royalty, by the overthrow of an established church, by the abolition of primogeniture and the peerage, and of all distinctions in society, if the distinctions of property remain? Is any man fool enough to suppose they are such fools as not to know and to feel that this is the only inequality by which human happiness is affected?

The levelling principle is at this time actively at work in England.

That (says Buonarroti) which the democrats of the year IV. could not execute in France, a generous man has lately endeavoured to put in practice by other means in the British isles and in America. Robert Owen, the Scotchman, after having, at his own expense, established in his own country some communities founded upon an equal distribution of enjoyments and of labour, has just formed sundry establishments of the same kind in the United States, where many thousands of men live peaceably under the happy system of perfect equality. By the advice of those friends of humanity, the Co-operative Society, established in London, has for some time laboured in propagating the principles of a Community, and in demonstrating, by practical examples, the possibility of their application. Babeuf endeavoured to reunite a numerous people in one great community. Owen, being placed in different circumstances, would multiply small communities in a country, which, united afterwards by a general law, would become so many individuals of a great family. Babeuf would have had his friends possess themselves of the supreme authority, through the influence of which he hoped to effect the reform that they had projected: Owen counts upon success by preaching and by example. May he show the world that wisdom can bring about so great a good without the aid of authority! May he be spared the grief of seeing his noble efforts fail, and of furnishing, by his failure, the adversaries of equality with an argument against the possibility of establishing, in any manner, a social order, to which violent passion opposes a formidable resistance, and which it seems can only be the result of a strong political commotion among civilized nations.'

When Buonarroti wrote this noticeable passage, he neither knew the failure of the Owenite experiments in America, nor foresaw that France would soon be in a state to encourage revolutionary experiments of any kind, however perilous.

To the benevolence of Mr. Owen's disposition and of his intentions we have always been desirous of rendering justice and bearing a willing testimony, deeply, at the same time, lamenting the infidelity which has rendered him, notwithstanding his many good qualities, a mischievous member of society. As ready have we been to declare our belief, that the Co-operative system, when kept within its proper bounds and regulated by religious principles, may be rendered most influential in bettering the condition

of

of the people, and promoting the general good. But that system has been taken up by dangerous and desperate men; they have connected it with the levelling principle in the fullest meaning of that term. The most inflammatory of those papers which openly defy the laws profess that principle; and they accompany it with excitements to insurrection little less direct than those which Babeuf addressed in his journal to the people of Paris. In France, meantime, the attack upon property is renewed under the cover of a new religion. But of this in our next Number.

ART. VI.-1. Statements, Calculations, and Explanations, sub mitted to the Board of Trade, relating to the Commercial, Financial, and Political State of the British West India Colonies, since the 19th of May, 1830. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 7th February, 1831.

2. The Conduct of the British Government towards the Church of England in the West India Colonies. In a Letter to Viscount Goderich, Secretary of State for the Colonial Department. By Vindex. London, 1831.

3. Some Considerations on the Present State of our West India Colonies, and on the Regulations which influence their Industry and Trade. By a West Indian Proprietor. London, 1830. 4. Effects of the late Colonial Policy of Great Britain; described in a Letter to the Right Honourable Sir George Murray, Principal Secretary of State for the Colonial Department. By Alexander Barclay, Esq. London, 1830.

WE

E once more beg leave to solicit attention to the state of our West India colonies. Any observations on that subject, we are well aware, must now labour under great disadvantages. The subject is not in itself attractive ;-so much has already been said upon it, that it is believed to have been long ago exhausted, -and by the greatest part of the public it is thought to be a matter in which they have no concern. Whether the black population of the West Indies be bond or free, and their produce cheap or dear, are supposed to be topics which affect the colonists alone, and in which the subjects of the mother-country have scarcely any perceptible interest. A desire to remove this error, before it be too late, is the motive which has induced us to make the present appeal to the public. Strange as it may appear, it is not impossible, even in a country accustomed to lofty language about its own wisdom and intelligence, that some of the chief sources of national prosperity may be nearly dried up before they are seriously believed to be in danger. Having thus intimated our surprise and regret at the indifference with which our West India colonies have

VOL. XLV. NO. LXXXIX.

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have been treated for a considerable time past, we shall proceed to take a brief survey of their situation, present and prospective.

It is known to all who are in any degree acquainted with our recent history, that a long and vehement controversy respecting the slave trade and slavery has been carried on between a highly estimable class of persons, who have espoused the cause of the blacks, on the one hand, and those who are connected by property with our West India colonies on the other. Their disputes as to the continuance of the slave trade are now happily set at rest. In the year 1806, an act passed which interdicted the sale or purchase of African slaves to all subjects of the realm, and none of the West India colonists have been guilty of its contravention. Reports of a contrary nature were, for a while, eagerly circulated and received, but their groundlessness soon became manifest; and it is now universally admitted that no infraction of the law was ever meditated or attempted in any corner of our possessions. So far, therefore, the just and generous efforts of Mr. Wilberforce and his associates have been crowned with perfect

success.

Some exceedingly perplexing questions, however, connected with the same subject, still remain unsettled. The abolitionists, conceiving that, though they have extinguished the slave trade, their task is only half executed while slavery remains, have, in direct opposition to their former express declarations, of late years unremittingly endeavoured, by all means in their power, to effect the forcible emancipation of the whole slave population in the West Indies, whether born there or imported. In opposition to any measure of this sort, which is regarded by the colonists as precipitate and injudicious, they contend that the abolitionists would more effectually promote the welfare of the slaves, if they would allow the improvement which is rapidly proceeding in the West Indies to hold its natural course; if they would put an entire stop for a season to the agitation of this irritating subject; and, instead of aggravating, would lend their assistance in removing the overwhelming distress under which the planters are at present labouring.

The subject of our West India colonies seems thus to divide itself into two great branches,-the expediency of a forcible emancipation of the slaves, and the alleviation of the distresses of their masters. The discussion of the one naturally precedes that of the other. If the justice and expediency of compulsory emancipation were satisfactorily established, that, undoubtedly, ought to take place, to whatever degree the distresses of the planters might be augmented by it. Their case might excite commiseration, but could not alter the resolution which every impartial and deliberate

inquirer

inquirer must form. If, on the other hand, there should appear to be insuperable obstacles in the way of every scheme of forcible emancipation which has hitherto been proposed, then it will become necessary to proceed to examine the situation of the colonists, and consider whether the same means which may be adopted for their relief, may not be rendered, at the same time, conducive to the final emancipation of the slaves.

Before entering, however, upon the topics now specified, we hope that some preliminary observations will not be deemed inappropriate; and we shall endeavour to deliver them with temper and fairness. In the first place, then, the colonists seem to us, in many instances, to have gone a great deal too far, in justifying or denying things which formerly existed. It is not to be dissembled, that the slavery of the West Indies is, in several respects, unfortunately distinguished from that which has ever prevailed, as a system, either in Asia or Europe. There is a strong line of demarcation between the master and slave, in colour, in the whole of their associations, and in the nature as well as degree of their civilization. These are causes of distance, and sometimes of repulsion. Add to this, that our ancestors, in their perceptions and dispositions, both at home and abroad, were infinitely less acute and susceptible than their posterity now are. All these circumstances must have roughened the treatment of the slave, and given birth to acts of occasional, if not habitual, harshness and cruelty, which no person would either practise himself, or tolerate in others, now. Whenever any particulars of those times are introduced in the way of accusation or reproach, the colonists are apt to display impatience and resentment which had better be suppressed. It is enough that such things have now wholly, or in great measure, ceased; and the colonists would gain as much by freely admitting and deploring their former prevalence, as their opponents would lose by recalling them causelessly or vindictively to remembrance.

We go one step farther, and are bound to say, that so far as we are capable of judging, those who support the colonists, have, on many occasions, gone a great deal farther than they were warranted to do, in disputing the facts and statements of the Anti-slavery Association and others, with respect to the treatment and condition of the negroes at the present day. They seem to us to have committed a great mistake in so doing. They have gained no friends by it, and have lost the support of many in whose good opinion they would wish to stand well. But it must be acknowledged, in their justification, that the course they have pursued is extremely natural. Whatever errors or offences a man may have committed, if extravagant and unfounded charges are accumulated against him, he is apt, under a consciousness of the wrong he

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suffers,

suffers, to meet them with too abrupt and unqualified a denial. We conceive this to have occurred in the present instance. Where there is great power on one side, and insufficient protection on the other, examples of harshness and oppression must inevitably occur. They do so in every country, and in every climate; and where the terms of the connexion are so unequal as they are between the master and the slave in the West Indies, they cannot fail to be more common than under a happier frame of society. It appears to us, that sufficient evidence has been adduced to establish this to be the fact. On the part of the colonists, those defects which adhere even to the present mild and modified system of slavery, and which the most able and intelligent of their body see and lament, should be more candidly acknowledged than they have generally been. In our apprehension they have no reason to shrink from a fair representation of the truth. Neither the structure of society, nor the minds and manners of the individuals of which it is composed, can be transformed instantly. Our surprise ought more properly to be, not that much remains to be done, but that so much has already been accomplished.

But if the colonists have acted inconsiderately on the one hand, we cannot help saying that the abolitionists appear to have erred more widely on the other. The motives of most of the persons of whom this body is composed, we believe to be perfectly pure and disinterested, and we should be sorry to apply to them a single expression which could be regarded as unkind or disrespectful. But the bulk of them really know nothing of the difficulties with which the subject is surrounded. They are directed solely by abstract notions of justice and humanity, which cannot be denied to be among the best of all human incentives to action, when under the control of knowledge and discretion; but, when deprived of this salutary restraint, are among the most fallacious guides it is possible to follow. They conceive it to be their duty, at all hazards, to rescue the African, whom they invariably paint to themselves as mild, tractable, and industrious, out of the hands of a master who is always represented as inhuman and oppressive; and imagine, that as soon as the fiat of manumission shall have issued from the British senate, the work of mercy will be perfect, and the reign of peace and happiness will begin. From the whole tenor of their words and actions, it is evident that they neither know the facts, nor understand the grounds, upon which their opinions ought to be founded; and, like many other well-meaning, but incompetent legislators, they stir up and promote innovations of which they are qualified neither by their habits nor by their acquirements to foresee the consequences, immediate or ultimate.

Next to these, we may advert to a small but compact phalanx

of