The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-21 00:00:00

HiGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE TO-MORROW.
Morning

MONTHLY CHRONICE No. 3.
Messrs. Longman and Co. request that Advertisements for
the forthcoming number of the Monthly Chronicle be sent to them
not later than Wednesday, April 25, and Bills not later than
Thursday, April 26.
39, Paternoster-row, April 21, 1838.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
.4 S. 's." communication would expose us, if published, to an
action for libel.

The publication of Tin SUN NEWSPAPER COM
al 10 minutes past Four o' Clock.

wl this day

WITH WHICH
" THE TRUE SUN" IS NOW

INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 21, 1838.

The advocates of the West India planters deny
that there has been any reluctance on the part of
the Colonists generally to follow out the intentions
of the Mother-country with respect to the treat-
ment of the apprentices. They pretend to say, on
the contrary, that there has been the greatest anxiety
shown to give the fullest effect to these intentions, and
that it is only in a few individual cases that the provi-
ions of the Abolition Act have been contrevened, or
cruelty exercised towerds the blacks. We hope there are
not many men, and still fewer women, even in Jamaica,
who could make the husband stand by and witness the
agonies of the wife writhing under the torture of the
cat ; or who could put the knotted scourge into the
hand of the son to tear the living flesh from the father's
body. Such atrocities as these can never be gene-
rally practised until men shall be converted into de-
mons by wholesale ; but nothing can be clearer than
that the violation of the Abolition Act, in Jamaica
at all events, is the rule, and its observance the ex-

ception.
By way of assisting the few persons who are in
any doubt as to the good faith of the planters in
that colony, and their much lauded eagerness to
adopt every possible means to improve the state,
physical and moral, of the nerTroes, to make up their
minds upon .the subject, we suhjoin certain documents
of undoubted authenticity. The first is a com-
pendious statement of the various measures pro-
posed to the Assembly of Jamaica by the Governor,
&ring a period of about four months from the 27th
of October to the 21st of FeLruary last, togejtcr, with
tit,. fate which tbe several measures experienced frotnthat
aegro-improving body of legislators. Let Mr. GLAD-
grove and his friends chew the cud of reflection upon
011:; interesting document, and extract from it such con-

firmatJon of their assertions as it is cnlculated to afford

It will liani,l,e he contended that the acts of the Jamaica
• Assembly are in°rely the acts of individuals. In this
darni:ing record the planters, through their representa-
ti%es, i‘ give in evidence against themselves." They
are responsible for their proceedings, unless they dis-
avow them. Have they condemned the conduct of
their repre;entetives ? Have they remonstrated against
public and contumacious a display of their deter-
minetion not to fulfil the provisions of the Abolition
Act ? Not a whisper of disapprobation has been
heard from te one end of the island to the other
W'Vh after this, 2119.11 dare to deny that the Jamaica
planters have done at; that in them lay to improve the
state of the negroes, ...a to render them fit to enjoy
that liberty to which such improvement was declared
to be an in-dispensable prelimiaery !
Turn we now to another document scarcely less
remarkable than the one on which we have been
commenting. This, our readers will perceive, is a
letter from Sir LIONEL SMITH to the Custos of the
precinct of St. Catherine's, in which the Governor
,animadverts with just severity on the conduct of the
ke,egistrates at Quarter Sessions, who had sentenced 17
eenects to receive among them no fewer than 758
lashes with the cat. Such a degree of punishment Sir
LtoNee ,Smrett denominates " extreme." This is a
gentle term I,e'llen it is considered that these unfortu-
nate victims of cruelty had no one to plead their cause
when puton their trial ; that for each conviction (from
o ne district at least) there is a large fee payable to the
Clcek of the Peace ; and that all the corporal punish-
merits' inflicted by the Special Magistrates up to the
month ,o! August last amounted only to 105, among a
population .of 120,000 male Negroes Let it be re-
membered, too, that in addition to this enormous amount
of flogging, thes,l wretched men were condemned to
imprisonment and Lard labour. Sir LIONEL SMITH,
much to his honour, dd not satisfy himself with simply
giving a rebuke to these cruel Magistrates—he remit-
led the punishment in 13 out of the 17 cases. The
est:lncluding passage of the Governor's letter is singu-
lately striking. What must be the state of the Magis-
tracy in Jamaica, when the dispensers of justice re-
quire to be told in so peremptory a tone, " that justice
shall be tempered with mercy ;" and to what a pass
are things cen:e, when the Governor of the greatest of
our colonies peNicly declaree that he considers it a
mi!fortune to occupy his high situation !
Te reply of the provincial functionary to the Go-
vernor's letter is not unworthy of notice. This gen-
tleman, it will be observed, does not attempt to
vindicate himself from the charge of a gross dereliction
of duty in absenting himself from the Court of which
he is the head, and as such, the natural protector of
the undefended prisoner. Such, at least, the Presi-
dent of a Court :a considered in England. But they
order things differently in Jamaica. The Custos of
the Precinct of St. Catherine tries hard to ex-
tenuate the conduct of hie brother Magistrates ; but in
doing so, what a severe comment does he pass
upon the conduct of the Assembly. Extreme
punishments, he hints, are rendered necessary by the
defective state of the prison regulations. Now let the
evader cast his eye over the schedule of the messages
sent down by the Governor to the Assembly, and
he will find that the Assembly repeatedly refused
to take into their consideration the measures proposed
for the improvement of prison discipline—the last re-
fusal being on the 21st 0! February, the day after the
meeting of the Colonial Legislature, and not a fortnight
after the publication of the Governor's letter and its
answer in the Jamaica papers. Thus every day's
experience adds to the evidence long ago sufi-
ciently strong, that the conduct of the planters in
Jamaica, whether regarded as Masters, as Magistrates,
or as Legislators, exhibits an habitual desire to oppress
and grind the unhappy slaves, and a spirit of insolent
defiance towards the imperial and local governments
whenever they interfere to protect them, and to secure
the rights guaranteed them by the Abolition Law.
If the West India Planters and those who abet or
wink at their cruelties imagine, that the great question
of Slave-emancipation is finally settled by the Bill
which has been hurried through ParEament, they will
find their selves grievously mistaken. 1.71 at Bill does I
not deserve the name of even a palliative for the
great an d crying evils which it professes to rereeedy.
It is a nere temporary and paltry expedient, adapted I
for the p urpose of throwing dust in the eyes of a nation I
justly i pt lignant at a breach of faith and an ingratitude ,
prams/ towards it, more flaerant and blacker than
•
any tobe found in the whole range of human experi-
ence. )3ut the people of
Great Britain are too eleal- ,

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