Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum. have been here eight days, and I have not yet waked from my astonishment; the ruins that I came to study cover a space of from twelve to fifteen leagues upon the declivity of a chain of mountains which are along the river Michol: there are buildings of all dimensions, which do not resemble those I have seen in Mexico; here rudely sketched, there beautifully finished, and every where grand and astonishing: I am persuaded that Pelenque was built by persons advanced in civilization, in an epoch approaching the heroic times of Greece; and that it is from here that Quetzal Coatl, (the white and bearded man) set out, who was the first law-giver to the Mexicans. I have perceived some inscriptions which appear to me not to be hieroglyphics, as those of the ancient fultaces. I am going to commence the work, and the abundant harvest of facts and designs which I hope to accumulate, will pay me for the fatigues and dangers which I have encountered." P. D. and meagre to give utterance and expression to the boundless and interminable extent of the evils" resulting from slavery as it is now practised in the West Indias, and in the UNITED STATES of North America. A slight and cursory survey only, of the "evils of slavery," is taken in these lectures. It is said, that "it invariably curses the soil in which it exists, and hurries it fast to sterility," and that "it has been the cause of the slave trade in all ages of the world." The first of these propositions is proved by an appeal to facts which have been verified in the experience of every country in which the system has been predominant. The second is so nearly allied to a self-evident truth, that it needs no argument to prove it. Hence we agree with the lecturer, that the noble band of philanthropists of England, with Wilberforce and Clarkson at their head, greatly erred when they confined their first great effort to the abolition of the slave trade alone, and left the system of slave es of the corrupt tree, but left the root and main trunk sound and vigorous. But if the axe had been laid to the root of the tree, all the branches would have perished,—if slavery, the source and origin of all the evils connected with it, had been abolished, there would have been an end of the trade, without any further parliamentary enactments. They succeeded, it is true, in making the trade unlawful, but it is still illicitly carried on ; and after twenty years experience, they are convinced that there is no remedy for the evil but in the abolition of slavery-and that the whole field of labour has to be traversed again to consum The colored population of Philadelphia have, for a few years past, progressed in the melioration of their moral and physical condition with a rapidity which cannot but be gratifying to the philan-ry untouched. They lopped off one of the branchthropic. Several libraries have been established, reading rooms opened, and debating societies organised. We have been informed by a gentleman present at the regular meeting of one of their debating clubs, that the discussions were conducted with a degree of spirit and propriety, and displayed a cogency and acuteness of reasoning, and an elevation and elegance of language for which he was little prepared. The subjects of discussion generally relate to their own rights and interests, and frequently result in decisions from which the prejudiced mind of the white man would startle and shrink with apprehension. A change is rapidly coming over this people. They are now numerous, united, and bitterly conscious of their degradation and their power. To this let the pride, the independence, and ambition which sci-mate the great work of justice and humanity. ence ever imparts, be added, and the consequences, though beyond the reach of conjecture, would doubtless be such as to involve the character and condition of the whole country. REVIEW. “Three Lectures on British Colonial Slavery, delivered in the Royal Amphitheatre, Liverpool, on the 28th and 30th of August, and 6th of September last, by George Thompson." (Continued from page 69.) The attempt to describe, in appropriate language, the "evils of slavery," opens a "wide and comprehensive field," which cannot be traversed in a single lecture, or in a single volume of ordinary dimensions. They are so numerous and complicated, and so effectually infuse their delete. rious and poisonous qualities into the morais and politics of the community in which slavery exists, that a full development of all the evils attendant upon it would be a Herculean task which no single individual is competent to perform. The English language, when employed on such a theme, shrinks into insignificance, and is found too feeble We cannot withhold from our readers, the eloquent and touching appeal of the lecturer in favor of emancipation, when speaking of the "evils of slavery." Another of the evils of slavery is, that it dooms the infant, even before it comes into this breathing world, to interminable slavery. Oh, Sirs, I beseech ye, think of this, and reconcile it if ye can with professions of strong desire for the termination of slavery. It is five and twenty years since the slave trade was extinguished, and during the whole of that time we have been told by the holders of slave property that they were desirous of witnessing the extinction of slavery. We are now told by the same parties that they are as anxious as any portion of the community to aid in the extermination of the system; but they assign as a reason for opposing immediate manumission, that the negro is not fit for freedom; yet with these professions upon their lips, they doom the hapless infant to the bonds of slavery, from the moment of its birth to the latest period of its existence. Yet we are unblushingly told that their only reason for continuing slavery is to prepare the slave for the reception of the boon. What application, I ask, has this argument to the unborn child? Is the infant unfit for liberty? Can the infant not be trained for liberty? Ah, it is impious to say Fiat Justitia Ruat Cœlum. "take them up," and cause them to live upon the bounty of his hand. Again, the contrast in the feelings and motives of an English laborer, who is incited to exertion by the hope of remuneration for all his toils, and that of the miserable slave, without hope, without a single motive to cheer the tedium of unrequited labor, is portrayed in appropriate colors. that an unoffending being is not fit for liberty; it is a libel upon the government of the great God himself. I repeat it, and I charge my opponent to put it down, and should he fail, I know the gentlemen of the press will not; I repeat it, it is both cruel and impious to say that men are not fit for freedom. The wretched subterfuges of ancient times. Pharaoh set the example,-"Let my people go," said God, by Moses, to the Egyptian tyrant. "I will not let them go," he replied; and he might have added, and perhaps did add-"they are not fit for freedom-they cannot cross the Red I now proceed to another of the evils of coloniSea-they will starve in the wilderness-they are al slavery. It depresses the body with more than numerous and powerful where they are, it would the ordinary amount of labor, and yet withholds be unkind to let them go." "Let my people go," from the mind the necessary incentives to exertion. was, however, the imperative command; and when The negroes upon sugar estates are compelled to he hardened his heart and refused, God sent a perform more labor than the majority of field lafearful plague, and the command was reiterated, borers in this country, and taking into considera"Let my people go:"-again he hardened his tion the climate, more than any other men in any heart, and again the Almighty sent the plague; part of the world, and yet, generally speaking, and it was not until the first-born throughout they have not one of the ordinary motives to labor. Egypt were destroyed that he sent them forth to Ask the peasant in this country how he is sustainserve God in the wilderness. And what was the ed in his labor? Ask the miner? Ask the wea consequence? were they led forth to destruction, ver? Stop the ploughman as he hastens cheerily or left to perish? No. The same arm which to his labor at five in the morning, with his pipe brought them forth out of the "house of bondage" in one hand, and his wallet in the other. Inquire divided the waters of the Red Sea, so that they of him, "Why are you hastening thus contentedwent over upon dry land; and the same arm over-ly to devote yourself to toil during the hours of whelmed their enemies beneath its surges. Were the long day; by what feelings are you sustained, they left to hunger, to thirst, and to die in the wil-how animated, and reconciled?" You might not derness? No. They were fed with manna from get a very philosophical answer from such a man, heaven, and refreshed with water from the smit- not accustomed to analyze the motives under ten rock; and the liberated people of the Lord which he acts, but after a little consideration, he, were thus sustained until they entered the "land perhaps, would say, "In yonder cottage I have flowing with milk and honey." "Let my people left a sleeping wife, with an infant at her breast go," is the command still given in the sacred ca- that calls me in lisping accents father;' that wife, non of our faith. The practical reply is, "No, that child, to me are dear, inestimably dear; their we will not let them go;" and the motive is the comfort and happiness are objects of infinite imsame as in ancient times-Pharaoh wanted more portance to me; that cottage, that garden, are also bricks, and the West Indians want more sugar. dear, and though by others they are viewed as But to return to the particular evil upon which I humble, and perhaps worthless, they are all to was dwelling, what can illustrate the inhumanity me, and they are mine." Yes, Sirs, there is a of slavery more than the fact, that innocent, help- charm in that word MINE; throughout the vocaless infants should be devoted from the womb to a bulary of our language there is no word more condition of abject bondage, without a chance of dear to an Englishman than that word mine; my rising to a higher or a better station? No fault, house, My wife, MY children, My garden, My dog, no crime, no stain attaches to them, yet are they My cat. So thinks the ploughman, and, influendoomed to ignominy and toil. Tell me, ye chris-ced by love for home and its inmates, he goes to tian slave-dealers, where you obtain your warrant for such a practice? Tell me, ye humane proprietors, who hold your victim in bondage merely be. cause he would abuse his freedom, tell me why you cannot train the child for liberty? Tell me why it is that the infant, the youth, looking through the vista of future years, beholds nothing| but slavery without deliverance till he stands upon the brink of the cold river of death, and plunges beneath its waves to be seen no more for ever? In the name of humanity and of God, I demand redemption from slavery for every infant that is, or shall be born in the British colonies. Meet us not with the cant that negro mothers are unfit guardians for their own offspring, and that planters, and overseers, and drivers are the best nurses. What! does the raven feed its young; does the tigress provide for her whelps; do the whole brute race provide for, love, and cherish their young; and shall it be said that the negro mother would forsake hers, and suffer them to perish from neglect? If so, then I look to Heaven, and I say, He who sees the sparrow when it falls, who hears the ravens when they cry, who clothes the lily of the field, and who numbers the hairs even of the negro's head, will care for these "little ones," will the field, nor grudges the labor that enables him to carry to that home sufficient for its wants. This is my philosophy of labor, and though it may not suit the refined taste of a Cambridge scholar, it is the philosophy of nature, in whose school my opponent does not seem to have taken a degree. Wherefore does the tradesman toil? Is it not in expectation of the otium cum dignitate of future years? He rises early, he sits up late, he eats the bread of carefulness, satisfied, if, "in the sear and yellow leaf" of life, he finds himself possessed of a moderate independence; and he bequeaths to his children the same means and the same prospects he himself once possessed; he leaves to them the bustling scenes of life and prepares to make a peaceful exit from this world of strife. Why to's the scholar and the statesman? For literary fame, for political renown. Why toils the soldier? For the laurels of the well fought field. What cheers the sailor when distant on the trackless main? The thought that he is guarding the freedom of his native land! The thought that he shall one day clasp to his bosom his wife and smiling babes, no more to leave them for adventures on the waste of waters. Such are some of the motives which influence freemen to labor, whether they labor on 66 Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum. the "great deep" or mix in the more peaceful and teen, twenty-five, thirty, or thirty-nine lashes on their backs What says Mr. Jeremy on this subject? He says, "With slave-holders for judgesslave-holders for magistrates-slave-holders for jurymen-slave-holders for witnesses, and slave evidence inadmissible, it is impossible for the slave to obtain justice in a court of judicature in the colonies." If it be said that justice cannot always be had in England, ask the poor man whether he cannot get it from an English court of justice, when he accuses a rich man of cruelty and oppression, and whether he is sent away with lashes on his back, if he fails to prove his charge. In the West Indies every difficulty is thrown in the way of the slave who seeks redress, and that, too, by those who are appointed and paid to administer what is called justice. I have not now time to go into the numerous evils growing out of this obstruction of justice; but they are great and numerous. Another evil is the danger of slavery. When our opponents talk of the danger of emancipation, we place upon the other side the danger of continuing a career of vice and cruelty. I pray them The negro has no wife; she is the property of another and there is no law in Jamaica to prevent the master from selling her from the bosom of her lawful husband. Toils he for children? No. Children he may have; but he toils not for them. They are slaves like himself; fed like beasts, worked as beasts, estimated as beasts. They are slaves for ever, after the order of the colonies.just to remember this; and if they do not, I hope Toils he for compensation? No. For preferment? it will be circulated by the press, I hold it to be No. For fame? No. For honor? No. Why, then, a sound maxim both in morals and religion, that does he toil? The whip is behind him. The whip there is no danger so great as that of continuing compels him. That is the motive supplied by men in a course of wrong doing. There is no danger calling themselves christians to immortal beings, so great resulting from doing right as that which to force them to labor for their profit and pleasure. must inevitably attend doing wrong. I care not The whip is the only stimulus which the great how many imaginary dangers they may conjure majority of the slaves have under the incessant, up to deter us from doing justice to the slaves. I the degrading, and life-destroying toils which are care not how great the danger may be of doing now imposed upon them in the sugar colonies. right; I say there is no danger so great as that of Another of the evils of our slave system is, that doing wrong. I speak not now merely of the it entails upon its hapless victim all imaginable amount of guilt upon our own consciences, but suffering. I have not time, upon the present even- also of the present and imminent dangers which ing, to go into the harrowing detail, but they in- grow out of the system of slavery. I mean the clude stripes, mutilations, chains, collars, dun-danger of insurrections,-the danger of conspirageons, disease, blows, brand marks, shackles,cies, the danger of assassinations, the danger sores, scorn, scars,-in a word, a painful life, of the interposition of Heaven on behalf of those and an unpitied death! If this be denied, and you for whom Heaven cares, and whose wrongs Hea will grant me your patience, I will overwhelm myven will avenge, if we do not speedily put the adversaries with a host of evidence, unimpeach-abomination from amongst us. ed, and unimpeachable, even till that table groans under the weight. But it will not, methinks, be denied that many of the slaves actually suffer, and all are liable to the sufferings I have just enumerated. Another of the evils of slavery, which stands Some time since, I sent you an account of a No. 10 upon my list, is the difficulty experienced mechanic who, by paying each of the slaves by the slave in obtaining redress for his wrongs. whom he had hired one dollar per week, obtained You will be told, no doubt, of certain laws, in cer- more work from five, than he had been able to tain islands; but those laws want one principle, procure before from eleven of them. To-day a and that is what Mr. Burke, I think, called an circumstance has come to my knowledge which "executory principle." Some of them would, no ought to speak volumes to those who keep slaves. doubt, be very good laws, only it happens for the A person who has been in the habit of trading want of this principle that they are good for noth-to York River, for oysters, was in the practice of ing. I need not tell you that a law may be very hiring black men from their masters. These poor good to be read; very good to be laid on the shelf dispirited creatures worked so slow, that it generof a magistrate; and, therefore, very good to be ally took about three weeks to load his vessel. At appealed to by a planter, when West Indian jus- last he hit upon the experiment of giving them a tice is called in question; but, at the same time, reward of fifty cents a day, (for themselves,) for it may be a very poor law in respect of affording each good day's work. The consequence is, that the slave either protection or redress. They say he now gets his vessel loaded in about five days, there is a law for the protection of the slave; but, at a much less expense. This shews that VOLUN will you believe it? more punishments are inflict-TARY labor is much SUPERIOR to that which is comed upon slaves for what are designated frivolous || and vexatious complaints, than for almost all other offences put together. I have here a long list of cases in which slaves came to slave protectors, complaining of acts of cruelty of various descriptions, and they were sent back with five, ten, fif. PULSORY. Let those who employ slaves, remember, that it would be better to hire even their own slaves, or pay those whom they hire from others, than to undertake to compel them to work. A SUBSCRIBER. Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum. Ladies' Repository. Philanthropic and Literary. PRINCIPALLY CONDUCTED BY A LADY. SPRING. by Mr. Brougham, for the early consideration of the state of the enslaved population in the British colonies, only, with a view to the mitigation and ultimate extinction of slavery, was negatived by a majority of fifty-six to twenty-six, in the British House of Commons; and our home secretary, Sir prepared to give any pledge to the final abolition Robert Peel, said at the same time, he was not of slavery, until he saw the means of effecting it; which, if he cannot discover in 1830, he is never likely to discover till the day of doom. You, who have so long felt and labored for the defenceless and unoffending Africans, still con Christ, but have not departed from this iniquity." I am the more anxious to urge this request, that your nation may serve as an example to ours. For Bible England refuses "to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free,”—and has recently cut off all hope of help from man, for those, whom she possessed herself of by fraud and It is the season of gladness-exulting, abound-violence. On the 13th of July last, a resolution ing gladness. There is joy over all the face of the earth. Joy in the breeze and in the sunshine —in the springing of every green blade, and the unfolding of every blossom; joy in the broad stretch of the smiling heavens; joy over the mountain tops, and in the quiet depths of the "green haired vallies." It is ponred out on the air in the song of the birds, in the hum of the awakened insects, in the perfume of the thousand flowers. The fetterless streams have caught its influence, and go carolling along their pleasant paths, and tossing up their tiny waves to the smiling sunbeams. It is well for the human heart to be opened to these pleasant influences; well to suffer them to steal in and perform their allotted ministering offices therc, till it is insensibly won from its wonted selfishness, into a better and holier nature. If the gloriousness and beauty of the crea- Before I conclude, I think it may not be unintion declare to us, all over the earth, that God is teresting to you, to learn, that the females of Eng land become increasingly desirous of aiding the love, they should also impress upon the heart, the cause of negro emancipation; and many are anxsinfulness of aiding, be it as indirectly as it may,ious to have no further participation in this cryin the oppression of his children. They shoulding sin, and are exerting themselves that their teach us sympathy for the miserable, and fill us with earnest desires for the moral and intellectual improvement of all the human race. They should speak to every bosom of the claims of the wrong ed slave, and bid every hand engage in the task of loosening his fetters. signed with their guiltless offspring to interminable bondage, under a system of tyranny, alike debasing to the oppressor and the oppressed, will be willing now to raise your voice in their behalf; loves his own children, and must feel for those and surely you will be heard by your King, who who are forever parted from theirs, wherever avarice requires the separation. beloved country may, if possible, escape the judgments of that God, who will sweep away every refuge of lies when the waters shall at last overflow the hiding place, when the slave will at last of human beings that ever existed on this globe, be et free from his master, and all the multitude will be divided into the just and the unjust." I regret to state, that not even on the estates where the negroes are declared to have become a The following letter we presume will be read well instructed and christian people, are they conwith interest, by many of our readers. TO THE MARQUIS LAFAYETTE, From the Secretary of the Ladies' Negro's Friend My Lord, August 16, 1831. sequently emancipated by their owners-nor have we yet heard of any West Indian proprietor, who has washed his hands of the flagrant iniquity of making slaves of the unoffending children born on his estates. From Philadelphia, I have recently learnt, that females there as well as here, are de A letter I received from Dr. Philip, describing sirous of peaceably removing the bonds of the capa most interesting interview he had with you, and tive negro; and in a letter dated Philadelphia, 6th your grandson, when you were surrounded by month 7th, 1830, addressed to the Female Antisome of the descendants of the children of Africa, Slavery Societies of Great Britain, I learn "that who regarded you as their parent, induces me the friends of the oppressed negro, desire to introwithout much fear that my letter will be ill re- duce and promote the manufacture of cotton, culceived, to submit to your consideration, whether tivated by free persons, and as much as possible, it be not a measure well suited to the present exi- to abstain from the purchase and use of articles, gence, to draw immediately the attention of your procured from slave labor." I am sure you will new King and Queen, to the victims of oppres-excuse my mentioning these things which may sion, now suffering in the colonies belonging to be already known to you, and also for presuming christian Kings "who have named the name of to entreat you, for the sake of France and Eng*Since this letter was written, our good and patriotic King has delivered himself from the great dishonor of enriching his treasury by the coerced labor of his liege subjects, condemned without the commission of a single crime, to the horrors of perpetual slavery. The slaves belonging to the crown are free. Our King no doubt will feel a growing impatience at there being any slavery at all, beneath the paternal sway of his sceptre. land, to call on both countries to remove this foul blot from the christian name; and may one nation say to the other, "we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear."--that they may not have to add.-"therefor is this distress come upon us." Gen. Ixii. 21. I am, with much respect, my Lord, Your most obedient, humble servant, Fiat Justitia Ruat Cœlum. For the Genius of Universal Emancipation. EVENING THOUGHTS. I have been out among the pleasant hills, Its lingering echoes, and the wave's calm rest, Proud hills were gathered round me; on their brows All motionless, the outstretched shadows lay, and gray. Dark was the storm-cloud that o'er thee hung wrathfully, When that vile trader's foot entered thy door. SUSAN. From the West Chester Register & Examiner. FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS-AN EXTRACT. Julia. We have just received a number of pam. phlets from the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in En. gland. In their Second Annual Report, page 7th, the committee considering the inertness of men in authority, and the strong opposition every amelio. long protracted delays, and seeming utter hopeless. rating measure met with in Parliament, says, "the ness of any effective ligislative interposition, have made numberless proselytes to the conviction that the disuse of slave produce is the most probable means of abolishing slavery. The idea of effecting an object so vast, by a process so simple, is no longer regarded as visionary and absurd. Whilst the substitution of the produce of free, for that of slave labor, was adopted only by a few individuals, it would naturally be regarded as a useless scrupulosity;-now that it is adopted by hundreds of thousands, hope smiles upon the conscientious protest, and animates to quickened exertions in urging its indispensable obligations upon every friend of humanity and justice. If the voice of authority, and the arm of power withhold their inbless!terposition, the obligations to individual exertion Thou who wert with me!-watching the sweet Until the silver moonbeam melted through Of those who wear a wretched life away, Oh land beloved! my country! thou hast heaped While penitence may yet thy pardon win, GERTRUDE. For the Genius of Universal Emancipation. SLAVE, WHO HAST BEEN TOILING. Slave, who hast been toiling long and wearily, Lift thy bent form, for the darkness is nigh, The mild star of eve, in the west smileth cheerily, Lighting their footsteps as homeward they hie. All day long has thy thought been a reveller, Feasting on the memory of home-born joys; But now, as in the heart of a long gone traveller, Fear with its bodings thy gladness allows. Why from thy door spring no dear one's delight. ed, Striving in a fond race to welcome thee home? Wert thou a lingerer so far benighted, They cannot distinguish thy form midst the gloom. Wo for thee, Slave! though they still love thee faithfully, Children nor wife shall e'er welcome thee more; are not cancelled, but increased. The cause of emancipation being a righteous cause, its final triumph must be secure, and that triumph will be accelerated, rather than retarded by the supineness of the Legislature, and by all the powerful continuations of interested opposition, should they rouse the slumbering principle of private indivi. duals into vigorous, concentrated anti-slavery ef fort:-and such are their evident effects in various parts of the country. Hope long deferred of parliamentary redress, has made the heart of humanity sick; she turns to private benevolence; she stretches her imploring hands in behalf of the 800,000 outcasts from legal justice and protection to sensitive tender-hearted women. Can we hear of the exertions to promote the objects of our society, which are now making in so many parts of the kingdom, especially in Bristol and Liverpool, where they have to encounter such deep-rooted prejudices? Can we hear of the indefatigable perseverance of our Birmingham friends, which has left but one-sixth of a population of nearly 100,000 unvisited from house to house? Can we hear of the stupendous undertaking to pursue the same plan in London, and withhold our zealous co-operation?" I read that part of the report, to show with what zeal, what untiring, persevering industry and diligence, British females prosecute the noble undertaking; not dismayed at failure of success from the source they had relied upon; we see them now directing their attack against the strong hold of the oppressor; and a breach once effected, the citadel must surrender at discretion. Susan. I always rejoice to hear of the activity which is followed by abasedness, when I think of and devotedness of our transatlantic coadjutants, our own unfaithfulness. Surely if British sympathy can be awakened, British interest excited, and the spirit of the whole nation roused, on behalf of the 800,000 human beings held in bondage by sanction of English laws; surely if Britons can thus feel for eight hundred thousand souls, in her distant colonies, what greater depth of feeling |