Publication

Publication.

Berbice,

(l.s.)

Henry Beard.

By His Excellency Henry Beard, Esq., Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Colony of Berbice and its dependencies, &c. &c. &c., President of all Courts and Colleges. within the same, sole Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court, &c. &c. &c., and the Honourable the Council of Government of the said Colony.

To all to whom these presents shall or may come, greeting;

WHEREAS, by the 13th section of the new Slave Code of the 25th September 1826, now in force in this colony, it is (amongst other things) provided, “That if any male slave shall commit an offence of such a nature as to render it absolutely ne­cessary that he be punished, such punishment must be inflicted with reason, and without cruelty or passion. The punishment to be enforced by or on behalf of the proprietor shall not exceed at the utmost twenty-five lashes, nor shall it be lawful to inflict on any male slave any corporal punishment until after sunrise of the day next following that on which the offence has been committed, for or in respect of which any such punishment or correction may be so inflicted:”

And whereas it has been the practice in many instances for persons so authorized to inflict such corporal punishment as aforesaid (for the purpose of securing the person of such male slave so as to be punished as aforesaid), to confine such male slave in the stocks previously to the inflicting such corporal punishment:

And whereas such practice is contrary to the true intent and meaning of the said Slave Code, and has the effect of inflicting two punishments for one and the same offence, we do therefore ordain and enact, as it is hereby ordained and enacted, that any person who shall from and after the publication hereof confine any male slave or slaves, or shall aid, assist or abet in confining any male slave or slaves in the stocks previously to the inflicting such corporal punishment as aforesaid, shall incur a penalty of five hundred guilders for each and every such offence so by him, her or them committed, or by him her or them aided, assisted or abetted in being committed; such fine to be recovered in the Court of Civil Justice of this colony by the fiscal, in the usual and ordinary manner as in the case of other fiscal actions, and to be divided and paid in the following manner, that is to say, one half of said fine to the fiscal of the colony, and the other half into the colonial chest:

And whereas it is necessary that such male slave or slaves intended to be punished or corrected by corporal punishment as aforesaid, should be secured for the purpose of being forthcoming at the time appointed for the due infliction of such corporal punishment: We do therefore ordain and enact, and it is hereby ordained and enacted, that it shall and may be lawful to detain such male slave or slaves so intended to receive corporal punishment as aforesaid in some place of safety, but without the use of the stocks, until he or they shall have received such corporal punishment as aforesaid.

Thus done and enacted in Council of Government, held at the King’s House, Berbice, this 11th day of September 1828.

Present;— His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor and the Honourable Members, William Scott, Charles Kyte, James Culley, Thomas A. Jones, A. R. Hollingworth, and Isaac Barré Phipps.

By command,

(signed) James Innes, Col. Sec.