published. They will give some idea of the dreadful sufferings of the almost incalculable numbers of our fellowcreatures who are yearly carried off from Africa, previous to their being embarked on board the slave-vessels waiting to receive them upon their arrival on the coast, there to undergo a new series of sufferings, of a nature not less horrid than those which have preceded them. I am not so uncandid or unjust as to wish for a moment to implicate the WestIndian colonist or proprietor, in any sympathy or participation with the monsters of cruelty, whose atrocities are described in the following pas sages; but I surely am entitled to ask whether a species of property, if property it must be called, not only wholly unjust in itself, but created only by means of those dreadful atrocities, is to be viewed as a legitimate and unalienable freehold, which neither justice nor humanity has the power to restore to its rightful owner. If, indeed, the legislature of a Christian country has sanctioned such a tenure, it is a fit question to ask what is their duty towards those who may be alleged to suffer by its extinction, but of that extinction at the earliest practical period, no doubt ought for a moment to be entertained.

"A dreadful instance of the detestation in which the actual state of slavery is regarded by the freeborn Negroes, so far as they are themselves concerned, occurred at the destruction of one of these towns. The wives of some chiefs, who had either been killed or taken by the enemy, determined not to survive their husbands' or their country's fall, and preferring death, even in its most terrifying shape, to slavery and the embraces of their captors, suffered themselves and their young children to be burnt to death in a hut, where they had as sembled with that determination, and which was set on fire by themselves."

*

"As only a part of the Kaartan

force was bivouacked near our huts, I went to the adjoining towns for the purpose of ascertaining their numbers, which I found to amount to about 1000, all horse. They had made 107 prisoners, chiefly women and children, and had taken about 240 head of cattle. Many of those unfortunate beings were known to me. The men were tied in pairs by the necks, their hands secured behind their backs; the women by the necks only; but their hands were not left free from any sense of feeling for them, but in order to enable them to balance the immense loads of corn or rice, which they were forced to carry on their heads, and the children (who were unable to walk, or sit on horseback behind their captors) on their backs."

*

*

*

"I had an opportunity of witnessing, during this short march, the new-made slaves, and the sufferings to which they are subjected in their first state of bondage. They were hurried along (tied as I before stated) at a pace little short of running, to enable them to keep up with the horsemen, who drove them on, as Smithfield drovers do fatigued bullocks. Many of the women were old, and by no means able to endure such treament: one, in particular, would not have failed to excite the tenderest feelings of compassion in the breast of any except a savage: she was at least sixty years old, in the most miserable state of emaciation and debility, nearly doubled together, and with difficulty dragging her tottering limbs along to crown the heartrending picture, she was naked, save from her waist to about half way to the knees. All this did not prevent her inhuman captor from making her carry a heavy load of water, while, with a rope about her neck, he drove her before his horse; and whenever she shewed the least inclination to stop, he beat her in the most unmerciful manner with a stick. Had any of those gentlemen (if any there be) who are either

advocates for a revival of that horrid and unnatural traffic in human flesh, or so careless about the emancipation of this long-degraded and suffering people, as to support the cause (if they do it at all) with little ardour, been witness to the cruel ties practised on this and similar occasions (to say nothing of their sufferings in the middle passage), they would soon change their minds, and be roused to make use of all their best exertions, both at home and abroad, to abolish in toto the Slave Trade, which, although it has received a mortal blow from the praiseworthy and truly indefatigable exertions of Africa's numerous and philanthropic friends in England, must exist as long as any of the States of Europe give it their support.

"I endeavoured to purchase from Garran the freedom of the poor old woman; but, although I told him to fix his own price, I could not induce him to comply. He told me, that nothing could be disposed of, before the King had seen all that was taken. I to no purpose represented to him, the more than probability of this poor creature's falling a victim to the hardships she must necessarily undergo before she could reach Kaarta.'

*

"The sufferings of the poor slaves, during a march of nearly eight hours, partly under an excessively hot sun and east wind, heavily laden with water, of which they were allowed to drink but very sparingly, and travelling barefoot on a hard and broken soil, covered with long dried reeds and thorny underwood, may be more easily conceived than described.One young woman, who had (for the first time) become a mother two days only before she was taken, and whose child, being thought by her captor too young to be worth saving, was thrown by the monster into its burning hut, from which the flames had just obliged the mother to re treat, suffered so much from the swollen state of her bosom, that her CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 292.

moans might frequently be heard at the distance of some hundred yards; when, refusing to go on, she implored her fiend-like captor to put an end to her existence; but that would have been too great a sacrifice to humanity, and a few blows with a leathern horse-fetter soon made the wretched creature move again. A man also lay down; and neither blows, entreaties, nor threats of death, could induce him to move.He was thrown across a horse, his face down, and, with his hands and feet tied together under the animal's chest, was carried along for some distance. This position, however, soon caused difficulty of breathing, and almost suffocation, which would certainly soon have ended his miserable existence, had they not placed him in a more easy posture, by allowing him to ride sitting upright; but he was so exhausted, that, to keep him on the horse, it was necessary to have him supported by a man on each side. Never did I witness (nor indeed did I think it possible that a human being could endure) such tortures as were inflicted on this man.

When he first refused to go on, they had recourse to a mode of compulsion, which I am told is common on those occasions, but of too disgusting a nature to be described. I did not see the old woman, nor could I ascertain what had become of her."

"We commenced our retreat at half after five on the morning of the 8th of May, and at eleven reached Guninghedy, where we halted during the heat of the day. We were accompanied by Bojar and his division, with their prisoners, whose sufferings presented scenes of distress which I am incapable of painting in their true colours. The women and children (all nearly naked, and carrying heavy loads) were tied together by the necks, and hurried along over a rough stony path, that cut their feet in a dreadful manner. There were a great number of children, who, from their tender years,

2 F

lications. On this occasion also the name of Law was conspicuous. His Letters to the Bishop of Bangor, discovered an acuteness and masculine strength, such as might have been expected from the writer of the Serious Call, and of the kindred treatise on Christian Perfection. The theological scheme of William Law is generally acknowledged indeed, by casuists of the Christian school, to be defective. He insists, with a certain severity of manner, on a life of devotional abstraction from the world; of indifference to its pleasures, fame, and wealth; and of self-denying usefulness to the bodies and souls of men; and so far he has done greatly. The deficiency in his system is this, that it does not supply a principle correspondent to the prescribed effect. There is not, in his appeals, however impressive and urgent in their practical tendencies, an adequate reference to the atonement of Jesus Christ, and to the influence of the Holy Ghost. We do not therefore disown the portrait he has drawn of practical Christianity; but we lament the inconsistency of a teacher who assumes the existence of fruit on branches not inserted into the living Vine. With this exceptionbut it is one of no slender importance-against the writings of Law, we entirely sympathize with the confession of Dr. Johnson, when he said;"I took up Law's Serious Call to a Holy Life, expecting to find it a dull book, as such books usually are, and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry." This remark (familiar even to the idle reader of advertisements) naturally transfers us from Bangor to Lichfield; for, in Johnson's native city, a debate has also arisen, and already given birth to the six publications at the head of this article. It appears that, at a public meeting held on the 17th of December last,

at an inn in Lichfield, for the purpose of aiding the cause of the Vaudois, an expression in Mr. Gisborne's speech offended the chancellor of the diocese, and produced a public Remonstrance. Before we advert, in our report of this trial, to the several pleas of plaintiff and defendant, and to the argument of counsel on both sides, we would endeavour to define the law of controversy, which, we think, stands thus ;-A printed and published book is public property. If Mr. Law, or Mr. Gisborne, or Mr. Cooper should severally avow, in the confidential intercourse of domestic society, Unitarian or seditious principles; the confession, whatever opposition it might encounter in the circle where it was immediately divulged, would be strictly a private possession. But if the avowal were transferred from fire-side conversation to the press, and the transfer published, advertised, sold, and circulated, then the confession becomes part and parcel of the common stock of literature, and is abandoned to all consequences.Even here, however, the, maxims. of sound law impose the restriction, that no circumstances of private history shall be mingled with the examination of a public offence. The author of a book must be attacked or defended in his abstract character. Individually he may be good or bad; but that is nothing to the purpose. An infidel might compile an unanswerable view of the evidences of the Gospel. A decided Christian might draw up a treatise (on conic sections, for instance,) without the most remote allusion to his faith. If the restriction in question be not observed, there is no limit to the aberration of human passions under the excitement of controversy. Eloquence, and logic too, will soon wander into the degradations of personality; and the battle end in the confusions of recriminative rancour. It will resemble the saturnalia of an election; where, by the connivance of the police, squibs and crac