Star. — 1816-01-20 (London, England)

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 Committee 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 India Islands ; and that from one or two insulated tact: it would he highly unwarrantable to draw conchssi4.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 Revolutionary 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 interference 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 disseminated, 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: Domingo 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.  ..