ture, intitled, 'An Act for the Encouragent, Protection, and better Government of Slaves,' appears to have been considered, from the day it was passed until this hour, as A POLITICAL MEASURE, to avert the interference of the mother country in the management of slaves. Having said this, your Lordship will not be surprised to learn the seventh clause of that bill has been wholly neglected."

Here we have honestly disclosed to us the true cause of the enactment of those Slave Laws which have gained the Colonies so much credit for humanity with the mother country, as well as the true cause of their inefficiency. They were enacted to blind the eyes of superficial, but well meaning men in this country, and to furnish a convenient argument to the enemies of abolition. They have been inefficient, because it never was in the contemplation of those who framed them that they should be executed. It may be fairly questioned, whether a single slave in the Island of Dominica knew of those protecting clauses which were so loudly boasted of in this country.

The third and fourth clauses of the same act require, under pecuniary penalties, that the slaves should be convened every Sunday for divine worship, and that they should be exhorted to be baptized, and when of mature age to form christian marriages: and the reason assigned for the enactment is, that "a knowledge of the doctrines, and a due attention to the exercise of the duties, of the christian religion, would tend to improve the morals, and to advance the temporal and eternal happiness of the slaves." The reader, however, will see what an impious mockery all this parade of legislation has been, when he learns from Governor Provost that these clauses" are not carried into effect," and that no penalties have been levied for non-compliance with their provisions. The Rev. John Audain, rector of St. George's,

thus writes on the subject. A very few even of the free-coloured people marry;—and not one slave since I have been here. Why they do not, I readily conceive, particularly the slaves. Their owners do not exhort them to it." Yet the law requires the owners to exhort them to it, and though it is notorious that that law bas, in no one instance, been complied with, it is equally notorious that its infraction has, in no one instance, been punished by enforcing the penalty.

These facts sufficiently demonstrate, that the laws for the protection of the slaves are perfectly nugatory, and do, in no degree, tend to alleviate the rigours of their unhappy condition; or to place them on a better footing as to "protection" in the other islands than that on which they stand even in Barbadoes.

Eighteen years have now passed since the Slave Trade question was first agitated in this country, and since West Indians have been holding out promises of ameliorating the condition of their slaves. These promises it appears, have proved altogether delusive, and so they will continue, until Parliament shall abolish the Slave Trade, and thus oblige West Indians to reform their horrid system.

APPENDIX.

No. III.

General and Brigade Orders, 28th April, 1803, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

THE 12th W. I. Regiment give the Captain for the day to-morrow.

The Hospital Guard will consist of one Serjeant, one Corporal, and six Privates, until further orders; the Sentry will be withdrawn from the house that was lately the Commissary's Store, and now occupied by Colonel Fullarton.

On the firing an alarm (three guns from the Sea Fort), the Troops will immediately form in their respective Alarm-posts, in open column, of subdivisions, with the right in front; the Picquets will immediately assemble in front of the Brigadier-General's quarters, with twentyfour rounds of ammunition, on the Captain of the day.

A Subaltern Officer of each Regiment will attend for Orders; the 37th will apply to the Ordnance Storekeeper for ball-cartridges, to complete the effective number of twenty-four rounds per man, but will not issue them except in case of alarm.

The Regiments in town, the 9th and 12th W. I. will send in Returns to the Store-keeper, of the number of ball cartridges they may respectively want to complete them to the same number; and the Ordance Storekeeper will, as soon as he gets the Returns from the above Regiments, and from the different Militia Corps, have them packed up in separate boxes, marked with the name of the Regiment in chalk, ready to deliver on an alarm. The Quarter-masters of those Regiments, on such an event, will attend, with sufficient number of men, at the place to be appointed by the Ordnance Storekeeper, to transmit the ammunition immediately to the Alarm-posts.

Captain Prevost, commanding the Royal Artillery, will have two field-pieces in readiness, to join the Picquets, whenever they are called out. The Alarm-post of the 37th Regiment is in the square at Orange-Grove Barracks; of the 9th W. I. Regiment, in front of the Hospital; and of the 12th W. I. in front of the Picquet Barracks.

Militia Orders, 28th April, 1803, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

MILITIA ORDERS.

ALARM: Three guns from the Sea Fort!!!

On the firing of an Alarm, the Trinidad Light Cavalry will assemble on the square opposite the Brigadier General's Quarters, and form on the right of the Picquets.

The other Corps of Militia will assemble on their respective Alarm-posts.

The Colonial Artillery, opposite the Old Arsenal. The first battalion Royal Trinidad Militia, on the Esplanade opposite the Wharf;

The 1st Loyal Trinidad Militia in Brunswick-square, opposite the Church: the whole in open column, of subdivisions, with the right in front.

Captain Prevost, commanding Royal Artillery, will assign to the Colonial Artillery four four-pounders, with the necessary proportion of ammunition.

The other Corps will send in to the Ordnance Storekeeper Returns of their effective numbers, in order that twenty-four rounds per man may be packed up in portable boxes, ready to be delivered out at a moment's warning; and on the Alarm firing, the Quarter-master of these Corps will attend at the Ordnance Store-keeper's with the number of men necessary to transport the ammunition necessary to the Alarm-posts.

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