“An Act to alter and amend an Act, intituled ‘An Act to repeal an Act intituled, An Act for making Slaves real estate,’ and the first clause of an Act intituled ‘An Act to appoint Commissioners for the purpose of obtaining an exact account of the number of the Coloured Free People and number of Negroes within this government and its dependencies, and to ameliorate the condition of the Slaves, and for other purposes’”

AN ACT to alter and amend an Act, intituled “An Act to repeal an Act intituled, An Act for making Slaves real estate,” and the first clause of an Act intituled “An Act to appoint Commissioners for the purpose of ob­taining an exact account of the number of the Coloured Free People and number of Negroes within this government and its dependencies, and to ameliorate the condition of the Slaves, and for other purposes.”

WHEREAS, by the sixty-sixth clause of the Act of the legislature of this Island, passed in the sixth year of His Majesty’s reign, intituled “An Act to repeal an Act, intituled, An Act for making Slaves real estate,” and the first clause of an Act intituled “An Act to appoint Commissioners for the purpose of obtaining an exact account of the number of the Coloured Free People and number of Negroes within this government and its dependencies, and to ameliorate the condition of the Slaves, and for other purposes,” it is enacted, “that no person should from thenceforth be rejected as a witness, or considered as incompetent to give evidence, in any cases of murder, felony of any other offence which shall subject the party or parties guilty thereof to suffer death or transportation, by reason of the said witness being in a state of slavery: Provided always, that the slave or slaves produced as a witness or witnesses, shall at the same time produce before the judge, justice of the peace, or court to which any grand jury or petty jury are summoned, a certificate of his her or their baptisms, under the hand of the clergyman of the parish in which he she or they shall have been resident at the time of his her or their baptism, or an ex­tract of the entry of such baptism, from the registry of such parish or cure, and also a certificate under the hand of a clergyman, or of the proprietor or the attorney of the proprietor of such slave or slaves so produced as a witness or witnesses, that such slave or slaves is or are of good character and repute, and that he she or they have been sufficiently instructed in the principles of religion, as in the judg­ment and belief of the party so certifying, to understand the nature and obligation of an oath; and provided also, that the court before which such slave or slaves is or are produced as a witness or witnesses, shall be satisfied on examination with such certificate, and of the accuracy of the facts therein certified:” And whereas it is expedient that the said clause should be altered and amended, so as to exempt slaves produced as witnesses against slaves for any of the offences therein mentioned, from the operation thereof, and to restore the advantages which had been pre­viously secured to them by the laws of these Islands. We, therefore, Your Ma­jesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of this Island and its dependencies, and the Council and Assembly of the same, pray Your most excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted and ordained, and be it, and it is hereby enacted and ordained by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the publication of this Act, in all cases where any slave or slaves shall be produced as a witness or witnesses before any Judge, justice of the peace, or court, against any other slave or slaves, charged with the commission of offences mentioned in the said clause, or any other offence whatsoever, it shall not be necessary to produce the certificates in the said clause mentioned and required; but that the competency of such witness or witnesses shall be left to the judgment and discretion of the judge, justice of the peace or court before whom such witness or witnesses shall or may be so produced, anything in the said recited Act to the contrary  notwithstanding.

Dated at Kingstown, this fifth day of September, in the eighth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Fourth, by the Grace of God of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord 1827.

(signed) John Dalzell, Speaker.