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with others, were weeding the dam; they had made a fire to drive away the sandflies; they were seen by Mr. Toel, the manager, suckling their infants; he inquired if they had no work to do; they replied they had just taken their children up, who were crying; they were laid down and flogged; their coats were stained with blood. Mr. Toel took the fire up, and threw it in the trench. Julia was locked up in the stocks because she did not keep with the rest of the gang, and threatened to be flogged next morning; she is a young girl, with her first child. Lea complains that she is not allowed to suckle her child during her work; she was threatened to be flogged next day by Mr. Toel, at same time with Julia."

"Complaint of the woman Minkie, belonging to Thomas C. Jones :-Says, Mr. Jones took her out of the barracks on Tuesday; after I got home he sent me to Mr. Henery; he would not buy me. He sent me to another gentleman, I do not know his name, but he lives in town; they both said my master asked too much money for me, and sent me back. I begged for a pass to look for an owner; he said no, he would put me down and would give me more than the law gives. I was then laid down and tied to three stakes, and Chance flogged me with a cart-whip; I got a severe flogging; I saw Mr. Layfield at his door with another gentleman, and Mr. Kerschner, the baker, saw it from his window. Mr. Jones bought me for Mr. Logie of Demerara. I have marks of severe punishment visible on me, old and recent floggings, all inflicted by Jones. Exhibits her person, which is apparently lacerated to that degree that the court judged it expedient to direct her not to uncover the wounds. Mr. Jones said he had flogged her, and broke her mouth for her insolence. He had thirty-nine laid on her, and they were well inflicted. When he sent for her, he had no intention of flogging her; but after sending her to three persons for sale, and not succeeding, he told her she had often deserved a flogging; he then directed her to be flogged, and that they should be well laid on, which was done. Felix, belonging to Plantation Scotland, states,

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"That he has had a Black woman upon the estate for his wife now two years; and the reason of his coming to complain is, that the manager of the estate takes her from him, although he has a wife of his own. He is always taking the Negroes' wives, particularly his wife (Felix's); for she has had a child for him; and since the child has been born, the manager is always punishing him and his wife without a cause. Some time ago ten of the gang came to complain to their master (Dr. Broer), to report to him that

the manager had connexion with their wives; their master promised to them that he would remove the manager from the estate, and place another one there. Upon this promise the Negroes returned to the estate; but since that they have never heard of another manager. Felix and his wife are daily punished, which has compelled him to come to your Honour for redress. He calls upon the whole gang of the estate to prove his assertions to be correct. On hearing this complaint, the acting fiscal proceeded to the estate, accompanied by Dr. Broer, the owner; and on questioning the manager and Negroes, in presence of each other, on the subject-matter of the complaint, it appeared that Felix had neglected his work, and was told he would be punished if he did not finish his task the next day, which he did not do; and therefore, supposing the manager would punish him, he went to the fiscal to complain. This being proved, Felix was punished for his misconduct, and the manager severely repri manded for taking improper liberties with the women on the estate, which it was evident he had done; and Dr. Broer was therefore strongly recommended to discharge him from his employ."

That Felix should be the person punished for misconduct, will appear very extraordinary to all who have not imbibed their notions of justice in slave colonies, and it is the more surprising that the fiscal should pursue this course in the present instance, as some time before he had then president of the court of justice, addressed a letter to Governor Beard, in which he charges these very persons, Broer and his manager, specifically; first, with greatly over-working the Negroes; secondly, with severe flogging repeated on successive evenings, and with illegal instruments of punishment; thirdly, with making them work on Sunday; and fourthly, with considerably underfeeding them. The case was so gross that, notwithstanding an attempt on the part of the owner and manager to deny the charges, the fiscal ordered them to diminish the tasks of the Negroes, and to increase their food; forbad their being worked on Sunday; threatened the owner with prosecution; and told the Negroes if their wrongs were not redressed, they should complain again.

The next case is that of a father, who complains in consequence of being flogged by the manager of Providence plantation for refusing to give his consent to the prostitution of his child.

The manager

of this estate on another occasion, laid a Negro on the ground with two drivers over him, who gave him 100 lashes. His innocence being afterwards proved,

the fiscal reprimanded the manager for punishing a Negro on such slight grounds. Four Negroes belonging to Cotton-tree plantation, the property of the Hon. W. Katz, complain of various severities. The charges are denied by the manager and overseer; the persons, in fact, who are accused; and on their denial, the fiscal finds the complaint unfounded, and orders three of the complainants to be punished with seventy-five lashes, and one with fifty, in his own presence, in the market place. There are complaints also against Mr. Katz, from his estate of Philadelphia. Among others, Murphy came to the fiscal to complain, instead of going to Mr. Katz; because three Negroes had gone to complain to Mr. Katz, and, without sending for the manager, they were flogged and sent back, and the next day one of them was flogged again by the manager.

Mr. Grade, the manager of plantation l'Esperance, is charged by the slaves with various delinquencies. A pregnant woman, named Rosa, was picking coffee with some other women. Thinking they did not pick enough or well, Mr. Grade ordered the driver Zondag to flog them. The driver did so. Rosa had previously objected to working, as being unable to stoop; but the manager over-ruled the objection, and she went to pick coffee on her knees. Zondag explained to the manager her condition. The manager replied, "Give it to her till the blood flies out." She was flogged with the whip doubled. This was on a Friday. She was sent to the field on Saturday. The result of this melancholy case is too horrible for us to relate. It beggars all our former conceptions even of West-India inhumanity.

A Negro woman named Laura, belonging to plantation Reliance, with a very young child at the breast, complains that she is not allowed to take her child to the field to give it the breast now and - then, but is obliged to leave it with an old woman at home. When she steals from her work to the child and is discovered, the manager flogs her. The child is of a weakly constitution, and requires a mother's care, which she is not able to bestow. The manager does not deny any of the above facts; only says, that, the women with young children are not required to come out till half-past six in the morning, and they quit the field at half-past ten, return to the field at half-past one, and leave it at half-past five.

The complaints are more frequent from Sandvoort, formerly one of the crown estates, than from any other plantation.

"Carolus says he is sick and swelling, and that he cannot work, though willing. When he complains of sickness, the manager licks him, instead of helping him. " AmYesterday he was twice licked." his bones; he does his best, but cannot sterdam says he is afflicted with pains in work as others who are healthy. Mr. Cameron licks him with a horse-whip, curses him, and when he goes to the hospital drives him away."- Mietje says she is willing to work when healthy. She went yesterday sick to the hospital. Instead of getting physic, she received a flogging. She is still sick, and has come to com plain."-" Lambert had a bad disease, and the manager would give him nothing. He disease, but is directed by the fiscal to be ran away." He is admitted to labour under punished.

Jenny complains of her mistress, Elizabeth Atkinson, that she beats her unmer

cifully, kicked and trampled on her belly, locked her in the stocks, and beat her on the back. In half an hour she miscarried. Her child Philip is extremely ill-treated, and is never allowed to come near her. The child is exhibited: marks of severe flogging over the whole body.

General Murray, the late governor of Demerara, well known by the share he had in the prosecution of Smith, the Missionary, has two estates in Berbice, Resolution and Buses Lust, from which there are numerous complaints. For example, Hopkins complains that

He has been flogged severely by the manager, on account of complaining he was sick, three different times; once 12, another time 39, and again 25 lashes have been inflicted; shews marks of severe flogging, and much neglected.”—Michael says that they work from morning till late in the evening picking coffee;" and when he comes home, between six and seven

in the evening, instead of going home to get some victuals, he is ordered to work till twelve at night, bringing mud from one place to another. Also on Sundays they are ordered to work; and if they should refuse they would be flogged." Philip makes a similar complaint. Thomas "Says he is an old man, and the work that the manager gives him to do is impossible for him to complete, from the weakness of his body and state; for which he is always punished, and kept continually in the stocks.'

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The result of the complaints made to the fiscal is seldom given. In this instance it is given in very laconic terms, and will doubtless surprize our readers: "Two directed to receive SEVENTY-FIVE lashes." Again, on the 17th November 1823, at the very time when Smith's trial was proceeding, we have a complaint from ten women belonging to the same plantation. Among other things, they say:

"If any of the women be pregnant, no attention is paid to them; they are wrought as hard as the others; for that reason there are no children; manager says he does not come to mind children.'

The Negroes of Culcaim plantation make bitter complaints against their manager. Their complaints are referred by the fiscal to a burgher officer. His letter of instructions on the occasion throws no small light on the principles on which justice is administered to complaining slaves. After stating the heads of complaint, the fiscal observes,—

"Although I am perfectly satisfied that Mr. Ross would not permit his slaves to be oppressed by the manager, yet some of the charges of complaints may require redress; and in such case I certainly shall recommend Mr. Ross to afford instant relief. I am also well aware and fully confident that such recommendation would be needless if the complainants had not lost sight of a duty incumbent on them, to have sought

redress in the first instance from Mr. Ross, their proprietor."-The Negroes distinctly say they had complained to Mr. Ross, and were refused redress.--In case the officer considers the complaints ground.. less, the fiscal says: "I would then recommend you to direct the said Negroes to be exemplarily punished in presence of the gang; and one of them having asserted that

was the one who induced them

to come to town to complain, he ought to receive fifty lashes, and the others thirty-nine each, well applied, and cautioned to refrain from further wanton behaviour, on pain of

more severe punishment.

"Ness states, That he is the driver over the women, and the manager asked him last Sunday why he did not go to work; and he answered that he had not been ordered to do so, or he would have gone to work, as he did not wish to do any thing without the managers's order. The manager then offered to flog him; but he made his escape, and came to your Honour for redress.—The complainant in this instance was punished by the acting fiscal for having left the estate and come to town to complain without any cause, and when he had been guilty of disobedience of orders and neglect of duty; and the manager was warned of the impropriety and illegality of working the Negroes on Sunday."

The manager is not punished for so flagrant a breach of the law, but warned of its impropriety! The poor Negro is punished!

But we have done. We have not given a tithe of the atrocities brought before the fiscal of the small colony of Berbice, containing about 20,000 slaves! What a mass of horrors should we have had before us, could we have had a similar return from all our colonies, containing altogether upwards of forty times that number! Only three, however, of these colonies have fiscals, or any analogous officers, to record, in any manner, however imperfect, such transactions. Last year Mr. Baring facetiously observed, that "what might be called our stock stories" were worn threadbare. He was tired to hear of nothing but Huggins and Carty, and Kitty and Thisbe: they were repeated in every speech and pamphlet, also the absence of any new facts of the till they were fairly worn out, proving same kind. The fresh importation, of which we have given a specimen, will prevent, in the next session of Parliament, the offence to good taste of which Mr. Baring so sensitively complains. His commerce connects him with Berbice, the scene of these atrocities; and yet Mr. Baring, with all his assumed knowledge of the subject, was as ignorant of these transactions as the child unborn; and would have been perfectly incredulous of them had they come, not from the fiscal of Berbice, himself a planter, but from some of those persons whom he unfairly and ungenerously represents as fabricating such stories in order to curry favour with their employers. He complains too of the assiduity with which petitions are got up on this subject. And does he suppose that such transactions as these, when they come to be known, will not rouse the public to petition? The people of great Britain cannot remain unaffected by such enormities perpetrated on their helpless fellow-subjects; nor can they continue to tolerate those fiscal regulations by which they are made to pay, in bounties and protecting duties, for the cost of this bloody and murderous system.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

S.; D.; J. M. W.; W. W.; NAZARENUS; H. D.; Y. Y.; G. S. F.; A CONSTANT READER; are under consideration.

We are much obliged to our correspondent R. for his offer to translate a further portion of Chrysostom's works for our miscellany; but the two Homilies already inserted, with another prepared for press, will probably be sufficient to content most of our readers as a specimen. Our learned correspondent will perhaps turn his attention to some other neglected Father.

We are sorry we cannot give L. M. the address of the correspondent respecting whom he inquires.

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

No. 287.]

NOVEMBER, 1825. [No. 11. Vol. XXV.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Christian Observer. MANKIND RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

A FEW years since it would have been thought quite a superfluous proposition to have enunciated, that men are responsible for their religious opinions. The certainty of human accountableness was till recently a settled part of the creed of all who professed to believe in the existence of the soul, or the doctrine of a future state; and indeed must ever be the firm belief of all who seriously credit those fundamental articles of religion. It is notorious however, that of late years, an hypothesis has widely gone abroad, that men are not responsible for their opinions. The anti-Christian physiologists on the continent, followed by some of their disciples among ourselves, have been among the warmest patrons of this dangerous sentiment. Mankind, it is alleged, merely obey their destiny; they follow certain unalterable laws of organization, affecting the mind as much as the body, and are no more answerable for their opinions, than for their physical conformation. The brain, these professed philosophers teach us, secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile; and it would therefore be as absurd to suppose that a man is blamable for being an Atheist, as for being afflicted with an attack of jaundice. They in fact broadly lay down the principle, that it is utterly impossible that any human being, exposed to the particular influences which it has been his chance to encounter, could be otherwise than he is, either in body or mind. He grows like a CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 287.

vegetable, or accretes like a chrystal, or is attracted and repulsed like a particle of iron exposed to magnetic affections; and, taking the aggregate of all the circumstances that assail him, combined with the primordial tendencies of his organization, he comes out what he is, good or bad, virtuous or vicious, religious or irreligious, a blessing or a curse to himself and others, according to circumstances over which he himself has no control. The reader has but to open Mr. Lawrence's Lectures on Physiology, or Sir Charles Morgan's Treatise on the "Philosophy of Morals," or any other book of this class, to see that the above statement is not in the least exaggerated.

The theory has descended from these physiologists to certain of our professed philanthropists, of whom Mr. Owen, late of New Lanark, may stand as the most prominent example. The disciples of this school maintain not only, what is very clear, that education most powerfully moulds and modifies the human character; but that, combined with other extrinsic accidents, it so necessarily and irresistibly directs it, that the individual is not in fact a responsible agent; that he cannot be judged by the Almighty for his opinions, be they what they may, having no power either to originate or to bend them otherwise than the destinies of his location have decreed.

But passing over these schools of physiology and philosophy so call ed, it is to be feared that this most dangerous latitudinarian opinion is making way in other and still more influential circles; and if we may credit the newspaper statements,

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something very like it has been, by more than one speaker, expressed within the walls of Parliament itself. Mr. Brougham, for example, on presenting a petition from Mr. Richard Carlile, is reported to have said, that "if a man was an atheist or an infidel, it was his misfortune, not his fault;" that "he should look upon an atheist or an infidel, if any such there were, with pity, not with blame."-On another very solemn occasion, in which the warmth of politics cannot be supposed to have prompted the expression of an opinion for mere party purposes, (the election of a Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow,) we find the same learned and eloquent gentleman stating, in his inaugural speech on his appointment to that office, that "the great truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth, that man shall no more render account to man for his belief,

This principle of virtual fatalism and the total moral irresponsibility of men for their religious opinions, thus widely espoused, thus warmly advocated, thus diligently inculcated, it surely needs not be said, to any who make the word of God their guide, is both fatally detrimental to the best interests of mankind, and utterly opposed to the first principles of religious truth; and a few pages devoted to the subversion of so dangerous a position may therefore not be inappropriate to the object of a religious miscellany. It will not, however, be the purpose of the present remarks to enter into the question in all its bearings; but simply

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NO CONTROUL." "Henceforward," continues the Lord Rector, "nothing shall prevail upon us to praise, or to blame any one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin, or the height of his stature."

The conductors of a widely circulated journal, the Morning Chronicle, remark, that Mr. Brougham's inaugural address, having been printed at the request of the principal, professors, and students of the University of Glasgow, is to be considered as "adopted by that learned and highly respectable body;" and they add, that "it is the more meritorious in Mr. Brougham and the University of Glasgow to adopt so liberal a principle, that the nation in general is, we believe, far from being ripe for it." It is some consolation at least to learn this fact; for woe to the nation that shall be ripe for the dogma, that men have no controul over their opinions, and therefore are not morally responsible for them. The University of Glasgow, it is to be presumed, are as little worthy to share in this left-handed compliment as the nation at large indeed, one of its members, of the highest grade, the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, has exonerated himself, and without doubt the large majority of his academical associates, from the charge of so unchristian a sentiment, in two excellent discourses just published, and which well merit extensive

circulation. It may be necessary to state,
that Dr. Wardlaw's line of argument and
remark is quite distinct from that of the
present essay; the substance of which was
written several years since, and a few
copies printed and circulated under a
Justice also
somewhat different form.
requires it to be added, that Mr. Brough-
am's oration contains many very valuable
passages; and that the dangerous senti-
ment, that men have no controul over their

opinions, is adduced only for the purpose
lightening the ignorant, and of abstaining
of grounding on it the duty both of en-
from every species of religious persecution.
But the sentiment itself, as Dr. Wardlaw
justly observes, goes further than this; in-
culcating the principle, not merely that man
is not responsible to his fellow-men for his
religious opinions, but that he is not res-
ponsible to God himself, any more than
"for the hue of his skin, or the height of
his stature."

It is necessary to add the epithet "moral," because the assertors of the doctrine animadverted upon do not deny that the interests of society require a judicial ameniableness where the opinions of an individual practically interfere with the well-being of the community. In truth, the opinion of this school, as freely expressed in various publications (Sir Charles Morgan's "Philosophy of Morals," for example), is, that public utility is the only test of virtue; that, according to Horne Tooke's fanciful etymological definition, what is "right" means only what is "ordered" by law or custom; that there is no abstract good or bad in human conduct; and that moral responsibility is a mere dream, or at best means only not acting contrary to what is the current standard of our age or country. The will, the law, the very being of an Almighty Governor and Judge are wholly set aside in this system.

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