George Wilson Bridges (1788-1863).

A voice from Jamaica; in reply to William Wilberforce, […] To be applied in aid of the funds of the Jamaica District Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Third edition.

London, printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row, 1823. Verso of title page and colophon: J.G. Barnard, Skinner-Street, London.

8°. 50 pp.

Disbound.

Searing response by proslavery Jamaican churchman George Wilson Bridges to Wilberforce’s 1823 call for gradual abolition in An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies. In this pamphlet Bridges presents British antislavery as a misinformed, seditious, and dangerous threat to the lives and livelihoods of Jamaican colonists.

Some years later, the abolitionists exacted their retribution against George Wilson Bridges. In October 1829, Thomas Pringle, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, reported to the Colonial Secretary allegations of "conduct of great cruelty and indecency towards a female slave" by Bridges. The accusation detailed that he had severely beaten a slave, Kitty Hylton, as punishment for an alleged minor infraction. Although local authorities sought to suppress the incident, political pressure ensured the case was brought before a grand jury. However, the jury declined to proceed, citing insufficient evidence to substantiate the charges against him. However, by some he would be remembered as the “incarnation of all the “evils inherent in human slavery” (Henry Bleby in Death Struggles of Slavery, London, 1853).
“The episode raised a storm of protest in Jamaica. Slaveholders rushed to condemn what they saw as undue metropolitan meddling both with local legal matters and with the private affairs of one of their most prominent public defenders. Magistrates in St Ann saw the actions of the Colonial Office as unconstitutional interference in their affairs. In May 1830, a ‘full meeting of the magistrates and vestrymen’ in the parish courthouse passed a series of resolutions complaining that the colonial secretary’s efforts to bring the case to a trial was an ‘interference’ and ‘a gross violation of our just rights and an attempt to destroy that constitutional authority with which we have been solemnly invested.’ They laid the blame for the incident at the door of the Anti-Slavery Society, noting their opposition to ‘the influence’ that the abolitionists seemed to have ‘gained over the several departments of Government,’ accusing the Society of ‘avowed and implacable hostility to the Colonies’ and ‘general treachery to the interests of the Empire.’ The planter Hamilton Brown, an outspoken opponent of abolitionism, pointed out that, ever since Bridges had published A Voice from Jamaica, he had ‘been “marked out” as a fit subject for persecution by the Saints.’” (see Petley, Slaveholders in Jamaica).

Edition

Copies of this pamphlet are extremely rare, and none of the major library digital catalogues we consulted provide details on the edition in their entries for the 1823 copy—or they do not possess a copy at all. Most references are to digital versions. The title of our copy indicates it is the "third edition," published in the same year as the first and second editions. Our third edition copy is identical to a copy of the second edition which we have seen. There is also a fourth edition from 1824. Sabin only references the year 1823, without specifying any editions.

Condition: First and last pages toned and frayed. Owner's ink signature on top corner of title: Musley(?). Binding gone and block detached once.

Reference:

Goldsmiths' Lib. cat. 23949.

Petley, Christer. Slaveholders in Jamaica: Colonial Society and Culture During the Era of Abolition. UK, Taylor & Francis, 2015.

Ragatz, L.J. Brit. Caribbean history, p. 482.

Sabin 7823 (no edition mentioned).

Not in Hogg, The African Slave Trade(!).