Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/34

26 to add, that I find, in page 133 of the Parliamentary Papers, Part V., that Mr. Colin Chisholm, a considerable proprietor and attorney, had been fined 100l. at the Surrey assizes for an assault on Mr. Special Justice Bourne. I could cite, on the other hand, a case of a special magistrate, who was fined seven thousand guilders, not by a jury, but by professional judges, holding their appointments from the crown, for an assault on a white person. These magistrates are not infallible: but is it to be supposed for a moment, that a body of one hundred and fifty English gentlemen could be terrified out of the discharge of their solemn duties by the results of three actions in Jamaica, one of which was favourable, while in the other two the charges were borne, and properly borne under the circumstances, by the government? These magistrates have the freest access to the negroes: they spend their time in itinerating over the estates: they have all the means of information and the will to use it, and to their information I appeal.

We have in the Papers, Part V., a despatch of Sir Lionel Smith's, dated 8th September, 1837, conveying fifty-six inclosures, which are the last quarterly returns from fifty-five special magistrates. It did certainly appear to me, though it had not so appeared to the honourable and learned gentleman, (Dr. Lushington,) that as these reports contain for the most part specific answers to a set of twelve questions from the governor upon the state of the negroes, the