Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/348

330 facts, as they transpired in the colonies, illustrative of the nature and tendency of slavery as actually existing. This was the more necessary, as one regular subterfuge of the abettors of slavery was, to turn aside as obsolete all accounts of the cruelties and hardships suffered by the negroes. The first number of this publication was issued in June, 1825, and contained the speeches at the general meeting, which had just taken place. Subsequent numbers gave a brief view of colonial slavery in general, and details of the existing state of things in the British colonies, drawn from the statements of colonists themselves, in papers lately laid before parliament. With all their attempts to glaze over the worst features of their system, and to give undue prominence to the best, the picture was sufficiently hideous to excite the abhorrence of every friend of humanity, and to stimulate each, in his respective sphere, to do what he could towards the riddance of the earth from such a monster.

Other publications were, from time to time, issued by the society, calculated to throw light upon the subject in general, or to meet particular objections and difficulties as they were raised. Dec. 21, 1825, the society held a public meeting in London, for the purpose of petitioning parliament for the abolition of colonial slavery. This measure was rendered necessary, by the contumelious manner in which the requisitions of government had been treated. This fact was established by extracts from the colonial newspapers. The following will serve as specimens of colonial effrontery:—"We did and do declare the whip to be essential to West Indian discipline, ay, as essential, my Lord Calthorpe, as the freedom of