1804.] Review of Opportunity; or, Reasons for Alliance with St. Domingo. 419 conceived in Europe; and here, to some minds celebrated for political knowledge in general, as well as to many ordinary readers, the author's premises, as he has reason to believe, appeared not less questionable than his conclusions: yet, rea appointment to the views of the Consul, of Europe, it has ultimately proved-disand a triumph to his sable opponents." (p. 3-5.) The author then proceeds, at great soning from these premises, he inferred length, to shew that the government with much confidence the high probability of events which have since actually occurred in St. Domingo, extraordinary and wonderful though those events have appeared to the European public. The harsh and unparalleled nature of West India bondage in general, and those distinguish ing features of that state which were delineated in the Crisis, were the very corner stones, and foundation walls, upon the solidity of which the whole structure of the argument depended. From the terrible peculiarities of that state, and from these alone, it was inferred, that the negroes of St. Domingo would never submit to it again; for it was admitted, that to any yoke known elsewhere by the name of slavery, the gigantic power, the relentless vengeance, the craft, and violence of the French government, might probably be able to enforce submission. Political, and even personal freedom had been completely overthrown in many parts of Europe; and there was nothing in the air of the Antilles to make the spirit of liberty there more vigorous, or less tameable by the terror of the sword; but it was predicted that negro freedom would be found invincible in St. Domingo, because the horrors of the state opposed to it were experimentally known to its defenders; and because they were of that intolerable kind which the author endeavoured to describe He foresaw the true though strange issue of the unequal contest between the colossal republic of France, and the negroes of a West India island, only because he clearly understood the nature of the practical question in dispute. "The great local and personal advantages which favoured the cause of freedom in that climate, were not overlooked or concealed-on the contrary, they were fully explained and relied upon as necessary means; but the vital and indomitable principle, which could alone give life and efficacy to those means of resistance, was an aversion to the former yoke not to be overcome; an antipathy more powerful, than all the terrors that despotisin could oppose to it, more stimulating than any passion or appetite that could plead for submission, and more obstinate than the love of life itself. Upou these premises and these calculations, it was foretold early in March, 1802, that the issue of the French expedition would be such as, to the astonishment * Crisis, p. 58 to 69. of this country is bound, by every justifiable self-defence, to acknowconsideration of national policy and ledge, without delay, the liberty of the negroes of St. Domingo; and to them as a sovereign and independent enter into fœderal engagements with people: and further, not only to grant, but, if necessary, to volunteer a guarantee of their independency against the Republic of France. The ments employed to support this proarguno measure less decisive than that position, have satisfied our minds that which he recommends will secure to island, or the other important advanus either the future commerce of that tages which its amity is likely to produce; nor guard our colonies so effectually from the evils of various kinds which threaten them. In the remaining part of the pamphlet, the author labours with success to vindicate the character of the African race from the false reports, and calumnious representations of their Oppressors; and to prove that the expectation which has been entertained of the disunion and retrogression of the infant negro republic, has no fair support either from past experience, or from the peculiar circumstances of the case. He likewise adverts to the ery, and of national guilt, which is normous aggravation of human miselikely to flow from the acquisition of Guiana, as well as to the waste of Trinidad, and the conquest of Dutch British life, the dissipation of British capital, and the injury to the old british colonies, which must thereby be alof the work, no less than that which most inevitably produced. This part precedes it, is well worthy the attention of statesmen. We will close our review with a few extracts from the conclusion of this pamphlet. "There is a subject, a most momentous and opprobrious one, which stands not inmending measures of West Indion policy, deed in any necessary connection with my argument, but upon which when recomit is impossible not to reflect, and would be criminal to be silent. "The Slave Trade! How does that dreadful name dishearten the patriot hopes of an Englishman, who knows its horrors, and who has seen its pernicious effects! Could I forget, or doubt, that, Verily, and indeed, there is a God who governs the earth;" I still could not sincerely hold forth the hope of a result finally beneficial to my country, from the measure recommended in these sheets, or from any other scheme of policy however wise, while that pestilent iniquity is cherished. It would be like promising prosperity to a prodigal, from arrangements of domestic economy, while he refused to forsake the gaming-table or the race course; health to a dropsical drunkard from medicine, while he persisted in the nightly debauch. or "Yet I see my country still given up without remorse to the unbridled career of slave trading speculators. As if amorous of guilt and of ruin, we plunge deeper every day into that gulph of African blood. "Happy had it been, perhaps, if the veil of public ignorance, which for ages covered the deformities of that hideous commerce, had never been withdrawn; for the monster instead of being cut off, as the first burst of honest indignation promised, has been more fondly nourished than before; and fattened with fuller meals of misery and inurder, into far more than his pristine dimensions. While the flagitious wickedness of the trade was exposed by the abolitionists, its gainful effects were blazoned by its defenders; and the purblind avarice of the country was so strongly excited, that the man-merchant in an apparent defeat, obtained an actual triumph; a triumph over national humanity; and let me add, over all the moral decencies of legislative character." (p. 139, 140.) "A momentary compunction was indeed excited in our senate, as well as in the country at large; but its effect has been only to display in the foul relapse, and enormous extension of the crime, the low state of our public morals; and the fatal tendency of that vile principle of expediency, upon which immediate reformation was withheld." (p. 140.) "If then," he adds, "as these measures" (viz. the encouragements of speculations in Trinidad and Guiana) "unhappily seem to threaten, the old maxims are still to prevail-if we are still, with insatiable avidity, to prosecute the Slave Trade, to every extent, and in every direction, to which the spirit of gambling speculation may invite-if to this end, we are to open new lands, plant new colonies, and manure with British capital and credit, every foreign and rival soil between the tropics, where slave buyers can be found-if I say we are to persist in this infatuated and atrocious carcer; the advice which I have taken all this trouble to support is certainly not worth your attention. "In that case, it matters little whether you avert from our sugar colonies the evils which menace them from St. Domingo; for mischiefs more surely destructive are ripening in those new fields of blood; and will soon be wafted by the wings of the trade wind upon them. It will profit us little in that case, to rescue our army from the hospitals of Jamaica; for graves sufficiently wide to contain the whole of it, are opening in Trinidada and Guiana. It will be a fruitless work to stop by a wise policy the course of revolution at one end of the Charibbean Chain, for its electric shock will soon be transmitted from the other. "Nor is it necessary, as far as the welfare of our old colonies is concerned, to suppose, that the sudden introduction of another hundred thousand of Africans into those settlements, will produce in speedy insurrection its natural effect. The rival. ship of those colonies, should they prosper, will be certain ruin to the old British planter, and destruction to his slaves*. "But, abstaining from the further consideration of these natural consequences of the Slave Trade, and omitting to state its obvious incompatibility with that perina nent friendship which I would advise you to cultivate with the people of St. Domingo; let me avow, before I conclude, the influence of still higher motives-Yes, Sir! however it may revolt the prejudices of many who regard the raising our eyes beyond second causes, as no part of political wisdom, I will freely confess, that I can hope no good result from the measure here recommended, or from any other precautions of national prudence, while we continue to defy the justice of Omnipotence, by the horrible iniquities of the Slave Trade. "I know the unequalled miseries inflicted upon myriads of the children of Adam, by that commerce; I know the horrors of the system which it feeds and perpetuates; I believe that, there is a righteous governor of the earth; and therefore I dare not "The author regrets that he must here abstain from the discussion of a most important topic. It might be demonstrated, from premises which even the West Indian Committee would admit, that the planters of the old islands must be ruined, if the settlement of the cheap lands in these colonies, is further to be encouraged or allowed: and it is a plain corollary from this proposition, that slaves bound by mortgages to the soil, as the negroes in the islands almost universally are, must be gradually worked down and destroyed,.in the fruitless but necessary attempt, to keep down by parsimony and exertion the interest of the growing incumbrances." hope well of the fortunes of my country. while she stands with an impious obduracy, between the mercy of God, and the deli verance of Africa. "Nor are there symptoms wanting, which appear to develope a providential plan, for the relief of that much injured race, and the punishment of their oppres"In the wonderful events and coincidences which have planted, fostered, and defended, the liberty of St. Domingo, I seem to see that hand by which the fates sors. of men and nations are directed. I seem to see it, in that strange train of public evils, which, since the first blaze of light formation, have chastized our national ob less do we find ourselves disposed, after the example of others, furiously to rush into the combat as the bigotted upholders of a party. Some articles of faith, indeed, are so essential to the very existence of true religion, that not to assert them would be to undermine the very foundations of christianity. In defence of these we shall ever contend with all our strength, from a firm conviction, that they are necessary to the salvation of the soul. Other points there are on which christians may differ, and yet preserve revealed the full guilt of the Slave Trade,peace;" mutually bearing and for"the unity of the spirit in the bond of and since we rejected the loud call for re-bearing, affectionately respecting and loving each other. The systems of Calvin and Arminius, for example, have been, and still are, respectively adopted by men of the greatest wisdom and piety who profess to derive their opinions from the word of God, without occasioning any interruption of brotherly love or friendly communication. THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER anxiously desires to see peace established between the supporters of these two Systems, on the firm basis of a regard for the "same Lord," producing, by the influence of the same spirit, faith, hope, and charity: Hic labor, hoc opus est. And although, were we to judge by the language and temper of duracy. I seem to see it, in the dark clouds which now menace the domestic security, the idolised wealth, the happiness, and even the liberty and independency, of my country. "For that Satanic mind which is now suffered to sway the destiny of Europe, few are more inclined, in a natural view, than myself, to mingle contempt with abhorrence; but when I consider what instruments the Almighty has sometimes been pleased to employ in purposes of na tional vengeance, and when I think of the Slave Trade, I cannot wholly despise the menaces of our haughty enemy, even upon British ground. I can only ex claim -Non me tua fervida terrent "Dicta, ferox: Dii me terrent, et Jupiter too many who publish_their_senti hostis." (p. 144-148.) ments on the points involved in this controversy, all hope of reconciliation would speedily vanish; yet there is not small, whose hearts, while are others, and we trust the number their speculative opinions occasionally differ, unequivocally unite in the participation of the same sacraments, the same services, and the established church. To these we look same spiritual privileges in the same with peculiar hope and satisfaction as a description of christians the best calculated to heal our breaches; to schism; to moderate the turbulence of counteract the mischiefs of heresy and bigotry, prejudice, malevolence, and error; and thus to build up the walls of our spiritual Jerusalem on the surest and most abiding foundation. Before we proceed to any remarks on the body of Mr. Daubeny's work, we cannot refrain from expressing our concern that the author should have prefixed to it so very objectionable a title. The practice once so much adopted by theological combatants, of endeavouring to excite a prejudice in 31 spirit should universally prevail, it will be concluded, that it ought to be the endeayour of all christians to draw as near to each other as may be in all controverted them may be preserved as unbroken as points; that the bond of peace between possible."-" But the misfortune is that zeal and charity do not go together so often as they ought. The infirmity of the man is too apt to encroach upon the cha the mind of the reader, by filling the title page with unqualified assertions expressive of the author's own opinion of the weakness or unfairness of his adversary, has, for the most part, been long happily exploded; and although, in some few instances, we have lately seen the adoption of this very exceptionable method of assailing an antagonist, yet we did not ex-rity of the christian; when this is the case, pect from Mr. Daubeny's pen the encouragement of a practice so utterly destructive of the very first principles of candor and equity in the manage ment of controversy. Touse Mr. Daubeny's own words (p. vii.) it is literally "prejudging a cause which remains to be tried," and argues an overconfident presumption in an author's mind, that his own arguments are unanswerable, and his victory not to be disputed: a conclusion which, even admitting that it were just, ought not to have been anticipated by the author, but have been left to the reader's judgment, after a perusal of the work. Mr. Daubeny's own remark in the latter part of p. vi. is, in this instance, applicable to himself. We lay the more stress upon this point, because we dread the dent for a mode of attack which can answer no end but that of ir prece ritating without producing convic tion; and of exciting a popular prejudice against an individual far more extensively than the means of ascertaining the justice of its application can ever be expected to reach. In the present case, the character of Mr. Overton, not only as an author, but as a man of integrity, is exposed, through the medium of a newspaper advertisement, to the contempt of many who are neither able nor willing, by actual examination, to judge how far Mr. Daubeny has proved him to be deserving of such treatment: a proceeding which certainly is not very consistent with the intention professed in the present publication, of endeavouring to do Mr. Overton "all possible justice." From the title page we gladly turn to the sentiments on the subject of mutual forbearance and candour expressed in the introductory chapter, and earnestly recommend them to the notice of every disputant on both sides of the controversy. "When it is considered, that whilst there may be diversities of opinions on some religious subjects, the same christian controversialists, forgetting that they are all brethren of the same Lord, are apt to push each other into extremes into which they never meant to be carried; and thus, by widening as it were the distance be. of opinion irreconcileable, which sound tween themselves, render those differences reasoning and temperate discussion, in many cases, would prove to have been more imaginary than real." (p. ii. iii.) "I trust," adds Mr. Daubeny soon after, "that the spirit of these preliminary remarks will so transfuse itself into the oh servations I may have to make on Mr. Overton's book, as to secure me from being condemned out of my own mouth." Again, after expressing a persua sion that the supposed differences of opinion, on the essential doctrines of christianity, between Mr. Overton and himself, will not appear so irreconcileable as he (Mr. Overton) has represented them; he observes, "Mr. Overton may depend upon it, I attempt to sink his character in the world, shall not consider myself justified in any by representing him in any other light than that in which every christian · minister would wish to see his brother, as zealous for the honour of that master in whose service he is engaged." (p. xi.) Many of Mr. Daubeny's readers will perceive, in the course of the yolume, some deviations from the spirit of these professions. It will be necessary to consider Mr. Daubeny's book in three points of view, inasmuch as he, in fact, undertakes a three-fold subject of defence: that of himself and his own writings from the attacks of Mr. Qverton; that of a large body of the clergy, who appear to be implicated by Mr. Overton as opposers or corrupters of the doctrines of the Church of England; and that of the established church herself, not only from the imputation of being founded on principles exclusively Calvinistic, but of even admitting and tolerating a Calvinistic interpretation of her ar ticles and liturgy, in common with that which is usually called Arminian or Anti-calvinistic. To us Mr. Daubeny seems to have been more successful in the first article of defence than the second, and in the second than the third. He has certainly much more clearly made it appear, that Mr. () verton has, in some instances, mis conceived the design and tendency of his own writings, and has inconsiderately classed him with authors whose principles he disavows; than that many of the clergy have not, both in the pulpit and from the press, professed doctrines which can, in no way, be reconciled with the articles of the Church of England. But in endeavouring to establish his favourite idea that our original refor mers, both before and after the reign of Mary, were not only Anti-calvi nists themselves, but designedly meant to exclude a Calvinistic interpretation of the articles and liturgy, Mr. Dau beny appears to us to have been led into much error by viewing the question, through an imperfect, partial, and prejudiced medium. If the ques tion were, whether an Anti-calvinist may not conscientiously subscribe to the articles and use the liturgy, we should not be found among the num ber of those who differ from Mr. Daubeny; but when the general tenour of his book is to prove, that the Calvinistic system, as represented by` Mr. Overton, is irreconcileable with the language of the church, and there fore that the subscription of a Calvinist cannot be vindicated, we must entirely dissent from his conclusion. Indeed we are at a loss to reconcile the strong and unqualified imputa tion of absurdity and anti-scriptural doctrine, with which he so frequently charges the Calvinistic system, with the following passages in the present work : must needs involve many holy souls, many To the truth of these sentiments we cordially assent; and we much admire the manner in which Mr. Daubeny has expressed them. But if Calvinism be really such a hateful, heterodox, and unscriptural system as he elsebe maintained, tolerated, or respectwhere represents it to be, how can it ed, without an entire surrender of christian faithfulness and consistency?. Ought it not like the Arian and Pelagian heresies to be condemned as untenable by any sound member of the church? We find it difficult to conceive how any one can be entitled to the character of one of "the most spiritual members of the church,' whose religious creed Mr. Daubeny expressly calls "a system of nonsense, an artifice of the devil," 66 a doctrine which carries its own condemnation upon the face of it," "making God a ty ant*," &c. (p. 141.) We shall, however, have occasion to enlarge more fully on this point hereafter. We observed in our review of Mr.. Overton's book, that we disapproved of his too promiscuously classing together divines who entertain sentiother, and to whom the justice of his ments exceedingly distinct from each remarks therefore become applicable in very different degrees. But if Mr.. Overton's more of attack has been too indiscriminate, Mr. Daubeny's defence has been no less so; for, in the present publication he appears to be not only the advocate of his own cause, but of many other writers. whose departure from sound doctrine is fully ascertained by Mr. Overton's quotations, and would equally appear were their writings to be contrasted with those of Mr. Daubeny him-self. "The peculiarities of Calvinism do not belong to the essence of christianity; they are not necessary catholic verities, but merely matters of opinion in which a man may err, or be ignorant, without danger to his soul."-" in the number of those who have held them, and those who have held them not, are to be found some of the most spiritual members of the church. Calvinism, therefore, may be considered as containing opinious, with respect to which the best of christians may be allowed to differ without any forfeiture of their christian character, provided they break not the bond of charity in so doing." "Why may not our hearts be united though our heads do differ? and, above all, why do we not as christians forbear all capital censures. either way; which 141. In the first chapter Mr. Daubeny complains of the charge advanced by Mr. Overton, of his having represented certain of the regular clergy as "preachers of absolute decrees, predestination, election, and faith without works:" whereas Mr. Daubeny *See Overton, p. 91. and Daubeny, p. |