Two Letters, Severally Addressed to the Editor of the Christian Observer and the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer: Relative to the Slave-cultured Estates of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

Front Cover
John Hatchard and Son, 1828 - Missions - 15 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 9 - Barbados the laws are administered by some twenty seven or twenty eight judges. They are all planters or merchants and are appointed by the Governor. Not one of them has ever been educated for the bar, nor is any previous knowledge of the law a necessary or an usual qualification for the office. They neither comprehend the extent, nor are agreed upon the validity of the laws which they are called upon to interpret ; they can none of them settle the limits of British and colonial enactments ; they...
Page 7 - No man is by nature the property of another : The defendant is, therefore, by nature free : The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can be justly taken away : That the defendant has by any act forfeited the rights of nature we require to be proved ; and if no proof of such forfeiture can be given, we doubt not but the justice of the court will declare him free.
Page 6 - ... their home and country, are transported to the European settlements in America, with no other accommodation on shipboard than what is provided for brutes. This is the second stage of cruelty; from which the miserable exiles are delivered, only to be placed, and that for life, in subjection to a dominion and system of laws the most merciless and tyrannical that ever were tolerated upon the face of the earth...
Page 6 - ... which followed it, however mitigated, was a state so improper, so degrading, and SO ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist.
Page 10 - Their scene of labour, from sun-rise to sun-set, ig alleviated by two regular suspensions, of half an hour for their breakfast, and an hour and a half for their dinner. This latter meal is dressed for them against their return at noon ; so that the interval is passed in refreshment, without care or fatigue. While occupied in the field...
Page 12 - Bible, in explicit terms, such as these words, ' thou shall not have a slave,' or ' thou shalt not hold any one in slavery.' There is no explicit reprobation of slavery by name. My lords, if I were to say there was no occasion for any such prohibition, because slavery is condemned by something anterior to either the Christian or the Mosaic dispensation, I could support the assertion by grave authorities. Beware, my lords, how you are persuaded to bring under the opprobrious name of fanaticism the...
Page 12 - Servitus est constitutio juris gentium, qua quis dominio alieno contra naturam subjicitur.
Page 13 - I would not sell my birthright for a mess of pottage, yet if my birthright were taken from me, I would fain have the pottage left. So I scorn with an English scorn the Creole thought that the West Indian slaves are better off than the poor peasantry of Britain ; they are not better off, nothing like it ; an English laborer with one shirt is worth, body and soul, ten negro slaves, choose them where you will.
Page 9 - ... which they are called upon to interpret; they can none of them settle the limits of British and colonial enactments ; they adhere to no fixed principles ; they are bound by no precedents. The powers of a Chancellor are exercised by the Governor and the Council, which consists of thirteen members, and it is next to impossible in so small a community that any cause should come into court in which some of these judges will not be directly or indirectly interested. I make no charge, nor intend any...

Bibliographic information