and received about twenty lashes. After which, Mr. Huggins said, cry now!' Thisbe said, I did not cry, sir'! During the punishment of the negroes, he observed the driver relax in his exertions, when Mr. Huggins said you damned rascal, did not I order you to flog him?" The witness further states, that this threat was once or twice repeated by Mr. Huggins-that the driver appeared alarmed, and at one time put his hand to his hat and said, "do, sir; do, Mr. Huggins; that's enough!"

Here, then, Sir, is a female publicly flogged. What was her grave offence? The witness says, "I believe Thisbe did beg Mr. Huggins to forgive Richard. She was sitting down with her apron over her face: her crying was natural." Natural, indeed! for the two men flogged were her brothers and the negro who used the instrument of punishment, was the father of the victims!

ger, but he refused to hear her until he had flogged her.

Q. Did he see that America was with child at the time?

A. "I, as well as the other negroes and the manager knew, that she was with child.

Q. "How was the manager occupied, during the punishment?

A." He was smoking. As soon as the punishment was begun, he ordered the boy to bring fire to light his pipe.

Q." What number of lashes did the woman receive?

A. "I counted a hundred and seventy: first, ninety-five, when the manager asked America why she was saucy to his wife. She replied, I was not so: I was only angry with my child.' He then gave her seventy-five lashes more."

The witness concludes with saying, "the woman, after receiving her punishment, was very weak, and was assisted to the sick house by two of the drivers; where she miscarried."

Mr. Huggins declares, that he was ignorant of this relationship. But, to what must that ignorance be ascribed? To this: The Reverend Mr. Wray says: "I saw that he inflicted punishment without in- out of my window poor America come quiry, under the impulse of his passions. limping, from her wounds, up to my The next case is that of the negress house. I wish I could describe her looks "America." "She was" says the Reve- and gestures, when she approached us. She rend Mr. Wray, "a soft, inoffensive, good- had been released from the stocks three working creature. Her crime was this. days. We examined the wounds she had She had a little girl in the manager's received on her buttocks; her posteriors house, who was formerly in our school. had been but one wound. We looked The manager's wife had put the churn at with amazement and pity upon the long the creek's side. Somehow or other it furrows which the whip had made, and got away, and was probably carried down which were now scaled over, but from by the tide. The child was blamed for which, by the use of a pin, matter would letting it go, and the mistress had her have dropped. The sight was dreadful. severely punished with a tough bush rope. I am persuaded no farmer would have America came to the house when she permitted a servant to have cut up an inheard of it-not to find fault with the different horse, as this pregnant woman woman, but to reprove her child, and to was cut up: every stroke had cut deep, talk to her. The manager's wife got angry and fetched blood. The tyrant (for I with her for coming to the house and can call him nothing else) stands over talking there, and probably considering it the drivers with a stick in his hand to interfering with her authority, drove her flog them, if they do not lay on severely. away. Whether America answered again Only conceive for a moment, two strong or not, I do not know. The manager men, with heavy cart-whips corded, flogwas from home two or three weeks taking ging apoor unfortunate, pregnant woman, his pleasure, as he had been a short time laid flat on her belly stretched on the ground before, and of course the management of naked, with her hands and feet tied to stakes, the estate was left with this coloured wo- receiving upwards of one hundred-and-fifty man and the overseer, who was well lashes, with one driver on one side, and known to be one of the most drunken men the other on the other! After which she in the colony. When the manager came was taken, and both her feet made fast home, he directed her to be tied down. in the stocks, for a fortnight or more, lyJos, one of the witnesses, was presenting with her wounds upon a flat form of while America was brought up for punish- hard wood, in a state of pregnancy, and ment. She wished to speak to the mana- none of her friends permitted to give her

any thing to eat! It seems she hardly knew what she was flogged for.

"Overeen, the manager, being asked, if he had exceeded thirty-nine lashes? laughingly replied, I gave a Dutch thirty nine."

In his defence, it was not disputed, that the woman America had been punished, at the time and in the manner stated; but it was contended, and attempted to be proved, that she had been punished according to the letter of the law. Two European overseers were called: one of whom prevaricated in the most gross manner, and was, in consequence, committed to the custody of the marshal for contempt, and prosecuted for perjury; and the other did not depose to any single point in favour of the prisoner, and also swerved from truth.

Overeen states, that she was sent to the sick-house, where she remained eleven or twelve days, as a punishment, conceiving that the punishment she had already received was inadequate for the impertinent language she had made use of.

Nothing is wanted to make this case complete, but the Sentence of the Court: "Whereas" says the Fiscal, "a crime of the nature of that of which the prisoner stands charged, is not to be tolerated in a land where justice prevails, but requires to be exemplarily punished, so as to deter others from the commission of the like offences, the Court condemn the said Jacob Overeen to be confined in the common gaol of the colony, for the space of three calendar months, and to pay a fine of three hundred guilders" (about six-and twenty pounds sterling), "together with costs."

The next case I shall cite is one which, on a former occasion, I stated to this House. It is the case of Michael Carty, in 1816. I shall only state a passage from the governor's despatch:

flogged with a severe cat by her inhuman master and servant, in the most wanton. and barbarous manner: sometimes on her buttocks; at other times, being turned over on the stick, on her face and breasts." The House shall now hear Carty's sentence, in the words of colonel Arthur:

"Convicted of all this load of enormity; with the unfortunate young female before their eyes, lacerated in a manner, the recital of which is shocking to humanity; her wounds festered to such a degree, that her life was considered in the greatest danger; still this picture of human misery, and human depravity, could not rouse a Honduras jury to award such a punishment against the offender (whom they found guilty to the utmost extent) as bespoke their commiseration for the former, or their detestation of the latter. Fifty pounds, Jamaica currency, equal to about thirty-five pounds sterling, was the penalty deemed adequate to the crimes of the offender! a man in affluent circumstances, worth thousands of pounds; and the poor female was doomed to remain the slave of this cruel wretch, still more exasperated against her than ever.'

The next is the case of Mr. Bowen, a magistrate of Honduras, in the year 1821. The Governor says, "In order that I might be under no error from mis. representation, I attended the trial, and the following circumstances were most clearly and most distinctly proved; indeed, not denied: that on the bare suspicion of having made away with some handkerchiefs committed to her care to dispose of, a poor female slave was tied up, by order of her owner, and severely flogged, and then hand-cuffed and shackled, placed in an old store, infested with vermin and noisome flies of this country: after being in this situation for five days and nights, Serjeant Rush, a military pensioner, interceded with Mr. Bowen "By these papers your lordship will for her release, and having pledged himperceive, that this Carty was convicted self, if the handkerchiefs were not found, before a special court, assembled for his to pay the exorbitant sum demanded, trial, of having caused a poor young nethe poor creature was liberated on Sunday gro female, his property, to be stripped about mid-day; on the following mornnaked, and her hands being tied to hering, she left her owner's house, to make feet with tight cords, a stick was passed under her knees, and above the elbowbend of her arm, a large cattle chain was fastened round her neck with a padlock, and in this agonizing posture, exposed to the burning heat of the sun, was this wretched female tortured from morning until night; constantly, during that time, VOL. X.

her complaint, and seek redress. For this, and no other grounds whatever, she was again seized upon, tied upon her belly to the ground, her arms and legs being stretched out, and secured to four stakes with sharp cords; and in this shocking attitude, in the sun, exposed before the men in a perfect state of nature, 4 C

ties of manhood, who should repineWhy?-because his wife, or his daughter, are no longer to be stripped naked before a gang of males, and torn by a cartwhip!

she was again severely flogged, in presence of her inhuman master and his brother, upon her back and posteriors, and then sent back to the place of torment, and there again confined in hand-cuffs and chains, subsisted on the wretched pittance of twenty plantains and two mackerel per week, for above fourteen days. Occasionally, indeed, it appeared, the miserable being was led out by day, and chained to a tree in the yard, and there compelled to work. This, my lord, was an offence for which the magistrates could find no law on which to charge the jury, nor the jury any on which to find the prisoner guilty."

I only add one single question, which happened to be put by a juror

Q. Do you conceive that a person confined in the store for two or three days would be materially injured?

A. "I conceive not, from the situation of the place itself; but I remember, about the time before-mentioned, to have seen some snakes come out of it."

I hate the practice; for many and very distinct reasons. For its operation on the mind of the master-It is unmanly, and brutal, and disgusting. For its operation on the person of the slave-it is cruel. For its operation on the mind of the slave it frustrates the first step towards all advancement in the female character-it is a bar to modesty, to chastity, and to virtue.

But, I am dwelling too long on this point. Before I leave it, however, permit me to put one proposition. We have been represented as a band of enthusiasts, This kingdom, from one end to the other, has rung with loud complaints of our violence and extravagance. We have borne this patiently abroad: but here we may expect justice. Judge us fairly, point by point; particular by particular.

Sportive allusions to feelings of gallan- The first point that comes before you try-black ladies of an Amazonian cast is the practice of flogging females. Have of character-and grumbling husbands, we offended-have we outrun public feelbecause their wives were no longer public-ing-in declaring that that practice ly cart-whipped, may be excellent jokes; but they are very poor reasons for continuing to any man, to the most humane planter in this House-still less to his deputy at the distance of five thousand miles, a Jamaica attorney-still less to his deputy, a plantation overseer-and, least of all, to his deputy the driver, himself a negro, a slave, his nature depraved, defiled, and brutalized-the power of lashing girls, mothers, and aged females.

ought to be abolished? But, the fact is, you have not to judge between us and the West-Indians, but between his majesty's government and the West-Indians. The right honourable gentleman is as much an enthusiast about cart-whipping women as I am.

The second point to which I come is the cart-whip as a stimulus to labour. It is to be so no longer in Trinidad. It may continue to be so in other parts of the West I come now to the opinion of Mr. Indies. We have been told, about a thouHampden, that the negroes would repine, sand times, that the cart-whip is not used if their wives were exempt from the cart in the West Indies now. The driver, inwhip. I care not whether that opinion be deed, carries it over his shoulder as an emcorrect or incorrect. If incorrect, it proves blem of authority, but nothing_more. how exposed we are to be misled by erro-"What! whip a negro with it? Do you neous information, coming from WestIndians, even when those gentlemen are respectable, and intend nothing like deception. If correct, it proves my whole case. It shews the utter vileness which slavery is sure to produce. I have always detested slavery: somewhat, indeed, for the physical sufferings it occasions; but, ten thousand times more, for the moral degradation which it never fails to impose. And, with what an illustration of this are we furnished by Mr. Hampden! How sunk must be that man-how must slavery have wrung from his mind all the quali

really think we do such things? How consummately ignorant you must be of WestIndia matters!" And this, not by disreputable persons, but by gentlemen in this House of the highest respectability. The honourable gentleman opposite (Mr.Ellis) in the debate in May last, made use of the following words:

"With regard to what is commonly termed the driving system, I must beg leave to say, I do not believe, however confidently it may have been asserted, that the whip is used as a stimulant to labour. I believe it will be found, that

"Sarah, an Eboe, marked I. D. with "James, alias James Robinson, an Eboe; another letter not plain, on left shoulder, marks of a severe flogging on his back. has a star on her neck, and two of her lower "Billy, a Creole negro man, marked ap-front teeth out: says she was abandoned parently A. H. and D. I. C. below, on the by her owner, and sent into the bushes to left shoulder: the mark on the right shoul die.

What am I to think of these? Is it not incredible, that a human being should stamp the letters of his name across the breasts of a female? But, on the other hand, is it not equally incredible, that the editor of the Jamaica Gazette should have inserted, and been suffered to insert, such tales, pregnant as they are with reflec- I come next to the possession of protion, without contradiction or punish-perty, to be secured to the negro: It is ment?