2. Conduct pursued towards missionaries.

5. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE—SOCIETY FOR REDEEMING SLAVES.

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1. Dr. Burgess, the present Bishop of Salisbury, on Colonial Slavery.

In our last Number we adduced the testimony of many distinguished prelates of the Church of England against the evils of Slavery. There remains one living Prelate whom it would be unpardonable for us to omit; we mean the present Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burgess. In the year 1789, this learned and excellent person published a pamphlet, which we fear has been long out of print, and is only now to be found in such libraries as that of the British Museum, entitled, “Considerations on the abolition of Slavery, and the Slave Trade, upon grounds of natural, religious, and political duty.” A Liverpool Clergyman of the name of Harris, had published a pamphlet in defence of slavery, which he represented as a dispensation of Providence,—a state of society recognised by the Gospel;—in which the reciprocal duties of masters and slaves are founded on the principle of both being servants of Christ, and are enforced by the Divine rules of Christian charity. The following are some of the indignant observations of the good Bishop, on witnessing such a prostitution of the sacred truths and obligations of religion:—

“Reciprocal duties!” he exclaims, “Reciprocal duties!—To have an adequate sense of the propriety of these terms, we must forget the humane provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as the liberal indulgence of Roman slavery, and think only of West India slavery! of unlimited, uncompensated, brutal slavery, and then judge what reciprocity there can be between absolute authority and absolute subjection; and how the Divine rule of Christian charity can be said to enforce the reciprocal duties of the West India slave and his master. Reciprocity is inconsistent with every degree of real slavery.” “Slavery cannot be called one of the species of civil subordination. A slave is a non-entity in civil society.” “Law and slavery are contradictory terms.”

The Bishop’s treatise is one among many proofs that the Abolitionists from the first contemplated the ultimate extinction of slavery as the end of their labours.

“Such oppression,” says the Bishop, (meaning the state of slavery), “and such traffic” (meaning the slave trade), “must be swept away at one blow. Such horrid offences against God and nature can admit of no medium. Yet some of the more moderate apologists of slavery think that a medium may be adopted. They think that slavery ought not to be abolished, but modified and meliorated by good laws and regulations. It is well observed by Cicero, that ‘incidunt multæ sæpe causæ quæ conturbent animos utilitatis specie, non cum hoc deliberetur, Relinquendane sit honestas propter utilitatis magnitudinem (nam id quidem improbum est,) sed illud, Possitne id quod utile videatur fieri non turpiter.’ But it is impossible for slavery ‘fieri non turpiter.’” pp. 82, 83.

The Bishop proceeds to observe, that “All the laws hitherto made, have produced little or no benefit to the slaves. But there are many reasons why it is very improbable that such provisions should produce any effectual benefit. The power which is exercised over the slaves, and the severe coercion necessary to keep an immense superiority of numbers in absolute obedience to a few, and restrain them from insurrection, are incompatible with justice or humanity, and are obnoxious to abuses which no legal regulations can counteract. The power which a West Indian master has over his slave, it is impossible for the generality of masters or managers not to abuse. It is too great to be intrusted in the hands of men subject to human passions and infirmities. The best principles and most generous natures are perverted by the influence of passion and habit.”[[1]]

[1]. The poet Cowper seems to have entertained much the same opinion as the Bishop of Salisbury; for in one of his Letters, dated April, 1788, we find him saying: “Laws will, I suppose, be enacted for the more humane treatment of the Negroes; but who shall see to the execution of them? The planters will not, and the Negroes cannot. In fact, we know that laws of this tendency have not been wanting, enacted even amongst themselves; but there has been always a want of prosecutors, or righteous judges, deficiencies which will not be very easily supplied. The newspapers have lately told us, that these merciful masters, have on this occasion, been occupied in passing ordinances, by which the lives and limbs of their slaves are to be secured from wanton cruelty hereafter. But who does not immediately detect the artifice, or can give them a moment’s credit for any thing more than a design, by this show of lenity to avert the storm which they think hangs over them? On the whole, I fear there is reason to wish, for the honour of England, that the nuisance had never been troubled; lest we eventually make ourselves justly chargeable with the whole offence by not removing it. The enormity cannot be palliated: we can no longer plead that we were not aware of it, or that our attention was otherwise engaged; and shall be inexcusable, therefore, ourselves, if we leave the least part of it unredressed. Such arguments as Pharaoh might have used, to justify his destruction of the Israelites, substituting sugar for bricks, (‘ye are idle; ye are idle,’) may lie ready for our use also; but I think we can find no better.”