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Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana (1826)

Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

(1826)–Christopher Edward Lefroy–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtvrij

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Notes by the Editor

Note A, p. 55.

See the reports of all the naval officers employed on the service of suppressing the slave trade, printed in the papers laid before Parliament on that subject. From their peculiarly unexceptionable authority they should be collected and published in a separate pamphlet; of the character of this hell-engendered trade, and its only efficient European ally and champion the French Bourbon government, which deliberately and systematically baffles all the best energies and prodigal expenses of the British people to overcome it, they are decisive. It would swell this little essay too much to introduce them here, but there is one anecdote recorded by the late Sir George Collier so honourable to the character of British seamen, and so worthy to illuminate the page of any national history, that I am sure my readers will thank me for extracting it.

Extract from the Second Annual Report of Capt. Sir G. R. Collier, upon the settlements on the coast of Africa, dated 16th September, 1820, addressed to J. W. Croker, Esq. and printed in the ‘Further Papers relating to the Suppression

of the Slave Trade,’ laid before the House of Commons, April, 1821.

‘In order to examine more minutely the various rivers emptying themselves on the windward coast, a fast-sailing vessel was procured at the joint expense of myself and some of the officers, for the purpose of affording a covering to the crews of the several boats employed in the service, where frigates and sloops of war could not approach, thus protecting them as well from the effects of sun and tornadoes, as from the injurious consequences of the night dews and common rains, the Tartar, (Sir G. Collier's flag ship,) keeping under sail in the offing, and in sight of signal. This arrangement, so far as the health of the officers and ship's company was concerned, proved a most material benefit, and though the vessel was purposely unarmed to avoid the chance of any deviation from my instructions, yet her utility in the object I had in view was so pre-eminently conspicuous, that the officers likely to be occasionally employed in boats, requested to be allowed to take a proportion of the expense. Had there been a chance of any pecuniary emolument arising from this measure, as in time of actual war, I should not have felt it necessary to notice this circumstance; but the desire springing from the best feelings of the heart, and which had been roused in this instance into an active benevolence by the dreadful scenes occasionally witnessed in the suffering misery of the unfortunate captives from the African shores, I have felt it due to the character of my officers to show, that the same philanthropic feelings which actuate the conduct of so large a proportion of our countrymen are not confined to those resident on shore. Indeed, were it necessary, I could prove that on some occasions, where I have had doubts as to

further detention of slaving ships, from the chance of incurring heavy damages, and perhaps entire loss of fortune, and whilst the slaving vessels have been under examination by myself and officers, the whole crew of the Tartar have come forward, and in the most decorous but urgent manner, have added their entreaties to the measure, offering their growing pay as a security for their proportion of the expense, in case of the non-condemnation of the vessel by the mixed court at Sierra Leone; though it was explained to and fully understood by them, that as the law now stood, no pecuniary benefit could arise to any one from head-money as formerly, even though the condemnation should actually take place. It therefore strongly proves what the misery and sufferings of the slave must be, until he may reach his point of destination, when they could produce such strong effects upon so many unlettered and uneducated minds as the crew of a man of war may be supposed to be composed of.

‘On this distressing subject,’ Sir George concludes his report, ‘so revolting to every well-regulated mind, I will add, that such is the merciless treatment of the slaves by the persons engaged in the traffic, that no fancy can picture the horror of the voyage, crowded together so as not to give the power to move, linked one to the other by the leg, never unfettered while life remains, or till the iron shall have fretted the flesh to the bone, forced under a deck, as I have seen them, not thirty inches in height, breathing an atmosphere the most putrid and pestilential possible, with little food and less water, subject also to the most severe punishment at the caprice or fancy of the brute who may command the vessel. It is to me a matter of extreme wonder, that any of these miserable people live the voyage through; many of them, indeed, perish on the passage, and those who remain to meet the shore, present a picture of wretchedness language cannot express.’

Note B, p. 61.

Ireland may appear prima facie an exception to the truth of this opinion, but I am convinced it is not so; the population of Ireland would not increase but diminish if they did not live under the ægis of a civilized government, and nothing prevents the indefinite increase of their happiness and numbers but their abandonment by their unnatural lords, and their most calamitous religion. Always sowing tares amongst wheat to make their destruction impossible, and grafting perversion upon truth, how plainly is that religion a contrivance of the great enemy of man and Christ; - and the malignity of its influence upon man's best interests, wherever it prevails, is truly worthy of the guile of its dark origination.

Note C, p. 115.

The present military habit in the tropics of enforcing the exact costume of the European parade, (a coat of heavy woollen, close buttoned to the chin,) seems very absurd: the oppression it inflicts must be dreadful. I for one should die under it; and I can only account for it by ascribing it to the puerile vanity of affecting in the European constitution an independence of all local circumstances.

Note D, p. 118.

The whole of this scene must of course be considered as fictitious, nor can any the slightest reflection whatever have been here intended upon the present Governor of Surinam, Major-General de Veer, who was not at that time in the colony.

Note E, p. 127.

‘La religion n'intervient que comme un usage dans les actes les plus solemnels de la vie; elle n'apporte plus ses consolations et l'espérance aux malheureux. La morale religieuse ne guide plus la raison dans le sentier étroit et difficile de la vie, le froid égoisme a desséché toutes les sources du sentiment, il n'y a plus d'affections domestiques, ni de respect, ni d'amour, ni d'autorité, ni de dépendance réciproques chacun vit pour soi; personne ne forme de ces sages combinaisons, qui liaient à la génération future les générations présentes.’ - Extract from Dr. Esquirol.

Note F, p. 150.

The noble, manly, rational, and consistent bill introduced by Mr. Canning, since this work was composed, for co-gradually Christianizing and disenthralling from the bondage of beasts of burden the negroes in the British West Indies, will save them, I trust, from any such consequence; but no such safety-lamp arrangements have been interposed by the Dutch Government between the antagonist principles of Christ and Belial. The whole system of Dutch negro government is absolutely pagan.

Note G, p. 160.

See reply of the Attorney-General Seymour, in the reign of William and Mary, to a deputation of Virginian planters, requesting Government to supply them with an ecclesiastical establishment, as their Majesty's Virginian subjects had souls as well as those in England.

Note H, p. 161.

It is not in one or two but in all points that Christianity collides with the Surinam system of negro slavery, and Satan might as easily have dispersed the palpable obscure of his daring flight through chaos with a single torch, as a few Christian missionaries, by their unaided efforts, pierce with a single ray of pure and properly comprehended Christianity the midnight paganism of the negro mind there, which it has been the guilty policy of the Colonial Government for centuries to perpetuate by every regulation in their power. The missionaries may and must sacrifice themselves if they are good men; and they may drive the negroes upon whom they make any valuable religious impression to revolt or suicide, as the life of an intelligent, thoroughly taught Christian slave, subject to the capricious and uncontrollable despotism of such a dreg of his colour as Mr. Hogshead, or even an infidel planter, to be insulted and taunted before the heathen slaves, to be spited upon every occasion, punished for the most trifling offences, overworked, underfed, under-clothed, under-medicined, every bad habit subdued of drinking, swearing, stealing, or sexual vagrancy, overlooked or derided, every faulty habit remaining unsubdued, called proof of hypocrisy, and doubly punished, must be hell - hell. But a revolution (humanely speaking) to clear away the accumulation of obstacles carefully piled for centuries (and but very partially relaxed within these few years) against the invasion of light * by every bad feeling which could instigate

the human bosom, must precede the Christianization of the slave population in Surinam, unless the Netherland's government follow the example of the British, and take it wholly out of the hands of the local authorities and proprietors.

Note I, p. 173.

These ferocious animals are so audacious in Surinam, that they will sometimes dash into the enclosures surrounding a plantation dwelling house, and carry off a sheep or heifer, and within these two years an individual tiger, measuring nearly five feet from the root of the tail to the tip of the snout, was shot in a tree in the garden of one of the houses in Paramaribo, and is now, I believe, in the museum of an accomplished medical gentleman there of the name of Hostman.

Note K, p. 187.

Courteous reader, if you have any incredulity, and will just take a summer sail across the Atlantic, you will see half a dozen of them together straddling down the streets of Paramaribo in this condition before you have been there a week, and hear their screams of a morning if you live near the fortress, during the operation.

Note L, p. 203.

I cannot forbear here illustrating the astonishing force of vegetation in this country, by a circumstance connected with one of these houses; there was a row of tamarind trees before it, which contributed to its preservation, but which were themselves for several hours enveloped in flames from the conflagration of the houses immediately opposite, which were burnt to the ground, and to one of which was attached a timber yard with immense piles of pine planks as high as the first story, which of course were also reduced to ashes. The day following, the row of tamarind trees presented only the appearance of so many skeletons of absolute charcoal; in three weeks, I assure my courteous readers, that they were in leaf again.

Note M, p. 203.

Extract from Observations of M.A.F. Lammens, Judge of the Mixed Court for the Suppression of the Slave Trade in Surinam, on the part of His Netherland's Majesty.

‘I must remark here with regret that the different, un-

‘becoming, and cruel manner in which some proprietors

‘behave themselves with respect to their slaves, often

‘obliges the Court of Policy to deprive them of the ma-

‘nagement of their property, or to place them under the

‘direction of the Court of Policy, as has been done with

‘the persons BUCK, a woman; Kuster, and others. It

‘seems by this, as if the opinion that proprietors are not

‘proper to direct and administrate their plantations, and that

‘third persons would be fitter, could be justified.’ -

See note to page 9 of ‘Bedenkingen bij Het Lezen van Het

Artikel: Koloniën, voorkomende in Het 7de deel der Bijdragen tot de Huishouding van Staat van der Heer G.K. Grave van Hogendorp, door Mr. Adriaan François Lammens, President ad interim bij Het Hof van Civiele Justitie der Kolonie Suriname. Te Amsterdam, bij G.S. Leeneman van der Kroe, 1824.’

Note N, p. 214.

It was my misfortune for six months of my life, in the years eighteen hundred and twenty-four and five, to live next door in Paramaribo to a Dutch lawyer of the name of Van Ess, a young man of about twenty-five years of age, who had two girls and a mulatto lad from eighteen to twenty years of age in his service, upon whom altogether, but chiefly the girls, he bestowed during the six months no less than fourteen floggings, of which this was the manner; the girls wrists are tied together and their naked bodies to a post, (a single linen apron only, about the size and substance of a large pocket handkerchief being tied round their waists,) whilst a strong male slave belabours them with a long whip till the master tells him to desist, who sometimes seems to act a sort of personification of cruelty, by regulating the punishment by the number of pipes he smokes during its infliction, as if for the purpose of vaunting the utter callousness and insensibility of his national character to every sentiment of refinement, religion, or humanity. I do not know what was the occasion of these punishments, if necessary however, what becomes of the system which could make them so? If not, of the brute which could, without necessity, employ them? The reader, who has never lived in a community where Christianity is generally abjured, as it is in Surinam, cannot conceive the rapid gravitation of

humane nature towards brutality the moment its restraints are withdrawn, because in England all its great sanctions are so interwoven into the frame of the social polity, and the tone of public opinion is so established in its favour, that those who most affect to deride its authority, cannot systematically at least outrage its principles in their conduct, with impunity to their characters; but in such places as Surinam, I verily believe the white settlers are only upheld from sinking in the scale of brutalization and barbarity below the surrounding savages, by the distant and feeble reflection of shame to which their mercantile connections still expose them from the voice of public opinion in Europe.

Note O, p. 223.

The cause is evident, they are just as full of degenerating passions, and as sensual and luxurious in a coarser way, and bear in every feature of their character indications as unequivocal of moral ruin as the Europeans, but not more so. They are, reader, in all respects by nature your moral peers, and will remain so, let Mr. Lawrence publish as many volumes on Comparative Anatomy as he pleases, and the revolting and self-disparaging materialists contend for their infamous and soul-denying doctrines as they choose!!!

Note P, p. 232.

The same possibly to whose martyrous fidelity an imperishable monument has been subsequently erected in the neighbouring Colony of Demerara by Governor Murray and Chief Justice Wray, and the other local authorities for the time being.

Note Q, p. 232.

This story is only topically fictitious, see the History of the Conversion of a Man of the name of Davis at Oxford, in the Biographical Portraiture, by the Reverend James Hinton, whose union of talent, temper, prudence, and earnestness of right intention in a very difficult and delicate situation for many years, entitled, and, I believe, procured him the general respect of that university. It should be read by all English libertines and formalists, Dutch materialists, and young surgeons, who, after the example of that modest young lecturer, Mr. Lawrence, arc content to think themselves nothing better than great baboons.

Note R, p. 235.

In the case of the Demerara riots, it was proved that the truly Christian insurgents had determined, in one or two of their preceding conferences, ‘not to take life as they could not give it,’ and to shed no blood, as it was contrary to the faith which they had been taught, in fact, it is clear this ill-requited scrupulousness lost them their end. I say ill-requited, for their Christian masters, in the progress and sequel of this rebellion, contrived to destroy (I think I have read) nearly one thousand of them, but say only several hundreds: - who that ever lived in any unreformed part of the West Indies, disconnected from the pagan and anti-christian system of society that prevails there, can wonder in his heart at the celebrated toast of the great moralist, Dr. Johnson, ‘Success to the first insurrection of Negroes in the West Indies.’ He saw that the whole system from beginning to end was so atrocious, that it could never be

reconciled to Christianity, or he would not have committed himself to so strong an expression of his disapprobation of it. And as far as my experience goes, he saw accurately. What says Alexander McDonnell, Esq. writing in defence of a British Colony?

‘I think it will be generally allowed, that if slavery exist at all, there must be a very great discretionary power intrusted to those who have the superintendence of the properties. It is perfectly idle to attempt to regulate the conduct of those persons in all their minute duties. Power so extensive in its very nature as theirs, must necessarily exist beyond the controul of any law. It is no exaggeration whatever to say, that the happiness or misery of

‘a slave is in a manager's keeping. If he takes any dislike or pique to any individual, he can harass the poor creature incessantly in a thousand different shapes.’ - Vide Considerations on Negro Slavery, by Alexander McDonnell, Esq. p. 281.

Note S, p. 236.

See the account of the death of a Monk of la Trappe, under a surgical operation of excruciating pain, during the progress of which he never uttered a groan, as being contrary to the rules of his order; but when, upon the representation of the surgeon, that the operation must be fatal if he persisted in such violence to nature, as to suppress every expression of pain, the abbot told him to express what he felt, as he would dispense with his vow of silence, the good monk used some such expressions as the above, and instantly expired.

Note T, p. 247.

I was in Surinam during all the period comprised in the above narration, and none of the occurrences therein described took place, except the fire of the town and shipping, and the execution of the Dutch soldier, which events did really happen, but not cotemporaneously. The two preceding chapters must therefore in all other respects be entirely fictitious. The disgraceful trial and condemnation of a Christian missionary by a court-martial in an adjacent colony, is of posterior notoriety. Upon this subject. I would submit for the opinion of his Majesty's Attorney-General, and all others whom it may concern, the following question:

A, B, C, D, E , F, form an unlawful court, receive unlawful evidence, and in violation even of that evidence, such as it is, convict, sentence to death, and execute G, H. for practices not only not condemned but most emphatically enjoined by Christianity. Query, do not A, B, C, D, E, F, subject themselves by the laws of Great Britain, of which Christianity is now distinctly recognised as a part, to indictment for the wilful murder of G, H, i.e. to a conspiracy to take away his life with malice prepense?

I submit another question in the present day of very considerable and growing importance to the administrators of British laws in the West Indies.

J, K, a kidnapped African, in slavery in Demerara, runs away, and in resisting a violent attempt to recapture him kills his assailant. Query, could an indictment for murder be legally maintained in such a case against J, K, or a British jury legally find any other verdict against him than justifiable homicide; or if they did, could a judge without himself in-

curring the most serious penalty proceed to execute on a verdict of murder?

Note U, p. 259.

Perhaps this is the same gentleman who was afterwards the government chaplain of Demarara, and who in spite of the hornet's nest of infidels and atheists which he must have known that he should, and in fact did, bring about him, to the honour of the church of England, had the courage and Christian integrity in the case of Mr. Smith to express himself as follows:

‘I feel no hesitation in declaring, from the intimate knowledge which my most anxious inquiries have obtained, that in the late scourge which the hand of an all-wise Creator has inflicted on this ill-fated country, nothing but those religious impressions which, under Providence, Mr. Smith has been instrumental in fixing - nothing but those principles of the Gospel of Peace, which he has been proclaiming, could have prevented a dreadful effusion of blood here, and saved the lives of those very persons who are now (I shudder to write it) seeking his life.’

I cannot help adding, as it does him equal honour, the testimony of Mr. Arrindall, Mr. Smith's counsel, to the same effect.

‘It is almost presumptuous in me to differ from the sentence of a court, but, before God, I do believe Mr. Smith to be innocent, nay, I will go further, and defy any minister of any sect whatever to have shown a more faithful attention to his sacred duties than he has been proved, by the evidence on his trial, to have done.’

Note X, p. 268.

See this argument eloquently urged by the late Lord Erskine, in his defence of the publisher of Paine's Age of Reason.

« But,’ said that highly gifted advocate, ‘it seems this is an age of reason, and the time and the person are at length arrived, that are to dissipate the errors which have overspread the past generations of ignorance. The believers in Christianity are many; but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason, and superior reason may, therefore, dictate to the weak. In running the mind along the long list of sincere and devout Christians, I cannot help lamenting that Newton had not lived to this day, to have had his shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. But the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly and directly. Newton was a Christian. Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters fastened by nature upon our finite conceptions - Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy; not those visionary and arrogant presumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie - Newton, who carried the line and rule to the uttermost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which all created matter exists and is held together. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, the errors which a minuter investigation of the created things on this earth might have taught him. What shall, then, be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the

inanimate substances which the foot treads upon? Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's God. Yet the result of all his contemplations was the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt, as despicable and drivelling superstition. But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the foundations of human judgment, and the structure of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth. Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, was a Christian - Mr. Locke, whose office it was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the very fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination; putting a rein upon false opinion by practical rules for the conduct of human judgment.

‘But these men, it may be said, were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind. Gentlemen, in the place where we now sit to administer the justice of this great country, the never-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits; whose justice, drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by the author, that the Christian fable is but a tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily detected by a proper understanding

of the mythologies of the heathens. Did Milton understand those mythologies? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world? No; they were the subject of his immortal song; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the illustration of real and exalted faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid genius, which has cast a kind of shade upon all the other works of man: -

 
“He passed the flaming bounds of space and time;
 
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
 
Where angels tremble while they gaze:
 
He saw - but blasted with excess of light,
 
Closed his eyes in endless night,”’

Let me add to this beautiful extract one word in reply to Mr. Paine. The basis of his objection to Christianity, is the absence of all need of a revelation, from the sufficiency of the book of creation to display the attributes of its Author, of which book the indispensable key is trigonometry; a revelation for the poor, of which the only key is trigonometry!!! But if they had the key, and were familiar with the use of it, it would only aid a little their conception of the knowledge and power of God; it would avail them nothing towards the discovery of his moral attributes. The impression of his goodness that arises from one aspect of the material creation is shocked and confounded by another. If a humming-bird is submitted to our examination, it is difficult to believe that the Divine Artist of such exquisite beauty can be other than a being

of infinite benevolence; but if a scorpion is brought into contrast, it completely overthrows or perplexes any such positive inference.

Note Y, p. 276.

An acquaintance of mine at Surinam denies the incarnation, because (he says) it involves associations derogatory to the dignity and majesty of the deity; should this note ever catch his eye, I entreat him to reflect whether the same line of argument would not disprove the agency of the deity in man's present creation, from bringing his unspeakable majesty into direct association with the weaknesses and grossnesses of human nature. Should he reply that man's original nature was probably free from either weakness or grossness, which have both been since contracted by some misuse of his free agency; then I contend that such a position lets in the doctrine of the fall, the great foundation of the Christian dispensation, and from which alone (apart from all other evidence) results an almost overbearing presumption of its truth.

Note Z, p. 284.

I sincerely wish that I could speak more favourably than the author of the foregoing narrative of the conduct of the Surinam authorities (especially this officer) in respect to the revolting, frightful, all-crime-comprising, all-depravity-inducing, all-humanity-deriding, heaven-outraging, and demoniacal practice,* the West Indian Slave Trade; but sorry am I that truth compels me to declare, that the only

one officer of His Netherland's Majesty, civil or military, that has appeared to me, during my residence in Surinam, to evince the slightest evidence of his having received any peremptory orders to carry into execution the provisions of the treaty between the crowns of England and Holland for its suppression with real energy and good faith, is the present Governor, Major General de Veer, a fine, soldierly, veteran-looking, hospitably-hearted man, distinguished for his successful defence of Curaçoa, in the year eighteen hundred and four, against a very formidable attack by a British force under the command of Commodore Bligh of the Thetis. He, (General de Veer,) although differing much as an individual from the opinions of the abolitionists, has acted like a man of the strictest honour, and in one or two instances involved himself in considerable hot water with the colonial magistrates by his decision and firmness, which gives me great reason to fear that he is not supported as he ought to be by the ministers of his king, for it is clear that they are bound, as well by the original treaty, as by express promises subsequently made to His Britannic Majesty's ambassador in Holland, (as appears by the parliamentary papers,) to send him over orders so peremptory for the extinction of the traffic, and approbation so express and decisive of his energetic enforcement of the Dutch abolition laws, that he may always shelter himself from any personal ill-will towards him of the colonists by an appeal to them. I am the more disposed to this suspicion, from the circumstance of there having been, at the time of my writing this note, (January 18th, 1826,) no Dutch ship of war here since the third of last July, the indispensability of whose employment, in the effectual suppression of slave-smug-

gling, in a colony with such a long line of sea coast and so many creeks distant from observation as Surinam, has (it also appears by the parliamentary papers) formed a subject of earnest representation by the British ambassador in Holland to the Dutch ministers, who expressed their ready acquiescence, and promised that in future the Governor of Surinam should not be unprovided with the necessary naval assistance, - a promise however of which hitherto I have certainly seen no effect here.

LONDON:

BOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.


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