chase was made: but other buildings will be required, and for these the grouud offers a very eligible site.

"In contemplation of the opening of a separate subscription for the attainment of the proposed object, the Committee have advanced about 2500. for the purchase of the premises in their present state: but as the regular income of the Society is barely sufficient to meet the current demands of the various missions, the Committee hope to be enabled to replace this sum for the general use of the missions. The sum required for the necessary alteration of the present buildings, together with the erection of such new structure as is found requisite, furnishing the whole, and replacing the money advanced, will not exceed 10,000 The Committee are satisfied, not only that the preparation of the Society's missionaries will be rendered more efficient by means of this institution, but that the annual charge of such preparation will be very considerably diminished. They have no doubt, therefore, that on this representation of the facts of the case to the Society's members and friends, the requisite sum will be cheerfully contributed. Benefactions in aid of the proposed plan will be thankfully received at the house of the Society, and by the members of the parent and local committees."

-REFUGE FOR THE DESTITUTE.

The object of this institution is to provide a place of refuge and reformation for persons discharged from prisons or the hulks;

for unfortunate deserted females and others, who, though willing to work, are unable, from loss of character, to earn an honest maintenance. During the seventeen years from its establishment (in 1805) the means of returning from the ways of vice and misery, have been afforded to more than 1600 persons of both sexes, who -would otherwise probably have been left to perish in the depths of crime, want, and despair.

There are two distinct establishments -for males and females. During the last year 50 males have been received in addition to 60 previously in the house. Of these, 18 have been restored to their friends, and 16 put out to service or to trades: 1 has died, and 7 have been expelled or have withdrawn. The rest remain. In the female establishment, 62 have been admitted in addition to 58 before in the house. Of these 31 have been put out to service, 19 restored to their friends, and 11 discharged, either as incor

rigible or at their own request. The rest remain.

Temporary assistance has been afforded to 55 persons, who did not require admission into the establishment. A temporary refuge is also provided, to which, on the payment of 7s. per week, the Committee of this, and of the Mendicity and Prison Discipline Societies, may send objects as candidates for the esta blishment: 120 persons (70 males and 50 females) have been thus admitted during the past year.

All the objects are daily taught to read and understand the Scriptures; and to make them the rule of their life and conduct. The Sabbath is particularly employed in Divine worship and religious instruction.

The employments of the females are chiefly washing and household work. The males are employed in tailoring, shoemaking, book-binding, cutting wood, &c. according to their capacities.

LONDON ANTI-SLAVERY SO-
CIETY.

The Committee of the London Society for mitigating and gradually abolishing the State of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, understanding that a strong and very general desire prevails, in all parts of the country, to be furnished with a compendious view of the nature and effects of Negro Slavery, as it exists in the Colonies of Great Britain, have circulated the following summary of information on that subject. Surely no Christian, no person of common humanity, can read these affecting statements without wishing to co-operate in the benevolent efforts of the Society.

"In the colonies of Great Britain there are at this moment upwards of 800,000 human beings in a state of degrading personal slavery.

"These unhappy persons, whether young or old, male or female, are the absolute property of their master, who may sell or transfer them at his pleasure, and who may also regulate according to his discretion (within certain limits) the measure of their labour, their food, and their punishment.

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Many of the slaves are (and all may be) branded by means of a hot iron, on the shoulder or other conspicuous part of the body, with the initials of their master's name, and thus bear about them, in indelible characters, the proof of their debased and servile state.

are driven to hard labour by the impulse of the cart-whip, for the sole benefit of their owners, from whom they receive wages; and this labour is continued, (with certain intermissions for breakfast and dinner,) from morning to night, throughout the year.

، In the season of crop, which lasts for four or five months of the year, their labour is protracted not only throughout the day, as at other times, but during either half the night, or the whole of every alternate night.

"Besides being made to work under the lash, without wages, during six days of the week, the slaves are further obliged to labour for their own maintenance on that day which ought to be devoted to repose and religious instruction. And as that is also their only market-day, it follows, that ، Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to them,' but is of necessity a day of worldly occupation, and much bodily exertion.

"The colonial laws arm the master, or any one to whom he may delegate his authority, with a power to punish his slaves to a certain extent, without the intervention of the magistrate, and without any responsibility for the use of this tremendous discretion; and to that extent he may punish them for any offence, or for no offence. These discretionary punishments are usually inflicted on the naked body with the cart whip, an instrument of dreadful severity, which cruelly lacerates the flesh of the sufferer. Even the unhappy females are equally liable with the men to have their persons thus shamelessly exposed and barbarously tortured at the caprice of their master or overseer.

"The slaves being regarded in the eye of the law as mere chattels, they are liable to be seized in execution for their master's debts, and, without any regard to the family ties which may be broken by this oppressive and merciless process, to be sold by auction to the highest bidder, who may remove them to a distant part of the same colony, or even exile them to another colony.

"Marriage, that blessing of civilized and even of savage life, is protected in the case of the slaves by no legal sanction. It cannot be said to exist among them. Those, therefore, who live together as man and wife, are liable to be separated by the caprice of their master, or by sale for the satisfaction of his creditors.

"The slaves in general have little or no access to the means of Christian instruction.

"The effect of the want of such in

struction, as well as the absence of any marriage tie, is, that the most unrestrained licentiousness, (exhibited in a degrading, disgusting, and depopulating promiscuous intercourse,) prevails almost universally among the slaves; and is encouraged, no less universally, by the debaucheries of their superiors the Whites..

"The evidence of slaves is not admitted by the colonial courts, in any civil or criminal case affecting a person of free condition. If a White man, therefore, perpetrates the most atrocious acts of barbarity, in the presence of slaves only, the injured party is left without any means of redress.

"In none of the colonies of Great Britain, have those legal facilities been afforded to the slave to purchase his own freedom, which have produced such extensively beneficial effects in the colonial possessions of Spain and Portugal, where the slaves have been manumitted in large numbers, not only without injury, but with benefit to the master, and with decided advantage to the public peace and safety. On the contrary, in many of our colonies, even the voluntary manumission of slaves by their masters is obstructed, and in some rendered nearly impossible, by large fines.

"It is an universal principle of colonial law, that all Black or Coloured persons are presumed and taken to be slaves, unless they can legally prove the contrary. The liberty, therefore, even of free persons is thus often greatly endangered, and sometimes lost. They are liable to be apprehended as runaway slaves; and they are further liable, as such, to be sold into endless bondage, if they fail to do that which, though free, nay, though born perhaps in Great Britain itself, they may be unable to do,-namely, to establish the fact of their freedom by such evidence as the colonial laws require.

"Let it be remembered also, that many thousand infants are annually born within the British dominions to no inheritance but that of the hapless, hopeless, servitude which has been described; and the general oppressiveness of which might be inferred from this striking and most opprobrious fact alone, that, while in the United States of America the slaves increase rapidly, there is, even now, in the British colonies, no increase, but, on the contrary, a diminution of their numbers.

"Such are some of the more prominent features of Negro Slavery, as it exists in the colonies of Great Britain. Revolting as they are, they form only a part of

those circumstances of wretchedness and degradation which might be pointed out as characterizing that unhappy state of being.

"Confining, however, our view to the particulars which have been specified, every enlightened Christian, nay every reasonable man, must allow that it is a case which calls loudly for interference. Is it possible that any free-born Briton should contemplate such a state of things, without the liveliest emotions of shame and grief and indignation; or that, satisfied with the recollection of his own comforts, he should refuse to listen to the cry of the wretched Negro? These things being made known to us, we are bound without besitation or delay to come forward and address our earnest petitions to the Legislature, that a remedy may be applied to such enormous evils, and that our country may be delivered from the guilt of participating in a system so fraught with the grossest injustice and oppression to hundreds of thousands of our fellow-subjects. "It will hardly be alleged, that any man can have a RIGHT to retain his fellow-creatures in a state so miserable and degrading as has been described. And the absence of such RIGHT will be still more apparent, if we consider how these slaves were ori'ginally obtained. They, or their parents, were the victims of the Slave Trade. They were obtained, not by any lawful means, or under any colourable pretext, but by the most undisguised rapine, and the most atrocious fraud. Torn from their homes and from every dear relation in life, barbarously manacled, driven like herds of cattle to the sea-shore, crowded into the pestilential holds of slave-ships, they were transported to our colonies, and there sold into interminable bondage.

"Great Britain, it is true, has abolished her African Slave-Trade, and branded it as felony; and it is impossible to reflect without exultation on that great act of national justice.

"The grateful acknowledgments of the country are also due to the Government, for their persevering efforts to induce other nations to follow the same course, and thus to rescue Africa from the desolating effects of the Slave Trade. Those efforts, though hitherto unattended with all the success they merit, it is hoped, will be strenuously and unremittingly continued, until that nefarious traffic shall be declared PIRACY by the concurrent voice of all nations.

"When the British Slave-Trade was abolished, a confident expectation was enter

tained that the certain result of that measure would be the rapid mitigation and final extinction of the colonial bondage which had sprung from it, and which in its principle is equally indefensible.

"Sixteen years, however, have now elapsed since the British Slave-Trade was abolished; but, during that long period, no effectual steps have been taken, either in this country or in the colonies, for mitigating the rigours of Negro bondage, or for putting an end to a condition of society which so grievously outrages every feeling of humanity, while it violates every recognized principle both of the British constitution and of the Christian religion.

"The Government and Legislature of this country have on various occasions, and in the most solemn and unequivocal terms, denounced the Slave Trade as immoral, inhuman, and unjust; but the legal perpetuation of that state of slavery, which has been produced by it, is, surely, in its principle, no less immoral, inhuman, and unjust, than the trade itself.

"Notwithstanding those solemn denumciations, thousands of children are still annually born SLAVES within the British dominions,and upwards of 800,000 of our fellowcreatures (the victims of the Slave Trade, or descended from its victims,) are still retained in the same state of brutal depression. They are still driven like cattle to their uncompensated toil by the impulse of the lash. They are still exposed to severe and arbitrary punishments. They are still bought and sold as merchandize. They are still denied the blessings of the marriage tie, and of the Christian Sabbath. And, in a variety of other respects, they continue to be an oppressed and degraded race, without any adequate participation in the civil privileges, or in the religious advantages, to which, as British subjects, they are unquestionably entitled.

"Even if it were admitted, that inconvenience might have arisen from immediately relaxing the bonds of the actual victims of the Slave Trade, or of their adult descendants, yet no satisfactory reason can be assigned, why, since the abolition of that trade, the children of those whom we proclaimed to have been unjustly deprived of their liberty should continue to inherit the unhappy condition of their parents.

"It is by no means intended to attribute the existence and continuance of this most opprobrious system to our Colonists exclusively. On the contrary, the guilt and shame arising from it belong mainly to the people and parliament of this country.

But on that very account are we the more rigidly bound to lose no time in investigating the state of colonial bondage, and in adopting such measures as shall bring it to the earliest termination which is compatible with the well-being of the parties who sustain its grievous yoke.

"But besides our paramount and indispensable obligations, on moral and religious grounds, to relieve our colonial bondsmen from the cruel and degrading state to which we have reduced them, and to remedy as far as we can the numberless wrongs of which we have been the criminal authors; it is further due to the character of Great Britain, in the eyes of foreign nations, that we should act agreeably to the principles which, in our discussions with them relative to the African Slave-Trade, we have professed to make the basis of our representations. It would be vain to expect that they should regard those professions as otherwise than insincere, or that they should defer to our representations, however urgent, if we exhibit in our own conduct the glaring inconsistency of sanctioning as legal, in our own dominions, practices of the very same nature, in effect, with those which we reprobate and denounce as immoral, inhuman, and unjust, when they occur on the coast of Africa.

"It is therefore our clear and indisputable duty completely to reform our present colonial system, even if it should require large pecuniary sacrifice to accomplish that object. But the proposed change, we believe, is prescribed to us, not more by moral and religious principle than by the soundest views of political expediency. In the present advanced state of knowledge, it can no longer be a question that the labour of slaves is much less profitable than that of freemen, and that it can only be supported at a very heavy expense to the community at large. In proof of this, it will be sufficient to adduce the protecting duties and bounties afforded to the growers of sugar in the West Indies; and without which they declare it would be impossible for them to continue its culture. Indeed, we are persuaded that no institution which is directly at variance with the will of the Supreme Governor of the Universe can prove a source of permanent advantage either to nations or individuals. And, in the present case, it might be clearly demonstated, that the personal slavery which deforms the face of society in the British colonies, and stains the British character is as detrimental to the interests of the

slave-owner as it is cruel and oppressive to the slave; and that its abolition, instead of proving an injury to either, will prove an unspeakable benefit to both.

"The Colonists say, that they shall sustain a great actual loss by the proposed change of system. If so, they will of course have an opportunity of preferring and establishing their claim to indemnity. But whatever the extent of that claim may be proved to be, it is obvious that it attaches not to the Negro bondsman, but to the British nation. It would be repugnant to every idea of equity, if we were to discharge any debt we may owe to the Colonists, not from our own resources, but with the toil and sweat and blood of our African brethren.

But, in whatever degree it may be found necessary to indemnify the Colonists for any loss which may arise to them from the abolition of Negro Slavery; yet, while that state of society continues unchanged, there will be an insuperable objection in the mind of every conscientious individual to the adoption of any measures of pecuniary relief, by means of protecting duties or bounties on their produce, or otherwise; because it is obvious that such measures, however modified, would involve the people of this country in the farther guilt of upholding a system which, when the facts of the case are known, it is impossible not to feel to be utterly repugnant to the principles of justice and humanity, and to the whole spirit of Christianity.

"In any event, it is hoped, that this momentous subject will be taken into the earliest consideration of Parliament, with the view of providing an effectual remedy for the evils of colonial bondage, and raising the unhappy subjects of it from their present state of wretchedness and degradation, to the enjoyment of the blessings of civil freedom and religious light and it appears the unquestionable duty of the friends of humanity, in all parts of the kingdom, to address their early and earnest petitions to the Legislature for that purpose."

Donations or annual subscriptions, in aid of the Society's object, are received by Samuel Hoare, Esq. Treasurer to the Society, No. 62, Lombard Street; and at Messrs. Drummond's, Bankers, Charing Cross.

Communications may be addressed to the Committee, of the Society, at No. 18, Aldermanbury; or at Messrs. Hatchard's, No. 187, Piccadilly, London.

FOREIGN.

SPAIN. The French invaders have not made the rapid advances which had been generally expected; though very little active resistance has been hitherto offered by the Spaniards to their progress. Pampeluna and St. Sebastian continue to hold out; but this has not prevented the duc d'Angoulême pursuing his advance towards the capital. On the 9th of May his head quarters were at Burgos: hence his army pushed on toValladolid; and no serious obstacle appeared in the way of his arriving at Madrid before the close of the month. Saragossa has been taken, having been abandoned by the Spanish troops. While the western and central portions of the invading army have been thus occupied. Marshal Moncey has entered the country on the east. The town of Rosas was readily occupied; and Figueras had been summoned, but continued to hold out. Mollitor's corps occupies the south of Catalonia; so that the whole country north of the Ebro, with the exceptions just mentioned, as well as a portion south of that river, in the direction of the duc d'Angouleme's march, were in possession of the enemy. The slow advance of the French has been attributed by rumour to some pending negotiations between the belligerents: but other circumstances may also account for it; and not least, the fear of the duc d'Angoulême's being too far separated from the eastern part of the army, and also of his supplies from France being cut off. The Spanish Generals are stated to have been endeavouring to get to the north of Moncey; and efforts are in progress for forming strong guerilla parties, to scour the whole country between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, and every where north of the enemy's march, to intercept com munications and supplies. The real feelings of the Spanish people can at present be only conjectured: they certainly do not seem to have hitherto generally roused themselves to an enthusiasm worthy of the occasion; but as yielding before the stream was a part of the plan of operations laid down for the conduct of the campaign, it is not certain that no energetic deeds

are yet in store. The arrival of the invaders at Madrid may probably be the signal for all parties to declare their intentions; and especially for the Spanish Generals to begin their, active operations. We await these events with no small anxiety. A rumour indeed is afloat, but requires confirmation, that the Spanish General, Mina, had already interposed his corps between the invaders and the French frontier.

DOMESTIC.

The conduct of our government respecting the interference of France with Spain has been very warmly canvassed in both houses of parliament. In the House of Lords, Lord Ellenborough brought forward a motion for an address to the Crown expressive of the opinion of the House, that the line of proceeding taken by ministers in the late negociations was not calculated to avert a war; that the attempt to effect a change in the Spanish Constitution was unbecoming the character of the British Government; and that no reliance was to be placed upon the forbearance of France from views of aggrandisement. The resolution was superseded, after a long debate, by an amendment applauding the conduct of ministers. In the House of Commons the subject was discussed at great length, in a debate continued by adjournments from Monday evening to Wednesday, and which did not conclude till Thursday morning. In the course of this memorable debate, almost all the members who are accustomed to address the House delivered their sentiments. Among many minor divisions of opinion, we are happy to find that all the speakers, with two or three exceptions, concurred in opinion as to the duty of not' plunging this country into a state of warfare, so long as it can be honourably avoided. But with regard to the sentiments entertained respecting the unjust aggression of France, there was no diversity of sentiment; all concurred in reprobatinig, with more or less severity, the conduct of that government. The debate arose out of a motion of Mr Macdonald's, censuring ministers for not having made the