was fired from the fort. As no time was to be lost in endeavouring to counteract the views of the enemy, we stood in and anchored, when we commenced a heavy cannonnade, and had the good fortune, in a short time, to drive them into the mountains. Their field-pieces, ammunition, provisions, and vessels, laden with necessaries for carrying on the siege, fell into our hands. "The good conduct of every officer and sailor belonging to our little squadron manifested itself upon this occasion, as well as upon many others since I have had the honour to command it. "I have to regret the loss of four men killed; and Mr. Morgan, master's mate, and ten men, wounded (though not mortally), who were in the Magicienne's boats when endeavouring to tow out the privateers. "I have the honour to be, &c. "To Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, &c." "W. H. RICKETTS." Address from the Inhabitants of Jeremie. "To the Honourable George (William) Henry Ricketts, Commander of his Majesty's ships La Magicienne; Le Regulus, Captain Carthew; and the Fortune sloop, Lieutenant Trelawny; stationed off the southern part of St. Domingo. "SIR, "The important service which you rendered to the Grand Anse, on the 24th of last month, has excited the most grateful sensations in the hearts of its inhabitants. Condescend, Sir, to accept of their most respectful acknowledgments. "The Grand Anse will never forget, that the enemy, after a fruitless assault against the Fort of Irois, threatening it with a siege, for which it had assembled a most powerful force in Carcass Bay, saw you, at a single signal, rush down upon them, with the Magicienne, Regulus, and Fortune; that your fire was so terrible and so well supported, that in a short time the shore was covered with dead, and the numerous troops collected for the expedition put to flight. You took or sunk the six ships which formed their marine; and carried off their guns, their ammunition, their provisions, and even the tent of their commander-in-chief. "It was this decisive advantage which compelled them precipitately to re-enter their own territory; when two columns advanced to complete their destruction by land, which had been so well commenced upon the sea. This exploit, so glorious for the British flag, insures to you, Sir, the most flattering rewards from the King of whom we have now the honour to become the subjects; it obtains a security for the Grand Anse, which, unquestionably, the implacable hatred of an obstinate enemy will not, for a long time, again disturb; this happy event having induced the government to adopt such measures as will preserve it for the future. "In the inability of the inhabitants properly to acknowledge so signal a service, they beg of you, Sir, to receive, as a testimony of their gratitude, a complete plan of the country of the Grand Anse, in which will be found, correctly drawn, the Fort of Irois and the Bay of Carcasses. "This plan, in reminding you of the memorable action of the 24th of April, will call to your recollection how much your presence, and that of the ships of war under your command, were serviceable to the Grand Anse; will solicit a continuation of your vigilance towards a quarter which first called for the assistance of His Britannic Majesty's forces, and which has uniformly given to its government innumerable proofs of its inviolable fidelity. "We are, with the most respectful esteem, and the most lively gratitude, "Sir, "Your most humble and obedient servants, "THE INHABITANTS OF THE GRAND ANSE." In August, General Simcoe left General Maitland commanderin-chief in St. Domingo. General Simcoe proceeded to England to present to the British ministry a memorial of the real state of that colony, in consequence of which it was determined that the island should be abandoned. In Grenada an act was passed on the 13th of May this year, enacting," that all and every slave or slaves who now are or hereafter may be sentenced to be banished from this island, or to be confined to hard labour in chains, for life, or for any shorter period, and who shall escape, break loose, or run away from the place of his, her, or their confinement, or who shall be absent for the space of forty-eight hours from the custody of the person having charge of him, her, or them, shall, on conviction thereof, be declared guilty of felony, and shall suffer death or such other punishment as the magistrates present on the trial of such slave or slaves shall direct." Mr. Dallas shall relate to the reader what sort of punishment this slave-chain is, the attempt to escape from which these merciful legislators punish with death. "The chain, being fixed about the leader, is carried round the bodies of the followers, leaving a sufficient distance to walk without treading on each others heels, and to each it is secured by a padlock. Coke's West Indies, vol. iii. p. 484. "As soon as they are thus yoked within the walls of the workhouse, the gate is thrown open, and the poor animals are driven out by a Negro driver, attended by a white driver, both with cattlewhips in their hands. Sometimes the white driver rides on a mule. "You may imagine that in the great number of persons thus fastened to each other, without the least attention to the difference of age or of strength, it is not very probable that an equal pace among them can be kept up through the day, as they move about. They are set upon a brisk walk almost approaching to a trot, and woe be to those whom fatigue first forces to flag; the never-ceasing sound of the cattle-whip long keeps a regularity in the slight sinking curve of the intervening links of the chain; but naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret: nature will return; the feebler will begin to pull upon the stronger, the intervening links will lose their regular curve; here they become stretched to their utmost, there they sink nearly to the ground; the weak add the weight of their exhausted limbs to the strong, and the strong tread upon the heels of the weak. This the drivers remedy, as much as possible, by their cattle-whips, till nature quite worn out is at last driven back to the workhouse." To these slave chains masters and mistresses send their Negroes for punishment at their discretion, and there is no distinction between the treatment of the slaves so sent, and those convicts who are condemned by the magistrates for public crimes. In Antigua, until the 28th of December of this year, the murder of a slave was punishable only by a fine of from £100 to £300; and castration, or other dismemberment, by a fine of from £20 to £100, current money. In Grenada those who had asserted, in 1788, that slaves, when "ill-treated" by the master, had the full protection of the English law, felt it to be a melioration of their state in this year (1797) to guard them by trifling pecuniary penalties from dismemberment or mutilation. In the Bahamas the slaves could be corrected at the will of their masters, until this year, when the crime of mutilation was subjected to a penalty limited to £100 currency, or six months' imprisoment, even in the most atrocious cases. In Dominica also a slave could be "cruelly" tortured for the same fine, and no imprisonment at all. Mr. B. Edwards, in the House of Commons, moved for the repeal of a clause in the act 5 Geo. II. c. 7, which declared, that both slaves and land should be liable to debts of the same degree. The repealing act, however, neither enacts that the slaves and lands shall be sold together, nor that neither shall be sold, but repeals so much only as relates to Negroes. The consequence, therefore, would be, supposing British statute law to regulate the subject at all, that the very evil which the repealed act was falsely alleged to produce would be produced by the act of repeal; for the land would continue liable to be sold under 5 Geo. II., while the slaves would not; and the latter would obviously be torn from their settlement by the estate being sold from the debtor to whom they belong, as effectually as if they were sold from the estate. But the colonial legislators have been so far from giving effect to the intentions of parliament and suggestion of government, that they treated both with contempt, and the liability of slaves to be sold by legal process is still left every where on its former footing. By the 55th section of the Bahama Consolidation Slave Act, passed this year, the jury are required to be unanimous in their verdict on the trial of a felonious offence.. That the lower class of white persons frequently rob the slaves is proved by the following extract from the report of the assembly of St. Christopher, dated 1797. It was the practice of some of the lower class of white persons to beat and ill treat the Negroes, and frequently to take from them any articles that they carried to town for sale." And Sir William Young, a planter and zealous apologist of slavery, when governor of Tobago, states, in his report of 1811, that "the slaves coming from distant plantations to the market of Scarborough (the chief town), with poultry, pigs, corn, and fruit for sale, were often defrauded in weight and measure, or their goods were forced from them at a less price than they asked, or they were robbed of the whole by some miscreant white people, or Mulatto housekeeper, with impunity, slaves not being admitted to give evidence of the wrong they had suffered from a person who is free." Sir William represented that an act had put a stop to these abuses; but he was too sanguine in his expectations, for he afterwards speaks of the utter inefficacy of all laws for the protection of slaves while their evidence is rejected. Upon the 6th of May, the Duke of Portland sent the following circular letter to the governors of Jamaica, St. Vincent's, Dominica, Barbadoes, Leeward Islands, and Grenada. "MY LORD, or SIR, "Whitehall, 6th May, 1797. "I have received his Majesty's commands to transmit to your lordship the enclosed resolution of the House of Commons of the 6th of April last, respecting the Negroes in his Majesty's plantations in the West Indies; and to signify to you his royal pleasure, that you should take the earliest opportunity of communicating it to the council and assembly of the island of , to whose particular attention and consideration you will recommend the formation of such a system of measures as may appear to them best suited to the attainment of the several important objects which are specified Stephen on West Indian Slavery, pp. 157. 316. Parliamentary Papers, A. 11. in the resolution. Your lordship will not fail to transmit to me, from time to time, accounts of the proceedings of the legislature of your island, in consequence of this communication; and I desire you will take care, in your first dispatches, to inform me whether any measures have been already taken by the legislature of the island, which may tend to promote the purposes expressed by the resolution of the House of Commons; and you will also be attentive at all times, to avail yourself of every opportunity of cultivating and improving the disposition you observe in the planters and inhabitants to promote the humane and benevolent views which the legislature of this kingdom has so eminently manifested in the resolution which is herewith transmitted to you. "I am, &c., "PORTLAND." The Address of the House of Commons. Jovis, 6° die Aprilis, 1797. Resolved, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, requesting that his Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions to the governors of his Majesty's plantations in the West Indies, to recommend to the respective councils and assemblies of the said plantations to adopt such measures as shall appear to them best calculated to obviate the causes which have hitherto impeded the natural increase of the Negroes already in the islands, gradually to diminish the necessity of the slave trade, and ultimately to lead to its complete termination; and particularly, with a view to the same effect, to employ such means as may conduce to the moral and religious improvement of the Negroes, and secure to them, throughout all the British West India islands, the certain, immediate, and active protection of the law; and at the same time assuring his Majesty, that this house will concur in such measures as shall appear requisite to be taken by this house for the attainment of the same object." The Spanish government had adopted several regulations to oblige the merchants to compose their cargoes for America of national commodities. "In a little time they exacted but a third; but to those who included more than a third of their cargoes, they allowed a premium in the reduction of the duties. Finally, by an order of the 20th of November, 1797, the King accorded to shippers the liberty to export as they pleased, either in foreign or national commodities." Sir Thomas Picton's Proclamation. By virtue of an official paper which I, the governor of this island of Trinidad, have received from the Right Honourable Henry Depon's South America, vol. ii. p. 25. |