The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-22 00:00:00

The Society for the Mitigation and gradual
Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Do-
minions have published another pamphlet, enti-
tled The Further Progress of Colonial Reform,
professing to be an analysis of the King's coinmu-
nication to Parliament on the above subject,
towards the close of the last Session, but de-
signed, no doubt, to be in reality a new stimulus
to the energy of the Government, and an addi-
tional reproach to what was tersned by Mr. Can-
ning the " contumacy" of the Colonial Assem-
blies. There are two orders of Englishmen in
the West Indies, by whom the business of se-_
veial slave estates is administered, and from
whose respective positions and characters the re-
lation between white man and black must be un-
derstood to receive its colour. The first class
consists of proprietors both of the soil and of
the slaves ; the second class, of managers, placed
upon the estates of absentee owners, to keep the
negro to his work. It seems obvious, after such
a statement, to add, that illustrations of whatever
is good or tolerable in the system of negro
slavery may best be looked for in the conduct of
the planter, who takes a necessary interest in his
own negroes, and feels a natural sympathy with
their wants and comforts ; while the materials of
commiseration and censure in the public mind
are in all probability most profusely furnished by
the treatment to which the poor slave is exposed
at the hands of a hired manager, bent only on
establishing a credit with his employer, by send-
ing to market the utmost produce that can be
extracted from the surface of the land and from
the negro's toil. Exceptions, of course, will be
found to the truth of these conjectures. There
are planters who may be unfeeling, and managers
kind ; but of general causes the consequences
are general, and it appears, from such judgment
as can be formed here of a system which is re-
presented under such contradictory aspects, that
the colonists depend on evidence drawn from one
source of observation, and the abolitionists on
that which flows directly from another. This, how-
ever,. cannot with ;any fairness be denied. The
state of the law is such as permits extensive
powers to be perverted with impunity, by
unmerciful dispositions, to barbarous ends; and
where the slave experiences no protection from
the humanity of his white master, whether prin-
cipal or agent, he can hope for but inadequate
security or redress from the provisions of law or
usage. This is not a condition of things which
ought to be tolerated by any civilized nation.
No laws, whether remedial, or preventive of in-

jury, would ever be enacted at ;11, if the legis-
lator did not fix his attention rather on the few
cases of possible injustice, than on the many
where there exists no fear of it. Generous or
honest men are not restrained by penalties, which
their principles, if no law existed, would never
permit them to deserve ; and, on the other hand,
they ought not to feel it an imputation by the
mother country upon themselves or their motives,
if laws which must in the nature of things be of
universal application, are established to prevent
those abuses of which bad men only would be
capable. The obstinacy of the Colonial assem-
blies is complained of by the " Society" as hav-
ing arrived at that point where, according to the
promises of the King's Government, it stands
pledged to propose a direct interference of the
Imperial Parliament in the task of introducing
into the islands a more perfect system of protec-
tion for the slaves. We may, perhaps, ourselves
be of opinion that the subject had better be in—
trusted to his Majesty's Ministers, but undoubt-
edly the active and even vehement proceedings
of the body of abolitionists in this country have
already tended to effect some good. They have
forced the whole colonial system more immedi-
ately and completely on the attention of Go-
vernment, and have been instrumental in bringing
about many useful though partial and imperfect
regulations in the practice of the colonists them-
selves towards their negroes. The following is
a statement from the abovementioned pamphlet,
of the manner in which the recommendations of
the British Government have been received by
the Colonial Assembly of Barbadoes, in which
that legislative body has conformed, by its acts,
to the spirit which influences the two Houses of
Parliament, and the breasts of his Majesty's ad-
visers. The same feeling has prevailed in .Ta-
maica, but want of room obliges us to reserve the
article which relates to that colony :

" III••-•••BA RBA DOES.

" In the same pamphlet, The Slave Colonies of
Great Britain, (p. 11-20) is given, also in consi-
derable detail, the provisions of the Consolidated
Slave Law of Barbadoes, passed in March, 1825.
The law itself, of which the Barbadians boasted as
an effort of liberal and humane legislation, which,
in the night fall of their existence,' will endear to
posterity the remembrance of those who have given
life to that splendid code, was nevertheless, as Mr.
Brougham well characterized it in the House of
Commons, little better than a mass of the most re-
volting enormities, Lord Bathurst appears to have
entertained a similar opinion of it. His Lordship
regrets to say, that he finds in it none of thc re-
commended reforms,' while it contains some provi-
sions which• oblige him to submit it to the Legisla-
ture for revision.* By way of aiding them in that
revision, he transmits a copy of his circular com-
munication and of the eight bills accompanying it.
These bills, however, were not submitted to the
Barbadoes legislature by the Governor, Sir Henry
Ward, who, apparently under some unaccountable
feeling of alarm, withheld them, lest he should give
offence to the Assembly. The Assembly, however,
were evidently fully apprised of their tenour, and
with that knowledge, a new consolidated slave law
was passed by them in October, 1826, embracing
all the reforms they thought it right to adopt. To
this act the Governor has affixed his signature.
" The first thing to be remarked in this new code
is the omission of two clauses in that of 18'25,
which seemed to favour the slave. The Assembly
probably thought that the concessions extracted
from them by the alarm of the moment were too
large, and that it became necessary, therefore, to re-
tract them. Those clauses are the 4th and the 64th ;
the first securing a right of appeal to the Governor
for a writ of error in the case of capital convictions
of slaves; the second providing that capital execu-
tions shall be solemn, and by hanging only. These
" Papers presented by his Majesty a command, 1827,
Part 1., p. 197,"