The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-24 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

knovviecige o itT. o,t,j,ets :Missionary
Societi,A, the chr,N.l.,,;ri patrin:s ofEn,lig
AsFociations."

Mr. R. MOoRE, in seconding the resolution, said no one
could doubt but that the operations of the Society would
greatly aid missionaries, because, by cultivating the good
opinion of the Aborigines, it would make them ready to
receive and listen to missionary instruction, and it would
save their liv,s from falling a sacrifice to the cruel spirit of
our soldiers, sailors, and merchants. The missionaries
were sent to the Aborigines, and it they were destroyed,
the people were destroyed to whom they went to preach.
The Society would therefore aid them, and mitigate the
dangers to which they were exposed. He could not agree
with the gentleman who had just down. He wished for
no guns, no warfare, no violence, because it was opposed to
Christianity. He believed that wars were less bloody now
than formerly, but he could nut agree to ego evil for the ac-
complishment of good, as that did not appear to him
to be consistent with the religion brought into the
world by the Prince of Peace. —( Hear, hear, hear.)
Here. then, independent of the higher principles of reli-
gion, we find tha , in an interested point of those
countries would be of more use to us by our adoption
of the sublime and Christian principle of to " Do unto
others as you would be done by." Yet, alas I those per-
sons worn we have first wronged, when excited by our
oppressions they have committed acts which were almost
justified, we have sent marauding parties to-hunt them to
desolation. Ye; those men, of whom it was said that they
were incapable of civil:236mi, In Id some of the highest prin-
ciples of Christianity in principle and practice. He might
just mention ene instance. An Indian, who had been robbed
of his cattle, his borne burned, and his whole property
destroyed, told his tale of sarrow to one of the mis ion-
aries. The latter said, " Seek not to gain satisfaction by the
sword ; apply to the Government fur redress." The In-
dian grasped the hand of his Christian adviser, and said," I
will follow the advice coming from the good man inspired
by the true God." It is on the part of such men that the
present Society seek to enlist the sympathies of the people
of England. They said, send out missionaries to these
countries, who should form the habits of the rising genera-
tion, and thus in the most effectual manner introduce civi-
lization. The worst feature of our intercourse with the In-
dians was, that in the greater number of cases these persons
who emigrate from European nations are not of the purest
character, and thus, as first impressio es lay a strong hold
on the savage mind, the character of the white man suf-
fers.—( Cheers. ) Curiosity bring the natives in contact
with us, our presents fiv.ciriate them, and instead of the
scythe or the reaping-hook, we brought them the gun and
the sword.--( Cheers.) Another point to which he begged
to call the attention of the meeting was the propriety of
introducing medical practitioners among those Aborigines
where we made settlements. As we have been the cause
of the destruction of hundreds of thousands of those un-
fortunate beings, by introducing diseases and otherwise,
we are now called upon to use our best exertions tor the
amelioration of their condition.—( Cheers. )
The CHAIRMAN here said he regretted that business of
an urgent nature required his attendance at the House, and
he would be therefore compelled, though with exceeding
reluctance, to vacate the chair.

On the motion of Mr. BELL, Colonel Henry Dunies
Campbell was then called to the chair.

Mr. R. SCHOMBURG said, before reading the resolu-
tion which he was called upon to propose, he would state
that he had much personal knowledge of the state of the
Aborigines in Guiana, having resided there for a consider-
able time, and his firm conviction was that they were per capable of a high order of civilization. He was happy
to sec the exertions that were every day making to bring them
under British protection. It had been said by many (and
among them were some who had professed to ihave paid
much attention to the present state of the Brazils), that
the Aborigines were incapable of receiving the blessings of
education. He should introduce to their notice a native
of Guiana, who some seven or eight inonths was in a state
of absolute nature—who roamed the forest with a bow and
• arrow to seek the means of a scanty and precarious sub-
sistence. He now would present him to the notice of the
meeting, with his intellectual powers to a certain degree
matured, and with a moderate acquisition of the elemen-
tary portions of education.—( The speaker here led to the
front of the platform a young lad of a deep copper-colour
complexion, and with a very intelligent cast of counte-
nance, who seemed deeply interested in the scene around
him.) Catholic missionaries had in these countries com-
menced their godly labours many years ago, but there
were more than five-sixths of the district left totally 'an-
provided eith religious instruction. Then why de. not
the British people send out missionaries—Pre..estant
missionaries?—and as it had been said by Mr. O'Connell
this morning, that all classes of Chrisdarys, without rela-
tion to conventional differences, endeevour to convey to
the benighted mind of the Indiana knowledge of the true
God. In conclusion he beeged:to read the resolution, ehicha
was as follows :—" That the recognition of the rights of the
Aborigines on the part of Government, and a general feel-
ing of benevolence towards them on the part of colonists„
must ultimately prove ineffectual unless the Anorigiaes
themselves are led to co-operate, by being enabled to cul-
tivate their own faculties and powers, and that for this
purpose it is desiroue that young natives, eligible by their
talents and dispositions, be brought to this country, with a
view to their practical education, especieliy in those direc-
tions, in which their abilities may be most evident."
Mr. D. Roeen, of Canada, begged leave to second the
resolution. He had some interesting facts to which he
wished to call the attention of the inectieg. It must be:
known to all those versed in history thsa when England
and the present United States of Aenerica first separated,
the tribe called the Six Nations Inhabited the richest and
best tracts of country near New York, and that when
American independence was recognised by Eagla-ad these
loyal men emigrated to Canada sooner than recognise the
domination of the American Republic, He could bear tes-
timony to the invariable fealty of the Indians in both Upper
and Lower Canada. When the effort was made to wrest
Canada from the Crown of England—when there was not
a soldier in the province—when the French Canadians were
in a state of rebellion, what was their conduct ? I shall.
tell you—they rushed to the rescue at the first symptom r
disloyalty, and it will by many be recollected that of I'.o
Indians who came down on Christmas.day, 1837, for the
protection of a loyalist settlement, not one returned Talive.
Loud cheers.) He could mention many other inestancee
of devotion on the part of the native tribes to the. British
Crown during the late unhappy disturbances in the Cana-
das. On the North American boundaries of the United
States the Cherokee Indian had been hunted from his pa-
ternal land by the aid of the bloodhound, to perish among
the Rocky Mountains, and under all these circumstances,
detailed there this day,:was it fair to attempt to test the ca-
pabilities of the Aborigines, treated with such utter indif-
ference and recklessness as they in all ease, have invariably
been, as to the powers of manifesting the better feelings of
human nature ?
Mr. BELL rose and said that he understood their re-
spected Chairman had been named as the proposer of one
of the resolutions to be submitted to the meeting to-day.
He should, therefore, beg leave to move that he now leaves
the Chair, and that Mr. King (the celebrated traveller)
be called thereto in his stead.
Mr. KING having taken the chair, •
Colonel H. D. CANIPLIELL came forward and said, that
when he first went to take the charge of the Government
in Sierra Leone in 1835, the different races composing
the population were in the most lamentable state. Several
of the Maroons had been removed from Jamaica to Nova
Scotia, where the effect of climate displayed itself in its
most fatal shapes. He regretted to think that after the
expenditure of twenty millions of money by this
country, there should be so little improvement in the state
of some of the Aborigines, for he thought that in Sierra
Leone the condition of the population was at the present
moment far worse than what it had been twenty years ago-
The inhabitants might be seen in the public ways ha
a state of perfect nudity, and there was a lament-
able want of employment for working persons there.
If any of the inhabitants were to cultivate the earth there
were no markets in which to dispose of the results of their
industry. He could himself state, as an example of the
anxiety on the part of the natives to take advantage of any
facilities that might be afforded to them of the fruits of
their industry, that ono year there was a great demand for
lice, and in the following year such was the quantity raised
by the natives that the market was completely glutted
with it, and it became a more drug. The same has oc-
curred with regard to the. production of ginger. The fact
was that there was wanting some means of directing the
energies of the eatives to a proper fruition. During the
time of his official connexion with that country there wag.;
scarce a hut or a hamlet that he had not visited, and het
never met a more kindly or honest manifestation of fact.
ing ; and what struck hint as the most deplorable fact was,
that there was scarcely a church or a chapel to be forend
amongst the numerous villages scattered over the country.
Amongst the native villages there were but two grog-shops,
while in the tree towns which the Europeans inhabited
there were a great number. Among the natives he could
.1°
say that very few had contracted a taste for spirituous
.03
liquors, except those old soldiers who had been discharged eii:ol,o
from the \Vest India regiments, and who, by their contact se '444,0
with Europeans, contracted some of their habit,. HIP
found them invariably religions as well as abstemious• ies-=f-orl
When he first went there, the labourers got only a nomi-
nal rate of wages, and the person who paid them would ;'e'r
keep back the wages on the slightest pretences. As for. 0
the apprentice system, be considered it only another name
for the siorst sort of slavery. Nothing that he ever sat,
in any other part of the world was worse than what he
witnessed at Sierra Leone, The men are seat to work at
distant settlements—the children given to any cite who
will take ten shillings for their support, and much of the
fees arising from this system went into the Governor's, of •
his dependent's pockets. These things he (Colonel Camp-
bell) abolished, and he dared to say that such abolition
caused much dissatisfaction to the interested parties. As
to the appropriation of females, no expense was incurred,
for a male slave might demand her in marriage, which was
immediately solemmzed at the Colonial Chaplain's house
and thus she became the property of the proprietor o
her newly made husband. In many of the instances.;
alluded to, the females had been previously married,
and Omit husbands living. The chief cause of cone-
plaint, rife among the natives, was the want of religicus •-
instruction, and medical aid. In the hospital there were
et one time 750 patients, and many of them sefferieeC
see
under the small-pox, end medical attendance ;icing
scant as it was, the mortality was awful. Ile established. ef
schools there, and tried to abolish the prejrai,„ „isti.ag
, wch
..s. among the natives, and from that the happiost results twee. :;
He had also abelielled the custom, or eeing naked
prevailed to a disgusting extent before he cot, reel onhi the •le,'" office of Governor, but he regretted to state tliat he un- •
derstood they had again relapsed into their old habits.
He hed been now three years awste from that country, but eseses
he wished that some paeon of greater weight and power Ea
than he was would tske up the cause of sufferine hums-
he
It WWI with regret that
nity in that country .—( Cheers.)
he found that those persons trho s him ready to give his
most strenuous exeions to the investigation of the abuses
the Gover,lin; ni authorities. lie ceuild scareel.,
at present existing Sierae Leone, regarded the mattes:-
the expenditure of [went three rei,l;ons
with apathy, and M this charge he must ine' ue'ee
'ca.!!
while such a ey stem uf leteian misery exiened'
robbery Upon the genereus Er, ifsh :;anon
Leor;e, under aSt which the
better than a nosey
grantio,?;
of
in Sierra
%Ness ietended to;;GcAi,h, Inka endeavoujed to show the

~ ~w
~~

;$1,3