No. 207.-Mr. Browne to the Earl of Aberdeen.—(Rec. July 11.) MY LORD, Copenhagen, June 24, 1843.

I HAVE the honour of inclosing several documents relating to those queries to which I was instructed to forward replies, in your Lordship's despatch of the 30th ultimo, of this series. I trust they will be found to contain all the information required. I have docketed as official those which are so, and on the correctness of the general and interesting statistical table, I think full reliance may be placed.

I also attach considerable credit to a letter from a private friend (so docketed), as he is perfectly acquainted with all West India matters, and on his truth and honour I am much disposed to rely. The inclosed statistical table, of the correctness of which there can be no doubt, supplies all the information desired. The appendix to it completes the census of the slave-population up to 1840; the census is taken each 5th year.

No. 2. Certainly no importation of slaves.

Nos. 3 and 4. The slave is equally protected by the law, but his evidence is not generally taken against his master, unless the whole or greater part of the gang with whom he has been working, corroborate his complaints of maltreatment; but slave-evidence is admissible in all cases where the master is not the subject of it, provided the judge shall be of opinion, after an examination of him, that his degree of intelligence and understanding of the moral obligation of an oath is sufficient to make him a competent and credible witness.

No. 5. It is, provided he is deemed competent and credible.

No. 6. Well, generally speaking, although I should say from conversations I have had with slave-drivers, and letters I have read from West India agents to their employers in this country, that there was much opportunity for the abuse of power. A driver, or slave-superintendent, boasting to me, that he often shut his eyes to this and that fault, but that when he did punish he did it well; and the agent apologising to his employer that he had sent him so few hogsheads of sugar instead of a greater number, as had he done the latter the mortality amongst the slaves would be greater, and the women would not breed, and that the losses resulting from these 2 causes would be more (in consequence of a necessity to purchase slaves from other estates) than the price of the greater quantity of sugar would cover. These 2 examples clearly prove the existence of the power, which against its abuse is questionable how far the law may be effective. Indeed the constant

efforts in favour of the slave by the Home Government prove, that the information obtained from St. Croix is such as to require further protection for the slave against the tender mercies of his master. [1843-44.]

2 D

No. 7. I believe the native slave is, but not so the infants, who are the children of women-the wives of everybody and nobody-who are bribed to take care of their children, whom they dislike, and from the incumbrance of whom they desire a release. This unnatural state of things is the result of want of regular marriages, and of religious instruction; and, is a proof, that however attentive the Danish Government may have been to the physical wants and sufferings of the poor Negroes, they have been lamentably deficient in attention to their moral and religious instructions. This evil is, however, in some degree at present abated, but I should fear the difference is but small. No. 8. On the decrease, vide Appendix to the Statistical Table. No. 9. No.

No. 10. Much more favourable.

No. 11. I should say not. A Mr. Alexander came to this country some few years ago, and endeavoured to raise a feeling and party in favour of slave emancipation. He called a meeting for this purpose, which was attended by 2 clergymen and a professor; and 2 of the 3 have since backed out of the concern, as the Government did not wish the matter to be mooted. The slave-proprietors and Government, as well as the people generally, would, I believe, have no objection to emancipation; on the contrary, all would prefer it, provided means, direct or indirect, immediate or prospective, were devised to indemnify the slaveholders. But in 5 or 6 years this question will be set at rest by the operation of natural means, as the cultivation of sugar at St. Croix becomes every day less profitable, and the exhaustion of the soil rendering it more difficult to compete with those countries and colonies where labour is cheaper, and the soil less exhausted. A gang of slaves at St. Croix, of 100, costs at least 500l. a year to maintain ; and of these 100 labourers there are not on an average more than 45 efficient; and as the masters are obliged to support the whole number, the cost of the 55 inefficient must be paid out of the labour of the 45 who work.

No. 12. None! but certainly there is great prejudice in favour of the whites, which renders the justice of the law but little beneficial to the blacks.

No. 13. Not exactly to offices of State, but sometimes to confidential and well-paid employments.

No. 14. From public and private sources, and from the general notoriety of the slave-treatment in the Danish West Indian Islands, which I have learned by 20 years' residence in the mother country. I have, &c.

The Earl of Aberdeen, K.T.

PETER BROWNE.

(Inclosure 1.)-Recapitulation of the General Tables of the Population of the Danish West India Islands.-October 1, 1835.

(Inclosure 2.)—View of the Numbers of the Unfree Population in the Danish West India Islands, in the years 1831, 1836, and 1840; also Proportion between Births and Deaths among them during the periods from 1831 to 1835 both inclusive, and from 1836 to 1840 both inclusive.

Extracted from the Register of said Islands.

The number of the Unfree population, was—

The Deaths have exceeded the Births,

During the interval from 1831 to 1835 (both inclusive) by 430. Ditto 1836 to 1840 (both inclusive) by 416.

ditto

(Inclosure 3.)-Ordinance respecting the Slave Trade.-Copenhagen, March 16, 1792.

[See Vol. I. Page 971.]

(Inclosure 4.)- Ordinance containing additional Enactments respecting the Condition of Unfree Negroes in the Danish West India Islands. (Translation.) Copenhagen, May 1, 1840. WE, Christian VIII, by the grace of God, King of Denmark, of the Vandals and Goths; Duke of Sleswick, Holstein, Stormarn, Ditmarschen, Lauenburg and Oldenburg, hereby make known: whereas our late predecessor King Frederick VI, of pious memory, by means of various arrangements, and particularly by His Royal Rescript to the Governor-General of the Danish West India Islands, dated 22nd November, 1834, took measures for securing the unfree Negroes in the said islands from improper treatment, and for facilitating to them the acquisition of their freedom whenever they could find the means of indemnifying their masters. In like manner, now that the regulations in the aforesaid Royal Rescript have been gradually put in practice, and have been proved by experience to be suitable, it has pleased us, for the greater certainty of their accurate observance, to have them promulgated as a law. Wherefore, we enjoin and command as follows:

§ 1. Every unfree person shall be entitled to acquire his freedom on condition that his full value be paid to his master, either by himself or by some other person who will give him his assistance for that

purpose.

§ 2. Whenever a slave wishes to be transferred to another master, who will give his former owner full compensation for him, the said owner shall be obliged to part with him, if he cannot adduce any such special circumstances as may contain admissible grounds for his refusal. But in case he should have any such special grounds to adduce against parting with him, the matter must then be investigated by the Police Court, and thereafter be referred for decision to our Governor-General.

When a master is in this way adjudged to part with his slave, should it so happen that by immediately parting with him he would be exposed to much inconvenience, in this case, on his making application, our Governor-General will fix a proper interval, during which the slave shall remain in his service. But during this interval, the master shall not be allowed to exercise the right to which he was formerly competent, of inflicting punishment on any such unfree person. On the contrary, on every occasion when such punishment may be merited, he must refer the matter to the Police Court.

§ 3. The master, however, shall in no case be allowed to refuse parting with the Negro, if the latter has been improperly treated. For even although no such gross ill treatment may have taken place as that the master, in addition to other penalties, might therefore be sentenced to forfeit his Negro, still the Governor-General must take care that the slave in question gets another master against such compensation as may be procurable, supposing no one is willing to redeem him at the valuation fixed by the appraisement.

§ 4. In each of the cases stated in §§ 1 and 2, in which parting with an unfree person takes place, the value of the latter is to be fixed by lawful appraisement, so that the master shall thereby receive complete indemnification, in proportion to the benefit he could derive from the unfree person.

As a rule for determining this value, the parties concerned shall follow the Normal Table of the value of unfree persons, in proportion to their respective ages, viz., either the one now in force, or any such one as our Governor-General, with the advice of the Burgher Council, shall hereafter promulgate; and every time that a deviation is made from the value indicated by the Table, there must express mention be made of the act of appraisement of those advantages or defects in respect to health, strength or capabilities, on which the deviation is based. The appraisement is to be made by impartial appraisers appointed for that purpose by the Police Court; previously to which, in conformity with the enactments in the Ordinance of 10th October,

1776, §§ 3 and 4, a summons to attend in Court, with 2 months' notice, must be given to all parties concerned; which summons, likewise with 2 months' notice, must be inserted in both the newspapers published in the islands. For the summons, which is to be issued gratis by the proper police-master, no Court recording-fees are to be paid. On the other hand, the expense of advertising in the newspapers is to be paid by the party who wishes for the separation.

§ 5. Every person who may feel himself aggrieved by any appraisement made in virtue of § 4, may demand a re-appraisement by double the number of appraisers, to be appointed by the Police Court.

§ 6. In the case of a mortgaged Negro, the mortgagee concerned shall be entitled to receive out of the purchase money satisfaction for his claim, according to his rights of priority; provided, however, that if it be a plantation Negro who has been mortgaged along with the plantation, in this case the plantation owner, on depositing the purchase sum in our treasury, shall be allowed a year's time to procure another Negro, to which new Negro the mortgagee's right is then to be transferred; but, if within the aforesaid term of a year, no other Negro has been procured, in this case the whole purchase money shall be paid to the mortgagee. Or, if a Negro has been procured of inferior value to the one sold, then the difference, by which the sum received for the sold Negro exceeds the value of the Negro bought in his stead, shall be paid to the mortgagee.

§ 7. In the appraisement of any such Negro as in terms of § 6 is put in the place of another, the same rules are to be followed as set forth in §§ 4 and 5, only that the summons mentioned in § 4 falls away. The King's physician, whose business it is to inspect the Negro before the appraisement in question takes place, shall receive for this act of inspection a fee of 2 rixdollars, D. W. C., which fee shall be disbursed by the party at whose instance the other Negro was parted with, and be paid along with the purchase sum; but shall be refunded in cases where no acts of inspection shall have taken place.

§ 8. In every instance, where in conformity with what is set forth in § 6, another slave is procured, the proper police-master, after the transaction has been finished, shall see that the requisite notification thereof be entered in the register of mortgages, which entry shall be made gratis.

§ 9. Slaves shall enjoy a right of property of every thing they may lawfully acquire either by gift, purchase, inheritance, or personal labour; provided only that they shall not have the right of acquiring other slaves. The possession of weapons and ammunition, also of boats and other craft, shall be entirely prohibited them; and moreover horses, cattle, hogs, and other animals or inanimate objects, which