Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies - With a View to Their Ultimate Emancipation; and on the Practicability, the Safety, and the Advantages of the Latter Measure. by Thomas Clarkson
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of the stir in England about the slave trade;" and he added, "that
slaves continued to be as ill treated there _since the passing of that act as before_." Mr. Cook, another of the evidences examined, was long resident in the same island, and, "though he lived there also _since the passing of the_ act, _he knew of no legal protection_, which slaves had against injuries from their masters." Mr. Dalrymple was examined to the same point for Grenada. He was there in 1788, when the Act for that island was passed also, called "An Act for the better Protection and promoting the Increase and Population of Slaves." He told the House, that, "while he resided there, the proposal in the British Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade was a matter of general discussion, and that he believed, that this was a principal reason for passing it. He was of opinion, however, that this Act would prove ineffectual, because, as Negro evidence was not to be admitted, those, who chose to abuse their slaves, might still do it with impunity; and people, who lived on terms of intimacy, would dislike the idea of becoming spies and informers against each other." We have the same account of the ameliorating Act of Dominica. "This Act," says Governor Prevost, "appears to have been considered from the day it was passed until this hour as _a political measure to avert the interference of the mother country in the management of the slaves_." We, are informed also on the same authority, that the clauses of this Act, which had given a promise of better days, "_had been wholly neglected_." In short, the Acts passed in our different Islands for the pretended purpose of bettering the condition of the slaves have been all of them most shamefully neglected; and they remain only a dead letter; or they are as much a nullity, as if they had never existed, at the present day. And as our planters have done nothing yet effectively by _law_ for ameliorating the condition of their slaves, so they have done nothing or |
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