America, and called it the sum of all villanies. The Methodists, the Baptists, the Independents, and the Episcopal Low Church (to which Wilberforce belonged), and eminently the Quakers, were zealous for freedom, and chiefly from these religious circles the mass of our abolitionists came, despite of Onesimus. Zeal for missions arose chiefly from the same ranks. The High Church in the colonies desired to be on pleasant terms with the colonists, and succeeded; but the Nonconformist missionaries were always on very unpleasant terms with them. It could not be hidden from the planters that these missionaries pitied the sufferings of the slaves, and were trusted by them; out of which a belief arose that they fostered disaffection, and ran as close as they dared to stirring up resistance. In every insurrection the white men, through panic, became ferocious and uncontrolled. The home authorities never knew how to deal with an insurrection; for while they dared not justify it, their consciences did not condemn it, and they abhorred the indiscriminate cruelty of the planters or their agents. Two outrages against missionaries excited violent indignation in England. The one was the destruction of a Methodist chapel in Barbadoes, as a part of the persecution of the missionaries. This was about 1825. The white population of all orders were guilty. The magistrates exulted in the outrage, some of them were said to have taken part in it. When Mr. (afterwards Sir Fowell) Buxton brought the matter before Parliament, Mr. Canning, as ministerial leader in the Commons, reprobated the conduct of the whites most severely, and moved a vote of address to the crown (which was unanimously adopted by the House) assuring his Majesty of their readiness to concur in every measure needed for securing ample protection and religious toleration in all his Majesty's dominions. Yet no white man was punished or censured, though in 1816, when there was an insurrection of the blacks, numbers were massacred in cold blood.
The other outrage was in Demerara during the panic of an insurrection, October 1823, against the Rev. John Smith, a missionary from the Congregationalists (London Missionary Society). In time of actual peace he was tried, not by a jury, but by a court-martial at the drum-head, and condemned to death as having incited the slaves to an insurrection — an entirely false charge. They did not dare to execute their own sentence, but they threw him into a hot and pestilential prison, — treatment of which he died before the free pardon from England was able to reach him. A burst of indignation had come from this country, Churchmen and Nonconformists uniting to demand justice; yet Mr. Brougham's motion in the Commons concerning it was voted down, as the ministry would not break with the planting interest.
Yet in a circular from the government, attributed to Mr. Canning, "mitigating measures" were recommended to the colonies, such as might prepare the negroes for freedom. Especially the discontinuance of flogging females was urged. The last proposal was discussed in each colony separately, and voted down in every one. Young lads were set to whip their own sisters. Mr. Charles Buxton gives an extract from a Jamaica newspaper, to show how the planters of that island received these mild and very partial recommendations of the home government (Jamaica Journal, June 28, 1823): "We will pray the Imperial Parliament to amend their origin, which is bribery; to cleanse their consciences, which are corrupt; to throw off their disguise, which is hypocrisy; to break with their false allies, who are the saints; and finally, to banish from among them all the purchased rogues, who are three-fourths of their number." The excessive cruelty with which the whip was often used, could not be kept secret; but from the nature of the case, it was easy to reply that any facts attested were exceptional. In the crown colonies an overseer was allowed at his own discretion to inflict twenty-five lashes (each lash generally drawing blood) on any negro, male or female; in the other colonies thirty-nine lashes were allowed. The evidence became worse and worse, the more it was inquired into; the papers laid before Parliament in 1824 were full of frightful details. Mr. Charles Buxton, in his excellent little book, observes that according to the sworn returns from the four crown colonies, there were 68,921 floggings in the two years 1828-29; and according to general report, the full legal number of stripes was ordinarily inflicted. But what could not be explained away, was the awful fact of the dying off of the population. This is only to be expected where eighteen hours of work are exacted in the sugar harvest. However, in eleven islands, which also sent returns, the slaves decreased in twelve years from 558,194 to 497,975. Everywhere, we now know, field labor thus destroys a slave population which is not recruited by a slave trade.
