saying, "We are told that part of the people employed in the cultivation of Malabar (an article of very unwelcome intelligence, they add,) are held as slaves; that they are attached to the soil, and marketable property!". In like manner, many years afterwards, Bishop Heber said, "Though no slavery legally exists in the British territories at this moment, yet the terms and gestures used by servants to their superiors, all imply that such a distinction was, at no distant date, very common. 'I am thy slave,'-Thy slave has no knowledge '—are continually used as expressions of submission and ignorance." With such examples of palpable ignorance on the part of the government and of its highest functionaries, as to the existence of slavery in India, it is not surprising to find that the character of slavery, and the existence of the evils which are inseparably connected with it, is stoutly denied by many of the officers of government, who are themselves the task-masters of the slave. The fact is, the government has endeavoured to persuade itself, and the world at large, that slavery does not exist in India; and when compelled to admit that it does exist, then it mystifies its extent, and dénies its character. Ignorance, rather than corruption, has induced some persons, even in India, to proclaim the non-existence of slavery in India; other persons, when convinced of the existence of slavery in India, have palliated it, either on account of its limited extent or of its benevolent character; even the total abolition of slavery throughout the British territories, ever has been, and yet continues to be, the boast of persons who happen to have limited means of information, and to be residing in districts where slavery does not prevail, or where it is put down by the self-will of some magistrate who acts with a degree of vigour which outstrips the letter of the law. In the month of December, 1823, a Bengal publication said, "Slavery is now entirely prohibited by the British government here, as really as in Britain itself." Even as lately as the 20th of April, 1834, the Rev. C. Lacey, wrote from Cuttack, to the Rev. J. Peggs, saying, "Slavery has been abolished throughout all the Company's provinces; and the measure has been followed by some of the native states. There is not now a slave in British India! It will, however, be some time before the slaves become aware of their privilege, and longer still before most of them will be disposed to avail themselves of it. Slavery is a different thing in India to what it is in the West." With the pulpit and the press of India thus proclaiming the non-existence of slavery, the stranger to the subject may well be startled; but, what sort of an abolition can that be of which the slave is not aware, and of which he will not avail himself? We can give the government of India full credit for such an Act; it is of a piece with the Abolition Acts of the Russian government, which worked so differently from their pretended character, that the proprietors of the neighbouring provinces laid down the arms with which they had threatened the Czar, and petitioned him to emancipate their slaves after the same manner,—that is, by imposing additional

services upon them, and enforcing the performance of their tasks by law. Even our own improvident Act seems to prove rather a sound than a reality; many an apprentice is scarcely aware of any amelioration in his condition since he was a slave.

In the West Indies the slaves generally, both male and female, young and old, were agricultural; some were tradesmen, others were domestics, and a few were kept as concubines. In the old Hindoo states in the south of India the mass of the slave population is agricultural; but to the north of the river Kistna agricultural slavery appears to be very local; however, throughout all India, domestic slavery prevails to a considerable extent. In the year 1771 Bengal was half depopulated by the most grievous famine which had ever been experienced in that very fertile region; consequently the people were driven to desperation; they betook themselves to robbery in gangs: the next year Warren Hastings and his coadjutors enacted that the families of gang robbers "shall become the slaves of the state!" In the year 1785 Sir William Jones addressed a charge to the grand jury of Calcutta, when he said: "The condition of slaves within our jurisdiction is, beyond imagination, deplorable; and cruelties are daily practised on them, chiefly on those of the tenderest age and weaker sex, which, if it would not give me pain to repeat and you to hear, yet, for the honour of human nature, I should forbear to particularize. If I except the English from this censure it is not through partial affection to my own countrymen, but because my information relates chiefly to people of other nations, who likewise call themselves Christians. Hardly a man or woman exists in a corner of this populous town who hath not at least one slave child, either purchased at a trifling price, or saved perhaps from a death that might have been fortunate, for a life that seldom fails of being miserable. Many of you, I presume, have seen large boats filled with such children coming down the river for open sale at Calcutta ; nor can you be ignorant that most of them were stolen from their parents, or bought, perhaps, for a measure of rice in a time of scarcity; and that the sale itself is in defiance of this government, by violating one of its positive orders, which was made some years ago, after a consultation of the most reputable Hindoos in Calcutta, who condemned such a traffic, as repugnant to their Shastra."

In 1787, in the province of Dacca, many children were kidnapped, given away, or sold into slavery by their parents; but, on their arrival in Calcutta, a number of them were recovered and restored to their parents. In 1789 one vessel transported no less than 150 slave children from Calcutta to Colombo. Lord Cornwallis said to the Court of Directors, “ An infamous traffic has, it seems, long been carried on in this country by the low Portuguese, and even by several foreign European seafaring people and traders, in purchasing and collecting native children in a clandestine manner, and exporting them for sale to the French islands and other parts of India.” His lordship further stated, that he had directed one

person to be prosecuted criminally for having carried off some children; that he had published a proclamation forbidding the barbarous traffic; and that he had a plan under consideration which had for its object the abolition of slavery, under certain limitations, and to alleviate, as much as may be possible, the misery of those unfortunate people during the time they may be retained in that wretched situation. However, it is to be regretted that no further notice of this plan is to be traced upon the records of the Bengal government. In 1791, in consequence of some free Bengalees having been sold at St. Helena as slaves, the Court of Directors desired the Bengal government to put a stop to the inhuman practice; accordingly an order was issued, obliging every person taking a native to Europe to give a bond of about £100 sterling for the return of the native to India. In 1799 the Bengal government declared the murder of a slave to be a capital offence. In 1811 the Bengal government prohibited the importation of slaves into its territories, either by sea or land. In 1816 the Bengal government proposed to register every transfer of a slave, but dropped the scheme. In 1824 it was discovered that, notwithstanding the prohibition, it was still a very common practice for the Arab vessels to import African slaves, and to export Bengalee females for sale in Arabia; however, Mr. Landford Arnot gave so much offence to the Bengal government for exposing this contempt of the law, under the eye of the supreme government, that he was summarily deported to England, and the Calcutta Journal was suppressed. So much for the integrity of the government of India with respect to the foreign slave, carried on to this hour in the city of palaces, under the very windows of their own council chamber!

The state of the slaves, and the conditions and customs under which they are held, differ essentially in almost every district; however, generally speaking, it is the Hindoos who possess the agricultural slaves, and the Mahomedans who possess the domestic slaves. All over India the kidnapping of children is a very prevalent crime, and parents often sell their children. Throughout Bengal generally, both among Hindoos and Mahomedans, domestic slavery is very prevalent: in the upper provinces the land is partly cultivated by slaves; in Ramghur, and other districts, the greatest part of the cultivators are slaves, but in the lower provinces the employment of slaves in the labours of husbandry is almost unknown; however, in 1813, in the Dacca district, one-sixth of the whole population were slaves. With such scanty information it is difficult to form an estimate, but it can scarcely be too much to say that there are at least two, three, four, five, or more millions of slaves in the two presidencies of Bengal.

Agrestic slavery is said not to exist at all in the central provinces of the peninsula, such as in the districts of Mysore, peopled by the Carnatacka nation; it is also said to be unknown in the country where the people speak the Teloogoo language; but it prevails commonly wherever the Tamil lan

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guage is spoken; and it assumes its worst character in the provinces of Malabar and Canara. In the Tamil country the lash is not employed by the master; but in Malabar the judicature has recognized its legality. In the Tamil country the slaves are generally worshippers of Siva; however several of them are Catholic, and a few are Protestant Christians. In some part of the Tamil country, by usage, slaves are attached to the soil, but in other parts they are removable from village to village; whilst on the western coast they are often disposed of independently of the land.

The number of Tamil slaves, of one description and another, must exceed half a million; whilst Malabar contains 100,000, and Canara 82,000. Altogether the Madras presidency may contain a million of slaves.

With regard to the presidency of Bombay we cannot venture to form any estimate whatever of the number of slaves; however, we trust that Sir Robert Grant will pursue inquiries on the subject, and we look with hope to the result of the benevolent exertions which he has already made on behalf of the Indian slave.

In Prince of Wales's Island there are three thousand slaves. In the island of Ceylon there are above twenty thousand slaves.

Hence, the British territories must contain millions of slaves; we much fear that they contain many millions; perhaps near ten millions of human beings who are deprived of their natural right to dispose of their own labour to the best advantage.

The dreadful extent of slavery in India has been fully recognized by Parliament in hesitating to abolish it, when his Majesty's ministers brought in a bill for the total Abolition of all Slavery in India on or before the 12th day of April, 1837, on the ground that it would produce insurrection in every part of India.

In

Some of the functionaries in India have evinced a strong inclination to encourage slavery. In 1824 the Court of Directors ordered the government at Madras to be "extremely cautious in making any regulation for defining the relations of master and slave ;" and, in 1826, the Madras government declared that the Court's view coincided with their own. 1833 the Crown and the Commons proposed the immediate abolition of slavery in India; but the East India Company and the House of Lords decreed otherwise: the Lords bound the slaves in fresh fetters, and made him dependent upon the tender mercies of the Court of Directors of a company in London, which cannot possibly have any sympathy for the slave in India.

In grappling with this mighty evil, the people of Britain must remember that the fate of all the slaves throughout all India is bound up in the fate of the slaves of British India. All these millions of unhappy brutalized beings are utterly without hope of emancipation, unless the people of Britain compel the Lords to revive the bill which his Majesty's ministers introduced to the Commons, proposing absolute emancipation on the 12th day of April in the coming year.

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CHARACTER OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

Or all the anomalies existing on the face of the earth, that of American slavery is the most perplexing and criminal. Whether viewed in relation to the civil institutions of the country, or to the professedly Christian character of the population, it awakens emotions of astonishment and disgust. It is a satire on the constitution which proclaims that men are born free and equal, and gives the lie to the religious profession of the community. The contact of slavery with republicanism and Christianity in America, instead of ameliorating its character, has added to its horrors, and rendered it more loathsome and abominable than it is elsewhere found. Its extenuators may plead the moral worth and sacred calling of its patrons, but we point in mournful triumph to the atrocious code, in which its character is depicted, and pronounce it to be the masterpiece of Satanic barbarity and fraud. The following description was given by Mr. Loring, in a learned speech lately delivered in one of the civil courts of America, on behalf of a slave child, whom it was sought to return to bondage. Reader, look upon the picture, and then say what should be thought of clergymen and theological professors who dare to defend it, or to observe an avowed neutrality. "Before looking for the lights of our own jurisprudence on the subject," says the American barrister, “I ask leave to define, in a more especial manner, what is slavery, as it exists among us?

For this purpose I shall read from 'Stroud's Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery' (an accurate and valuable compendium), the following propositions, describing the incidents of American slavery. For the most ample proof of each, I refer to the work itself, where the codes, statutes, judicial decisions, &c. of the several states, on slavery, are digested.

Prop. 1. The master may determine the kind, and degree, and time of labour, to which the slave shall be subjected.

Prop. 2. The master may supply the slave with such food and clothing only, both as to quantity and quality, as he may think proper or find convenient.

Prop. 3. The master may, at his discretion, inflict any punishment upon the person of his slave.

Prop. 4. All the power of the master over his slave may be exercised not by himself only in person, but by any one whom he may depute as his agent.

Prop. 5. Slaves have no legal rights of property in things, real or personal; but whatever they may acquire belongs, in point of law, to their masters.

Prop. 6. The slave, being a personal chattel, is at all times liable to be sold absolutely, or mortgaged or leased at the will of his master.

Prop. 7. He may also be sold by process of law for the satisfaction of the debts of a living, or the debts and bequests of a deceased master, at the suit of creditors or legatees.

Prop. 8. A slave cannot be a party before a judicial tribunal, in any species of action, against his master, no matter how atrocious may have been the injury received from him.

Prop. 9. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, nor obtain a change of masters, though cruel treatment may have rendered such change necessary for their personal safety.