To The Rev. Thomas Cooper...
The Times, 1824-01-27T00:00:00

In the Morning t Cronicke of Ehe 19th instant, I see your reply to some queries which were put to you by me in The Tisnes news paper of the 3d of December; and in the interval I instantaneously ac- cepted your challenge to come forward withmy real nameand adre". I meant no offence to you when I stated that you had been pa. tronized " by Mr. Hibbert under circmnstances which made it con- venient to you to be so." I have understood that the terms upon which your assistance wasengaged were'consideredby you andbyyour friends to be liberal; and mbcy gave facility to some domestic ar- rangements. Ytour acknowledgments of the uniform kindness and attendon wlhich you experienced from your employer are sufficiestlv explicit; and I would only hence infer, that he was entitled to your umeserved confidence, and to the earliest possible communication of every ctrcumstance within your knowledge which was at variance with his humane purposes, or could at7ect his interests. Do not suppose that I had any intention of drawing from you, for his sake, a tribute of commendation; brt I could have wished that from your report it had appeared in how many instances the master of slaves. far from indulging that indolent disregard of their well-being which has often been imputed to the planters in mass, is anxiously and continually studying to promote their cormfort and civilization. The expense of your mission, and the orders which you nozv tell us were given by my relative for the conduct of his estate,are cases in point,and you would find, upon impartial inquiry,that many planters resident in Great Britain are as humanely provident as Mr. Hibbert; who, far froi coveting distinction in this respecis anxious not to be supposedl to claim merit for sacrifices wvlich lie has not actually made. le was contented to receive 300 bogsheads of sugar from an estate wlhicli was said to be capable of producisig 400; but he assures Pie that lie was andi is well convinced that the last men- tioned quantitv could not be obtained, excepting bv ineanis quite as unwvise as oppressive, and such as no considerate planter would re- sort to. Y'ou resided upon Georgia upwards of tliTee years for the purpose of cultivating among the slaves sentiments of morality and religion, ald upon your retuTn to this country you pr-onounced that your mis- sion had turned out " a total failure." It miglht fail by the fitult of others, or tlhrouigh circumstances which you could not control; it might possibly fail (perhaps you will ad- mit) through the nature of the means tsed by you, or the degree of skill and diligence with xvhich they were applied ; and of course it might fail bv a joint operation of tbese causes. (Coild I liave believed that the reports. you have published and sanctioned concerning this mission had been mnceived and written with a fair antl candid spirit, you wvould not have been, iul any shape, addressed by me. Wi'ith your religious opinions I have no- thing to do,excepting so far as a re,erence to them miav serve to cor- rect that conclutsion which you mean to impress upon your-readers- that in no orte instance has your want of success been owing to any deficiency or fault of yours. but entirely to that state of society in the colon!, or to those regulations on Georgia estate,which opposed, as you .Uege, insuperable obstacles to your progress. It is not to be wondered at that after an undertaking w'iich cost to my relative, as you say, " a heavy sum," and of which, after more than three rears' perseverance, the result was so discou- raging, you should endeavour to shift all responsibility for the failure nff yo wa shoulders; hut a n impartial reader may suspect that, while this end was in your view, you may have exaggerated the dif- ficulties urith which you had to conteod, and somewhat overcharged the causes to which you are pleased to impute your ill success. In a letter of yoms, so vwhich I shall presently alUude, yoil con- fidently assume that "the failure of your undertAliing must not be imputed to your peculiar views of Gospel truth ;" yet in the same 'etter you acknow ledge that " the plans for converting the slaves, peculiar to some other missionaries, are regarded by you as be- ing well calculatedl to bring about the much desired and necessary reformation." Now the history of your mission should, in candour. have included some explanation of ii your peculiar views of Gospel truth," and of the degree in which tbey difter from those of other missionaries who have been more successfulgleaners than yourselfin the same field of enterprise. I might refer rou to your own correspondence with Euelpis, in the llfontry Rtepository, and to various reports from the Miissionary Societies, vhich sufflciently prove the reasonableness of a fuller ec- planation from you on this suhject. You have repeatedly and strongly excpressed your opinion that the slaves in our colonies are not fited for emancipation; and that rashlv and hastily to hazard that step, witbout much preyious instruction and preparation, woald be inconsistent both with policy and hu,- manity; and, quite as decd:edly, you pronounce that, while slaves, they catnot be governed without corporal punishment, and that the degree of instrtctiool wvhich you conceive to be necessary as a pre- paration for freedom would excite them to revolt. Yoa cannot but admit, thenU that it becomes a matter of great s'ifliculty so to gra- duate their instruction in their state OF slavery, as to prepare thenm for emancipation witthout danger'of excciting them to insurrectnon; and one would imagine that in such a dilenmma your philanthropy would have been contented with a very slow, if sure, progress in instruction. Mlr. Hibbert has always corntended (as Eneipps seems also to maintain), that without teaching them even to read, some use- ful, moral, and religious impressions may be made upon the minds of Negro slaves ; and anxious as you show yourself to prove that you had not time for this task, if yet appears from your own accrount, that for making some progress in it, opportunities were not wanting; and you cainot but know that when Negroes are sicL, or, as it often happens, are permitted from very slight causes to rest in the hospital, there are at nll such times very favourable mo. ments for cultivating among a portion of them rmoral and religious sentiments. MUr. Hibbert aclnowledges that. upon inquiry he finds that his water-mill was occasionally put about upon a Sunday evening; and when he heard of the practice, lc immnediately ordered it to ba dis- cnutinued. Although he is of opinion that you sometimes confounrd the just punishment of crime wvith cruelty, insinuating that both are the evil results of slavery, yet he will notadmitthatsomeofthe cases you have related are not (if' faithfilly represented) cases of atrocity, such as, if reported to hirn, would have had his indignant reprobation, aud have roused his attention to prevent their repetition; but he believes that in the report you have published, you have oc- asionally exaggerated, and mentions, a.4 instances, what you state is to the absoliute dominion of an overseer over the slSves; the- small value attached to good charater and moral qualities in a slave ; the hardships of labour, and alnmost total wrant of rest in crop time, the little attention paid to pregnant females; and the frequent occurF renceof the removal of slaves from onepart of the island to anotlier, at a great distance. In these respects it would be an easy matter to prove that the picture you have drawn is not faithful, but the discus- sion would too much lengthen this letter. It was not candid in you to omit, in your earsy report, to state vue fact, that the overseer who was on Georgia durlng twvo years and a halfof your residence there, and who was esteemed to' be a most skilful planter, was discharged six months before you quitted the estate, and not in consequence of any representation made by you; and you mighthave told us whether the genetal appearance of the slaves was, er was not, in your opinion, bettered by tbe change; and this I the rather press, as 1Mnr Oates, the attorney of Alr. Hib. bert, in whose scrupulous veracity I bave the highest confidence, affirms, that before you quitted the estatc, you several times declared In his hearing, " That the negroes were a veiy happy peasantry; indeed, much better off than many ofthe labouring classes -in Eng- land, and that their houses were, on muany estates, far more com- fortable than the cottages at heine." It is the aim of your report to represent that wbat you saw at Georgia liresent.s a 5tt5ering picture of the general condition of the Negros- in Jamaica; "that this estate was one as likely as any other to have been selected in order to convey themostfavourable represen- tation of Negrobondage," &c. Now this, with y6urkowledge efthe overseer's dismissal, is not fair; nor can we learn from your reporr that your personal examination of different estates in -various parts of so Large an island as Jamaica warrants yon in anv such condusion. Your excuses for not communicating to Air. Hlbbert by means of Mr. Frcnd, whatever you observed amiss in the treatment of,his Negroes, are very unsatisfactory. You was desired to cerrespond with Air. Frend for the very purpose of youf escaping the imp ita- tion of espionnage (1 use your own term) : and utnder the diffiul-. ties of applying a cure to al the evils which you state as belonging to slavery, what better couldapreacherof the Gospel and a friend of humanity do, than 'to become instrumental in promoting the imune. diate comfort of the slaves, and in averting from them aU unneces- sary hardships; instilling meantime into their minds, on every op- portunity which could be seized, safea:d valuable irustruction ? But concerning the treattnent of the slaves, you were totally silent until Your return to England, and even then, instead of com- municating to Ur.- Hibbert what especial. related to his estate, you offered -general remarks upon the evils of the system-evils which, by your own admission, can only be safely corrected with the utmost caution, and by very slow degrees. I have had access to the contents of two letters from y6u, addiessed to N r. Saimuel Vaughan, dated the 11th of November. 1820, and the20th oF March,1821. Mr. Vaughan is well known as hn emi. nent plnter, anid as a humane -ran-anxious as mnaby> other planters are, to impress upon theslavesuseful, moral, ana lemigioia instractlon. Mr. Oates introiuceAy 7uto RMr. Vauglasi pUDpOsedy !hatZyu Might confer with him upon tbie best means of accomplish- 'ilg rneLobjeefyis xnission. Thezse letteys I viU publish, if you 4siOC .ita tlley are',ininy opinion, very creditable to yOur motives,' iand.to-ur zcsl; the'yre referred to by me because, to my convic- tion,' they establish tzo facts:- 1. Vhat the sssetion'which you have sanctioned,tbht "yon do not recollect to have seen a single whiie man in Jaanica who showed any serious concern about religion. escepting somemissionarici,' (rlyour memorv deserve any confidence-whatever). cannot be correctly true. 2. Thiat " your peculiar views of Gospel truth," whateverbe thci foundation in (lospel and in truthi, areunfortunatlIljl1 adapted to your Purs-se of converting to Vhuistianity such-a descriptiot -e de- rafiAe perso'ns as, b vour report, are the Negroesol Geo I shouQlA infer from thefisst fact; tbaveitherby hastyZtnlOrwaote of memory, you may have been incorrect in other statements, not so. easy of detetion; and I cannot admit that the opinions -of Mr. Stewart, or of any other writer on the subject, caR affect the fairness of this wonAusion. The justice of my seeond inference I must expect that you will not admit, nod you may choose that the letters should appear in The, 77ies nev spaper, in order that vou magyexpl7an the passages to which Irefer. In thatess as I mean heret onl my part, to elote our correspondence). I will not accompany t lettes with any com ment cxceptlngarepetition e>f that very b'rief one wghich I now70ffer. And, afterany explans?ion of yours, I will then be contented to abide by the decision of the public, wvheter to " your pecaliar viewa oflospel-truth" may not, in a great degree, be fairly attributed '; thetotal failure of your rnissfon." Portland.place, Jan._ 23. GEOU HIIBBB1gT. TU I')'E REV. THTOMAS COOPER.