"163. Had the provisions of that act been intended to apply to the importation and removal of slaves by land, in the Honourable Company's territories or the continent of India, it cannot be supposed that the Legislature would have confined the operation of the 4th section of that Act exclusively to the West Indies; that it would have subjected to the punishment of transportation whole NATIONS, amongst whom domestic slavery had immemorially existed, under the sanction of law, RECOGNIZED BY PARLIAMENT, and this without any reference to those established laws and usages, and without repealing the acts of Parliament, by which the observance of them IS GUARANTEED TO

THE NATIVES; that it would, in short, have subjected the Hindoo and Mahommedan inhabitants of the British territories in the East Indies, to the severe punishment of transportation, for acts which the 4th section of the act renders legal in the West Indies."

It would be superfluous for me, my Lord Duke, to adduce further references from the Reports in question, to prove that personal slavery exists in its most strict and absolute form in India. It not only does so, but it is "GUARANTEED TO THE NATIVES" by "Acts of the British Parliament,”by that Parliament, and by the people of that country who elect that Parliament, and who cry out to extinguish that system of domestic slavery which they had established and long encouraged in the West Indies!

In my former letter, I shewed, at great length, the incredible number of domestic slaves that there are at this day in India. One single reference may here be considered to be sufficient to shew this extent. "In Malabar and Canara alone," says the Madras Revenue Board, p. 900, “the number of slaves is calculated at 180,000" in 1819!

Thus, my Lord Duke, we have not only the admission, that personal slavery exists in India, but the inveteracy of the system is shewn in the acknowledged fact, that a slave trade, (about which I have hitherto said little) and to a great extent, continued to be carried on in that quarter of our dominions, ten years after it had been totally abolished in the West Indies; and we shall presently see that it continued to a much later-to the latest period. What will the insolent writer in the Westminster Review say to these notorious, these incontestable,

these overwhelming facts, and to his "flagrant falsehood," namely, that there are (for this is what his words are intended to convey) no slaves in India, and which, in the face of the whole British nation, insulted by such a flagrant act, he has ventured to put forth. I leave him, my Lord Duke, to that mortification, which detected "falsehood," and exposed ignorance and presumption feel, and must always feel.

Subsequent to the abolition of the African slave trade by Great Britain in 1808, great exertions were made by the authorities in India, in order to suppress the slave trade which was carried on in that quarter of the world, both by land and sea. Severe laws, in obedience to the British statute, and founded upon it, were passed in every Presidency; but after years of labour, these were found to be in a great measure inoperative, because they were opposed to the feelings and to the interests of the population and the government of Hindostan ; and while the operation of these laws was very frequently productive of great injustice" (so the authorities state) to individuals, they were found to be too feeble to root out the inveterate evils against which they were directed. They continued to be evaded, both by land and sea, though less frequently so by the latter, than by the former. Down to 1825, the latest period to which the official documents reach, we find the system of kidnapping children, and selling them as slaves, continuing in various parts of India, notwithstanding the efforts of the authorities to punish and to prevent it. Almost every page of the documents referred to, bring before us instances of the violation of the laws in this respect. At page 376, we are told that the practice continued in Bengal so late as 1823; and at page 903, we find it stated in an official letter from the Court of Directors, to the Governor in Council of Fort George, dated 28th April 1824, that the system of kidnapping children was very prevalent at Madras," and that the police endeavoured to apprehend the offenders," but without success;" and at page 555, as well as in various other passages, we find some striking instances mentioned, of parents selling their own children as slaves, which is considered legal by the Hindoo code. At page 115, we are told

that the traffic in children in Nepaul was very great. At page 211, we find the case stated, of a woman who had purchased at Jhausey, and brought into Cawnpoor in 1813, two young girls, for the purpose of prostitution, a custom which is quite common all over India. At pages 243 and 244, we are informed, that not only slavery existed in Dacca, but that a slave trade continued to be carried on there in 1813; and even as late as 1816, the practice of inveigling children, and evading the laws against the slave trade, continued to prevail in that quarter. At pages 246 and 247, we are told, that in 1816 it was the practice in Sylhet, for mothers to sell their children, and which children were better taken care of by their new masters" than by their own mothers; and farther, that in the Zellah Tipperah, the slave trade continues, the people selling themselves from poverty, &c. At page 109, we are told that "the importation and sale of slaves continues unrestricted in Rumpoore and the Rohilla Jageer;" and under date 17th June, 1825, J. COTTON, principal collector and magistrate, adverts to the continued practice of mothers selling their children, and then informs us, that in Tanjore Nagapatam, " slavery is carried to a greater extent than is generally understood, and TO BE INCREASING.' Pages 377-379 place before us, under the head Bengal Judicial Consultations, 25th March, 1824, the following remarkable instance of a foreign slave trade successfully carried on at Calcutta. The fact was stated in the Calcutta Journal, a paper, if I mistake not, then conducted by the individual who now conducts the Oriental Herald in London, which Journal, in a late number, had the extraordinary hardihood to dispute the existence, not only of a slave trade, but almost of slavery itself, in India; and further, of boldly asserting, that the quotations from the documents which have been so often referred to were unfairly quoted. To "such writers as" this, reply is unnecessary. The charge made about a slave trade in Calcutta, upon investigation, was found to be correct: it runs thus:"We are informed that 150 Eunuchs have been landed from the Arab ships this season, to be sold as slaves in the capital of British India. It is known,

too, that these ships are in the habit of conveying away MANY OF THE naTIVES OF THIS COUNTRY, PRINCIPALLY

FEMALES, and disposing of them in Arabia, in barter for African slaves in the Calcutta market." "Nature shudders at the thought of the barbarities practised by these abusers of God's noblest creatures, who are led by an accursed thirst of gold, to brutalize the human species. Only one fact shall suffice, to shew the savage and murderous barbarity resorted to by the wretches engaged in a traffic so revolting to humanity. A gentleman has informed us, that of 200 African boys emasculated at Judda, only ten survived the cruel operation!"

It is twenty years, my Lord Duke, since the African slave trade with our West India colonies, a trade instituted and carried on, not by the colonies, but by the mother country, for her interest and advantage, was by law abolished, and since that period, not a single violation of the law by any British subject, has taken place in any one of these colonies; while in India, held up as being so pure and so superior to them, the violations are numerous innumerable and glaring; but then these West India colonies have no harems to guard, like the Nabobs in the East,-like the worshippers of Juggernaut and the "False Prophet," and the Lords who rule both, otherwise they would not be so reviled and calumniated.

So inveterate is the system both of slavery and the slave trade in India, that, as I have already stated, after years of labour and of error from hasty measures, the East Indian government seem wisely to have adopted the plan of trusting to time, instruction, and good government, to meliorate and to root out these widespread evils in civil society in India; and so far are they, as the haughty writer in the Westminster Review boasts, from being secure from the non-existence of personal slavery in India, and heedless of what passes about that subject, that they tremble at the consequences which the innovations which have been attempted, and others which may be meditated, may produce in India, as the following extracts from their official correspondence and instructions will abundantly testify:

At page 106, G. DOWDESWELL, chief

"Extract from the Proceedings of his Excellency the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council in the Political Department, under date the 7th April, 1817,-p. 332.

"Letter to John Adam, Esq. Secretary to

the Governor-General,-p. 335. "With reference to the extent to which domestic slavery exists in India under the existing laws and usages of the Hindoos and Mahommedans, and to the known habits and feelings of the people relative to that point, the Vice-President in Council is of opinion, that the greatest care should be observed to guard against the prevalence of an impression amongst the natives that any general or direct interference in the existing relation of master and slave is contemplated by government.

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Any impression of that nature might be expected to excite feelings of alarm and dissatisfaction; and on this ground it appears to be of importance that the government of Bombay should avoid, as far as may be practicable, the official revival and discussion of this question, after the deliberate consideration which it has undergone in communication with the legal authorities at this Presidency."

"Extract of a letter in the Judicial Department, from the Court of Directors to the Governor in Council of Fort George, dated April 28th, 1824,-page 901.

"We desire that you will be extremely cautious in making any regulation for defining the relations of master and slave. It is our wish to improve the condition of the latter to the utmost extent, and we fear, that in defining the power of masters, acts of compulsion might be legalized, which by custom are not now tolerated, and the slaves might be placed in a worse condition than before."

"Extract from the proceedings of the Board of Revenue, under date the 25th November, 1819,-page 893.

"From what has been already stated,

it will be found that agricultural slavery has existed in this district from time immemorial. I (MR HILL) shall now submit my opinion as to the policy, or otherwise, of abolishing the establishment.

"There is something so revolting and abhorrent to an Englishman in the idea of slavery, that the advocates for its continuance in any shape must ever labour under the disadvantage of pre-judgment. Notwithstanding this, I shall endeavour to shew, that so far as relates to the revenue of this district, (and I trust my opinion will not be supposed to extend farther,) the abolition of the puller system would be attended with the most serious and ruinous consequences.

"For the sake of argument, however, I will suppose, that by proclamation of government, the establishment is directed to be abolished. In this case, I apprehend the direct consequences would be, either an immediate desertion of the pullers in a body, or that they would remain in statu quo. The first would be the natural conduct of any class of society having experienced ill usage from their former masters, and the latter course would be adopted by the pullers, if they had no reason to complain. If the pullers absconded, it is clear that NO REVENUE Could be collected, for who is to supply their place? And in this case would government have any claim on the meer ossidars? The latter would naturally say, you have taken away our means of paying; you have reduced us to poverty; you have abolished an establishment which has existed for ages, and have thought proper, at our expense, to emancipate our slaves, which prescription and our laws made as much our property as the houses we live in. By the laws of our caste we are prevented from tilling our land; and yet you ask us to pay a revenue, which alone can be paid from its produce.

"On the other hand, should the proclamation have only the effect of leaving things as they are; if the pullers remained with their masters as heretofore, the only benefit resulting therefrom would be, that government had published a proclamation without any attention being paid to it. It would be at least a useless, if not a dangerous document. Hence to emancipate them entirely, would be ruinous in its consequences both to the revenue and the

puller; for emancipation in India would confer no rights beyond what the puller at present enjoys. Though nominally emancipated, he and his children would remain the lowest order of society; he would either continue at the plough, possibly under less favourable circumstances than at present, or seek a livelihood by

order was issued by that officer, to restore the paddy seed and chermars (slaves.")

Par. 37. "The Board observe with regret, that this order was not obeyed, but that the four slaves were sold for 32. 3 rupees." (about £3 sterling!) Under par. 899 we find the Collector, in his report to Government, taking up this matter thus:-"The third Judge," says he, "has been long enough in the revenue, and the judicial line, to know that the sale of

shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour."-Leviticus, chap. xxv. v. 44, 45, and 46.

While personal slavery, providing the personal slaves were strangers, that is, individuals from other nations, was recognized and sanctioned amongst the Jews, and slaves constituted property in ABSOLUTE Right

crees for arrears of revenue, and by mutual and private contracts, IS AS COMMON AS THE SALE OF LAND; for if the soil is sold, what can be the use of retaining the

slaves on it?" Under par. 39, Mr Campbell proceeds to tell us, that in the space of five years 186 cases of the description alluded to had occurred in the Zillah Court

of South Malabar alone!

These references establish beyond dispute, the fact that the sale of slaves for revenue arrears in India" is as common as the sale of land;" and that to procure their revenue, the East India Company oblige parents "to sell their children;" thus separating families, and breaking asunder the strongest ties of nature, without consideration or remorse.

I must pass over the observations contained in various parts of the papers before us, particularly pages 872-874, &c., where the authorities in India, describing the state and extent of personal slavery in India, take consolation to themselves in the Pharisaical boast, that East Indian slavery was a much gentler and more pleasing thing than the slavery of Africans (p. 897) in our West Indian colonies. In the same page they, however, resort to an authority in justification of personal slavery amongst the Hindoos and other nations, which enables us to set this boast and this matter in its proper light. The authority to which they have referred certainly is invincible and incontrovertible; it runs thus:

"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of

the heathen that are round about you; of

them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn amongst you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they

God, it must be remarked, that the same laws denounced the most terrible judgments against the Jews, if they reduced their fellow-countrymen to a state of personal slavery, or kept them in a state of servitude beyond a period limited by positive law, unless with their own consent; and the transgression of this law, and their adopting as part of their code this demoralizing system, namely, reducing their own brethren to a state of personal slavery without limits, formed the last terrible reproof, and produced the last terrible threaten ing from the Almighty by the lips of Jeremiah the prophet, to Zedekiah, King of Judah, which filled up the iniquities of Judah immediately before Nebuchadnezzar laid Jerusalem in ashes, (Jeremiah, c. xxxiv. v. 8—22.) Thus, my Lord Duke, we perceive that the personal slavery anathematized by JEHOVAH is the slavery which prevails in India; that is, Hindoos are made slaves by and to Hindoos. The authorities who attempt to palliate it, by contrasting it with the slavery of Africans in the western world, ought therefore to be silent.

But, my Lord Duke, notwithstanding that Mr Campbell, in the document alluded to, tells us (p. 897) as follows:-" In India, the slaves, where they do now exist, although they can be sold, transferred, or given away, cannot be forcibly dragged from their native country, and doomed to a life of bondage in a foreign land;-a traffic in slaves, as carried on with Africa, is entirely unknown in India;"-notwithstanding this boast and this assertion, we find from other passages of the papers referred to, that there are many African slaves in India, and in the Company's territories. At page 203 we are told, (par. 6,) "His Lordship and Council are aware, that there are many public slaves (descendants of native Africans imported into this settlement on ac