The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-03-02 00:00:00

Ebe ILiberpool ,Stanbarb,

FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 2, 1838.

q=,. The Publication of the STANDARD commenced this motel-

lug at 5 o'clock.

THE WEST INDIES.—We have received files of the
Guiana Chronicle to the 25th of December, and of the
Jamaica Royal Gazette and Kingston Chronicle to the
18th of January.

Though these papers are comparatively devoid of news,
they are pregnant with illustrations of the miserable and
infatuated policy of the Crim.-Connellite ministry to-
wards our colonial possessions. They also abound with
pertinent remarks upon the irretrievable mischief effect-
ed by the senseless agitation of the pseudo-philanthro-
pists of Great Britain. We shall proceed to lay before
our readers such extracts as we think must convince
every unprejudiced mind of the ruinous tendency of the
fallacious statements propagated by Joseph Sturge and
his worthy associates. The sympathy of Englishmen
has been strongly excited in favour of the poor negroes
by the powerful appeals which have been grounded on
the ex parte evidence of the Quaker humanity-mongers;
but we think that, if the British public knew the actual
state of things in the West Indies, a larger share of
sympathy would be bestowed -upon the maligned and
persecuted planters, who have been the defenceless vic-
tims of a system of slander and persecution, to which
the records of negro slavery scarcely afford a parallel.
From the following extract we find that the rampant
spirit of radicalism pervades a large portion of the po-
pulation of Jamaica, where it is attended by its usual
effects, brutal intimidation and a contempt for all the de-
cencies of civilised life. We quote from the Kingston
Chronicle of Jan. 17 :
"We have this day inserted in our preceding columns the
report of the proceedings which took place at the St. Catherine's
Vestry, and which prove the pitch to which radical rage and
presumption have been raised in this community, when persons
to:ally unqualified for the situations they seek to fill, and who
have not the ability even to maintain themselves, insist upon usurp-
ing seats they hare been illegally thrust into by an excited rabble.
The fact is. that as elections are now conducted in Jamaica, the
respectable freeholders of any colour or class have no chance
whatever against the blackguard mob! For their lives are ac-
tually endangered by the violence and brutality of the Loco
Foco assailants. Penknives, scissors, nails, &c. &c, are se.
creted by these ruffian radicals to assault and keep from the poll
any person who has the appearance of a gentleman, or teilo seems
desirous to rote fir a properly qualified and competent candidate!
Within earshot of the King's-House authorities the vilest epi-
thets and most abominable threats are levelled against the re-
spectable freeholders of the parish, and gentlemen who do not
like to expose their Fersons to the attacks of these cowardly
ruffians, are thus deterred from geing to the poll. TO; gives
the Loco Focos fresh spirit to exert their physical ability. and to
boast and barfly that, in a short time, they will be enabled to I, am-
ple law and justice, principle and propriety under their feet. Jack
Straw may be lord of the Ascendant, and -Isom Cades' mouth
the Parliament of Jamaica!—Whether Sir Lionel is instructed
to encourage this March of Democracy, we leave Lord Qlenelg
to explain. But his rejection of the former Election Law, and
other necesary acts to secure the property and privileges of the
subject, looks very much like an attempt to revolutionize the

NlAitcti t, 1838

island, and it is quite clear, unless the purity of election be main-
tained, and a Registration Act passed, securing us from the
preponderance of illegal voters, there is no chance that the pa-
rochial or legislative concerns of this colony can be carried on
with any degree of wisdom, propriety, or discretion. For, if
paupers, idlers, and blackguards are to be our parish officers
and legislators, we might as well resign ourselves to a military
government at once as the lesser evil,—always bearing in mind
that, in purchasing freedom for the bondmen of Africa, the mi-
nistry of England have been guilty of the base, treacherous, and
tyrannical act of enslaving the free-born subjects of Britain !"

Is not this picture an exact counterpart of what is en-
acted in Great Britain and Ireland ! Does it not for-
cibly remind our readers of the brutal scenes which were
witnessed at the last election for Liverpool ? Do we not
also find that the radicals of this town are equally anxi-
ous to fill every office of trust and importance with pre-
cisely the same class of persons, as we find described in
the preceding extract—men utterly devoid of principles
fortune, or respectability—ignorant, clownish, turbulent
demagogues ? We would particularly put our townsmen
on their guard, lest such scenes of ferocious intimidation
as were witnessed at the general election should be
again exhibited at the annual vestry meeting. The ra-
dicals of this town are capable of proceeding to any ex-
tremities, as was fully proved by the diabolical exhibi-
tion of last year.
We subjoin another extract illustrative of' the mis-
chievous consequences arising from the ascendancy of
radical principles :
" If the proprietors of this fine colony are doomed to be
trodden under the hoof of a ruthless democracy, and to be de-
prived of all power of protecting their property and privileges
—if the privilege of passing laws calculated to promote indus-
try, morality, and good order, is to be taken from them, and
they are to be placed at the mercy of a rapacious canaille—
then, the sooner they claim payment for the amount of their
property, and are thus enabled to remove from the island, the
better it will be for the cause of humanity and justice! The
ministers of the crown, at the passing of the abolition act,
pledged the government to be answerable for all the evil con-
sequences of what they acknowledged to be a rash and fright-
ful experiment ! They promised to administer the act they in-
sisted on passing, with strict and impartial justice, and to
make the probationary term of apprenticeship a noviciate
towards preparing the negro population for their future duties
in life. How have these pledges been redeemed by the parties
now in office? By the most shameless violation of a ratified
compact—by appointing partial. prejudiced, and ignorant per-
sons to pervert the meaning of the law, to give encouragement
to idleness, fraud, and intemperance, and to do all that in them
lay, as they have the indecency to confess—" to make the mas-
ters sick of the apprenticeship." We shall see,' say they, who
will tire soonest, those who are injured and abused and deprived
of their fair portion of labour, 01 those who have things all
their own way without reference to law or justice ! A passive re-
sistance to the equitable provisions of the abolition act has
been encouraged amongst the apprentices throughout the
colony—AND THIS, for the avowed purpose of making the
masters sick of the apprenticeship!' and inducing !hem to
abolish it at all risks ! ALTHOUGH THIS, they have not the power
to do without the sanction of her Majesty and the British
parliament ! But what inducement have they, even to pray for
its abolition, whilst the march of demoralization is on the
stride, industry on the decline, and no thing but anarchy and
confusion in prospect? Facts are stubborn things, and there-
fore by facts we shall hereafter demonstrate the truth of our
statements! For the present we refer to the table of exports
laid before the Assembly, which at once shows the lamentable
falling off in our crops, owing principally to the paralyzation of
industry. Next year threatens to be worse, as we understand
the coffee crops are rotting in the ground for lack of picking.
If these are to be the results of liberty, we say again, the
sooner the parliament pay us for our property, and present it
to their pets, the better it will be for the British colonists."—
Kingston Chronicle. Jan. 11.

Respecting the present position and future prospects
of the West India Islands we find the following strong
remarks :

" We may justly agree with the poet, who says that " coming
events cast their shadows before;' for certainly at no period of
colonial history were the prospects of the British colonists more
overshadowed with the gloom of evil forebodings and antici-
pated ruin than at the present alarming crisis. Having done
all that in them lay to satisfy the inordinate demands of the
parent government, they are now threatened with an entire
subversion of constitutional law and justice, and with measures
calculated to coerce every honest man into a violation of his
allegiance to the crown by the unprecedented injuries he is
doomed to sustain from a faction erected to destroy the rights
of the people. Canada is already a prey to martial contest,
and bow much blood will be shed before the conflict can be
quelled, we leave the adherents of the O'Connell revolutionists
to decide. The leader of that party had, doubtless,t reason to
call tier Majesty's ministers the brutal and bloody whips, from
the arbitrary measures be believed them capable of forcing--
upon his countrymen and fellow-subjects. But whether he
will advise them, now they have conciliated his favour, to pur-
sue the same harsh and coercive means of compelling a slavish
submission to their extra-judicial policy in these islands, we
have yet to learn, but if it should be attempted, we may speedily
prognosticate the downfall of her Majesty's empire in the•
west."—Kingstori Chronicle, Jan. 9.

- -
"On whichever side we turn, we are pained to hear the me-
lancholy forebodings as to the future prospects of Jamaica—the
lamentations as to the probable destruction of her agricultural pro-
perty, and the ruin and dispersion of her most useful and in-
dustrious classes, compelled to abandon a country without laws
to afford them protection, and where idleness and vice are per-
mitted to range at pleasure! The persons thus forced by a
treacherous and impolitic government to give up all hope of
securing their chartered liberties and rights will doubtless fly
to America, or the Spanish colonies, as their only place of re—
fuge from the insults and persecutions of a❑ anti-national
usurpating faction, who are sacrificing the interests of British
commonwealth to their own party views, and who, when all
classes of her Majesty's liege subjects find out the frauds and
delusions they have practised, by the jeopardy in which they
e placed, and the rapid decline of British commerce and
prosperity, will be visited with the just retribution of their rash
and selfish projects by finding their influence and power de-
graded to the dust, their names execrated, and their country
distracted by the turmoil and miseries of civil war—the inevi-
table result of the petty pride and low ambition of a mean and
intriguing spirit which seeks to aggrandize the unworthy at ther
cost of all that is wise, excellent, expedient, or just. One more
effort, the friends of this colony will soon be called upon t
make—if that fail, the government must be pledged to destroy
the charter granted by the King; and whether they be saints
or sinners to whom they have sold our privileges, they are
bound to pay the price of their own usurpations, and to give us
back the cost of the property sacrificed by their shameless vio-
lation of the national faith—the solemn oath and compact of
the imperial parliament of Dritaiu I",—Kinyston Chronicle..
Jan. 8.

From the following it would appear that the charge of
infringing the conditions of the Emancipation Act may
be retorted upon the government of this country :
" The present packet will convey to Great Britain pretty
striking evidence of the effects of the mispolicy of the govern-
ment with regard to her Majesty's transatlantic colonies ! The
Canadians in open arms to assert their independence, and the
West Indians sunk in apathy and despair at the irremediable
state of ruin and disorder brought upon their commerce, their,
property, and their plantations, by the persecuting spirit of
deceitful faction ! Without laws to stimulate labour, or to .
protect property or life, men look at each other, and inquire
how far the march of disorganization is to proceed ? Whether
they are to submit tamely to be taxed to feed a population who
will not work, but who profit by the plunder of the industrious;
or whether, like the Canadians, they must take arms in their
own defence to resist unlawful oppression ? The murmurs ark,•
not loud but deep against the treacherous and unconstitutioneK,
interference of the Colonial Secretary with the chartered rights
of the colonists. Erery honest and honorable man scorns the con-
temptible manner in which the whig ministry have managed to
forfeit and pervert their solemn pledge to the colonists, by forcing
upon them their own bribed tools to misinterpret and initucc the
Abolition Act—to make it an instrument of injury qnd vexation to
the master, and a means of jealousy and distrust to the apprentice;
to render it, in short, the source of continual bickerings and dis-
cord, and a pretence for teaching the negro labourer ju hate, de-
spise, and disobey his master! We had enough of travelling
parsons, mountebank doctors, and itinerant quacks and qqalicerp
of all descriptions, pursuing their peregrine,tions over the island
to pick up pence and popularity by preaching sedition to the
blacks, that God knows we had no need of government incen-
diaries or stipendiaries to add fuel to the same. The most of
the latter gentry, however, happeq to be in the pay of Alder-
manbury, and, therefore, could not do less than they were re.
quited—" Make the rnasterS as sick as they possibly could of
the apprenticeship term." These cantcraft ,fficials have shown
themselves on all occasions to be far snore merciless tyrants than.
the cruelest planter our annals can mate, and that without any
other motive than the vain display of their brief authority, or the
wicked one of making the system wrong. To their mismanage-
ment all the confusion and disorder it has produced, and they
alone are responsible for the misconstruction of the act. Con-
sidering these things, no wonder their friends deprecate a parlia-
mentary inquiry, or any fair and impartial inquiry, whir' wound
lead to an exposure (!f. their inalrersation of off' ce--to their abuse
and oppression of the master, and their tampering and intrigue
with the apprentices—to the exhibition of their ex-parte and lop-
sided decisions, and their glaring perversions of the provisions of
the law ! As to the ioiamous calumnies which Sturge and Co.
still t:ontinue to repeat, We can only assure our British readers