In all the islands, the master may legally imprison his slave. In all the islands he may legally flog him; and in some of the islands he may legally flog him at his discretion. The best of the meliorating acts promise little, and perform less. By some of them it is enacted, that the slave shall not be flogged, till recovered from the effects of his last flogging--by others, that he shall not receive more than a certain number of lashes in one day. These laws, useless as they are, have a meaning. But there are others which add insult to cruelty. In some of the Colonial Codes, there are facetious provisions that the slave shall not receive more than a certain number of lashes at one time, or for one fault. What is the legal definition of a time? Or who are the legal judges of a fault? If the master should chuse to say that it is a fault in his slave to have woolly hair, whom does the law authorize to contradict him? It is just to say, that the murder of a slave is now a capital {306}crime. But the West Indian rules of evidence, to which we shall hereafter call the attention of onr readers, render the execution of the laws on this subject almost impossible. The most atrocious kinds of mutilation,--even those which in England are punished with death,--when committed upon the person of a slave, subject the offender only to a fine, or to a short imprisonment. In Dominica, for instance, “to maim, deface, mutilate, or cruelly torture” a slave, is a crime which is to be expiated by a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds currency, or by imprisonment not exceeding the term of three months, By the law of Jamaica, a master who perpetrates any outrage short of murder on the person of a slave, is subject to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds currency, or to imprisonment not exceeding the term of 12 months. In very atrocious cases, the court may direct the enfranchisement of the slave. But this, though a benefit, as far as it goes, to the Negro, is a very slight aggravation of the punishment of the master. At most, it is only an addition of a few pounds to the fine. And as the possession of a slave who has been maimed in such a maimer as to render him helpless, is rather burdensome than profitable, it would, in many eases, be really an advantage to the criminal. If these terrible prerogatives were confined to the master alone, the condition of the slave would be suficiently wretched. Yet it would not be without alleviations. The proprietor might sometimes be restrained by a sense of his pecuniary interest, if not by higher considerations, from those extreme outrages, against which the law affords so scanty a protection. At all events, during his absence, his Negroes would enjoy an interval of security. Unhappily, the Colonial Codes permit all the representatives and agents of the master, black and white, bond and free, to exercise most of his despotic powers.