Colonial Slavery ~ Paperback ~ T Oxford

Excerpt from Colonial Slavery: Defence of the Baptist Missionaries From the Charge of Inciting the Late Rebellion in Jamaica; In a Discussion Between the Rev. William Knibb and Mr. P. Borthwick, at the Assembly Rooms, Bath, on Saturday, December 15, 1832 But it is not to be expected that I can run up and down the earth to meet challenges of which I never hear except through the public prints. Mr. Borthwick would fain have you believe that he has been traversing the earth in search of me, and that I, appalled at the sound of his approach, have fled before him. Had he wished, really wished to meet me, why did he not cross the Tweed? - he knew I was in Scotland. One of the most serious charges he brings forward is said to have occurred in Edinburgh; but be knows too well what awaits him there, ever to trust himself near Dalkeith. There is nothing more delightful to me than to appear before a British audience to clear my character from the charges that have been brought against me, and to advocate the cause of the oppressed, the injured, the despised, the persecuted African. All I ask is justice for Africa; all I ask is for justice founded upon principle. Well am I aware of the scorn that will be cast upon my character: and well am I aware of the obloauy that will attach to my name; but I fear it not; I have counted the cost: and, as long as blood flows in these veins, as long as this heart beats, it shall beat for liberty and for the injured slave. Scorn, contumely, and reproach, have been cast upon me by a corrupt press; but I am confident no one in this assembly will expect that I should step out of the path of duty to notice every anonymous slander which inveterate malice may choose to cast at me. Let my enemies come forward, let them disprove and contradict one of my statements, and then let them brand me, but not till then. I will now proceed to answer the charges preferred against me by my opponent: - The first is, that I stated at Reading that I had seen more than one hundred slaves hanging on one gallows. I never said it. I did not see the Reading speech till yesterday, nor did I know that it was in the form of a pamphlet; but I sent to Reading for it, and you shall hear what those who print it say: - "For eight long years my heart was bleeding continually. I have witnessed scenes of cruelty enough to make angels weep and devils tremble. In the small village where I lived, there has been more than a hundred hung on one gallows, and five hundred flogged indecently beneath it." There is no statement here that I saw the whole of it done. (I did not say there were Jive hundred flogged, I said three hundred, and those who have drawn up the report made the mistake.) Now then, from the Jamaica Courant of the 8th of February - a paper notoriously opposed to me, and a paper in which it has been asserted that I ought to diversify the hanging woods of Trelawney - in that paper it is said that the executions at Montego Bay, up to Saturday, were ninety-four (after that time many more were executed), and that the floggings were from fifteen to twenty a day. Now, if we allow seven days to elapse after the formation of the court-martial (for eight men were hung on the 3d of January) and allow thirty days, it will make the number five hundred and ten. A placard, it appears, has been issued at Cheltenham, taken from the New Baptist Miscellany, in which I addressed British Christians on the subject of slavery. With respect to that placard, I know not who printed it, but I have no doubt it is a correct copy of what I asserted. In it I state, in the town in which I and my brother missionary were prisoners, more than one hundred were hung on one gallows, many were shot, and above three hundred flogged underneath the gallows, till the ground was covered with their blood. I do not say that I saw the whole of it - it is not asserted that 1 did. Then why is it stated that I said one thing before the Committee of the House of .