The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

A TWELVEMONTH'S RESIDENCE IN THE
WEST INDIES,

DURING THE TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO 4PPRENTICESHIT ;

BF R. R. MADDE', M. D., AUTHOR Or " TRAVELS

IN THE zdsr," 6-c.
In 2 Vols. London : Cochrane and Co., 1835.

We have but one fault to find with this work, and
we will state it once and have done with it. Several
of the letters of which it is composed, do not bear suf-
ficiently on those questions upon which the public is
alone interested, and the author's style and manner are
occasionally too flippant for the topics he is expected
to discuss. A writer of Travels ought to eschew all
attempts at rhyme, where his feelings are not suffi-
ciently intense to bid defiance to description in plain
prose—a rule which Dr. Madden has more than once
thought proper to dispense with. The great fault of
modern Tourists, Travellers, and other descriptive
writers is, that they seem to regard it incumbent upon
them to produce a brace of volumes, however scanty
their materials. In order to accomplish this, every
resourse is taxed, and the most trivial matters are in-
troduced in the same sheet with disquisitions on the
most important questions. The consequence of this is,
that the writer's authority is considerably weakened;
those whose interest it is to dispute his facts having
only to refer with a sneer to some puerility thrust in to
eke out the volume, to impugn his judgment, and
through this vulnerable part, question his veracity, and
deny the soundness of his conclusions.
Dr. Madden left England for Jamaica in October,
1833, in company with five other gentlemen, all ap-
pointed stipendiary magistrates under the Slavery
Abolition Act. After a favourable voyage of twenty-
four days, he landed in Barbadoes, and immediately
proceeded thence to Jamaica, where he commenced
the discharge of his magisterial functions. The vo-
lumes now before us are a series of letters addressed
to several private gentlemen, his friends, in which he
details the social and moral condition of the negroes,
their habits; peculiarities, propensities, and qualifica-
tions for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.
He also treats of the customs and feelings of the plan-
ters
and slave-owners ; examines their motives in de-
siring to perpetuate Slavery in the Colonies ; and con-
cludes with the astounding announcement, that the
wisest, safest, and best course would be, to grant the
slaves unqualified emancipation, doing away altogether
with the term of apprenticeship ! "My opinion is,"
says Dr. Madden, (Vol. 11., page 242) "that the
negroes are qualified for complete and immediate free-
dom ; and the attempt to keep them from it, for the
term proposed by the new law, I greatly fear will lead
to occurrences which no man can contemplate with
unconcern." This opinion he corroborates in several
other passages in the course of the work. " The
more I have seen of the negroes in this island (Ja-
maica) and the more closely I have observed
their conduct, the more reason I have to think that
they are naturally a good-humoured, easily contented,
kind-hearted race, amply disposed to appreciate kind
treatment, and to be grateful for it."—(Vol. ii. p. 307.)
And in another place he observes, " But the planters
say the negroes will not work for wages : I can only
say that my experience is altogether opposite to their's
on this point. Hitherto the apprentices have not only
cheerfully worked for wages, in the few instances in
which it has been paid to them, but wherever they
have been well treated, they have even been satisfied
with moderate wages. Night work lam aware they
will not do, as they have done it heretofore, for any
wages ; neither is it desirable that they should." Dr.
Madden appears to have been aware, that the advocates
of slavery here would take advantage of his admission,
that the negroes would decline to perform any kind of
work. He therefore gives the following illustration
of the degree of toil which a negro considers too much
to be endured for the promise of wages which, five
cases out of six, are never paid :

" On the property of a gentleman who is one of the most
humane owners in the island, I risited the works during crop
time one morning, at a very early hour. The men, who were
scumming the sugar when I entered, I observed appeared
worn out with fatigue and watching. They had then been at
work twenty. four hours without intermission, day and night ;
it was then five o'clock in the morning : they had gone to
work at the same hour the preceding day, and were to con-
tinue at labour till seven o'clock in the evening of that day,
--in all, making thirty-eight hours of constant labour."
- •

Such is the labour to which the emancipated negroes
will not submit ; and indeed, if they were to submit to
it, we should pronounce them disqualified for the en-
joyment of freedom.

Very different from the character of the negroes is
that which Dr. Madden ascribes to the planters and
slave proprietors, whom he represents as a cruel, liti-
gious, and indolent race. He assures his readers that

they provoke the negroes sometimes by the grossest
outrages, and oftener by the pettiest meannesses, in
order to find some pretext for punishing them,
and so thwarting the designs of the British
Government. Both the quantity and quality

_ -
of their food is stinted and deteriorated, and every

harassing vexation is practised upon them to provoke

,hem to break the peace, or otherwise render thew

selves amenable to punishment. After acting as a
magistrate for twelve months Dr. Madden was obliged
to resign his appointment, in consequence of the daily

Inuit and annoyance to which he was exposed by the

planters, for only daring to discharge his functions im-
partially. He moreover declares that any stipendiary
magistrate, who will have the hardihood to act im-
partially, and see strict justice administered between
the planters and their apprentices, will do so at the
hazard of his life. In making these grave charges
the planterz, Dr. Maddcn does not confine
himself to mere statements ; he quotes facts, and illus-