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DUNDEE SUBSCRIPTIONS, per P. WATSON and J. HENDERSON, ESQRS.

John Leng, Esq...
Rev G. Gilfillan...
Wm. Scott, Esq...
P. Anderson, Esq
J. Mills, Esq
Ed. Caird, Esq
Thos. Bell, Esq...
A. Henderson, Esq
Alex. Low, Esq...
Thos. Couper, Esq
Alex. Berrie, Esq
J. H. Bell, Esq

R. M. Gavin, Esq

W. R.Morison, Esq G.Armitstead, Esq R. M

Mrs. Gardner..

D. Ogilvie, Esq...
J.Cunningham, Esq
H. G. Don, Esq...
H. Walker, Esq...
Geo. C. Keiller...
Cox, Brothers
A Friend

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Wm. Lowson, Esq

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G. Rough, Esq 1 0 0

Thos. Smith

Mr. R. Powell

A Friend

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R. A. Mudie, Esq 1 1 0

Alex. Gibb....

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Mrs. R. Anderson Bap. Ch. Tayport,

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W. E. Baxter, Esq.,

M.P.

E. Baxter, Esq

F. Henderson, Esq

H.B.Fergusson, Esq 1

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Mr. H. Smith, sen. J.Carmichael, Esq 10

Thos Dick..

Tay square, U.P.
Church, per Rev

M. Gavin

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A. M. Walter, Esq
W.W. Cooper, Esq
J. Spence, Esq
J. Durham, Esq.
James Low, Esq 0 10
J. Henderson, Esq 0 10
D.Farquharson, Esq 0 5 0
H. Henderson, Esq 0 10 0
Mr. J. Robertson 050
L. A.

Balance from

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1 0 0

10 0 0 John Gordon & Co 10 0 0 A Friend

10 0 0 Mrs. Capt. Scott... 10 0 0

J. Christie, Esq.,
M.D.
Workers at Wal-
lace Works, P
JM Bruce......
Workers at Ver-
dant Works P
JE Webster...

A Friend

606

3 10 0

030

...

Spinners at Messrs Gilroy's per Mr.

I. Dron
Ward Chapel, per

the Rev Robt.
Spence

084

6 17 4

101

Mr. J. Johnston...
J. V. Shaw, Esq... 2
Workers at Bow-

bridge works,

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per J. McKenzie 7 5 0 Friends, per Rev

R. H. Irvine... 0 8

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List of Contents of Box sent by the Rev. R. ASHTON for Freed-men's Aid Society.

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Inventory of Clothes sent from the Freed-Men's Circle, Mile End New Town Congregational

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From MARGARET BARCLAY, 96 Work Bags fitted up. (Value £5 12s).

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Printed by ARLISS ANDREWS, of No. 7, Duke Street, Bloomsbury, W.C., in the Parish of St.

George, Bloomsbury, in the County of Middlesex.

THE FREED-MAN.

JAMAICA IN 1831-2, AND JAMAICA IN 1865-6.
BY J. HODGKIN, ESQ., BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

HISTORY, it has been justly said, is Philosophy teaching by examples. Shall it teach us in vain? Different in many respects as was the Jamaica Insurrection of 1831 from the Jamaica Outbreak of 1865, there are some points of resemblance in their antecedents and in the attendant circumstances: may there be also similarity in some at least of their consequences! In each case there was a sense of wrong which exasperated the Negroes. In 1831, it was the refusal of their usual Christmas holidays and the idea, a mistaken idea it is true, that the order for Emancipation had actually come out from England but had been withheld. (See Parliamentary Papers for 16th March, 1832, No. 285, quoted in Antislavery Reporter and in Sir T. F. Buxton's life, page 279.) In each case the outbreak was visited with summary punishment by military authority, and in the latter case especially it would not be going too far to say that the atrocities of the whites greatly exceeded those of the blacks.

Now as to the consequences. The Rebellion of 1831 was followed by the Act of 1833 for the entire abolition of slavery, not in Jamaica only, but throughout the whole of the British colonies. May the recent outbreak be followed by the inauguration of an improved system of government, legislation and finance, in reference to all our colonies in which there is a negro population.

It is true that we have not now to get rid of actual slavery anywhere-but we have still to get rid of some of its bitter fruits. And in order to attain this

result, we have need not only of some fresh legislative provisions but, which is of still more importance, of a better government administration and also of better feeling and more christian conduct on the part of the whites towards the blacks. And herein we have much to learn from past failure and much to encourage us from partial success in our own colonies and also from the remarkable results which have in many places in the Southern States of North America attended the efforts of both private and national philanthropy, for substituting well-paid free labour and its appliances or self-supporting enterprise, in the room of slave labour. I may acknowledge that when I hear the United States

arraigned for not doing more to raise the condition and status of the four millions of blacks who have been emancipated by the war to the level of their white fellow-citizens, I am ashamed to think how little has been done or even attempted by us in the same direction during the thirty-three years which have elapsed since the passing of the Abolition Act. I fear it must be confessed that whilst our work has been much easier than that of the Americans, our results have as yet been inferior. Have not we as a nation been sleeping as if there was nothing for us to do but to " rest and be thankful" and as if, slavery being abolished, all would go right of itself; as if having paid our twenty millions to the whites we had no debt to discharge to the blacks, and as if the respective claims and interests of the two different races would take care of themselves and all spontaneously grow together into a harmonious whole?

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I am well aware that, for a few years, our government appointed stipendiary magistrates, who assisted in settling some of the disputes between planters and labourers, and were no doubt of considerable service in aiding the transition from one system to another. But this protective provision has long since been aban-doned. I also know that Missionary Societies, School Societies and the Bible Society have done much to enlarge the intellect and to raise the social and religious condition of thousands and tens of thousands of the Negro population of our different colonies; and I am further aware that the Anti-slavery Society has from time to time interfered as a vigilant advocate of the Negro race, and when any special case of hardship has occurred has pleaded the cause of the oppressed at the Colonial Office: but herein the labour has often far exceeded the result, and the simple answer, Your case is on ex parte evidence," has been often the only reply which these persevering applicants for redress have received to their earnest appeals. I remember being very much struck with the statement made to me by a distinguished friend of mine who filled the office of Under-Secretary of the Colonies some thirty years ago, that about an hour a week was as much as it was possible for the Chief Secretary to devote to each colony over which he was exercising imperial sway at the distance of thousands of leagues in the East or the West. What wonder if, under such circumstances, much of oppression and wrong, even if brought to the ears of the Government, should pass wholly unredressed! Have the British Government and Legislature and the British nation ever been fully alive to the vastness of the work to be accomplished in our colonies since the abolition of slavery; have they considered how difficult it was eight centuries ago even in our own favoured England to bring two races, the Norman and the Saxon, to work cordially together as one nation of free men? How much patience, how much patriotism, how much statesmanship was needed before they were in harmonious action as a united people! And the far greater natural and inherent difficulties of such a fusion as that between blacks and whites have, in Jamaica and in some of our other colonies, been further increased by the excessive desire on the part of the planters to obtain additional labourers and to have a class of work-people over whom

they might exercise a control as nearly as possible resembling that of the owner over his slave. Add to this, the taxation of the island has been enormous and the negro population have borne a large proportion of that very taxation which has been imposed for the purpose of paying the expenses of introducing Coolies and Chinese, whose immigration has unnaturally kept down the wages of the Negro to a point which has prevented his acquiring property and rising in the scale of society. Thus has he been oppressed at both ends.

In all these respects and in providing allotments or in fact small farms, the purchase of which on easy terms is placed within the reach of the emancipated, the Americans have set us an example worthy of imitation.

The outbreak in Jamaica ought then to awaken us from our lethargy; and if we do our part it may yet be seen that out of the terrible wickedness and miseries which have marked the close of the past year in that beautiful island, God may bring forth blessings for her population, both white and coloured, of which we and our rulers are unworthy. Thus did the dread of civil war in Ireland lead to the abolition of Roman Catholic disabilities. Thus again did the potato famine in that land lead not only to the passing of the Encumbered Estates Act there, but to the introduction of free trade throughout the United Kingdom.

I have been one of those who doubted whether it was well that the [British and Foreign] Freed-Men's Aid Society should undertake the cause of the Freed-men in our colonies, in addition to the arduous work which it originally chalked out for itself in reference to the emancipated millions of the United States. But as it has done so, I cordially wish it success in its efforts; and I desire in conclusion to sketch a few of the principal features of the work which, as it appears to me, all who take an interest in the freed-men of our own colonial empire should set before themselves-a work in which Missionary Societies, the Anti-slavery Society, and the British and Foreign Freed-Men's Aid Society may all contribute their aid, and towards the accomplishment of which our Government and Legislature need the ceaseless stimulus of the healthy opinion and vigorous efforts of the British nation--an opinion and efforts which are never uttered or exerted altogether in vain.

As soon, then, as justice shall have been fearlessly, yet temperately exercised in punishing the authors of the atrocities inflicted on the coloured population of Jamaica, and in compensating as far as possible those who have suffered from them, and when a firm and mild administration shall have been established there, the attention of our Government should be called to the following practical measures of improvement:---

1st. The abolition of the fictitious stimulus given to the introduction of Coolie and Chinese labourers.

2nd. The abolition of the fiscal arrangements by which the revenue raised to supply funds to encourage this immigration is thrown to so large an extent on the very class whom the immigration injures by unnaturally lowering the price of labour.

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