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wrote home to Ministers in 1802, to say he had offended the whole island of Barbadoes by endeavouring to persuade them that the wilful murder of a slave should be made felony, instead of being compounded for by a fine of 11l. 4s. The time when Wilberforce was a struggling enthusiast in an uncertain cause; when our King, Prince of Wales, and the whole of the Royal Family (with the single exception of the Duke of Gloucester), were opposed to the Abolition Bill; when Pitt despaired of carrying that measure, and it was a hot angry war among Englishmen whether it should pass or not. A war which continued through years of debating and pamphleteering, before the victory was won by our Abolitionists.
It may not be uninteresting to Americans to know, also, that if they will examine the reports of our House of Commons,—after that struggle was fairly ended, and the new law had been passed,—they will find the prototype of "Legree" in the person of "Arthur Hodge, Esq., one of the Members of his Majesty's Council for the Virgin Islands,"—who, in the year 1811, was brought to trial and condemned for the murder of a slave named Prosper on his estate in the island of Tortola,—when his countless cruelties were exposed, in sworn depositions preserved in those records. There, Americans may find the original of Uncle Tom, in "Tom Boiler, a stout, hale, hearty man," who, in the year 1807, was laid down and flogged without intermission for more than an hour by order of Hodge, and being unable to rise after the flogging, was carried to the sick-house; lingered a few days; and then died. There, they will find it computed that sixty of Hodge's slaves had perished in three years from severity of punishment, and not more than three, in that period, had died a natural death. About a dozen of these wretched victims are named in the affidavits reported to our house of Commons; among whom are women and children: one child of ten years old, named Tamsen, having been dipped (by order) into a copper of boiling liquor, and two of the women having had boiling water
