stant and oppressive drudgery of field labour which smites them with barrenness, and abridges their lives. The population would increase; and as they increased, their condition would gradually approach to that of free labourers. The West Indies would then be able to compete in the sale of their produce with any other country in the world; and the West-Indian planter would find the improvement of his income to keep pace with the progress of those reforms, which would, at the same time, most effectually promote the happiness, and exalt the moral and social condition, of his unhappy bondsmen.

It is vain, however, to expect, that, while the West Indies maintain their monopoly, and are thus protected against the competition of free labour, a single effectual step will be taken in, this career of reformation. Other expedients therefore must be resorted to, if Parliament should refuse to abolish the restrictive system; such as the competition of free labour, and the substitution of the use of the produce of free labour for that of slave labour. In the mean time, however, the slaves are suffering and perishing. The depopulation of our colonies is proceeding at a rate which can be explained on no principle but that of the severity of their treatment. They still labour under the whip without wages. They are still chattels. They are still not the subjects of law, but of individual caprice. They are still without any civil or political rights. Even their marriages are still unsanctioned and unprotected by any legal recognition. Their evidence is still generally inadmissible. Their manumission is still obstructed; and, even after being made free, they are still liable to be reduced again to slavery if unable to produce proof of freedom. The master may still sell or transfer them at his pleasure, with out any regard to family ties. He alone still regulates the measure of their labour, their food, and their

punishment. He may still brand them, whether men or women, in any part of their bodies, with a heated iron; confine them in the stocks; load them with chains; strip them naked, and cartwhip them at his pleasure. He may still deprive them of half their night's rest, and leave them no alternative, with respect to the employment of Sunday, but that of toiling for their subsistence, or carrying their produce to market; and he may still shut them out from the means of religious instruction. He may thus, and in a variety of other ways, make "their lives bitter with hard bondage." Is it possible, under these circumstances, that the nation can consent that the present system should be continued?

But it is said, that the Negroes, when they become free, will not work; that the exports from the West Indies will therefore greatly diminish; that all industry and exertion will be at an end; and that they will merge again into the state of savages. In reply, the Committee refer to Hayti. There the slaves were to the full as depressed as our slaves now are, and much more ignorant. They have been engaged also in a struggle for liberty through a long protracted period of blood and desolation, of confusion and anarchy. Twenty years of sanguinary conflict of the most barbarizing description, sometimes with foreign, sometimes with domestic enemies, were little calculated to train them to habits of industry, or to the arts of peace. And yet what do we witness in their case? They have contrived, in the period which has since elapsed, at least to maintain themselves without any foreign aid. Though it was necessary to keep a large portion of the ablest and most active labourers under arms, (who are of course sustained by the labour of the rest,) their own exertions have alone ministered to their subsistence, as well as defrayed the entire expenditure of the state.

They have not only abundantly supplied their wants by their own labour; but they have nearly, if not more than, doubled their numbers in twenty years. And while they have done this, they have been advancing in intelligence, respectability, and wealth. Schools have been multiplied among them; knowledge has been widely diffused; the arts of civilized life have been cultivated; the reign of order and law has been established; security has been given to property; and industry, having its reward, has been progressively extending its boundaries; so that the value of foreign merchandize imported into Hayti in the year 1822, and consumed there (the whole of which must have been paid for by the produce of Haytian labour), amounted, by the official returns of that island, to three millions sterling.

After adverting to these and various other topics, the Committee remark, that they have said enough to convince the Meeting that the labours of the Society are far from being at an end. As yet, in truth, little or nothing has been done beyond enlightening, to a certain degree, the public mind on this subject, and awakening, they trust, the national conscience to a sense of the enormity of the evil they have associated to remove. It remains for the friends of the African race to employ their best endeavours to induce Parliament to redeem its solemn pledge on this subject, by adopting effectual measures for carrying the resolutions of 1823, disregarded and resisted as they have been by the colonies, into early and full effect. It will also be an important part of their duty to obtain, if possible, the abolition of those fiscal regulations which protect the produce of slave labour against the competition of free labour-regulations which, in fact, render the people of Great Britain the main upholders of this vicious CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

system. And it will be further incumbent on them to aid every scheme, which may hold out a fair prospect of success, for attaining the same desirable end, by bringing the produce of free labour into competition with that of slave labour. They must even be ready, if necessary, to make large pecuniary sacrifices to accomplish their great object. By the appropriation of less than a third of what we now pay in bounties and drawbacks, we might redeem from their bondage the whole of the female population, and thus extinguish slavery in a single generation.

The Committee, before they close their Report, remind the friends of their cause throughout the kingdom, of the indispensible necessity of funds to the performance of the duties they have undertaken to execute. The diffusion alone of information by means of the press, necessarily occasions a considerable expenditure. The press, however, is the grand instrument of success, because it is the only effectual means of enlightening the public mind. They therefore earnestly impress upon the minds of their friends, throughout the kingdom, the importance of their exerting themselves, each in his own sphere, to procure subscriptions and active co-operation, and to diffuse information, by means of the books and tracts of the society, among every class of the community. On the degree in which the public feeling is kept alive on this subject, depends, under God, mainly, if not entirely, the final triumph of their efforts.

The substance of the speeches delivered at the general meeting, together with an Appendix, containing documents, notes, and illustrations, are added to the Report, and will well repay the perusal of all who are interested in this cause of humanity and religion.

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connected with the administration of prisons, and the prevention of crime. Of these subjects, there is none which more earnestly demands the attention of Parliament, than the delay which occurs in the administration of justice, from the want of a more frequent gaol delivery. It is a fine principle of the jurisprudence of our country, that every person is presumed innocent until proved to be guilty; but the long period of imprisonment before trial, especially in the present condition of the gaols, is in effect directly opposed to this just maxim. A great proportion of those committed, are in confinement before trial for a longer period than that to which, if guilty, they are ultimately sentenced; and a consider able number who undergo this preliminary confinement are acquitted of the crimes with which they are charged. From papers laid before Parliament, it appears that throughout England and Wales, not including Middlesex, one sixth of the prisoners had suffered confinement from six to eight months, and nearly the half from three to six months, before it was known whether they were guilty, or whether their of fences, if even proved, were such as to merit that extent of punishment. There is another object, connected with the administration of justice, which does not, in the opinion of the Committee, attract the attention that it merits. They refer to the expediency of taking bail in a greater number of cases than is at present the practice. Whatever will diminish the number of persons committed for safe custody, is of great importance in the defective state of many of our gaols; and the extension of bail in certain cases, would greatly facilitate the classification of convicted prisoners, and essentially promote the ends of justice. Nothing can be more erroneous or more impolitic, than to give a detention, which is avowedly for safe custody only, the character of a punishment for crime. All that is

contemplated, is the appearance of the accused in court, to answer the charge alleged against him. If this appearance can be obtained by the intervention of sureties, instead of throwing the individual into gaol, the ends of justice are answered, the prison is relieved from an unnecessary burthen, and the accused himself is not exposed to the influence of bad example. The law has very properly declared that the higher offences shall be unbailable; not that the previous imprisonment is intended as a portion of punish ment, but because the motive for absconding is too great to be restrained by ordinary sureties: the security of the person can be answered for only by the walls of a gaol. But it is very different in many cases of inferior crime.

The Committee, in adverting to an opinion which is prevalent, that, notwithstanding the efforts making for the moral and religious welfare of society, crime continues to increase, state that it is not founded in fact. An official return has been laid before Parliament, from which it appears that the number of offenders, committed for trial, was considerably augmented from the year 1816 to the year 1819: but this increase was only proportionate to what might have been anticipated from peculiar causes; and it is gratifying to find that since that period the number of persons committed for trial has been gradually declining; in some districts, indeed, in a much greater proportion than was its previous increase. Generally speaking, also, the offences have been of a less guilty character than those of the former period.

For a detailed description of the improvements that have taken place in the several prisons throughout England, we must refer to the Appendix to this Report, which records the actual results of a great variety of experience: its perusal cannot fail to give rise to reflections of deep interest. It will be seen by these statements, that considerable

`alterations are now in progress in the construction of various gaols and houses of correction; but the Committee do not think that the importance of inspection has been adequately appreciated: in many instances it has been altogether neglected.

The various statements in the Appendix also shew the great extent to which the labour of the tread-wheel has been introduced into the houses of correction of the several counties. If it be inquired upon what grounds the Committee continue to advocate this description of prison labour, they reply, be cause it possesses, in their opinion, many of the primary requisites of efficacious punishment. It is cor rective; it is exemplary: its ap plication is not inconsistent with humane feeling, and interferes in no way with the inculcation of moral and religious impressions. It has received the approving sanction of the community at large: its penalties are felt by those who are subject to its discipline, and it operates to deter from the commission of crime." I will never come here again," is the language of the prisoner on quitting confinement. Still it is known to have excited the warm opposition of several enlightened friends of humanity; and the controversy occasioned by this circumstance has given rise to much valuable discussion, and been productive of great good. The Committee state that they have discovered no reason to alter the opinion they have hitherto entertained, as to the nature and effects of this species of prison discipline. Further experience has, on the contrary, strengthened their conviction that the labour, when under proper management and restriction, is prejudicial neither to the health nor limbs of the prisoners. From the introduction of the treadwheel, the country has derived great benefit; and so general is the impression in its favour, that in a short time there will probably be

few county houses of correction throughout England in which this description of labour will not have been adopted.

The Committee notice some ingenious improvements in the construction of tread-wheel machinery, consisting of a moveable reel, or cylindrical wheel, substituted in the place of the hand-rail by which prisoners hold when on the treadmill. The object of this small wheel is to remove an objection which has been urged against this kind of prison labour; namely, the inert position of the arms while the individual is at work. This wheel is connected with the other machinery; and when put in motion the prisoners work with their hands at the same time that the feet are kept in constant action, and thus a more general degree of exercise is afforded to the body.

The Ladies' Committee who have devoted themselves to the care of the female department in Newgate, continue their labours with an assiduity worthy of their high character, and of the distinguished cause in which they are engaged. The benefit resulting from their unwearied exertions has been more permanent and extensive than could possibly have been anticipated, from the absence of proper classification, and the confined limits of this badly constructed prison. Availing themselves of the public interest which their plans have excited, they have established a society for the encouragement and formation of committees similar to their own in the principal gaol towns throughout the kingdom; and many such associations are now in operation, conducted with unostentatious yet ardent kindness. In some places where associations could not be formed, very beneficial effects have been produced by the exertions of ladies who have, alone and unsupported, engaged in the arduous work of visiting female prisoners. At one prison, visited by a lady of high respectability, six young women