Star.
London, England, 1816-01-20 00:00:00

WEST-INDIA SLAVES.

Yesterday a Meting of the persons concerned in
the Trade to the West Indies took place in the City
tit London Tavern, to take into consideration the
expediency of adopting certain resolutions respecting
a Bill brought into Parliament last Session, for the
Registry of Slaves in the West-India Colonies.
Mr. PALMER, the Chairman, stated, that he had on
a fotmer occasion called the attention of the Meeting
to a Report of the African Institution, and that his
Majesty's Ministers had been waited upon with certain
Resolutions that had been framed in consequence of
it.w The Bill brought last Session into the House of
Commons by Mr. Wilberforce would he proceeded
in at the approaching Meeting of Parliament, and
Resolutions had been come to by the standing Com-
mittee on the subject of that Bill, which would now
be submitted to the Meeting. The Res.,liiticns,
twelve in number, were ti.en read ; expressing in sub.
stance the great alarm which the Bill had excited in
the West India Colonies ; that the assertions in the
BM respecting a contraband trade in Slaves having
been carried on in the British possessions in the West
Indies were wholly unfounded ; that the Bill was
founded upon no fact, but upon a bare spsculative
possibility, and that possibility much narrowed by the
abolition of the Slave Trade in the French West In-
dia Islands ; and that from one or two insulated tact:
it would he highly unwarrantable to draw conchs-
si4.ns ag4init the v.ll. :le body. of West-India.Proprie•
tors ; that the commonicattans received from the L.
eislatures of Jamaica, Antigua, and St. Vincent de.
itied, in the strongest terms, that any attempt had
been made to violate the Abolition Act ; and &nail,
that by a similar interference of the French Revolu-
tionary Government, the island of St. Domingo bad
been lost to that country.
'the Resolutions having. been read,
Mr. HIBISERT, Agent for Jamaica, observed, that
the present Bill was but the commencement of a sp.
tem of interference with the Coionial Legislatures,
and not a mere Registry Bill; the effect of which in-
terference had been sutliciently.apparent in the case
of the colony of Sierra Leone.
Mr. Alderman Arxtss hoped that the statement
of the Resolutions would be borne out by facts, and
proposed that the sense of the Meeting should be
taken, not upon the whole in cumulo, but upon each
individual Resolution.

On the reading of the second Resolution, in which
it was stated that unfounded aspel dons had been
thrown, with unceasing assiduity, upon the Wtst
India Planters, s•'me discussion took place on the
part of Mr. Mims, Mr; BuowN, Mr. MAItItYAT,
and Mr. HOBERT, the forme. Gentleman expressing
a with that the words 41 unceasing assiduity" might
be left out.

Mr. C. GRANT, a Member of the Assembly of Ja•
maica, contended that the words ought to be retained,
and were amply justified by the tone taken by the
Edinburgh Review, a publicati.m so widely disse-
minated, on the subject of the.West.lndia Planters.
So anxious had the Assembly of Jamaica been to
prevent a clandestine :rade in Slaves, that they had
appointed a Committee to take the stibje.:: into caw'.
• deration, w:th a view to a legislative enactmeat.
committee reported that no case existed 0: contraband
traffic in slaves, and the Assembly did uot see any ex.
pediency in passing a law to meet a hypothetical pos.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr.MARRYAT stated, that in the island of Trinidad,
for which he was agent, the Abulition Act had been
only once infringed, by a foreigner, ignorant of the
&glib% law, who bad bought two negroes to be cm.
pluyed on board of a
ML. GRANT rose, and stated, that the proposed
enactment, with respect to Jamaica, was whopy
useless, as, by a law of the island, an annual re.
tarn must be made of the nuniaer of Slaves on each

plantation.
Upon the twelfth Resolution, stating that St: Do-
mingo had been hut to France by similar volduct
on the part of the Revolutionary Government, a
difference of opinion manifered itst•lt ; some Lei,iting
the clause to be modified, and others that it be lea
out. It was; however, at last allo%%ed to stand as it
WAS orii;inAlly.•
Mr. iuslata (late Member for Sussex) read an ex.
tract irom a letter jost received, ex:)ressive of the tear
entertained in Jamaica, should the proposed bill pass;
and called upon the Meeting to leave nothing undone
to prevent such a murderous measumirom passing into
a Saw.
It was then ordered, that a copy of the Resolu.
dons should be transmitted uo his Majesty's Affinieltervs
and that a Committee of Management i• U4lld be sp.,
pointed.
Thanks were then voted to the Chan*. 01144111
Me!ting broke op.

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