, therefore, are thus made to pay to the West Indies at least a million and a half more for their sugar than they would pay for it, if they were at liberty to procure it from other parts even of our own dominions. And it is this very million and a half, and this alone, actually paid out of their pockets, which for years past has supported, and which to the present hour does still support, the slavery they reprobate. Is there then, surely the people of this country have a right to ask, either reason or justice in thus compelling millions who abhor the oppression and condemn the impolicy of colonial slavery, to continue to pay a heavy tax, not for the privilege of abolishing it, but for a forced participation in the crime of supporting it ? Is it not a grievance against which they ought, and may be expected, universally, and then of course successfully, to remonstrate?

The subject of the sugar duties is to undergo revision in the ensuing session of Parliament. There will then be an opportunity of making known the public feeling respecting iter And should the result disap point their wishes, let it be recol lected that it will still be in the power of every individual to give them effect, by renouncing the use of sugar grown by slaves, and preferring to it the produce of free laboura, m)

with pleasure, in the Reports of the various Associations, a very gene. ral and cordial support of the increasing efforts and new plans of the Society. The design of a mis sionary seminary, the interest taken in the bishop's college at Calcutta and the aid rendered to that esta blishment, the opening for female education in India, the appointment of Bishop Heber to the see of Calcutta, the commencement of a new mission for the Indians of Northwest America, and the afflictions and success of the West-Africa mis slon, have all been noticed in a manner which indicates a warm feel ing for the enlargement and efficiency of the Society, and which may well serve as a strong encourages ment to proceed with vigour in the accomplishment of every promising plan.

Offers of service have been nearly as numerous as during the twenty-third year: but, of fifty-four persons who have proffered their aid to the Society, the Committee have been able, as yet, to accept only sixteen. There are, at present, twenty-three students under the Society's care; seventeen in different parts of this country, and six in the seminary at Basle.

The Committee cannot state in this Report, as in the former, that the Society has not to lament the death of any missionary during the year. On the contrary, the year had been one of heavy and unusual bereavement, but entirely confined to the West-Africa mission. Nine of the Society's labourers or friends were carried off in Sierra Leone, chiefly by a violent fever of very rare occurrence in that colony, and others have since followed.

A considerable increase has taken place among the native teachers in the Society's missions. The Committee rejoice in this addition to this class of labourers; as no mission can obtain its full efficiency, or accomplish to any great degree the object which it has in view, until some of the natives among whom

With respect to the projected institution at Islington, the Committee return sincere thanks to all who have contributed to this object; and request the aid of every member who can afford assistance, and may not have yet sent in his name. The events of the year, in occasioning, particularly in the West-Africa mission, a most pressing demand for missionaries, have increasingly manifested the necessity of establishing the institution in question. The Committee were desirous, however, of proceeding with the utmost deliberation and caution in accomplishing the object.

In giving a summary view of the Society's proceedings, its efforts for the diffusion of Divine truth among the heathen may be noticed in the following particulars.

1. In the circulation of existing versions of the holy Scriptures, which have been widely disseminated, through its missionaries, inovarious quarters of the globe, and in different languages especially in Egypt, Syria, Greece, 10and other countries bordering on the Mediterranean. 67zest bna vtileibra

12. In its translations or revisions of the whole or parts of the sacred volume in various languages; as the Bullom and Susoo, in Africa; the Malayalim, Tamul, Cingalese, and Hinduwee, in India; and that spoken by the inhabitants of New Zealand

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3. In its employment of natives as readers of the holy Scriptores to their uneducated countrymeno

4. In the establishment of printing-presses,' 'w which, to the number of ten, are actively employed, in various missionary stations, in printing the Scriptures and Tracts, and In the supply of elementary books to the schoolssyniu banget

5. In promoting education, on a large scale among the heatheny in the prosecution of which object, the Society's laboure have proved successful, not only directly (in bring