case given information to the owner, was a female slave of her own, proceeded to punish her. This she did, first by tearing all the teeth out of her head; next by cutting off her nose; and then her ears; and last of all, her breasts; under which last operation she expired. The slave was then buried.

A rumour of this horrid transaction having reached the magistrate of police, he took measures for having the grave examined. Madame Nayle being apprised of his intention, she and her two sons employed the night in digging up the body of the murdered negress, which they burnt to cinders, and placing a dead pig in the grave filled it up again. When the commissary of police therefore arrived, and proceeded to the place where he was told the negress had been interred, he found indeed a grave of dimensions adequate to receive a human body, but, on the earth being removed, the carcase of a pig was found there instead. Madame Nayle, being questioned on this extraordinary appearance, alleged that she was always in the habit of thus burying such pigs as died from disease. (This, if true, was contrary to the usual custom, which was to burn them, to prevent their being eaten by the negroes, who, in case dead pigs were buried, would infallibly dig them up and devour them.) She was then asked to point out any other grave of a pig, but this she could not do. Though this affair was thus rendered so notorious, and the main facts of the case were doubted by no one, Madame Nayle was not taken up until news arrived (this was in 1823) that his Majesty's commissioners of inquiry were likely soon to arrive in the island; though from unexpected delays they did not arrive for some years after. All was now bustle and activity, and the arrest of this woman was then ordered. Not a shadow of doubt existed as to her guilt; but the judges refused to avail themselves of a humane provision of the ordinance of 1723, which authorised them to resort to slave evidence, when white evidence could not be obtained, and when that of slaves was indispensable to the ends of justice. Madame Nayle, therefore, after being detained in a kind of anomalous state for some time, in the house of the keeper of the prison, where her apartments were fitted up with a piano forte and other ornamental appendages, and where she freely received visiters as heretofore, was at length permitted to go at large, and the transaction sunk into oblivion.

5. We have heard of only one case, occurring nearly about the same time with the last, wherein the perpetrator of the cruelty met with the fate he merited. Just before the alarm caused by the approach of the royal commissioners had reached its height, a white man named Maurice Prevost, a tanner, cruelly murdered a female slave of his, by cutting off her breasts and lacerating her private parts. This occasion of gaining credit with the commissioners and in England was eagerly seized. The man was tried and executed. This single exception from the common course of proceeding, it was doubtless hoped, being recent, would shed a kind of lustre over the judicial administration of the colony, would throw into the shade all former delinquencies, and fully establish its character for humanity and justice.

Long before reaching this point of our progress, our readers must have been tired and disgusted with the details which we have been com

pelled to give. We can, however, assure them that we have not yet exhausted even a tithe of our materials. We have at this moment before us, wholly untouched, the statements of upwards of 300 individuals, who, without any preconcert or communication with each other, and without any wrong motive that can fairly be attributed to them, have, singly, and separately, yet with a unity of judgment and feeling which is most remarkable, borne a concurrent testimony to the main features of that state of society which we have now endeavoured faintly to pourtray. The agreement of these parties would indeed be marvellous, on any other hypothesis than that of the unquestionable prominency of the facts of the case, and the truth and accuracy of our representations of them. Such a flood of light was never before poured, we believe, on any similar inquiry, and while it banishes all doubt from our own minds, it leaves us no choice as to the duty of fully exposing the case to the view of the parliament and people of this country. We are under the necessity, however, of setting narrow bounds to this preliminary statement, and we shall now merely observe that the parties, from whom we obtained our information, are ready to be produced, whenever we are authoritatively called upon to produce them. At present we shall abstain from harrowing up the feelings of our readers, by farther instances of individual or judicial atrocity, but content ourselves with exhibiting a few specimens of the language which the numerous witnesses, to whom we have alluded, employ, in conveying the impression made on their minds by their experience of the slavery existing in the Mauritius; and we vouch for their being fair samples of the entire mass.*

No. 5. "I conceive that the slaves are treated more like brutes than any thing else. They are not in any instance whatever treated as human beings. You could not make a brute happy in the way they are

treated."

No. 6. "Badly off as many are in this place, (Salford,) the slaves are far worse. I never saw any thing so wretched."

No. 22. "The slaves are used most barbarously as ever I saw any human beings in my life."

No. 26. There cannot be a lower state of degradation than that to which the slaves are reduced in the Mauritius."

No. 27. "If I were used as some of the slaves are used, I would sooner die than live. Sometimes they kill themselves. I have known

instances of it.

"The slaves are more like dogs than human beings. I never saw any people so wretched. Never.”

No. 28. "There is no comparison to be made between the state of the slaves and the most destitute in this country. No man in England would use a mad dog as bad as the slaves were treated."

No. 43. "The slaves have certainly no knowledge of comfort or happiness. They are the most miserable beings on earth, worse than the

Almost all the witnesses we are about to cite are persons belonging to the lower classes, and therefore, themselves accustomed to labour and privation. Not only were their opportunities of observation greater on this account, but their estimate of the parallel condition to their own which they were contemplating, likely to be more just.

most barbarous animals. A wild animal can get out of the reach of barbarity, they cannot."

No. 52. "The slaves are treated more like brutes than human beings."

No. 60. "I think the slaves are most miserable.

starved."

They are quite

No. 70. "The slaves at the Mauritius are reduced to the lowest state of degradation and misery."

No. 74. "As a married woman, I do not think it possible that the female slaves, treated as they are, could multiply fast.

No. 82. "The slaves are no better off than cattle, nor so well used as many."

No. 86. "The slaves are reduced to the lowest state of degradation." No. 92. "An Englishman could not bear a quarter of the punishment or work of the slave."

No. 102. "They are the most miserable people upon earth."

No. 108. "I never saw human beings in this or any country so wretched. I have heard of their killing themselves in consequence of the cruel treatment of their masters."

No. 113. "They are mostly starved, and are actually harassed out of their lives."

No. 114. "I have heard of slaves killing themselves to escape from their cruel treatment. As a married woman, I think it impossible females so treated can often go their full time."

No. 122. "No one could tempt me to be a slave. I would rather be the most miserable of free beings."

"The slaves are treated more as brutes than men."

No. 126. "The slaves cannot be in a worse state than they are. They are treated no better than cattle. The women are destitute of moral feeling, and prostitute themselves in the most open manner, without any feeling of shame."

No. 130. misery."

The slaves are in the lowest state of degradation and

No. 138. "I consider the slaves are in a most degraded state, and the conduct of the masters, in a moral point of view, worse than that of the slaves."

No. 147. "Their lives must be a burden. I should prefer death to living as they do."

No. 169. "The state of a plantation slave is as bad as misery can be."

No. 171. "I never met with any people so badly off as the blacks in the Isle of France."

No. 205." They are treated with the greatest barbarity."

No. 214. "I am sure I could not use my dog as the slaves are used."

No. 224. "The slaves are most barbarously used. The masters seem to care no more about them than they do about a dog."

No. 256. "They are a thousand times worse off than any persons here. They are worse off than any people I ever saw."

No. 262. "I would rather suffer death than be a slave."

No. 318. " My opinion is, that the slave is one of the most wretchedest creatures in existence.'

No. 337. "A slave is one of the most miserable creatures that can be. He is used worse than any beast in England, or any beast there. They treat their beasts much better than they do their slaves."

Many also of the persons whose words we have cited, besides thus expressing the general impression produced in their minds by the sight of Mauritius slavery, were the eye witnesses of acts of atrocity, which they describe, equal in horror to almost any thing we have detailed above.--What an aggregate of misery must therefore have been condensed within the narrow limits of this single British possession, even if we keep out of our view all the horrors of that slave trade which has been incited in Madagascar, and on the African continent, to supply the perpetual waste of life caused by this murderous system!

Here then we exhibit our picture of the slavery of the Mauritius, which Great Britain has not only endured for twenty years, but has protected by its civil and military power, and fed and encouraged by its fiscal regulations; and we now solemnly call upon the Government and the Parliament and the people of this country to regard it with the attention which it deserves.

But how has it come to pass, it may be fairly asked, that this case should not have obtained publicity at an earlier period, and that no adequate means should have been hitherto adopted for drawing the attention of Parliament to a state of things so flagrant and outrageous? We shall abstain, for the present, from entering at length on a reply to this reasonable inquiry, but it may probably form, in no long time, the subject of grave discussion. Our readers will remember, that in 1826, an attempt was made by Mr. Buxton, to lay bare this evil in all its bearings and dimensions, which led to the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons for investigating the matter. The Committee, however, had scarcely entered on its labours when Parliament was prorogued; and it has not since been renewed, partly through the frequent changes in his Majesty's Government, and their unwillingness to enter upon it, but chiefly, perhaps, through the severe illness which prevented Mr. Buxton from carrying his purposes on the subject into effect.

It seems, however, impossible to permit the Parliament and the public to continue longer in ignorance of this frightful case. We have therefore given an outline, and nothing more than an outline, of its general nature; and feeble as is our representation of its enormities, and inadequate as we feel ourselves to be to do full justice to the subject, and especially to the claims of the unhappy victims of our supineness and neglect, we yet trust that such a case will not be suffered to drop into oblivion, or after having excited a few passing expressions of regret or indignation, to remain, like too many similar expositions, without investigation or remedy.

It seems especially to belong to those who have administered the government of the Mauritius at home, as well as abroad, to shew that they are guiltless in this matter. Much of the information we have now brought

forward has been long in the possession of the Colonial Department, and attention has been frequently called to it. It will doubtless be made to appear, what steps have been taken to remedy the evils complained of.-If we were only to look to the tone of our diplomatic communications with France and other powers, on the subject of their slave trade, we ought to feel it incumbent upon us to prove that we have neglected no means in our own power, in consistency with our urgent admonitions and remonstrances to them, and our own high professions of attachment to the interests of humanity and justice, of setting before them a practical example of efficient and well directed zeal.

In Parliament we cannot doubt that many will be found, especially among our rising statesmen, who will feel themselves imperatively called upon not to suffer such a stigma to rest on the character of this country as must follow the neglect and impunity of such crimes; involving, as they do, the misconduct of so many public functionaries, and the misery and the murder of so many of our fellow-subjects.

To the British public at large, we would likewise renew our appeal, and we would put it to their consciences, whether they can any longer submit, not merely to tolerate, but to support and encourage such atrocities; and whether they do not in fact support and encourage them when they consume the sugar which is the direct produce of so much blood and wretchedness, and still more when they even give it protection against sugar produced by free labour.

And we would, in conclusion, call on the clergy of the land, and more especially on those of them who profess a more than common zeal for the glory of God, and the happiness, temporal and spiritual, of their fellow-creatures, to look at the case we have now exhibited, and to say whether they can any longer refrain from lifting up their voices against this crying national iniquity. And let no one lay the flattering unction to his soul, that he may innocently continue to look with indifference, and in silence, on the aggravated evils of Colonial Slavery, and leave the temporal and spiritual well-being of 825,000 of our fellow-beings and fellow-subjects, to the tender mercies of those who profit by their stripes and their chains. Nor let it be imagined, for one moment, that, revolting to the last degree as is the picture we have now drawn of slavery in the Mauritius, it differs in its principles and in its tendencies from that which pervades the whole either of our or of any other European slave colonies. The system of Negro Slavery is radically and essentially the same wherever it prevails, and is only varied in some of its effects by peculiar and local circumstances.-In Bahamas and Bermuda, for instance, the driving whip cannot be used as in the sugar islands.—The West Indies generally are much more remote from the slave markets than the Mauritius, and are also more within the reach and observation of the mother country.-But allowing for such accidental variations, and for differences of soil, &c, Slavery is the same incurable evil in all of them. It is despotism and cruelty on the part of the master, or the master's delegates-misery and mortality on the part of the slaves--excess of labour and scantiness of food-and a consequent waste of human life; a waste which, though in the West Indies it may fall below the Mauritius, is unparalleled in any other part of the world.