1. See Barron, T. J., “James Stephen, the ‘Black Race’ and British Colonial Administration, 1813–47,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 5 (1977): 131–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elbourne, Elizabeth, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Ely, Richard, “From Sect to Church: Sir James Stephen's Theology of Empire,” Journal of Religious History 19 (1995): 74–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hughes, Edward, “Sir James Stephen and the Anonymity of the Civil Servant,” Public Administration 36 (1958): 29–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knaplund, Paul, James Stephen Law and the British Colonial System, 1813–1847 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1953)Google Scholar; McCulloch, Samuel Clyde, “James Stephen and the Problems of New South Wales, 1838–1846,” Pacific Historical Review 26 (1957): 353–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Samson, Jane, “British Voices and Indigenous Rights: Debating Aboriginal Legal Status in Nineteenth-Century Australia and Canada,” Cultures of the Commonwealth 2 (1997): 5–16Google Scholar; Shaw, Alan G. L., “Orders from Downing Street,” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 54 (1968): 113–34Google Scholar; Shaw, Alan G. L., “James Stephen and Colonial Policy: The Australian Experience,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 20 (1992): 11–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shaw, Alan G. L., “British Policy Towards the Australian Aborigines, 1830–1850,” Australian Historical Studies 25 (1992): 265–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smandych, Russell, “Contemplating the Testimony of ‘Others’: James Stephen, The Colonial Office, and the Fate of Australian Aboriginal Evidence Acts, circa 1839–1849,” Australian Journal of Legal History 8 (2004): 237–83Google Scholar.

2. Examples of this writing are cited below in footnotes on Stephen's early upbringing and important influences on his life and career.

3. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 323, Law Officers’ Reports, 1813–1833.

4. I would like to acknowledge my appreciation to one of the anonymous reviewers for Law and History Review who made this point, which was essential to but missing from my original manuscript.

5. Swinfen, D. B., Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865: A Study of British Policy Towards Colonial Legislative Powers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).Google Scholar

6. Relevant studies include:Hall, Neville, “Law and Society in the Barbados at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Caribbean History 5 (1972): 20–45Google Scholar; Phillips, Anthony De V., “‘Doubly Condemned’: Adjustments to the Crime and Punishment Regime in the Late Slavery Period in the British Caribbean Colonies,” Cardozo Law Review 18 (1996): 699–715Google Scholar; Lazarus-Black, Mindie, “Slaves, Masters, and Magistrates: Law and the Politics of Resistance in the British Caribbean, 1736–1834,” in Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance, ed. Lazarus-Black, M. and Hirsch, S. (New York: Routledge, 1994), 252–81Google Scholar; Lazarus-Black, Mindie, Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters: Law and Society in Anti-gua and Barbuda (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Walvin, James, Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire, 2d ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), esp. chap. 15 on “Violence.”Google Scholar

7. For examples of recent secondary literature on the pre–Civil War United States, seeFinkelman, Paul, ed., Slavery and the Law (Madison: Madison House, 1997)Google Scholar; Morris, Thomas, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Schafer, Judith Kelleher, “‘Under the Present Mode of Trial, Improper Verdicts Are Very Often Given’: Criminal Procedure in the Trials of Slaves in Antebellum Louisiana,” Cardozo Law Review 18 (1996): 635–77Google Scholar; BourneWahl, Jenny, The Bondsman's Burden: An Economic Analysis of the Common Law of Southern Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Waldrep, Christopher and Nieman, Donald, eds., Local Matters: Race, Crime, and Justice in the Nineteenth-Century South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Wiethoff, William, The Insolent Slave (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002).Google ScholarSee alsoCottrol, Robert J., “Outlawing Outcasts: Comparative Perspectives on the Differing Functions of the Criminal Law of Slavery in the Americas,” Cardozo Law Review 18 (1996): 717–52Google Scholar; andDiamond, Raymond T., “Condemned by Substance and Process: A Comment on “‘Doubly Condemned’: Adjustments to the Crime and Punishment Regime in the Late Slavery Period in the British Caribbean Colonies and ‘Under the Present Mode of Trial, Improper Verdicts are Very Often Given’: Criminal Procedure in the Trials of Slaves in Antebellum Louisiana,” Cardozo Law Review 18 (1996): 753–65Google Scholar, for rare but important recent comparative discussion of slave laws in the West Indies and pre–Civil War United States.

8. Stephen, Leslie (author of), Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I.: A Judge of the High Court of Justice (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1895).Google ScholarSir James Fitzjames Stephen gained fame as a leading English High Court judge and legal codifier, while another son, Sir Leslie Stephen, became famous as an author and one of the first editors of the British Dictionary of National Biography.

9. Stephen, James Fitzjames, “Biographical Notice of Sir James Stephen,” in Sir Stephen, James, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, new edition (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868), xi–xvi, at xi.Google Scholar

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., xii. Although not mentioned by his son, there is good reason to suspect that the “severe illness” experienced by James Stephen, Jr., may have been due to the mental stress caused by overwork. There is scattered evidence of a history of depression and “nervous breakdowns” in the extended Stephen family and during his careerStephen, James Jr, is reported to have suffered severe bouts of “nervous exhaustion” on at least three occasions, in 1824, 1832, and 1846.Google ScholarSeeAnnan, Noel, Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984)Google Scholar, especially at 14–15, 126–45;Barron, T. and Cable, K. J., “The Diary of James Stephen, 1846,” Historical Studies 13 (1969): 503–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tolley, Christopher, Domestic Biography: The Legacy of Evangelicalism in Four Nineteenth-Century Families (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Stephen's eyesight was so weak that he dictated most of his correspondence and legislative drafting to a clerk or amanuensis. Despite this, however, when not working at the Colonial Office or on behalf of one of his various Evangelical humanitarian causes, Stephen spent much time reading and writing, most often on religion, history, and obliquely on current affairs. Upon his retirement in 1847, Queen Victoria honored him by having him knighted (as knight commander of Bath) and made a member of the Privy Council. In 1849, Stephen was appointed to the Chair of Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, which he held until shortly before his death on the 5th of September 1859.Knaplund, , James Stephen, 12–17Google Scholar; Stephen, J. F., “Biographical Notice of Sir James Stephen,” xiiGoogle Scholar.

13. Sir Taylor, Henry, Autobiography (1885)Google Scholar; cited inStephen, L., Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 44–45Google Scholar.

14. Stephen, J. F., “Biographical Notice of Sir James Stephen,” xii–xiii.Google Scholar

15. Swinfen, , Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865, 2–3.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., 27.

17. Annan, , Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian, 11.Google ScholarD. J. Murray offers a similar account of James Stephen, Jr.’s “indispensable” role in the Colonial Office, specifically in relation to his assistance as “an expert in West Indian Law.” According to Murray: “Stephen had a religious devotion to his work which he saw as a service in the cause of the slaves and yet he had all the fairmindedness lacking in his father.”Murray, D. J., The West Indies and the Development of Colonial Government, 1801–1834 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 121–22Google Scholar.

18. Stephen, James, “The Clapham Sect,” in Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, new edition (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868), 523–84.Google Scholar

19. Ely, , “Sir James Stephen's Theology of Empire,” 80.Google Scholar

20. SeeFurneaux, , William Wilberforce, 116Google Scholar; Ely, , “Sir James Stephen's Theology of Empire,” 80Google Scholar; Bradley, Ian, The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians (London: Johathan Cape, 1976), 17Google Scholar; Hilton, Boyd, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795–1865 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 7.Google ScholarJames Stephen, Jr., also used the endearing term “Saints” in his later essay on the “Clapham Sect.”

21. For an example of this, seeFollett, Richard R., Evangelicalism, Penal Theory and the Politics of Criminal Law Reform in England, 1808–30 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001), 69Google Scholar.

22. Stephen, L., Life of Sir James Fitzjames StephenGoogle Scholar; Zink, David D., Leslie Stephen (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), 35Google Scholar; Tolley, Domestic Biography.

23. Hilton, , The Age of Atonement, 10.Google Scholar

24. For a discussion of different forms of Church of England and non-conformist Evangelism, seeAnnan, , Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian, 146Google Scholar; Follett, , Evangelicalism, Penal Theory and the Politics of Criminal Law Reform in England, 1808–30, 14Google Scholar; Bradley, , The Call to Seriousness, 16Google Scholar; Hilton, , The Age of Atonement, 7Google Scholar.

25. Annan, , Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian, 10.Google Scholar

26. Bebbington, David, Evangelism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 2–17Google Scholar; Follett, , Evangelicalism, Penal Theory and the Politics of Criminal Law Reform in England, 1808–30, 15–16.Google ScholarThe following discussion of the core religious beliefs of Evangelicals also draws on the well-regarded work of Bradley, The Call to Seriousness, and Hilton, The Age of Atonement.

27. Annan, , Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian, 147.Google Scholar

28. Bradley, , The Call to Seriousness, 15–16.Google Scholar

29. Follett, , Evangelicalism, Penal Theory and the Politics of Criminal Law Reform in England, 1808–30, 16.Google Scholar

30. Stephen, James (Senior), The Memoirs of James Stephen, Written by Himself for the Use of His Children, edited with an introduction by Bevington, Merle M. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1954).Google ScholarBevington (at 13) notes that Stephen sent for his wife after he arrived at St. Christopher and began practicing at the bar.

31. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 8.Google Scholar

32. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 85.Google Scholar

33. Ibid.; Knaplund, James Stephen, 8.

34. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 85.Google Scholar

35. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 8Google Scholar; Tolley, , Domestic Biography. 36.Google Scholar

36. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 140Google Scholar.

37. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 9.Google Scholar

38. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 195.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., 70, 227.

40. For a detailed account of James Stephen's role, seeBurton, Ann M., “British Evangelicals, Economic Warfare and the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1794–1810,” Anglican and Episcopal History 65 (1996): 197–225.Google ScholarSee alsoManning, Helen Taft, British Colonial Government after the American Revolution, 1782–1820 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933), 485–86.Google ScholarManning also notes that from 1807 to 1815 “Stephen was constantly consulted by the colonial department on matters having to do with slavery and the black race,” and that consequently he came to be regarded by West Indian slave interests “as the evil genius of the Colonial Office” in this period.

41. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 342.Google ScholarThe slave registration system that was put into place in Trinidad in 1812 was also soon imposed in St. Lucia and Mauritius, since these were Crown colonies that did not yet have their own legislative assemblies and therefore legislative measures intended for them could be passed by Order in Council.

42. John, A. Meredith, The Plantation Slaves of Trinidad, 1783–1816 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Schuyler, Robert L., “The Constitutional Claims of the British West Indies: The Controversy over the Slave Registry Bill of 1815,” Political Science Quarterly 40 (1925): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarIn the “anti-slavery recollections” George Stephen (1794–1879), the younger brother of James Stephen, Jr., wrote later at the request of Harriett Beecher Stowe to help the cause of the abolition of slavery in the United States, he recalled the specific circumstances under which his father “Mr. Stephen concocted his great measure for the registration of slaves,” noting that it was designed to fill “a large loop-hole for malpractices” left open by both the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade of 1807 and the Slave Trade Felony Act of 1811.Sir Stephen, George, Anti-Slavery Recollections: In a Series of Letters Addressed to Mrs. Beecher Stowe, written by Sir George Stephen, at Her Request (London: Thomas Hatchard, 1854), 10, 18.Google ScholarGeorge Stephen also played a key role in the anti-slavery movement of the 1820s and early 1830s as chairman of the national Anti-Slavery Society.

43. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 342.Google Scholar

44. Stephen, G., Anti-Slavery Recollections, 26, 35.Google ScholarGeorge Stephen notes that Wilberforce's “Registration Bill” of 1815 “was essentially the same as the order in council of 1812, but with a few variations to adapt the provisions of it to the chartered colonies.”

45. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 345.Google Scholar

46. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 100.Google ScholarStephen's original report of 31 May 1817 on Jamaican slave registration laws is contained in PRO, CO 323/40, folios 175–92. His subsequent report of 6 October 1817 is contained in PRO, CO 323/40, folios 218–59, where he reviewed the slave registry laws of Barbados, Tobago, St. Vincent, Demerara, Dominica, Nevis, Grenada, Antigua, and St. Kitts. In 1818, Stephen completed a further report on the laws passed in the Bahamas, Fortola, Berbice, and Montserrat. PRO, CO 323/40, folios 307–18. Stephen to Bathurst, 28 April 1818.

47. PRO, CO 323/40, folio 318.

48. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 101.Google Scholar

49. The act passed by Parliament (59 Geo. III, c. 120) provided that after January 1, 1820, it would not be lawful for any British subject in the United Kingdom “to purchase, or to lend or advance any money, goods, or effects upon the security of any slave or slaves in any of his Majesty's colonies or foreign possessions unless such slave or slaves shall appear by the return received therein to have been first duly registered in the said office of the Registrar of Colonial Slaves.” Cited inKlingberg, Frank J., The Anti-Slavery Movement in England: A Study in English Humanitarianism (London: Archon Books, 1968), 174–75, note 13.Google ScholarSee alsoSir Coupland, Reginald, The British Anti-Slavery Movement, 2d ed. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1964), 115–16Google Scholar; Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 345Google Scholar.

50. A good account of this is provided inLuster, Robert E., The Amelioration of the Slaves in the British Empire, 1790–1833 (New York: Peter Lang, 1995).Google ScholarSee alsoWard, J. R., British West Indian Slavery, 1750–1834: The Process of Amelioration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

51. Hughes, , “Sir James Stephen and the Anonymity of the Civil Servant,” 29–36.Google Scholar

52. Swinfen, D. B., Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865, 22.Google Scholar

53. Hansard, N.S., XIV 1081, 3 March 1826; cited in Swinfen, Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865, 22.

54. D. B. Swinfen notes that “Wilmot Horton, the Permanent Under-Secretary, denied that there was any sort of understanding between father and son, and offered as proof the fact that James Stephen senior had published a pamphlet in which he described an Order-in-Council drawn up by his son as a ‘parcel of trash.’ Wilmot Horton claimed that Stephen was merely a civil servant who ‘could do no more than obey the instructions of the head of the department.’ In spite of Wilmot Horton's defence, Stephen continued to suffer criticism from the public; so much so that in 1830 he felt driven to complain to Sir George Murray (then Secretary of State) that, in accepting his post, he had made a ‘most improvident and foolish contract, if my interests and comfort only were to be considered’” (Swinfen, Imperial Control of Colonial Legislation, 1813–1865, 22; citing National Library of Scotland, Murray Papers, Statement of Stephen, 16 Feb. 1830, vol. 171, folio 55).

55. Knaplund, , James Stephen, 15.Google Scholar

56. In fact, Knapland argues that “It is highly probable that Wilberforce's influence on James Stephen, Jr., exceeded that of [his] father, though both left indelible marks on the life and thought of the young man.”Knaplund, , James Stephen, 15Google Scholar.

57. Stephen, James to Stephen, Jane, 24 July 1829. In E, Caroline. Stephen, The Right Honourable Sir James Stephen … Letters with Biographical Notes by His Daughter Caroline Emelia Stephen (Gloucester: John Bellows, printed for private circulation only, 1906), 17.Google Scholar

58. In Stephen, C., The Right Honourable Sir James Stephen, 16.Google ScholarAlfred Stephen was the son of James Stephen, Sr.’s brother John, which made him James Stephen's first cousin. Like his brother, James, Sr., John Stephen was also a barrister who emigrated to St. Kitts, and Alfred was born there in 1802, later returning to England to study law. John Stephen and his family later emigrated to New South Wales, where he was appointed as a judge of the supreme court in 1825. Upon traveling to Australia after completing his legal studies, Alfred Stephen was appointed as solicitor-general of Tasmania in 1825, as a judge of the supreme court of New South Wales in 1839, and as chief justice of the supreme court of New South Wales from 1843 to 1873.Stephen, L., Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 24–29Google Scholar; Woods, G. D., A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales: The Colonial Period, 1788–1900 (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

59. Sir Coupland, Reginald, The British Anti-Slavery Movement, 141.Google ScholarIn her account of Stephen's role in writing the Abolition of Slavery Act, Edith Hurwitz notes that: “For Stephen this was a memorable task. He was the son of one of the original founders of the movement, James Stephen, and the brother of George Stephen. As the only abolitionist in the Colonial Office, he was greatly honoured to draft the instrument of Negro emancipation. With an energy which reflected his dedication to the cause, Stephen drafted the entire statute of sixty-four clauses in one week-end.”Hurwitz, Edith, Politics and the Public Conscience: Slave Emancipation and the Abolitionist Movement in Britain (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973), 66Google Scholar.

60. The Abolition of Slavery Act was passed on 29 August, 1833, and put into effect on 1 August, 1834.

61. PRO, CO 323/39, folios 175–78. Stephen to Bathurst, 13 November 1813.

62. See, for example: PRO, CO 323/40, folios 345–54 containing Stephen's report on an act passed by the Legislature of Antigua in 1818 entitled “An Act, to vest in Trustees for Sale, certain Negro Slaves, devised by the will of Robert Pearne.” In this report, Stephen dealt with an act passed originally in 1785 allowing the sale of slaves as part of an estate. Stephen's analysis of this complicated case of wills and estates was one of the many reports in which he expounded on the injustice and inhumanity of treating slaves as a chattel. See also PRO, CO 323/44, folios 95–106. Stephen to Bathurst, 2 February 1827, on an Act (No. 1895) passed by the Legislature of the Island of Jamaica in 1825 entitled “An Act to enable Slaves to receive bequests of money or other personal estate.” In the course of his discussion of this Act, Stephen provided his view of the historical origins of property law as related to the ownership of property by slaves. Stephen noted that he could not agree with the preamble of the Act which declared that “all Legacies and Bequests given to Slaves are void by Law.” Stephen argued that one had to look back to “the ancient Law of Villeinage,” Roman law, and custom followed in the West Indies, to understand this complicated aspect of slave law.

63. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 195–200. Stephen to Bathurst, 25 October 1822.

64. The emphasis in this quotation, and in others that follow, is James Stephen's underlining, which he used to highlight particular concerns he had about the colonial acts he was reviewing.

65. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 254–59. Stephen to Bathurst, 19 September 1823.

66. Barron, , “James Stephen,” 141.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., 140.

68. See, for example,Benton, Lauren, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Foster, Hamar, “‘The Queen's Law Is Better Than Yours’: International Homicide in Early British Columbia,” in Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. 5, Crime and Criminal Justice, ed. Phillips, J., Loo, T., and Lewthwaite, S. (Toronto: The Osgoode Society, 1994), 41–111Google Scholar; Harring, Sidney L., White Man's Law: Native People in Nineteenth-Century Canadian Jurisprudence (Toronto: The Osgoode Society, 1998)Google Scholar; Harris, Douglas C., Fish, Law and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kercher, Bruce, An Unruly Child: A History of Law in Australia (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995)Google Scholar; McLaren, John, “Reflections on the Rule of Law: The Georgian Colonies of New South Wales and Upper Canada, 1788–1837,” in Law, History, Colonialism: The Reach of Empire, ed. Kirkby, D. and Coleborne, C. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 46–62Google Scholar; Neal, David, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Power in Early New South Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Petrow, Stefan, “Policing in a Penal Colony: Governor Arthur's Police System in Van Diemen's Land, 1826–1836,” Law and History Review 18 (2000): 351–95Google Scholar; Samson, Jane, Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

69. Lazarus-Black, “Slaves, Masters, and Magistrates”; Lazarus-Black, Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters.

70. See, for example, Cottrol, “Outlawing Outcasts”; Diamond, “Condemned by Substance and Process”; Lazarus-Black, “Slaves, Masters, and Magistrates” and Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters; Phillips, “‘Doubly Condemned.’”

71. Stephen's legal opinions were painstakingly detailed and complete, with some amounting to well over one hundred hand-written pages. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that those discussed here are only a limited number of representative examples.

72. PRO, CO 323/40, folios 113–15. Stephen to Bathurst, 9 February 1816.

73. Ibid., 325–27. Stephen to Bathurst, 4 August 1818.

74. Ibid., 154–60. Stephen to Bathurst, 7 March 1817.

75. See, for example, CO, 323 Law Officers’ Reports on Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Nova Scotia, Upper Canada, and New South Wales, 1813–1833. Stephen's recognition of the fact that English law needed to be adapted to local circumstances is also noted in several studies that have dealt with his role in shaping Colonial Office native policy and monitoring the legislation of colonies outside of the West Indies. For example, see Barron, “James Stephen”; Elbourne, Blood Ground; Harring, White Man's Law; Kercher, An Unruly Child; Samson, “British Voices and Indigenous Rights” and Imperial Benevolence; Shaw, “James Stephen and Colonial Policy”; Smandych, “Contemplating the Testimony of ‘Others.’”

76. PRO, CO 323/40, 373–74. Stephen to Bathurst, 31 December 1818.

77. Ibid., 375–76. Stephen to Bathurst, 31 December 1818.

78. PRO, CO 323/41, folios 56–57. Stephen to Bathurst, 31 December 1819.

79. Ibid., 76–80. Stephen to Bathurst, 28 April 1820.

80. Stephen, James, The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated, vol. 1 (London, 1824), 305.Google ScholarThis is the first volume of a massive two-volume book Stephen, Sr., published under the full title,The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated, as it exists, Both in Law and in Practise, and Compared with the Slavery of other Countries, Ancient and Modern, 2 vols. (London, 1824, 1830).Google ScholarCollectively, these two volumes “represented a detailed and exhaustive analysis of the legal structure of the slave society and its labour practices.”Hurwitz, , Politics and the Public Conscience, 36.Google ScholarNot surprisingly, soon after the publication of the first volume, it also became a lightening rod for the counterattack launched against abolitionists by slave interests in the West Indies. For example, see Alexander Barclay (lately and for twenty-one years resident in Jamaica),A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies; or, an examination of Mr. Stephen's “Slavery of the British West India Colonies:” containing more particularly an account of the actual condition of the Negroes in Jamaica; with observations on the decrease of the slaves since the abolition of the slave trade, and on the probable effects of legislative emancipation, third edition, with additions (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1828)Google Scholar.

81. Wilberforce, , An Appeal to the Religion, 22–23Google Scholar; also cited inWilliams, Joseph J., Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft (New York: Dial Press, 1932), 176Google Scholar.

82. SeeBridges, George Wilson, A Voice from Jamaica; in reply to William Wilberforce (London, 1823)Google Scholar; andBarclay, , A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies, 185Google Scholar.

83. PRO, CO 323/41, folios 76–80. Stephen to Bathurst, 28 April 1820.

84. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 326–29. Stephen to Bathurst, 18 September 1823.

85. See generallyCraton, Michael, Empire, Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1997)Google Scholar; Morris, , Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860;Google ScholarWahl, The Bondsman's Burden: An Economic Analysis of the Common Law of Southern Slavery; Watson, Alan, Slave Law in the Americas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

86. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 51–55. Stephen to Wilmot Horton, 4 August 1827. Wilmot Horton was the under secretary of the Colonial Office from 12 December 1821 to 15 October 1827.Saintly, J. C., Office-Holders in Modern Britain, vol. 6, Colonial Office Officials (London: University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 1976)Google Scholar.

87. PRO, CO 323/40, folios 265–66. Stephen to Bathurst, 22 November 1817.

88. Ibid., 329–30. Stephen to Bathurst, 15 August 1818.

89. PRO, CO 323/41, folios 62–65. Stephen to Bathurst, 1 March 1820.

90. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 147–51. Stephen to Wilmot Horton, 18 February 1822.

91. Wilberforce, , An Appeal to the Religion, 10.Google Scholar

92. Hall, D., ed., In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750–1786 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 72.Google ScholarCited inWalvin, , Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire, 206Google Scholar.

93. Craton, , Empire, Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean, 151.Google Scholar

94. Patterson, Orlando, The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development and Structure of Negro Slave Society in Jamaica (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967), 71.Google Scholar

95. Patterson, , The Sociology of Slavery, 82.Google ScholarFor other similar descriptions of seventeenth and eighteenth-century American and West Indies criminal slaves laws, seeFergus, Howard A., “The Early Laws of Montserrat (1668–1680): The Legal Schema of a Slave Society,” Caribbean Quarterly 24 (1978): 34–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaspar, David B., “‘To Bring Their Offending Slaves to Justice’: Compensation and Slave Resistance in Antigua, 1669–1763,” Caribbean Quarterly 30 (1984): 45–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaspar, David B., “‘Rigid and Inclement’: Origins of the Jamaica Slave Laws of the Seventeenth Century,” in The Many Legalities of Early America, ed. Tomlins, C. and Mann, B. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 78–96Google Scholar; Goveia, E. V., Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Goveia, E. V., The West Indian Slave Laws of the Eighteenth Century (Lodge Hill, Barbados: Caribbean Universities Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Nicholson, Bradley J., “Legal Borrowing and the Origins of Slave Law in the British Colonies,” American Journal of Legal History 38 (1994): 38–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paton, Diana, “Punishment, Crime, and the Bodies of Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica,” Journal of Social History 34 (2001): 923–54CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

96. Sir Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers, and Jamaica, with the natural history … of the last of those islands; to which is prefixed an introduction wherein is an account of the inhabitants … trade, etc., 2 vols. (London, 1701–1725), vol. 1, introduction; cited in Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery, 82–83.

97. Phillips, , “‘Doubly Condemned,’” 714.Google Scholar

98. Turner, Mary, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society, 1787–1834 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 43.Google ScholarPatterson, , The Sociology of Slavery, 78–79Google Scholar, argues that although the melioration acts passed in Jamaica between 1780 and 1817 “did to some extent reflect a genuine improvement in the general condition of the slaves,” the acts passed after this point began to reflect a “new spirit of severity” on the part of Jamaican slave owners represented in the Colonial Assembly, who recognized that they were fighting a losing battle against the anti-slavery movement and therefore adopted the general attitude of exacting “as much labour from slaves as possible before emancipation.”

99. PRO, CO 323/40, folios 77–79. Stephen to Bathurst, 18 July 1815.

100. Ibid., 202–4. Stephen to Bathurst, 19 July 1817.

101. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 107–55. Stephen to Goderich, 5 May 1827. This Act has also been referred to as the Jamaica Consolidated Slave Act of 1826. SeeJakobsson, Stiv, Am I Not a Man and a Brother: British Missions and the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery in West Africa and the West Indies, 1786–1838 (Uppsala, Sweden: Gleerup, 1972), 398Google Scholar.

102. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 107–55, Stephen to Goderich, 5 May 1827, at folio 152.

103. Barclay, , A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies, 433–72.Google ScholarSee alsoJakobsson, , British Missions and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 403Google Scholar; Luster, , The Amelioration of the Slaves in the British Empire, 1790–1833, 42–43Google Scholar.

104. PRO, CO 323/45, folios 125–37. Stephen to Huskisson, 23 February 1828.

105. Wilberforce, , An Appeal to the Religion, 11–12.Google Scholar

106. This statement by Chief Justice Otley was made in response to a Parliamentary inquiry carried out in 1790 (Britain: House of Commons Select Committee in the Slave Trade, 1790–1791). The same statement is cited inGoodell, William, The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice: Its Distinctive Features shown by Its Statutes, Judicial Decisions, and Illustrative Facts. Originally published in 1853 by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), 302Google Scholar.

107. Wilberforce, , An Appeal to the Religion, 11–12.Google Scholar

108. Stephen, , The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated, vol. 1 (London, 1824).Google Scholar

109. Wilberforce, , An Appeal to the Religion, 11–12.Google Scholar

110. Furneaux, , William Wilberforce, 408.Google ScholarOther secondary literature on both West Indian and pre–Civil War American colonial slave evidence laws that I have examined in the course of my research offers much the same view as Furneaux. See Lazarus-Black, “Slaves, Masters, and Magistrates”; Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860; Schafer, “‘Under the Present Mode of Trial’”; Walvin, Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire; Watson, Slave Law in the Americas.

111. PRO, CO 323/41, folios 197–99. Stephen to Bathurst, 11 August 1821.

112. Thomas Morris suggests that the practice of allowing slaves to testify against other slaves, which started in Virginia in 1723, was introduced in order to increase the chance of convicting slaves accused of committing crimes against their masters when no other (white) witnesses were present. The same reasoning was likely also followed in the West Indies.Morris, , Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860, 232–33Google Scholar.

113. Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1824, XXIV, 427, schedule 1, pp. 8–13. Lord Bathurst, 9 July 1823, Copy of a (Circular) Letter Addressed to Governors of Colonies Having Local Legislatures. Contained in Klingberg, The Anti-Slavery Movement in England, Appendix B, 338–50.

114. Luster, The Amelioration of the Slaves in the British Empire, 1790–1833, 6–7.

115. Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1824, XXIV, 427, schedule 1, pp. 8–13. Lord Bathurst, 9 July 1823, Copy of a (Circular) Letter Addressed to Governors of Colonies Having Local Legislatures. InKlingberg, , The Anti-Slavery Movement in England, 339–40Google Scholar.

116. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 332–41. Stephen to Bathurst, 13 January 1824.

117. Bathurst's successors during this period were Viscount Goderich (30 April 1827 to 2 September 1827), W. Huskisson (3 September 1827 to 29 May 1828), Sir G. Murray (30 May 1828 to 21 November 1830), Viscount Goderich (22 November 1830 to 2 April 1833), and Hon. E. G. Stanley Smith (3 April 1833 to 5 June 1834).Saintly, , Office-Holders in Modern Britain, vol. 6, Colonial Office Officials, 8Google Scholar.

118. PRO, CO 323/42, folios 120–37. Stephen to Bathurst, 5 August 1824.

119. Ibid., 138–40. Draft of letter, dated Downing Street, London, December, 1824, to Major General Grant, Bahamas.

120. Ibid., 188–90. Stephen to Bathurst, 12 April 1824.

121. Ibid., 221–34. Stephen to Bathurst, 21 August 1824.

122. PRO, CO 323/43, folios 2–3. List of acts reported on by James Stephen in 1825–1826.

123. Ibid., 46–73. Stephen to Bathurst, 6 August 1825.

124. Ibid., 161–95. Stephen to Bathurst, 21 September 1825.

125. Ibid., 273–305. Stephen to Bathurst, 7 September 1826.

126. Ibid., 140–59. Stephen to Bathurst, 20 November 1826.

127. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 11–43. Stephen to Bathurst, 29 January 1827.

128. Huskisson took over as secretary of state on 3 September 1827, and his letter to the lieutenant governor of Jamaica disallowing the consolidated slave act is dated 22 September 1827. Saintly, Office-Holders in Modern Britain, vol. 6, Colonial Office Officials, 8. A copy of Huskisson's dispatch of 22 September 1827 is contained the appendix to Barclay, A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies, 433–44.

129. Huskisson to Lieut. Governor Sir John Keane, 22 September 1827; cited in the appendix to Barclay, A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies, 440–41.

130. Ibid., Appendix No. 1, “Papers Relating to the Disallowed Act of 1826,” 433–72, at 448.

131. Ibid., 464–65.

132. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 88–91. Stephen to Huskisson, 13 December 1827.

133. PRO, CO 323/45, folios 13–34. Stephen to Huskisson, 27 February 1828.

134. PRO, CO 323/44, folios 174–94. Stephen to Bathurst, 2 January 1827.

135. PRO, CO 323/45, folios 256–77. Stephen to Huskisson, 22 February 1828.

136. For examples of significant studies of mid-nineteenth-century British colonial law outside the West Indies that can be used as a foundation for further research along these lines, see Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures; Harring, White Man's Law; Kercher, An Unruly Child; McLaren, “Reflections on the Rule of Law”; Samson, Imperial Benevolence; Smandych, “Contemplating the Testimony of ‘Others.’”

137. PRO, CO 323/45, folios 125–37. Stephen to Huskisson, 23 February 1828.

138. PRO, CO 323/46, folios 52–55. Stephen to Murray, 5 February 1829.

139. Ibid., 79–90. Stephen to Murrary, 27 January 1829.

140. PRO, CO 323/48, folios 112–13. Stephen to Goderich, 10 October 1831.

141. Ibid., 127–29. Stephen to Goderich, 15 November 1831.

142. Ibid., 206–17. Stephen to Goderich, 14 June 1831.

143. PRO, CO 323/45, folios 125–37. Stephen to Huskisson, 23 February 1828.

144. PRO, CO 323/46, folios 52–55. Stephen to Murray, 5 February 1829.

145. Ibid., Stephen to Murray, 11 May 1830, at folio 88.

146. PRO, CO 323/48, folios 112–13. Stephen to Goderich, 10 October 1831.

147. Ibid., 127–29. Stephen to Goderich, 15 November 1831.

148. Ibid., 206–17. Stephen to Goderich, 14 June 1831.

149. Great Britain, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 18, pp. 1193–1231. “Speech of Edward Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Introducing the Government Plan for the Emancipation of Slaves, 14 May 1833.” Extract included in Hurwitz, Politics and the Public Conscience, 145–55.

150. PRO, CO 323/49, folios 43–45. Stephen to Goderich, 22 January 1833. Revealingly, in this report Stephen commented on a consolidated slave act (No. 447) passed in Bermuda aimed at revising an earlier Act he had reported on originally in 1828, noting: “The whole discussion on the subject of Slavery has, since the date of that Report, been brought into a posture so entirely new, that, pending the enquiries of Parliament upon the general subject, I presume that His Majesty's decision upon this Act must be suspended.”

151. Ibid., 66–69. Stephen to Stanley, 3 September 1833.