OCR Text |
Show 24·6 APPENDIX. tenanted. This is the only quid pro quo, as I conceive, which justice can demand on the occasion. To require of the tenant the regular payment of such a rent, and legally to '!ject in case of the non-payment of it, are neither of them proceedings to which any reasonable objection can be urged. But to require not merely that the tenant should pay rent, but that he should work on a certain estate, at a certain rate of wages, and for a certain number of days in the week, and to eject him if these latter provisions are not complied withappears to me to be unjust in principle-a recurrence, as far as it goes, to the old system of slavery. It is the compelling of labor by a penal infliction. I presume that ejectments from tenements on the ground now mentioned, cannot be legal ; and it appears that the object has, in many cases, been effected by manual force. Cocoa-nut and bread·fruit trees have been felled-cottages have been unroofed and sometimes demolished-pigs have been shot-provisiongrounds have been destroyed-the pleasant fruit of God's earth uprooted by the rude hand of violence, or trodden under foot of oxen. I conceive that such acts of spoliation arc, in point of fact, nothing more or less than substitutes for the cart-whip. Notorious as the facts are to which I have now alluded, I mention them, because necessary to be mentioned, and with no other than Christian feelings towards those who have perpetrated them. Sure I am, that such proceedings must be abhorrent to the feelings of the generality of those persons whom I am now addressing, as well as to my own. Another method of compelling labor has been the arbitrary increase of rents, with distraint, imprisonment and ejection in the train, in case of their not being paid. A laborer on a cer. tain estate is under an agreement with its manager, to pay two shillings sterling per week as rent for his house and ground. Some cause of dispute and dissatisfaction arises with regard to his labor, and the rent is immediately raised, by way of penal nECONCILIA'l'lON, 247 exaction, to twice, thrice or fou t' . . ' r tmes t1 l e amount. l to say, 1t ts demanded for his w· ~ d ' or, s range . I 1 e an each of his childre respectiVe y, as well as for himself. H f . n, . C I . . e o course IS unable to pay tt. omp amt ts made against 1 · b 1 . . urn Y t lC overseer to some of the mag1strates m the nci~hborhood. 1 d . . • • b ' t le ebt ts adjudicated to be a vahd one; Ius goods are clistrained . d "f h . . ,anttcrcbca deficJCncy, m the amount thus levied t h . . . ' 0 pay t e debt and the fees, he ts tmpnsoned for ten days B t 1 • . . . u t us IS not all ; after he has been diScharged, the remainder of tl . d b . . • 10 c t still hangs over his head, and whenever hts petty articles f r . 0 comrort and conveni-ence agam accumulate, he may be exposed t h d" . . . o anot er 1stramt. In case of Ius removmg any of his good s t o avot' d t 1l e effect of this second seizure, he is liable as a fraud I t d b . . . . ' u en e tor to tmpn-sonment, at the diScretiOn of the magistra t es, rI Dr any term not exceeding three months; and any membe f 1 · r .1 . . . • rs o 11s 1BID1 y who assiSt htm m so domg may be subiected to tl · 1 . . " 1e same pums 1ment. No.w all thiS I.S monstro. us.. It is a screw of pro d"t gw· us power, of wluch the olmous apphcalton is to compel labor, or in other words to reduce freemen, a second time, to slavery. . I can easily believe that the individuals ,v]10 h ave rcsortc d to thiS system of penal and fictitious rents, have met with their difficultie.s and provocations '· but I am read y t o b e 1t· eve t h at a calm revww of the subject, has already convinced some of them .th at s. uc.h exactions serve uo good purpose - tllat tl 1ey are wrong m prmCJple, and calamitous in their results' to all th e part1·e s concerned. . I do not consider it to be my province to enter into a discusSion of the laws which have been enacted in this colony, during the last few months; but I cannot with a good conscience refrain from expressing my own opinion, that some of these provisions have a~ unfavorable bearing on the cause of equal rights and unrestnctcd freedom. It is unquestionable that the act for the reco~ery of petty debts, affords great facilities for the line of proccedmg which I have now described. On visiting the goal of |