Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

remembers her master; singles out a man in mean attire, who was standing unnoticed in the crowd; alights upon his wrist with a scream of joy; and, as all this takes place in the presence and to the great amazement of the sovereign, she becomes the means of restoring Sir Edgar to the fair possessions of which he had before been unjustly deprived. But a word as to the complete desuetude of this "gentle craft," which the author of the tale states to be almost unknown except to the antiquarian. We can assure that gentleman, that the sport of hawking still exists; though we apprehend that the mysteries, as they are now practised, are by no means so perfect as in those times, when there were no other means of obtaining wild fowl; and the vocabulary is sadly straitened but we happen to know, from very recent experience, that the difficulty, and certainly the tediousness, of training hawks, has been much over-rated. It is the province of professors in all arts to enhance the value of their own attainments by reporting them to be arduous. Sir John Sebright's pleasing sketch on the subject of Falconry, very recently published, is not altogether free from this sort of pedantry; but we recommend it to the attention of the author of "London in the Olden Time." He will there find that hawking is rather on the advance in Great Britain at present; and that in Norfolk, those birds of sport are kept and flown by a sort of club. He will there too find that falcons do not fly at the heron, or any other kind of game in creances, which are only used in teaching them to come to the lure; if the birds did so fly the skill exhibited in reclaiming them would be lost, and the interest of the sport most materially interfered with. Above all, he will find that his good falcon, Elinore, transgressed not only the laws of good breeding, but those of her real nature, in bringing the prey to Sir Edgar's feet, and quitting it to regain his fist: for no fault is so heinous or irremediable in a hawk as carrying" her prey; and no part of the falconer's duty more trying to his skill and patience than the disengaging her from the quarry.

66

With this lecture on hawking,-for which, from the historical associations connected with the subject, we trust we shall be excused,we conclude our remarks on the interesting volume before us. It contains, besides the papers we have mentioned, verses by Mrs. Hemans, Bernard Barton, and Henry Neale, that are fully worthy the high reputation which their authors so deservedly enjoy. Some lines. also by Lucy Aikin are very spirited; it is pleasing to observe how gracefully this lady can unbend from her severer studies to trifle with less important branches of literature. The opening of Mrs. Hofland's Essay on Good-Hearted People, is deserving of attention; and the characters introduced to illustrate the subject are most skilfully designed. The publication which contains so much to praise can need no further recommendations; it is a volume which, from the beauty of its

illustrations and typography may be admitted as an ornament to the table of the fairest Boudoir; and, during its year of favour, may often be returned to as the companion of a vacant hour, and fulfil the best office of a book of amusement-instruct by pleasing.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, AND THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS.'

AFTER noticing the meeting of the Society at Freemasons' Hall in May last, and giving the names of the speakers, the OBSERVER' proceeds-"The whole of the addresses evinced an earnest zeal for the promotion of Christian missions under the auspices of this venerable institution; and several of the right reverend and other speakers took especial occasion to advert, in terms of great candour and conciliation, to the kindred labours of other societies,—a sentiment which, we are happy to add, was warmly hailed by the whole meeting. Our limits do not allow of our attempting to give reports of the addresses delivered at the anniversary meetings of our numerous religious and charitable societies; but the publication of the interesting Report read at this meeting will enable us to lay before our readers an account of the proceedings of the institution during the past year. We cannot, however, withhold the expression of our regret, that no allusion was made to the Society's proceedings in Barbadoes. In ranging from North America to Southern India, the friends of the Society omitted to mention their own slaves, whose labours on their plantations augment their funds for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts.' We confess, however, that we gather a favourable presage from this silence: it is clear that the friends of this Society do not consider either the retention of slaves, or the appropriation of the produce of their extorted labour to purposes of general benevolence, as circumstances calculated to interest the British public in behalf of the institution. Let then the friends of the unhappy slave come forward manfully in the Society and plead his cause; and let them never relax their efforts till the Society can fairly expurgate itself from the guilt of being slave-holders, and from the incongruity of watering the tree of life planted in India or America, with the tears and the blood of unhappy Africa. We are aware that the Society has done something towards improving the temporal and the spiritual condition of their bondsmen ; but bondsmen they still are; and, so far as any thing has yet been effected or proposed, in hopeless, perpetual, and interminable slavery. We trust that another Porteus will be found to advocate the cause of the Society's bondsmen, who cannot plead their own cause; and even should some pecuniary sacrifice arise from restoring them to the freedom which no individual or society has any just right to deprive them of, the Society will gain tenfold more by the benevolent zeal of the British public, to whom such an act of Christian philanthropy would be the strongest recommendation. We ourselves know of individuals zealously affected to the Society's object; but to whom it is absolutely a point of conscience, not to cast in their mite to a fund contaminated by the produce of extorted slave labour. We write frankly, it may be warmly, because we wish well not only to the slave, but to the Society; and we are doubly grieved that its members should incur the guilt of being willing slave-holders; or that their example should be pleaded by others, or rest as an incubus on the efforts of those enlightened and benevolent men who are seeking the best welfare, both for this world and that which is to come, of many hundreds of thousands of our oppressed fellow-subjects in our slave colonies.”—Christian Observer for May.

The Reviewer of Memoirs of a West India Planter, observes-" We have several times had occasion to advert to the reserve of the conductors of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in reference to the slaves on their plantations. We are glad to find that this subject also has arrested the attention of Mr. Riland; and we trust that the friends of the Society will be induced to institute a full inquiry into it. Mr. Riland furnishes the following statements:

"The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel hold plantations in Barbadoes under the devise of Colonel Codrington. On this very estate Mr. Coleridge found, in 1825, a driver! An extraordinary apology for the retention, by a Christian corporation, of an estate worked under the whip is offered by Edwards, who says- They are induced, from the purest and best motives, to purchase occasionally a certain number of negroes, in order to divide the work, and keep up the stock. They well know that moderate labour, unaccompanied with that wretched anxiety to which the poor of England are subject, is a state of comparative felicity,' &c. &c. I doubt whether, in 1793, a single member of the Society had the slightest knowledge of the practice on the Codrington property. It is a question of some importance, how far an association, instituted for the express purpose of diffusing Christianity, is justified in putting into its treasury the fruits of slave labour. The Society, as might have been supposed, has always been under a cloud. Bishop Porteus made a vain effort, about fifty years ago, to stimulate this corporation to look into the concerns of their trust-estate, in order to some plan for the general instruction of slaves; but all to no purpose! His attempt was discussed at a committee-meeting, and in four hours rejected. Thus,' says the Bishop, was a final period put at once to a most interesting and important subject: and the spiritual condition of near half a million of negro slaves decided in four hours. That the particular plan offered to the Society might stand in need of improvement, and that a better might be substituted in its room, is very probable. I would have given my hearty vote for any wiser plan in preference to my own. It was not the mode, it was the measure, I had at heart. That no other plan should be adopted or proposed, nor any one effectual measure taken for the conversion and salvation of near 300 slaves, who were the immediate property of a religious'—the Bishop's own italics- society, did, I own, a little surprise me.'-Hodgson's Life of Porteus, 1813, p. 88.-But the very last Report of this institution is very unsatisfactory. It contains no statement of what has been received from the toil of the Society's slaves, neither of any expenditure in their favour. We find, indeed, that Messrs. Daniel and Trattle (who are these?) have paid in 35421.; but from what sources is not recorded. In the synopsis of the Society's missionaries, catechists, &c., the stations in Barbadoes are wholly omitted! There is in the payments an item-'Paid for a piece of plate voted to Mr. F. Clarke, 1017. 4s. 6d.'" -Christian Observer for July.

MR. EDITOR.-A few days since, my attention was invited to the above notices of the proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which have appeared in the pages of the Christian Observer; and I know not whether was greater my surprise at attacks upon the Society proceeding from such a quarter, or my grief at the uncharitable, I might almost say insidious, nature of the opinions therein expressed. Upon the subject of the meeting just mentioned, it may be allowable to state, that many warm friends of the Society indulged an ardent expectation, that the zeal displayed by the Society on that occasion would be met, on the part of what is termed the religious world, with a kindred feeling, and that if no pecuniary advantage accrued immediately to the Society, at least a more kindly spirit might be produced amongst those, whose bounty flowing in different channels is devoted to one common purpose-the propagation of the Gospel of Christ. The effect thus anticipated was actually produced, according to the very confession of the writer in the Christian Observer; for whilst he acknowledges" that the whole of the addresses evinced an earnest zeal for the promotion of Christian missions, under the auspices of this venerable Institution;" he also adds, "several of the right reverend and other speakers took especial occasion to advert in terms of great candour and conciliation to the kindred labours of other societies-a sentiment which, we are happy to add, was warmly hailed by the whole meeting." I would willingly believe that the writer was sincere when he recorded the impression thus produced upon the meeting,-an impression certainly very favourable to the

[blocks in formation]

Society. But, Sir, when I find that throughout the remainder of the observations in the number for May upon this meeting, expressions are uttered, such as those which I shall presently quote, and insinuations made against the Society, of such a nature as are calculated to produce, in uninformed minds, feelings of as hostile a character towards the Society as those which mark the most violent opponents of West-India slavery, I reject as false the pretence of friendship to the Society which the writer of that article makes in the outset, and I look for his real opinions in the nature of his attack. What shall we say to the candour of one who first affects " to regret that no allusion was made in the public meeting to the Society's proceedings in Barbados," and then pretends to account for the silence, by insinuating that that is a part of the Society's work, of which it is ashamed and afraid to speak? The writer of that article fully explains the nature of his regret at the absence of all allusion to Barbados, for, lest any of the persons who are his readers, should be, as he fancies, deceived by that silence, he takes care to supply all the intelligence which he deems to be wanting, and to put the fact of the Society's being possessed of a West-India property, and consequently being owners of slaves, in the most unfavourable, I might add hateful, point of view. The exertions made by the Society for the benefit of its slaves are evidently not altogether unknown to the writer, but they are slightly mentioned "as a something done towards improving their temporal and spiritual condition," whilst the fact of the Society's possessing slaves is enlarged upon and represented in terms, such as any one educated in the school of Christ and St. Paul ought to have been ashamed to employ in any cause, much less when the object is to inject scruples of conscience into the minds of the many, so as to prevent their contributing their mite to the general designs of the Society.

Observe, Sir, what terms this writer employs :-he first talks of the Society's appropriating the produce of their (the slaves) extorted labour to purposes of general benevolence. I am not, Sir, here purposing to discuss the whole question of the duties of masters and slaves; nor to inquire whether the phrase cxtorted, may or may not be applied to that labour which, if St. Paul is any authority, it is the duty of every slave, who is a Christian, to devote to his master's use. I complain of the insinuation, which the word is intended to convey, that cruelty extorts from the slave his labour. If to compel the idle to work be extortion of labour, then I conceive the Society's agents do extort labour; here in England, either starvation or the tread-mill is the extortioner of labour from the idle or the profligate. What are the means taken upon the Society's estate to counteract the love of idleness to which human nature is prone, I know not: that it is not the whip, is certain, for corporal punishment is abolished on the estate; but even if it were the whip, surely it is but splitting hairs, to draw distinction between the tread-mill and the whip, or to say that it is cruel to give a man a stripe across the back for idleness in the West Indies, and that it is not cruel for the Chamberlain of London to send refractory apprentices to Bridewell, to endure the whipping of a jail, and to practise the Sisyphean labours of the tread-mill, from morn till night, for weeks together. But, Sir, if it is uncharitable and unjust to the Society, to

apply so insiduous a term, as that of extorted, to the labour of those slaves, whom Providence has blessed above all their brethren in the West Indies, in placing them under the care of a Christian corporation, the statement is perfectly untrue which insinuates that the produce of the slave's labour is applied to the general purposes of the Society. The whole revenue arising from the West India property to the Society is expended in supporting the College upon the estate, and in ameliorating the condition of the slaves. The Society has not as yet been able to fulfil all those purposes of General Codrington's bequest, which have in view the benefit of the white inhabitants of the West Indies; but, in the mean time, they have not been neglectful of their duty to their slaves; they have done all in their power to advance their spiritual and temporal condition, and the surplus revenue, which amounted in 1826 to 34,000l. consols, is regularly invested, and kept by itself, as a separate fund, to be appropriated to the fulfilment of the intentions of the original testator, whose trustees the corporation is. There is, therefore, not the least foundation for the insinuation, that the produce of slave labour is expended in general benevolence; it is expended where it ought to be, in Barbados, in educating the whites, and civilizing the slaves. The husbandman is, in the fullest sense, partaker of the fruits of his labour. We shall advert presently to the evidence afforded by an impartial observer to the condition of the Society's West India estate; in the mean time, I cannot but notice, with heartfelt sorrow, that the Christian Observer should have appealed, in terms so calculated to injure the Society, to the passions of the multitude, and should have made the very discharge of the duty imposed upon the Society by General Codrington a source of crimination to the Society, and a hindrance to its usefulness in other quarters of the world. The Society is charged "with the guilt of being slaveholders." Their fund is spoken of, as being contaminated by the produce of extorted slave labour;" and whilst the writer pretends his knowledge of persons who are zealously affected to the Society's object, and to whom it is a point of conscience not to contribute to this contaminated fund, he produces the result of his knowledge, in such a manner as proves, that he fully concurs with these persons, and that he recommends their example for imitation. The writer would seem to advise the Society to set free their slaves, and to sacrifice at the altar of liberty all the power, which the present condition of the slaves affords, of making them disciples of Christ, and communicating to them the word of salvation. I know, Sir, that the sentiment which I am about to utter will be little in accordance with the writer's prejudices, but it is the result of much inquiry relative to the condition, both of the white inhabitants, and of the slaves in the West Indies; and therefore I hesitate not to assert, that if slavery in the West Indies be abolished, before the white inhabitants are brought back to the practice of the duties of Christianity, and before the coloured people are better instructed in the knowledge of the truth, the increased ignorance, barbarism, sensuality, and violence, of the freed slaves will present far greater obstacles to their conversion, than the most glaring examples of white men's profligacy now presents to the accomplishment of so benevolent, so glorious a design. Were the Society to emancipate

66

« ZurückWeiter »