The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-07-03 00:00:00

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they would have to enoodnter an armed frontier; and
it is on that frontier we would concentrate the strength
and resistance which others would carry into Peru."—
We admit that it must be an object of great importance
40 expel the Spanish forces wholly from South America.
While they have a footing in any part of the Continent,
none of the new estates can be safe. Bat if would be still
more unwise for those provinces which have achieved their
inch pcndence to put it again in jeopardy, by exhausting
their resources in unavailing exertions for their base and
abject neighbours. Not only must the conduct of Foreign
Governments, with regard to the recognition of these new
powers, be regulated by the consideration of the particular
condition of each, but the policy which they should pursue
with regard to each other, as to aid and co-operation in their
struggles against the common enemy, should be guided by
a similar rule. The independence of Colombia cannot be
endangered by the slimes of the Spaniards in I'cru. It
was established under circumstances the most desolate and
discouraging. Every day must add to its stability by
augmenting th:.• wealth and population of the country,
and consolidating the strength of the Goyerninent. The
only peril to which Colombia can be exposed must be
of her own creation. She may be weakened by carrying
the war into distant provinces. We do not apprehend, I
however, that even in Peru the Spanish arms can
finally prevail, and we must probably abate something
from the reproaches cast upon the Peruvians by their
more hardy and gallant allies. Some allowance should
be made for the contempt with which the victorious in- i
variably look down upon the vanquished. The Colom-
bians themselves were not always as good warriors as they I
are now. A struggle of fourteen years duration has given
to their arms a lustre, and to their troops a confidence
which, in comparison with the newly-raised levies of the
Peruvians, must reflect much to the disadvantage of the
latter. But defeat will discipline them, and ultimately we
have no fear they will be crowned with the triumph of their
holy cause. In such a contest, the mere fact of its com-
mencement is enough to warrant the prediction that the
revolutionists must sooner or later be successful. The
pressure of the evils of civil war wil' lead the most thought- ,
less and careless of the Peruvians to take pm in it, in order
to terminate it ; and the examples surrounding them will in-
stigate them to overthrow en authority by which they would
be degraded so deeply below the level of their fellow colonists.
The retirement of Bolivar, should that step be adopted by
the Colombian Government, will call forth the energies of
the Peruvians for their own deliverance, and we can hardly
believe that they will be found much inferior to those of
the other inhabitants of South America. They were bred
under the same system, and have as fully tasted its bitter
fruits. They cannot, therefore, be less anxious to shake
off the intolerable yoke of Spain ; nor, in whatever language
disappointment or contempt may induce the Colombians
to describe them, can we doubt that they, too, will be com-
petent to make good their title to be ranked and treated as
freemen.

The Colombiano copies from a Buenos Ayres paper,
the Centinela, a statement of the condition of the Chilian
treasury. According to the statement, founded upon we
we know not what authority, the Chilian Government is
represented to have a deficit of 666,984 dollars. A great
improvement in the finances is expected from Senor Bens-
vente, the new Minister of that Department in Chili.
His knowledge and capacity are said to be generally
acknowledged.

Ve cannot refrain from again adverting to the speech of
Mr. Burnley, on the late Order in Council for the future
I treatment of the slaves of Trinidad. His observations on
the 10th clause, by which it is rendered penal for any per-
son to hire a slave to perform any labour from sun-set or;
Saturday to sun-rise on Monday, arc well worthy of se-
rious attention. That this clause was not intended to en-
force a more serious observance of the Sabbath, he re-
marked, was obvious, as it did not prohibit the slave from .;
working in his own garden, but merely from hiring himself
out to another. The immediate effect of this enactment
would be-, he stated, that all the intelligent and superior ne-
groes who had been in the habit of exercising their trades on
the Sunday would be thrown out of employment. A large
proportion of the slaves worked no garden of their own, but
hired themselves out to the head negroes, the drivers, mill-
boatswains, boilermen, and others, who would by this
clause be deprived of their labourers. In England, the
Hon. Gentleman observed, we seemed to be ignorant of the
gradations among the slaves, and that intellect with them,
as elsewhere, secured to itself superior advantages, by skil-
fully combining and directing the physical powers of others.
Who, he asked, were supposed to he the slaves who were
to lay up money in savings' banks to purchase their freedom ?
Was it believed to be the plodding labourer, with one pair
of unassisted hands, who in every country on the face of 1
the globe could only earn his daily subsistence ? This
one clause rendered all those relating to the property of the ;
slaves, the savings' banks, and manumissions, wholly useless.
I Nut a slave in the islana could, in future, have a dollar to
Ipurchase his freedom if it were citified into effect. By its
' eperation, the most intelligent would be degraded to a level
with the lowest labourers. These consequences, which do
seem too certainly to follow the enforcement of this clause,
could not have been in contemplation when it was drawn
up. Nor, as it appears to us on this statement, can any
measure be more calculated to impede the improvement
of the negroes, and prolong their slavery, than this very
well intended device for supplying them with the means of
emancipating themselves. .11r. Burnley remarks with
great truth, after shewing the utter impracticability of in-
stituting savings' banks among the negroes, that in
those regulations the planters " might discover how to-
tally incompetent were the finest qualities of the head and .
the heart, if unaccompanied by practical knowledge, to
meddle with established social institutions."
The lion. Gentleman afterwards animadverted on the
inconsistency between the new code promulgated for the
slaves, and the Spanish laws for the government of the free
population. "in the one code they would find that a fe-
male slave could never be subjected to the indignity of the
la:411, even by the highest Court of Justice ; in the other,
under a clause curiously entitled a Proviso in favour e':
Free Persons,' a white or free woman might be subjected
to 40 stripes, by the order of any Alcalde in ordinary, con-
firmed by a meeting of Magistrates." He observed, that
the planters might, from the influence of education, check
their feelings, but what was, to become of all the free la-
bowers, the Peons, the Americans, and the disbanded soI-;
oilers? Was it to be expected that they who mixed in the'
daily amusentArts and nocturnal revels of the slaves would ;
receive a blow and not return it ? Yet if they did, they
were liable to a ntlootts punishment. We again recom-
mend this speech to the earnest consideration of those who
are willing to investigate this important question on prin-
ciples of justice and mound policy towards all parties.
The object of all is professedly to ensure the p.ooessive
' improvement of the slaves, with a view to their manumis-
sion. If, as we are inclined to apprehend, it should, on
mature deliberation, be found that the proposed regula-
tions arc calculated t• retard rather than to aced:tate that
object, we have no doubt the representations of the colonists
will not be disregarded by his Majesty's Ministers.