The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1805-04-03 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRITISH PRF.SS.

. .
SIR—It is a very important and striking teeth.'
worthy the serious consideration of all those iehn
doubt the enormous wickedness of West Ii dean
Slavery, that its most respeetable champions, and
even tense among them who, by an affectation of
candour, have made the most powerful impression
on the Nellie mind, have been obliged to tesoit to
gross misrepresentations of the fads upon sebich
tbey reason. Sometimes, in artier to deprive of our
sympathy the wretched vidimsofcolonial despotism,
fallacious representations have been wil'ully given of
their condua and charaeter; at other times, in order
to draw a veil over their sufferings and wrongs, ad-
vantage has been taken of the ignorance of the Eu-
ropean public respeaing West Indian affairs, by
disclosing just so much of a particular fad, as
would furnish a basis for an inference opposite to
the truth, and invidiously suppressing the rest.
Of this preetice, Mr. Brougham, in his able
work, entitled, An Inquiry into the Colonial Pulley
of the European Powers, has given some ekamples in
writers of the first reputation among the apologists
of the West Indian system.
The cart-whip is the planter's ordinary instru-
ment, both of coercion and punishment. When
used for the former purpose by the driver in the
field, it is generally applied to the poor Labourers
in their working posture, without stopping to strip
them of the clothes by which their backs may hap-
pen to be defended. The effea is sufficiently se-
vere ; yet not so much so as commonly to leave
permanent marks on the body But a heo a pu-
nishment is to be deliberately inflieted, the patient is
stretched upon the ground, with his limbs extended,
and the cast whip, which, in the hands of an expert
driver, is a most merciless instrument of torture, is
vertically applied, with all his force, and with an
iteration sometimes extending to an hundred lashes,
upon that fleshy part of the naked frame, which
alone can receive such extreme discipline, without
great danger to life. Not only is the scarf :kin
peeled off by every ennui& of the lash, but deep in-
cisions are made, which often leave lasting scars of
a shocking appearance: from these scars very few
field negroes are wholly exempt.
This general and notorious fail having been no-
ticed by the Abolitionists, in the first discussion on
the Slave Trade, but without a distina specification,
as it would seem, of the part of the body which bore
these badges of cruelty, a tour to the Windward
Islands was written by one West Indian Planter of
great eminence (Sir William Young), and published
in a well known work of another (History of the
West Indies, by Mr. Bryan Edwards), in which
the following passage appears : I particularly no-
ticed every negro whom I met or overtook on the
road ; pf those, I counted eleven who were dressed
as field negroes, with only trowsers on, and advert-
ing to the evidence on the Slave Trade, I particu-
larly remarked the: not one of the eleven had a sin-
gle mark or scar of the whip, &c.—Never pass-
ing a slave, withou: observing his back, either in the
field, or on the road, or wenches washing in the ri-
ver. I have not seen one back marked, besides that
of the woman observed on Mr. G.'s estate, &c."
Sir William Young's objea in bringing forward
this statement is obviously to discredit the accounts
which have been given of the severity of West In-
dian bondage. He is himself owner of several plan-
tations, and therefore must have had ample means of
ascertaiiiing the real state of the case. But such is
the wifairness of the impression which his account is
calculated to produce, an unfairness which could not
escane the notice of any man having the slightest
ateraintance with West Indian affairs, that Mr. Ed-
wards thought himself bound, from regard, it is to
be presumed, to his own charaaer for veracity, to
subj lin to the passage the following note: "In the
West Indies the punishment of whipping is com-
monly infliaed, not of the backs of the Negroes,
as protitsed sn the discipline of the Brtti.ih soldiers, but
more humanely and with much less danger, on
parte, postetiores. It is therefore no proof that the
Negroes whom Sir William Young inspected had
escaped flagellation, because their shoulders bore no
impression of the whip. This acknowledgment I owe
to truth and candour."
The arida annotator well knew that if the just
and necessary sentence of a court martial were to
be executed by the same instrument, and to the same
extent as the arbitrary, and often capricious man-
date of a West Indian overseer, the back could not
be the seat of punishment %idiotic certain death to
the sufferer.
But of the candour of Mr. Edwards, as an histo-
rian, in what regards this hapless race, Mr
Brougham has furnished ample illustration, and one
instance of it well deserves to be noticed. A Mt.
Gallifer, a planter of St. Domingo, was celebrated
, for his mild treatment of his slaves, and the coast.
gnence of his lenity was, that they increased ha
numbers very rapidly ; bet, about the year 1773,
this gentleman died, and the negroes found a new
master of an opposite characier, who treated theta
so badly, that their numbers, instead of increasing
as before, continually declined. These falls were
published by Mr. Clarkson, in 1788, in his Essay
ore the Impolite of the Stare Trade; and as that pe-
riod was three years anterior to the revolution in
St. Domingo, of course there could be no room for
suspicion, that, with a view to the events of that re-
volution, Mr. Clarkson could have devised or mis-
represented the fag of the reverse of treatment upon
Gallifer's estate, which had taken place fifteen years
before he wrote ; yet Mr. Edwards, in his If 'story
of St. Domingo, for the purpose of supporting an
absurd and mischievous calumny on the oppressed
African race (the charge of their being wholly de-,
stitute of the natural sentiment of gratitude), has
inserted the former part of Mr Clarkson's anecdote,
but wholly suppressed the death of Mr. Gabler, esnd
tle change effreatment by the net master, Red has then
given a shocking account of the excesses committed
in the insurreaion by the negroes of this estate, as if
the peculiar indulgence and kind treatment of their
owner had produced the effeU of making them
more ferocious than the rest of the insurgents.
Of such misrepresentation, if wiltnl, for such a
purpose, it would be difficult to speak with the re
prehension it deserves ; and yet, as Mr. Brougham
observes, the mutilation of the case could not be ac-
cidental. It would be difficult, indeed, to believe,
that so industrious an advocate as Mr. Edward, had
not read the work of so distinguished an opponent

r

as Mr. Clarkson, whose very smrde ca: litre
•
uses upon this occasion. besides, Mr. •Editikards
bad b,rn at Cape Francois, in the near niighhoul
hood of this estate, during the insurredion ; alsd he
tells us, with Mr. Clarkson, that the name of Mr.
Mr. Gallifer had been proverund for his i-nrianity
•," as happy as Gallifer's negroes," it could hardly
have ei.caped his notice, that so remarkable a cha-
rafter, who has been dead near twenty ycirs, was
not living at that interesting period. And even
were it possiile rn acquit this writer el wilful mis-
representation in this case, his rashness, in confidently
asserting so eitraordinary an instance of depravity
in dire& opposition to the truth of the case, must be
fatal to his credit as in historian

NE

;;

It is painful to make such observations on a writer
now no more I but Mr. Edwards, under the mask
of an affeeted candour and mod-ration, has done
more to mislead the public mind, at the espence of
truth, and of the opp.essed African race, than all
the other advocates of the Slave System united; and
we must not suffer the cause of millions now living,
and myriads yet unborn, to he prejudiced by false
tenderness to the memory of the dead.
Your's, Ass AnnLITIONIIIT.