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    Untitled Article

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    clothing to the amount of fifty shillings per annum , and permission to cultivate a patch of waste land in his own time . At the rate at which free labour is paid—three and fourpence per day *—the value of three fourths of a year ' s labour is nearly forty pounds , and

    this is to be given to the master as a compensation for food and clothing worth fifty shillings . Then the fourth part of the slave ' s labour for twelve years , i . e . three whole years' * labour , equivalent to one hundred and fifty pounds sterling , is to be paid by the slave for the property of the remaining three fourths of his body , at a time when the full value of a slave in the market of Charlestown

    is only eighty pounds sterling . In addition to this , the slave apprentice , or apprentice slave , is still to be eligible to the usual amount of cart-whip lashes , but with the difference that the magistrate and not the master is to lay them on . In all cases a provision is made to maintain the cart-whip , both by the ministerial abolitionists , and by the slave-owners ; a strong proof this that it is not

    calculated on the negro yielding much work by any other stimulus * Now , if it be determined by those who , in courtly phrase , guide his Majesty ' s councils , that each negro is to produce his master some forty-five pounds per annum for twelve years , one would imagine that the ' compensation would be sufficiently ample without coming to the people of England for fifteen millions sterling as a

    loan , or a gift , or for a gift of twenty millions , as is now proposed * But perhaps it is in contemplation to make a handsome job of the distribution , which may run over as many years as the business of the Nabob of Arcot , which served to provide for so many dependents of those in power . Even in the case of the negro children under six years of age , who are to be declared free , a provision is

    made to watch the improvidence of their parents , and to seize the first opportunity of again making them slaves under the name of apprentices , the males for eighteen , and the females for fourteen years , to the masters of their parents . A goodly temptation this to the masters , to encourage profligate habits in their adult negroes , and thus secure them a constant supply of youthful slave-labour

    without wages . Mark the glaring injustice of the clauses ! First of all , the slave must for twelve years give up his whole time to his master , if he is to become a freeman , yet ne is to be at all the expense of maintaining his free offspring , or they will again become slaves , under the name of apprentices , for a long term of years .

    The twenty millions sterling talked of as a compensation , must be far beyond the value of the slaves ; and if this money is to be paid to the slave-owners , there can no longer be any pretext for keeping the negro in bondage , at least for the profit of his master . If he works at all upon compulsion , his earnings ought to be applied

    * I have tak « a Lord Howick ' s estimate , but I iliould think it much too high . Probably he takes the skilled labour of mechanics and domestic negroeu , hired by the day , as a standard . The coarse labour of field negroes cannot be worth so much , or it is evident that very large fortunes must havsj been realised .

    Untitled Article

    Abolition of Negro Slavery . \ ff \

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 471, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/31/