memorable of these had respect to the religious teachers of the slaves. They had been sent out by various bodies of Christians in England, commencing nearly a hundred years before these antislavery efforts. The object of the missionary was a definite one, to christianize the negroes. He knew well, before engaging in his work, that those who might come under his instruction were slaves, and because they were slaves the call was all the louder upon his compassion. Yet his path of duty lay wide enough from any attempt to render the objects of his Christian efforts other than they were in their civil relations. Such were the instructions which the missionaries were accustomed to receive, on leaving England for a residence among the Colonists. Nor was there ever, from the beginning to the ending of this stirring chapter in the history of Slavery, reason to believe that these instructions had been disobeyed. Their labors had in some instances been encouraged by the planters, and their influence acknowledged to be a valuable aid in the management of the negroes. But in these days of excitement and insubordination the missionaries were accused of encouraging disobedience in the slaves. When outbreaks occurred, the guilt was laid to the charge of the Christian teachers. Upon a mere suspicion, without a shadow of evidence, they were seized and thrown into prison. One of the most melancholy instances of this was that of the Rev. J. Smith, who was sentenced to be hanged, but died in prison, through hardships endured, before the day of execution arrived. He was only one of several who suffered at the hands of the West Indians the grossest injustice. The case of Mr. Shrewsbury was at one time brought before the House. Mr. Canning made reference to him as (6 a gentleman in whose conduct there did not appear to be the slightest ground of blame or suspicion." He was a Wesleyan missionary at Barbadoes, and, having fallen under suspicion, was also condemned to die. Among other charges, he was accused of having corre

Said the lat

sponded with Mr. Buxton. ter, in an address to the House,- “I never wrote to him a single letter, nor did I know that such a man existed, till I happened to take up a newspaper, and there read, with some astonishment, that he was going to be hanged for corresponding with me!"

If Englishmen and Christian ministers were condemned to death on such allegations, adduced at mock trials, it is not strange that negroes sometimes lost their lives on similar grounds. After a rising among these people, several having been executed, the evidence of the guilt of a certain portion was reviewed in the House of Commons. The witness was asked whether he had found guns among the insurgents. He replied, "No; but he was shown a place where guns had been"! Had he found bayonets ? "No; but he was shown a basket where bayonets had been"! Unfortunately, the victims of this species of evidence were already hung when the review of the trial took place.

This last incident brings us to another feature of those times, the actual insurrections which took place among the slaves. Passing by the lesser excitements of Barbadoes and Demerara, we come to the great rising in Jamaica in 1832. A servile war is generally represented as displaying at every point its banners of flame, plashing its feet meanwhile in the blood of women and children. But the great insurrection of 1832, which, as it spread, included fifty thousand negroes in its train, was in the beginning simply a refusal to work.

Fiercely discussed by the masters, emancipation began to be spoken of among the slaves. Necessarily they must know something about it; but, in their distorted and erroneous impressions, they believed that "the Great King of England" had set them free, and the masters were wilfully withholding the boon.

There was one, a negro slave, whose dark glittering eye fascinated his fellows, and whose wondrous powers of speech drew them, despite themselves,

into the conspiracy. But he planned no murders, designed no house-burnings; to those who, under solemn pledge of secrecy, joined him, he propounded a single idea. It was this. If we, the negroes, who are as five to one, compared to the white men, refuse to work any more until freedom is given, we shall have it. There will be some resistance, and a few of us will be killed; but that we must expect. This, in substance, was the ground taken by Sharpe, who, as a slave, had always been a favorite both with his master and others. This was the commencement of the great insurrection. Its leader had not counted upon the excitable spirit of the slaves when once aroused. Holding as sacred the property of his master, he believed his followers would do the same, until the light of burning barns and out-houses revealed the mischief which had begun to work. Yet, in the sanguinary struggle which followed, it is to be remembered that the excesses which were committed, the wanton waste of life, were on the part of the white residents, who meted out vengeance with an unsparing hand,—not on the part of the negroes.

One effect of this uprising of the slaves was, in England, to deepen the impression of the evils of the system under which they were held. If the mere discussion of Slavery were fraught with such terrible consequences, how could safety ever consist with the thing itself? By discussion they had but exercised their own rights as Englishmen. Of what use to them was Magna Charta, if they must seal their lips in silence when a public abuse required to be corrected, a gigantic wrong to be righted? Must they give up the ocean and the land to the dominion of the slave-owner and slave-trader, hushing the word of remonstrance, lest it should lead to war and bloodshed? No; they would not do this. The thing itself which had caused these commotions must perish.

Here was a decided gain for the friends of the slave in Parliament. Mr. Buxton, in alluding to the fearful aspect of the

times, asks the pertinent question, "How is the Government prepared to act in case of a general insurrection among the slaves?" We give the closing paragraphs of his speech at this crisis.

"I will refer the House to the sentiments of Mr. Jefferson, the President of the United States. Mr. Jefferson was himself a slave-owner, and full of the prejudices of slave-owners; yet he left this memorable memorial to his country: 'I do, indeed, tremble for my country when I remember that God is just, and that His justice may not sleep forever. A revolution is among possible events; the Almighty has no attribute which would side with us in such a struggle.'

"This is the point which weighs most heavily with me. The Almighty has no attribute that will side with us in such a struggle. A war with an overwhelming physical force, a war with a climate fatal to the European constitution, a war in which the heart of the people of England would lean toward the enemy: it is hazarding all these terrible evils; but all are light and trivial, compared with the conviction I feel that in such a warfare it is not possible to ask nor can we expect the countenance of Heaven."

While events tended to bring the whole system of Slavery into odium, the leaders of the Abolition party were themselves changing their ground. They had begun with the hope of mitigating the hardships of the slave's lot,-to place him upon the line of progression, and so ultimately to fit him for freedom. But they had found themselves occupying a false position. Slowly they came to the conclusion that for the slave little could be accomplished in the way of improvement, so long as he remained a slave. The complete extinction of the system was now the object aimed at. At a crowded Anti-Slavery meeting held in May, 1830, Mr. Wilberforce presided. The first resolution, moved by Mr. Buxton, was this, "That no proper or practicable means be left unattempted for effecting, at the earliest period, the entire abolition of Slavery throughout the British dominions." At

a meeting held in Edinburgh similar language was used by Lord Jeffrey. Said Dr. Andrew Thomson, one of the most influential of the Scottish clergy,—" We ought to tell the legislature, plainly and strongly, that no man has a right to property in man, that there are eight hundred thousand individuals sighing in bondage, under the intolerable evils of West Indian Slavery, who have as good a right to be free as we ourselves have,- that they ought to be free, and that they must be made free!"

Another element at this time wrought in favor of the Abolitionists. Of the missionaries who had suffered persecution in the Colonies, numbers had returned to England. These religious teachers, while plying their vocation in the West Indies, had acted in obedience to the instructions received from the societies which employed them. Necessarily, while in a slave country, they had been silent upon the subject of Slavery. But in truth they liked the institution as little as Mr. Buxton himself. Once in England, the seal of silence melted from their lips. Everywhere in public and in private they made known the evils and cruelties of Slavery. Some of these persons had been examined by Parliamentary committees, and being acquitted of every suspicion of misstatement, their testimony received this additional sanction. The tale of wrong which they revealed was not told in vain. Each returned missionary exerted an influence upon the religious body which he represented. The aggregate of this influence was great.

If, in the latter stages of the Emancipation effort, the backwardness of the Administration was an evil omen, making final success a difficult achievement, this was balanced by reform in Parliament. At the recent elections, anti-slavery sentiments in the candidate were in some quarters requisite to success. A story is told of a gentleman who had spent some time canvassing and found abundant evidence of this. At an obscure village he had been hailed with the question, whether he was trying to get into the Lords or

Commons. "But," added the simple questioners, "whichever you do get into, you must vote for the poor slaves."

To the aid of the Emancipation leaders there came now a new element, a power so strong that it required no small share of skill to hold it in, that it might work no evil in contributing to the desired end.

Since the commencement of efforts for the slave a considerable period had passed. These efforts extended, in fact, over nearly half a century. During that time, pamphlet after pamphlet and volume after volume had set forth the evils and abominations of Slavery, forcing the subject upon the public attention. The leaven had worked slowly, and for a portion of the time in comparative silence; but the work was done. The British people were aroused. The great heart of the nation was beating in response to the appeals for justice and right which were made in their ears. The world can scarce furnish a parallel to this spectacle of moral sublimity. It was the voice of a people, calling, in tones that must be heard, for justice and freedom, and that not for themselves, but for a distant, a defenceless race.

The publication of a circular inviting Anti-Slavery delegates to London, a movement made by the leaders of the cause, in its results took the most enthusiastic by surprise. More than three hundred appeared in answer to the call. Mr. Buxton met them in Exeter Hall. With a rampant freedom of opinion, there was little prospect of harmony of action being attained, however desirable it might be. Through the influence of Mr. Buxton and his coadjutors, these men of conflicting theories were brought into such a degree of harmonious action that an address was drawn up embodying their sentiments and laid before Lord Althorp, at that time the head of the Administration. The strong outside pressure of the nation at large upon the Government was evident. The strength of the Emancipationists in Parliament, also, had been carefully estimated, and success could no longer be doubted.

The fourteenth of May, 1833, witnessed an animated debate in the House. While the advocates of Emancipation desired for the negro unconditional freedom, they found the measure fettered by the proposal of Mr. Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, that he be placed for a number of years in a state of apprenticeship. Twelve years of this restricted freedom was, by the influence of Mr. Buxton, reduced to seven, and the sum of twenty millions of pounds sterling being granted to the slave-owners, the bill for the abolition of Negro Slavery passed the House of Commons. With some delay it went through the Upper House, and on the 28th of August, receiving the royal assent, it became a law. The apprenticeship system was but short-lived, its evilworking leading to its abolition in its fourth year.

It has been often said, with how much of truth it is not our purpose here to inquire, that in this country the mention of the evils of Slavery is and must be fraught with most evil consequences. Yet the agitation of this subject, whether for good or evil, in the United States, is intimately connected with the whole movement in England. In the earlier stages of the measures directed against the trade, a hearty response was awakened here; nor could the subsequent act of emancipation fail to produce an impression everywhere, and most of all among ourselves. United to the English nation by strong affinities, one with them in language and literature, yet cleaving still to the institution which England had so energetically striven to destroy, could it be otherwise than that such a movement on her part should awaken an eager interest among us? Could such an event as the release from slavery of eight hundred thousand negroes in the British Colonies pass by unnoticed? To suppose this is preposterous. It is not too much to say, that the effect of British emancipation was, at the time it took place, to give in certain portions of the United States an increased degree of life to the anti-slavery senti

ment. No words could have been uttered, whieh, reaching the shores of America, would have been half so emphatic as this one act of the British nation. Among the causes which have nourished and strengthened the anti-slavery sentiment among us this has its place. Verily, if England gave us the poison, she has not been slow to proffer to us the antidote.

Concerning the actual fruits of Emancipation, it may be asked, What have they been? The world looked on inquiringly as to how the enfranchised negroes would demean themselves. One fact has never been disputed. This momentous change in the social state of near a million of people took place without a single act of vioence on the part of the liberated slaves. Neither did the measure carry violence in its train. So far the act was successful. But that all which the friends of Emancipation hoped for has been attained, no one will assert. When, however, we hear of the financial ruin of the Islands, as a consequence of that measure, it may be well to inquire into their condition previous to its taking place. That the West India Colonies were trembling on the brink of ruin at the close of the last century is evident from their repeated petitions to the mother country to take some measures to save them from utter bankruptcy. This can hardly be laid to the extinction of Slavery, for both Slavery and the SlaveTrade were at that time in the height of successful operation.

Again, if the West Indian negro is not to-day all that might be wished, or even all that, under the influence of freedom, he had been expected to become, there may possibly be a complication of causes which has prevented his elevation. He has been allowed instruction, indeed, to some extent; the continued labors of those who contended for his freedom have secured to him the schoolmaster and the missionary. But this is not enough. Has he been taught the use of improved methods of agriculture, the application of machinery to the production of required re

sults? Has he been encouraged to works of skill, to manufacturing arts even of the ruder kind? Has he not rather been subjected to the same policy which, before the Revolution, discountenanced manufactures among ourselves, and has caused the fabrics of the East Indies to be disused, and the factories of Ireland to stand still?

These questions need not be pursued. Yet, amid the conflicting voices of the evil days upon which we are fallen, now and then we hear lifted up a plea for Emancipation, an entreaty for the removal of the accursed thing which has plunged the happiest nation upon earth into the direst

of calamities.

Of the causes which have affected the success of Emancipation in the case before us, it may be remarked, that, so far as their

action has been pernicious, they would operate among ourselves less than in any colony of Great Britain, abundantly less than in the West Indies. The greater variety of employments with which the Maryland or Kentucky negro is familiar, his more frequent proficiency in mechanical pursuits, combined with other circumstances, render him decidedly a more eligible subject for freedom than the negro of Jamaica.

The changes which may issue in this country from the present commotions it were vain to predict. It may not, however, be unwise, in considering, as we have done, an achievement nobly conceived and generously accomplished, to examine carefully into the causes which may have rendered it otherwise than completely successful in its results.