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THE

HORRORS

SECOND EDITION.

THE

HORRORS

OF THE

West Indian Islands,

FROM

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

RECENTLY PRESENTED TO

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, PICCADILLY; MESS. RICHARDSONS, CORNHILL; R. BICKERSTAFF, ESSEX STREET, STRAND; AND HAZARD, BATH. 1805.

On the 25th of February 1805, a number of additional papers respecting the Slave Trade was presented to the House of Commons by His Majesty. To these papers it is the purpose of this pamphlet to call the attention of the public, as exhibiting a picture of Negro bondage, with which every individual in the kingdom ought to be made fully acquainted, who has a heart to feel for the miseries of his fellow-creatures, or a voice to raise against that detestable traffic which is the main prop of colonial despotism.

The first thing which occurs in these papers particularly deserving of notice is a continuation of the correspondence between Lord SEAFORTH and the Secretary of State. The following is a transcript of it, with the addition of a few notes intended to illustrate the text:

"To the third query.--I never heard any official account of the case. I understand from inquiry, that the fact, as to the murder, is true; that the party's name is Thomas Nowell, a butcher by trade, in the parish of St. Andrew; and that being in the direct vicinity of the Reverend Mr. Payne, and the Honourable Colonel Jordan, your Excellency may obtain a more particular account of this infamous wretch, who, I am told, ought to have been removed from society long ago."

"I have many apologies to make to your Lordship for not sending an earlier answer to the several questions respecting the Negroes who have of late been most wantonly and inhumanly murdered. The delay has been owing to the difficulty I have met with in procuring any thing like satisfactory information as to the last of the cases; and therefore I shall hope for your Lordship's excuse.

"Permit me now, my Lord, as a Barbadian, to return you my warmest thanks for the zeal you have shewn in this business; and I trust the day is not far distant, when, through your Lordship's exertions, I shall see that act in our statute-book repealed, which remains a disgrace to my country.

"I have the honour to be, &c. "M. COULTHURST.

"The man who killed the woman near Pilgrim, is, I apprehend, named Halls or Halts, one of Sir John Burney's tenants, and belonging to Saint Michael's regiment of militia.

"This, my Lord, is what I have heard relative to the cases on which your Lordship desires information; and as I have heard the circumstances I have mentioned from different persons, told in nearly the same manner, I am led to suspect that the statement will be found to be but too correct." Papers, &c. p. 7-10.

"I have the honour to be, &c. "JOHN BECKLES.

We shall doubtless hear it argued on the present as on former occasions, when similar barbarities have been incontestably proved, that "individual instances of cruelty, like those which have now been produced, are no proofs of general inhumanity. Instances, of, at least, equal atrocity, might be collected from the annals of the Old Bailey. But how very unjust would it be to regard these as exhibiting a fair view of the English character?"

But the West Indians and their friends will probably have recourse to another argument. "Granting," they may say, "in its fullest extent, the truth of all that you have stated with respect to Barbadoes, it is yet very unfair to extend the charge of inhumanity, which is justly brought against that island, to the West Indies in general. The Legislatures of all the other islands have passed laws which make the murder of a Slave felony; they have also provided such salutary regulations 'for the support,' and 'for the encouragement, protection, and better government of Slaves,' as serve to place them in a situation of even enviable security and comfort."

On the 4th of October 1804, it appears that Earl Camden addressed letters to the Governors of the different West Indian islands, requiring from them information on a variety of points. A copy of the heads of information transmitted to one of the islands, Dominica, will furnish the reader with a sufficiently clear idea of the nature of these requirements. It is as follows:

"An account of all the Negro Slaves imported every year since 1788, and of the number re-exported in each year.

"The most authentic and particular account which can be obtained, of the number of Negro Slaves, dividing them into classes of male and female; children from 1 to 12; youths from 12 to 20, full-grown men and women from 20 to 60; and the aged; and stating, as accurately as possible, the number in each class respectively: also,

"An account of the total number of free Negroes and coloured people.

"You are also desired to transmit at the same time, in original and duplicate, the following further information, viz.

"A list and abstract, or general account of all returns, made upon oath by owners, overseers, or managers, in pursuance of the 7th and 8th clauses or sections of an act, passed in December 1788, intituled, 'An Act for the Encouragement, Protection, and better Management of Slaves.'

"If it appears that no such accounts or returns have been duly made, or that they have been in any great measure neglected, you are requested further to send,

"An account or list of all convictions had, and fines or forfeitures recovered, and of all prosecutions commenced against the defaulters, pursuant to the said act of Assembly.

"If the said returns and accounts have been wholly or generally neglected, and no prosecutions have taken place for that cause, you are to send a certificate to that effect.

"You will also state whether the island had in 1788, or in 1799, when the act was made perpetual, or yet has, any and what parochial or established clergy, by whom the regulations in sections 3 and 4, have been or can be carried into effect."

To these inquiries no answer appears to have been returned by the Governors, either of Jamaica or the Bahamas. From those of the Leeward Islands, St. Vincent and Grenada, letters have been received, stating the difficulty of immediately complying with the requisitions of Earl Camden, but promising to take measures, without delay, for procuring the desired information. Now here it may be proper to remark, that with respect to several important heads of inquiry, particularly those which relate to the execution of the laws enacted for the protection of Slaves, a very short delay must have been sufficient. The Governors, by referring to the Secretary of the island, or to the clerks of the several courts of record, could have at once ascertained whether the legal provisions mentioned by Earl Camden had or had not been carried into effect. If they had; a copy of the record would have been all the answer which was requisite: If they had not; it was only necessary to say so, and to state the reasons of the failure.

This manly and becoming course has been pursued only in one instance, viz. in that of the Governor of Dominica: and his answers, though defective in some important particulars, yet contain a candid disclosure of facts, and are therefore calculated to throw considerable light, not only on the causes which may possibly have impeded the returns from the other islands, but on the general state of Negro slavery in the West Indies.

Before the pamphlet closes, it will be proper to devote a few pages to the consideration of a long Report of the Assembly of Jamaica which forms a part of these papers.

The picture given in that Report of the situation of the West Indian islands is in the highest degree discouraging; but it is represented by the reporters as less gloomy than the truth. "A faithful detail," it is said, p. 26, "would have the appearance of a frightful caricature; and unless speedy and efficacious measures are adopted for giving permanent relief, by a radical change of measures, we must suppose that the West Indian islands are doomed to perish as useless appendages to the British empire." Credit is represented to be at an end; the planters, generally, to be labouring under the pressure of accumulating debt; and the greatest distress to pervade all classes of the community. Admitting the fidelity of this representation, a question will still arise respecting the causes which have produced so unfavourable a state of things. The Report affirms, that it has chiefly been produced by the enormous duties imposed on West Indian produce; by the competition of East Indian sugars; and by the attempts made to abolish the Slave trade.

The two first points would lead to very lengthened details, and are foreign from the design of this pamphlet. It may be observed, however, in general, that notwithstanding the labour employed by the reporters to prove that the additional duties imposed on West Indian produce fall not on the consumer, as in every other instance, but on the grower, no peculiarity appears to exist in the case under consideration, which exempts it from the operation of the general rule; a rule which is familiar to the merest sciolist in political economy. The protecting duties imposed on East India sugar appear also to be sufficiently high to exclude them from competition with West Indian sugar in the British market. A part of the East Indian sugar, it is true, is consumed in this country; but it is a small part, the demand for it being confined to a few individuals, who are willing to pay a high price for sugar rather than wound their consciences, by using what is procured through the oppression of their brethren: the rest is exported.

The attempts made to abolish the Slave trade operate, it is said, to the disadvantage of the island, by increasing the danger of insurrection among the Slaves, and by discouraging the hope of a permanent supply of labourers. West Indian property, it is added, is thus so greatly diminished in its value, that merchants will no longer advance money upon it; and without an advance of money, the plantations cannot be carried on with advantage.

The Report, however, overlooks the effect produced on the value of property in the old islands by the extended cultivation of Trinidad and Dutch Guiana. But is not the great and growing rivalry of these colonies a far more formidable evil than that of the East Indies? Why then have they so much insisted on the latter, while the former, though much more obvious and much more mischievous, is passed over in silence? Is it that the reporters have a sympathy with the owners of Slaves, which even self-interest cannot overcome; and that they dread the precedent of cultivating sugar by free men, as is done in Bengal? They must feel that it would have been greatly to the advantage of the old islands, had they consented to an abolition of the Slave trade fourteen years ago, before the fertile plains of Guiana had yet been brought into cultivation by the enormous amount of British capital, which has been transferred thither.

The reporters insist with much earnestness on their right to the continuance of the Slave trade, on the ground of its having been sanctioned by Acts of Parliament. But is it not absurd to suppose that any Acts of Parliament, which may have been framed to encourage the importation of African labourers into the West Indies, can have conveyed to West Indians the right of establishing such a frightful system of oppression as the preceding part of this pamphlet has proved to exist among them? What act can be produced which binds the Imperial Parliament to uphold a system so outrageously opposed to every principle of British policy and of British law; and not only to uphold it, but to enlarge its influence by the perpetual increase of its wretched victims? Granting that West Indians have that claim to which they pretend on the justice and faith of Parliament, the claim attaches to this country, and not to Africa, which was no party in the contract.

I would here ask the framers of this Report a few questions, which may serve to throw light on the comparison, which they have instituted. Do they not know that the Bengal peasant is not dragged from his own country by force or fraud, loaded with fetters, chained to the deck, or stifled in the hold of a Slave-ship; bartered as a mere implement of agriculture; separated at the pleasure of another from his wife and children; worked under the lash without the liberty even of pausing in his toil, but at the bidding of the driver; and liable to be punished to any extent, and with any circumstances of cruelty, which the caprice of his master may direct? Do they not know that the Bengal peasant is not punishable by any other sentence than that of the law, after a regular trial and conviction; that his person and property are as fully secured to him as those of the Governor General of India; and that he is the sole judge both of the labour and of the food which suit him? There is only one answer which can be returned to these questions; and that answer will prove it to be no better than absolute mockery in the Assembly of Jamaica thus to compare the condition of the Bengal peasant with that of the Negro Slave.

But this is not all. The reporters enter into tedious calculations to shew how much higher the wages of the Negro Slave are than those of the Bengal peasant; but they omit to advert to one very material point of difference between them. The wages of the Bengal peasant are paid to himself: he labours for his own benefit solely. But it is to his master, and not to himself, that the wages of the Negro Slave are paid. From his thankless toil must be extracted, not only the means of his own subsistence, but the means of pampering the luxury, swelling the pomp, gratifying the avarice, or discharging the debts of his owner. And when the circumstances in which the planters are now placed have been considered, it cannot be expected that a very ample proportion of the Slave's earnings should be applied to his own sustentation, especially as that proportion, whatever it may be, depends entirely on the will of an insolvent, or nearly insolvent master.

I shall only detain the reader while I notice one more argument in favour of the Slave trade which is contained in this Report. The continuance of importations, it is affirmed, will not increase the disproportion of Blacks and Whites so much as the abolition would. This is an argument not very level to common understandings; but the reasoning on which it is built is of this kind. If the Slave trade were abolished, the number of adventurers who repair to the West Indies in the hope of amassing a fortune would be diminished, and consequently the white population would decrease. But supposing the number of adventurers who go out with such large expectations were diminished, does it follow that an equal number, with more moderate views, might not be procured to supply their place? While emigrations to America are so frequent and numerous, might not a part of them, with proper encouragement, be easily diverted to the filling of vacancies in Jamaica? The planters of that island, however, are far from feeling, on this point, the solicitude which they express. Several proofs of this might be given. In the first place, do they not almost universally refuse to employ on their estates, in any capacity, white men who are married and have families? If they really wished to increase the number of whites, would not men with families be the most desirable persons to employ? Another proof is, that although there is a law of the island requiring the proprietors of estates to maintain a certain number of white servants in proportion to their slaves , yet the tax, which is payable in case of a deficiency in that number, is so low, that it is in general a gain to the proprietor to pay the tax rather than to procure the individuals. In short, it is notorious, notwithstanding the language employed in the Report, that no pains have been taken to remedy the disproportion of the black and white population.

The true reason, however, of this argument is to be found, not in the increased danger which will result to the island from abolishing the Slave trade, but in the constitution of the Jamaica Assembly. That Assembly is chiefly composed of such adventurers as are alluded to in the Report, and for whose privileges so much solicitude is there manifested: viz. either merchants who are concerned in the sale of Slave cargoes, or agents employed to manage the estates of absent proprietors; to whom are added a few insolvent proprietors of sugar estates, largely indebted, perhaps, to those very merchants and agents. Now it is the voice of these adventurers which is heard on the present occasion, and not that of the real proprietors of Jamaica. The real proprietors, if their voice could be heard, might possibly speak a different language; and we see that in some cases they do so. Many of them are sensible, that, added to the fatal rivalry of Guiana, the true cause of their embarrassment , and the grand source of their danger also, is the continuance of the Slave trade: and if they were not influenced by prejudice or party connexions, or deterred by the threats of creditors, or duped by the misrepresentations of agents, they would follow the example which Mr. Barham has set them, and take that part which prudence and policy concur with justice and humanity in dictating; I mean the part of forwarding a legislative abolition of the Slave trade, as the only safe and practicable, and at the same time effectual remedy, which can be applied to the dreadful evils of our colonial system. Eighteen years have passed since this question was first agitated in Parliament; and since the public have been amused with tales of the amelioration of Colonial bondage. That every hope of this kind is completely blasted, the information contained in this pamphlet sufficiently proves. Nor can such a hope be otherwise than abortive, until Parliament shall consent to abolish the Slave trade.

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