PARLIAMENTARY
PROCEEDINGS.1. SLAVE
EVIDENCE
2. SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY OF THE MAURITIUS, FOLLOWED BYA
DEFENCE OF THE REPORTER FROM THE CHARGES MADE AGAINST IT.
3. EMANCIPATION OF NEGRO CHILDREN.
4. FREEDOM OF TRADE, AND SUGAR DUTIES.
5. CIVIL RIGHTS OF FREE BLACK AND COLOURED INHABITANTS.
===============
So
much space has recently been occupied in discussing the question
of a want of a Sunday for the slaves; and in pointing out the
miserably defective nature of that education and religious
instruction they are said to be receiving that we fear lest our
readers should begin to imagine that these constitute the
exclusive evils of colonial slavery, and that, if these were but
obviated, the work of reformation would be accomplished.
This were a fatal misconception. The prevailing want of a
Sunday is, indeed, most-adverse to the hope of christianizing
the slave population, and it reveals, at the same time, the
insincerity of those, who, while they either conceal the fact of
this compulsory desecration of the Sabbath, or resist or
postpone the measures necessary for its prevention, are
nevertheless lous, both in the profession of their zeal for the
religious instruction of the slaves, and in the boast of the
religious improvement that has been effected among them.
But, even if a Sabbath were at length given to the slaves, and
more efficient plans of instruction were adopted, little benefit
would accrue, even from these improvements, under a system so
debasing and brutalizing in its character and effects, and so
incompatible with the purity and elevation of christianity, as
is that species of personal bondage which exists in the slave
colonies of Europe. For be it remembered, that even the
British Critic has not scrupled to describe that system as one
by which "the whole order of nature is reversed; the labourer
being excited to labour, not by hope, but by fear; punishments
inflicted in England by the magistrate for crimes, being
inflicted there by the master for idleness or impertinence; the
supply of daily food, and the maintenance of wife and children
not being dependent on the exertion, self-denial, skill, or good
character of the individual; christian marriage being almost
unknown; the human form divine being treated as if it were no
better than a brute or a machine; degraded to a chattel, seized
by the creditor, sold in the market-place, and exposed to every
indignity which tyranny or caprice may dictate."
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This and all other publications of the Society, may
be had at their office, 18, Aldermanbury; or at Messrs.
Hatchard's, 187, Piccadilly, and the Arch's, Cornhill.
They may also be procured, through any bookseller, or at the
de_ots of the Anti-Slavery Society throughout the kingdom.
[Pg. 2] -
And, when we add to this sad picture, the excess of labour
to which men and women are subjected by the most brutal
coercion; the scantiness of their food; the frequent and
forcible disruption of their dearest domestic ties; the
tremendous severity of the punishments which may be inflicted on
them, by individual caprice, for any offence or for no offence -
we may well abandon the hope of seeing christianity flourish in
such a population, continuing bereft, as it is by its present
actual circumstances, even of that first principle of moral and
spiritual life, the power of voluntary agency. Is it
possible to contemplate the whole of this system, in all its
length and breadth of oppression and enormity, without coming to
the conclusion of the same British Critic, that it MUST BE
RADICALLY REFORMED; in other words, it must be extinguished,
root and branch.
Having made these general remarks with a view of
guarding against misconception, we shall now proceed to notice,
as succinctly as we can, what has recently passed in parliament
on the subject of slavery.
1.
Slave Evidence.
On
the 25th of May, Mr. Brougham, who had given notice of
his intention to bring forward a Bill for the purpose of making
the evidence of slaves admissible in all cases, subject only to
those exceptions to which the evidence of all other parties is
liable, begged to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
whether his Majesty's Government had not a similar plan in
contemplation. He felt it to be so important that the
measure should originate with them, that, if such was their
intention, he would gladly resign it into their hands. -
Sir George Murray entirely concurred with Mr.
Brougham in his sense of the extreme importance of the
subject, and also in his view of the propriety and safety of
making the evidence of slaves admissible without any other than
the ordinary reserves and exceptions. He did not even see
the necessity of those records of baptism, or certificates of
character from religious instructors, which it had been thought,
by some persons, expedient to require. To require
preliminary tests of religious belief and information did not
appear to him a course well adapted to advance the ends of
justice, or even to promote the interests of religion itself.
He had always been of the opinion, that the holding out a
temptation of a secular kind to any one, to adopt a particular
set of religious sentiments, was injurious and degrading to
religion itself. The session was now too far advanced to
do any thing in this matter with effect; but, it was his
intention, in the next session, to propose a bill for the reform
of the Colonial Judicatures, founded on the reports of the
Commissioners of Judicial Inquiry in the West Indies; and he
purposed to introduce into that Bill a clause for admitting,
universally, the evidence of slaves on the same footing as that
of other persons. He saw no reason for clogging the
measure with distinctions to the slave's disadvantage.
In reply to a question from Mr. Bernal,
Sir George Murray observed, that the
measure he meant to propose to parliament would apply to the
Slave Colonies generally, and not to the Crown Colonies alone.
Indeed, one of the chartered colonies, Grenada, had already, he
be-
[Pg. 3] -
The
utmost satisfaction was expressed by Mr. Brougham,
Mr. Huskisson, Lord Nugent, and Sir
James Mackintosh, with the pledge which
Sir George Murray had now given on this
momentous subject. And, indeed, with reason, for when it
shall have been fulfilled by a parliamentary enactment, it may
be regarded as the first effective step towards any real reform
of our colonial system; in fact, the first practical result of
the hitherto fruitless and unproductive resolutions of 1823; not
indeed, we lament, to say, as the completion of the work of
reform; but as the commencement of that series of measures
which, we trust, may lead to its completion, by the entire
extinction of that foulest blot on our national character, the
negro slavery of our colonies.
2. The Slave Trade and
Slavery of the Mauritius.
An
important conversation took place on this subject in the House
of Commons on the 3rd of June, to which we are induced to give a
larger space than we usually allot to similar occurrences, on
account of the prominent manner in which we ourselves were, on
that occasion, dragged, before the bar of the house and of the
public, by more than one individual, and there, not charged
merely, but absolutely condemned, as base and malignant
calumniators, without the specification of a single fact to
justify the sentence. The conversation arose out of a
question which was addressed by Sir Robert Farquhar
to Mr. Buxton. Sir Robert asked him
whether it was his intention to proceed with the charges
preferred on the subject of the Mauritius, which were first
brought forward in 1826, and which had been postponed on one
plea or another to the present period. Mr.
Buxton must ere now have formed a deliberate opinion on the
truth or falsehood of those charges. If he had discovered
that they were false, and that he had slandered the innocent by
accusations which could not be supported, he was bound now to
rise in his place and candidly to acknowledge his error.
If he was bound either to retract his accusations, or to proceed
with the inquiry into their truth.
Mr. Buxton shewed that the delay was in
no degree to be attributed to him. The Committee was
orginally granted to him in 1826, but so near the close of the
session that it was found impossible to bring forward more than
a very small portino of the evidence which he had collected.
The honourable Baronet indeed had chosen to say that the
evidence against him bad broken down. He was completely at
issue with the honourable Baronet on that point. So far
from having broken down, it had scarcely been opened.
Early in the session of 1827 he had endeavoured to renew the
Committee, but was prevented from doing so by the interposition
of Mr. W. Horton, at the express and earnest request of
Mr. Canning. He was a second time in the same
session about to move for the reappointment of the Committee,
and had actually fixed a day for the purpose, when he was seized
with an illness, which, it was well known, bad endangered his
life, and from which he was even now, notwithstanding his
occasional attendance in that House, but too imperfectly
recovered to justify his undertaking the laborious conduct of
any great public cause. Here Mr. Buxton read
two letters
[Pg. 4] -
from his physician, Dr. Farre, one dated Feb. 28, 1828,
and the other so late as Apr. 9, 1829, stating, in strong and
express terms, as his clear opinion, that he, Mr. Buxton,
could not, without the utmost risk of life, place himself in a
situation of public responsibility, requiring much serious
attention or mental exertion of any kind. Under these
circumstances he had urged the successive Colonial Secretaries
of State, Mr. Huskisson and Sir George Murray, to
undertake the prosecution of the inquiry, offering to place in
the hands of the Government the whole of the evidence in his
possession. Mr. Huskisson had declined the
proposal. He had been led, however, to expect from Sir
George Murray, that the Crown would forthwith institute a
Royal Commission for thoroughly investigating the facts of the
case, and if this expectation were realized, he should gladly
transfer to the Government all the evidence he had collected.
But if no such inquiry should be instituted as he hoped for, he
now pledged himself, at whatever personal inconvenience, or even
hazard, to bring the whole subject under the consideration of
the House at the earliest period of the next session, so as to
afford the honourable Baronet the opportunity he desired of
fully refuting every charge made against him while Governor of
the Mauritius. The honourable Baronet had put to him
the alternative of either retracting his charges, or proceeding
with the inquiry. He chose the latter. It was quite
impossible for him to retract the charges he had brought against
the administration of the honourable Baronet. It was
impossible that, in opposition to his full and firm conviction,
he should deny his belief that a slave trade had existed to an
enormous extent under that administration. There was
another person also, who had an interest in this inquiry, he
meant General Hall, who had acted as Governor of the
Mauritius during Sir R. Farquhar's absence, and who had
pledged himself, on the faith of a man, and the honour and
reputation of an officer, to prove, if publicly called upon,
that during the government of the honourable Baronet, the slave
trade was carried on, with remarkable impunity, to the full
extent he had asserted. While, there fore, he could
not retract one iota of his former statements, he must do the
honourable Baronet the justice to admit, that there was no
stronger prima facie proof of innocence than that which
is afforded by a disposition to court inquiry. He
admitted, in its widest sense, the doctrine that all accusations
must be received without prejudice until they are proved; but at
the same time he must now warn the honourable Baronet, that the
inquiry which he demanded would disclose scenes of cruelty,
violations of public law, and a toleration, if not
encouragement, of slave trading, unexampled in any other part of
his Majesty's dominions, or perhaps in any other part of the
world.
Dr. Lushington bore his personal
testimony to Mr. Buxton's absolute inability, on account
of the state of his health, of having proceeded with the
inquiry, (as did also Mr. Hudson Gurney, Mr. Brougham,
Sir J. Mackintosh, and Mr. Wodehouse.) He
contended, however, that a full inquiry was indispensable,
considering that the uninterrupted continuance of the slave
trade, for the first nine or ten years of the honourable
Baronet’s administration, was not only asserted by his
honourable friend, but admitted on all hands, and even by the
honourable Baronet himself,
[Pg. 5] -
who only dated its cessation in 1821. It was also a
notorious fact, which he defied any one to disprove, that it had
gone on with impunity; not a man ever having been imprisoned for
this crime who had not been allowed to escape; to walk, in fact,
out of the prison, the doors or the walls of which were always
so insecure, in the case of persons implicated in slave trading,
as never to oppose any hindrance to their escape. He did
not assert that the honourable Baronet had used no exertions to
prevent and punish the slave trade; but those exertions had
certainly been most unsuccessful, and it was fit that the cause
of their failure should be ascertained.
Mr. Hudson Gurney regretted the personality
of this discussion. He confessed he did not know much of
the charges brought against the Hon. Baronet, but he must say he
was not disposed to give much credit to them. He had read,
indeed, the statements circulated by the Anti- Slavery Society,
and he really thought they bore on the face of them a want of
that due scrutiny which justice to the colonists demanded.
They seemed to be the work of hot-headed enthusiasts. It
was impossible for any person to believe the details of horrors
and cruelties occasionally contained in those publications: they
appeared to him untrue and inflammatory, and ought not to be
received without strict previous inquiry. They seemed to
be stories taken up at random, on the information of interested
and discontented parties, and were not to be depended upon.
Sir R. Farquhar, he always understood, had exerted
himself to suppress the slave trade; but the task he had to
perform was difficult. He was the first Governor of a
conquered colony in which the slave trade had always been
permitted. He ought, therefore, to be held irresponsible
for any slave trading that might have taken place there, until
the charge of not having done his duty were proved against him.
Mr. Brougham hoped that no prejudice
would be infused into the discussions on this subject, and that
no premature judgment would be formed on the conduct of the Hon.
Baronet. He agreed with Mr. Buxton that the
readiness to meet these charges bore the appearance of
innocence, and he trusted, therefore, that the Hon.
Baronet would come clear out of the ordeal. He hoped, at
the same time, that the Hon. Baronet, when the inquiry
did come on, would be prepared with a better witness to support
his cause than Mr. Gurney, who had taken occasion to draw
a conclusion unfavourable to the views of Mr. Buxton, and
to stigmatize the publications of the Anti-Slavery Society as
rash and unfounded, for no other reason than that he was
ignorant of the subject, and did not know whether the charge
against the Hon. Baronet was right or wrong. He did
hope that the Hon. Baronet would be provided with better
compurgators than the Hon. Member. - He could understand very
well why that Member considered the publications to which he
alluded as a mass of exaggeration. He naturally could not
believe it possible - he could not bring his mind to the belief,
that such atrocities could be perpetrated by any human being as
were detailed in the Anti-Slavery Reporters. It was not
surprising that such cases, for instance, as that of the
Mosses* should be supposed to be mere fictions of the
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* See Reporter, No. 47, p. 462
to 468.
[Pg. 6] -
brain, the inventions of fancy, the result of flimsy rumours
collected in all quarters, and dressed out in all the fantastic
and extravagant colours which a morbid imagination could bestow
upon them. But were these details untrue? Was the
story of the Mosses a fabrication? Was all that
revolting statement an idle tale? The Hon. Member could
not suppose it possible that such stories could be true; or that
human nature could be guilty of such atrocities. He did
not suppose it possible that any man or woman, that any creature
in human shape, and especially a lady in respectable life, could
be found capable of treating a helpless and unprotected female,
in the brutal manner there described, excoriating her body with
the lash, rubbing Cayenne pepper into the lacerated flesh and
even into the eyes of the sufferer, and repeating these dreadful
operations again and again, until the unfortunate creature was
thrown into a fever, the intervention of which alone prevented
the perpetrators of these atrocities, which terminated in death,
from being tried and hung for murder, a crime of which they were
morally, if not legally, guilty. Such a case was, indeed,
incredible, but nevertheless it had happened. What the
Hon. Member, what the House could not believe, was nevertheless
recorded in the proceedings of Courts of Justice; was
nevertheless made the subject of communication from the Colonial
Government to his Majesty's Government at home. It was
also made the subject of a despatch from the Right Hon.
Gentleman (Mr. Huskisson) who then held the situation of
Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, and who
expressed in a tone of manly indignation, the feelings upon the
subject which an English Statesman must ever feel, and which, he
trusted, no English Minister would ever be unwilling to use on
such an occasion, or, if unwilling, would ever dare not to use.
It was the imperative duty of the House not only not to shut
their ears to statements of facts, such as those now alluded to,
(as the Hon. Member would have them to do as unworthy of credit,
and as the mere creatures of the heated brain of the enthusiast)
but to listen patiently to them; to investigate them; and after
the fullest investigation, and coming to a just and safe
conclusion, fearlessly to do their duty, whatever that might be.
Mr. Irving observed, that he had regularly attended
the Mauritius Committee; and he was bound to say, as a man of
truth and honour, that he had formed, from the evidence which
had been adduced before that Committee, a conclusion very
different from that at which Mr. Buxton had
arrived. He did not impute any improper motives to those
by whom that evidence had been collected, but he had never
heard, before a Committee of that House, evidence which appeared
to him to be so little entitled to credit; or which, doubtful as
it was, was so decidedly contradicted by evidence on the other
side which it was impossible to impugn. The Hon. Member
for Weymouth had spoken of the readiness of General Hall
to support the charges against the Honourable Baronet.
What the evidence of General Hall might be he
could not say; but he must give the most decided contradiction
to the assertion, that, in the evidence which had been brought
before the Committee, there was any thing criminatory of the
Hon. Baronet. When it was considered that the Hon.
Baronet had been three years labouring under the
[Pg. 7] -
accusation of a great public crime, stigmatised by public
feeling, was it surprising that he should come forward and
insist, either that the case should be immediately investigated,
or that he should stand acquitted of the imputation cast upon
him? The Member for Weymouth, had, undoubtedly, given
sufficient reasons for not having himself proceeded with the
investigation. It was unfortunate for him to have laboured
under such indisposition, which no man regretted more sincerely
than himself; but it was still more unfortunate for the Hon.
Baronet, for, if the investigation had been proceeded with, he
would have been completely cleared in the opinion of the House
and of the public. He had seen enough in the Committee not
to entertain the least apprehension for the character of his
Hon. Friend. He blamed Mr. Brougham for mixing up
stories of cruelty with the present case. He might as well
exhibit Mrs. Hibner, lately executed at Newgate,
as a specimen of English conduct, as Mr. and Mrs. Moss, of
colonial conduct. The course of the discussion, however,
had given him an opportunity of expressing his opinion of the
publications of the Anti-Slavery Society. He did not know
whether the Learned Gentleman was a Member of that Society, or
if he was aware of the tone and manner in which the
Anti-Slavery Reporter was got up. Its object appeared
to be to degrade and stigmatise, in the public estimation, every
man who had any property or interest in the West Indies. A
more false, libellous, scandalous, and disgraceful publication
never issued from the British press. It was by this publication,
after the public had been satisfied that the charges against the
Hon. Baronet were unfounded, that the accusation against him had
been revived, and the Hon. Baronet had again been dragged
forward to answer imputations which no attempt was made to
establish. So far was his Hon. Friend, from having
favoured the Slave Trade, that there was not a despatch from him
to his Majesty's Government in which he did not represent the
prevalence of the traffic, and complain that his Majesty's
Government had not given him sufficient power to put it down.
At length, in 1821, a squadron and other means were furnished
him; and from that time the Slave Trade had ceased to exist in
the Island of Mauritius.
Mr. Brougham, in explanation, said that
he believed he was a member, in common with many thousands, of
the Anti-Slavery Society. His allusion to the Mosses
had been forced from him by the remarks of Mr. Gurney
on the exaggerated statements of the publications of that
Society; he wished he could say with the Hon.
Gentleman, that he disbelieved those statements.
Mr. Fergusson
defended Sir Robert Farquhar, who, he
asserted, was most anxious to meet this inquiry. No man in
his situation could have done more to suppress, and no man from
feeling had a greater horror of, the slave trade than the Hon.
Baronet.
Mr. Wodehouse
observed, that he also had been a member of the Committee, and
the impression of the evidence, as far as it went, had not been
favourable. A great mass of evidence was still to be
produced on the subject; and General Hall had
certainly declared himself ready at any time to substantiate the
charges which had been preferred by his Hon, Friend
[Pg. 8] -
Sir James Mackintosh agreed, that the Hon.
Baronet, besides the general presumption in favour of any man
whose guilt had not been proved, had the additional presumption
in his favour which resulted from an eagerness to meet
investigation. Besides his wish that any man in the same
situation might clear himself from all imputation, he had
particular reasons for wishing the Hon. Baronet to clear
himself on the present occasion. Although some warmth had
entered into the present conversation, no substantial difference
of opinion had been manifested in it. They were all agreed
that the Hon. Baronet had earned a presumption in his favour by
courting inquiry; and they were all agreed that the delay in the
investigation had been not the fault, but the misfortune of the
Hon. Member for Weymouth. Here he should have ended his
remarks, had not the Hon. Member (Mr. H. Gurney)
introduced into the discussion topics altogether different, in
tone and temper, from the judicial subject before them, and
which had drawn down upon him a just chastisement from his Hon.
and Learned Friend. With that censorial gravity which so
well became him, that Honourable Member condemned the levity of
rash accusation against others, while at the same time he had
himself furnished an example of considerable levity - not of
accusation, for his proceeding had not been of so fair a
character; (accusation having reference to some individual, and
particularizing the how, and the where, and the when) but of
broad and indefinite and undistinguishing assertions against
large bodies of men; assertions which came with great weight
from the Hon. Gentleman, because he had an opportunity of
knowing well the character of many of those on whom he had
heaped reproach, and whom he had charged with being
calumniators. He would not retaliate by applying that term
to the Hon. Gentleman; for that would be neither just to him nor
consistent with his own feelings towards him. But the fact
was, that the Hon. Member for Newton had thought fit to
condemn a body of respectable persons, the same who for forty
years had laboured to abolish what, although he remembered the
time when it was considered jacobinical to make the assertion -
was now allowed by every one to be a most atrocious crime and
the greatest stain on human nature, the slave trade. That
same body had for forty years persevered, under every variety of
circumstances, through good and through bad report, in their
endeavours to wipe out this stain. Having succeeded in
abolishing the slave trade, they were now turning their
attention to the wisest and best mode of raising the slaves into
circumstances which would admit of their being relieved from
their present unhappy condition. When he heard therefore
such accusations against the Society, he called upon those who
preferred them (just as the Hon. Baronet had very fairly called
upon the Member for Weymouth) either to substantiate their
charges or to silence their obloquy. For the warmth shewn
by another Hon. Member (Mr. Irving) he was willing to
make great allowance. But the only specific charge even he
brought against the Anti-Slavery Society was, that it had
renewed the subject of the horrible traffic which had so long
been carried on at the Mauritius. But how was that a
charge? Was not silence on the subject the very
circumstance of which the Hon. Baronet and his friends
complained? The Hon. Member had had re-
[Pg. 9] -
course to a species of argument respecting the case of the
Mosses, which he remembered was used at the beginning of the
debates on the proposed abolition of the slave trade. A
great West India proprietor said, on the occasion to which he
had alluded, that the House might as well judge of the morals of
England by the records of the Old Bailey, as to judge of the
character of the West India planters from a few occurrences
selected for the purpose of making an unfavourable impression on
the public. To this Mr. Fox replied - "I do not
wonder that the slave trade should remind the Hon. Gentleman of
the Old Bailey. Nothing can be so congenial as to the two
subjects. Nevertheless I will point out to the Hon.
Gentleman a contrast between them. At the Old Bailey we
hear of crimes which shock our moral feelings; but we are
consoled by the punishment of the criminals. We read of
crimes as atrocious in the West India islands, but our moral
feelings are shocked at hearing not only of the impunity of the
criminals, but of their triumph." In adverting to the case
of the Mosses, the Hon. Member had, most unfortunately
for his argument, alluded to the case of Mrs. Hibner.
The contrast which these cases presented between the moral
feeling of the Bahamas and the moral feeling of this country was
much more striking than the contrast to which Mr. Fox had
formerly called the attention of the House. The offenders
in the Bahamas having not only committed a murder, but committed
it in the most barbarous manner possible, had been condemned to
five months' imprisonment. What followed? A memorial
had been presented to the Colonial Secretary, signed by what
were called the most respectable persons in the colony,
attesting that the character of these cruel murderers was
generally one of great humanity, and praying for a remission of
their punishment. That was the manner in which this
atrocious crime was viewed in an island, the inhabitants of
which were in no other way demoralized than as the possession of
unbounded and irresponsible power always corrupted the heart of
man. Nay more, a public dinner, as a matter of triumph,
was actually given, by the chief persons in the colony, to the
criminals who had barely escaped the most condign punishment for
their offences. What was, on the other hand, the case in
London when a criminal of the lowest order, this same Mrs.
Hibner, whose crime was not aggravated by the consideration
that she was possessed of information which ought to have taught
her better, committed a similar offence? He was not the
apologist of the vindictive feeling exhibited by the populace on
the occasion ;but it was well known that they departed from the
humanity which they usually exhibited towards the unfortunate
persons who underwent the last sentence of the law. They
could not conceal their horror at a crime, which, however, was
far less atrocious than that which had been committed by the
respectable Mosses; and even rent the air with shouts of triumph
when they witnessed the payment of the dreadful penalty.
In justice however, to the people of London, he must observe,
that he remembered only three instances in which they had thus
deviated from their usual feelings of commiseration for
suffering criminals; and those were all cases in which the
punishment of death had been inflicted for the crime of murder,
accompanied with circumstances of peculiar cruelty. Thus,
even in their errors, the ge-
[Pg. 10] -
nerosity which belonged to their general character was strongly
evinced.
Sir George Murray was not surprised, when
the subject was slavery and the cruilties which proceeded from
it, that the just indignation which all must feel upon it should
seduce Honourable Members into a greater warmth of expression
than perhaps the immediate occasion justified. He did not,
however, rise to pursue the same course, or to protract the
discussion, but to bring the attention of the House back to the
original question; and that he did in consequence of the
allusion to himself by the Hon. Member for Weymouth, who said he
had intimated to him his willingness to pursue the inquiry, and
his being prepared with convincing evidence on the subject.
The Hon. Member was perfectly correct in that statement.
But it was only just to add, that the Hon. Baronet had expressed
with equal confidence his conviction, that he could rebut the
imputations cast upon him. He himself could have no other
feeling than an anxiety, if guilt existed, that that guilt
should be clearly established; or the still greater anxiety, if
possible, that if no guilt existed, that fact should be made
equally clear. In the mean time he perfectly agreed, that
where guilt had not been established, it ought not to be
presumed. As to the continuation of the slave trade at the
Mauritius, there was that in the geographical situation of the
island which was extremely favourable to the prosecution of that
trade; and to that circumstance he imputed a great part of the
difficulty which had been found in putting it down. He had
the satisfaction, however, of saying most confidently, that the
difficulty had been overcome, and that the slave trade at the
Mauritius no longer existed.
Mr. Sykes, as a Member of the Committee
which had been appointed to inquire into this subject, observed,
that he had gone into the investigation with the most
unprejudiced mind; that he had given the greatest attention to
the proceedings; and that he deeply lamented they had been
terminated before any satisfactory conclusion had been arrived
at. At the same time he must say, that the evidence
adduced was not such as to entitle the Hon. Baronet or his
friends to express any confidence as to what might have been the
result. Three or four witnesses only had been examined out
of a much larger number.
Sir Robert Farquhar defended himself by
reading extracts from the evidence taken before the Committee,
in 1826, which went, he said, to prove that he had taken the
most judicious steps to put an end to the slave trade at the
Mauritius. He read also an extract from a letter he had
addressed to the Colonial Office, in reply to the Anti-Slavery
Reporter, No. 42, and which had been since laid on the table of
the House of Commons. In common with Mr. Irving, he
charged the Anti-Slavery Reporter, and especially No. 42, with
gross falsehood. Several instances of cruelty therein
cited against him, he said, were un true, as would be seen when
his answer came to be printed. Such was, in substance, the
conversation which passed on this occasion. We trust we
shall be excused if we detain our readers with a few remarks
upon it.
The vague and general charges of Mr. H. Gurney
and Mr. Irving,
-------------------------
*The whole of this remarkable case of the Mosses,
a case of recent occurrence, will be found in the Anti-Slavery
Reporter, No. 47, p. 462.
[Pg. 11] -
we consider as scarcely meriting a reply. We might, with equal
justice, retort upon them a heap of offensive epithets;
ignorance, prejudice, falsehood, calumny, malignity, &c. &c.
&c., on much better grounds than they have produced, or are able
to produce, for similar imputations upon us. But, what
would the cause of truth gain by thus following their example?
We call, however, upon Mr. Gurney especially, if he
values his character for truth and fair dealing, to specify the
misrepresentations and exaggerations, with which he declares us
to be chargeable, or at least to select, from the whole series
of our numbers, a single statement which he has discovered to be
unsupported by evidence. - With respect to Mr. Irving,
we are disposed to make larger allowances. He is a West
Indian merchant, and is, in some measure, entitled to feel
galled by our writings, and to resent them. But, we desire
to say to him, as we have already said to his predecessors in
the same line of general and vague invective, that we totally
deny the truth of his criminations, and that we boldly challenge
him to the proof. For the answers we have already given to
similar charges, preferred with equal vagueness, though the less
coarseness, by Mr. Dwarris and Lord Seaford, we
refer him to the Reporters, No. 37 and 40. Again, we
challenge him to the proof. We call upon him to specify
the particular statements on which he rests his charge. If
he refuses to do so, will not his own epithets recoil upon
himself?*
---------------
* A long and laboured article has lately appeared in
the Monthly Magazine in defence of slavery, and in pretended
refutation of the statements of the abolitionists. It is,
in fact, an epitome of Alexander Barclay's exploded work.
We beg to refer those who are disposed to attribute the
slightest weight to this renewed attempt to reconcile the
national conscience to the foul crime of retaining our fellow
men in a cruel and degrading slavery, to the different pages of
our own work, and more particularly to the two numbers of it
mentioned above, and to Nos. 18, 19, 35, &c.
We have been struck, in perusing this article,
with the audacious falsification of fact, of which the framer of
it has been guilty. We known nothing which goes beyond, or
even equals it, except in the pages of Blackwood. "The
indisputable evidence of authenticated facts, proves," he says,
"that the slaves of Jamaica are in the actual enjoyment of all
the comforts and advantages which are the fair rewards of their
labour," that is to say, of their forced and uncompensated
labour. But, where is that evidence to be found? The
mere asertion of this writer will hardly pass for proof; and he
has given us no other. He has fortunately ventured,
however, to quit the safe ground of such vague generalities, and
to favour us with some specification of the particulars which,
he affirms, go to constitute this imposing aggregate of comforts
and advantages actually enjoyed by the slaves of Jamaica; and
has thus given us an opportunity of weighing the value of his
testimony, and of fixing upon it the undoubted characters,
either of gross or stupid ignorance, or of wilful and deliberate
falsehood. We select two or three instances, by way of
exemplification, and we pledge ourselves that they form a fair
specimen of this impudent attempt to impose upon the British
public.
1. "the hours during which the slaves work," he says,
"are not more - we believe, not so many - as those which are
devoted to the same purpose by the agricultural labourers of
Great Britain." Now, Mr. Huskisson, in commenting
on the very latest legislative attempt at amelioration of the
Jamaica Assembly, the disallowed act of December, 1826, observes
on that clause of the act, which affects to limit the exaction
of the labour of slaves, "out of crop," to eleven hours
and a half, (namely, from five in the morning till seven at
night, the intervals for meals being two hours and a half,) the
tale of labour during crop having no limit, that such excess of
toil is inconsistent with the health of the slave, (see his
letter of 22d September, 1827, and the act to which it refers,
also
[Pg. 12] -
Notwithstanding the grave charges Mr. Irving has
permitted himself to make against the Anti-Slavery Reporter, it
is evident he has not read
---------------
Reporter, No. 33, p. 180.) But even the eleven
hours and a half of field labour, which Mr. Huskisson
thinks in such a climate (and, indeed, in any climate) is most
excessive, are exclusive of the night labour of crop, which, for
four or five months of the year, adds five hours more of labour
during the twenty-four; exclusive too of the time consumed in
going to and returning from the field, procuring grass for the
cattle at night, collecting fuel to dress their food, and
cooking it, with a variety of other domestic offices. And
yet, though the very laws authorize this enormous and
destructive excess of labour, we are to be told, by this writer,
they do not work so many hours as labourers in this country.
2 “That baneful practice,” (enforcement of labour by
the whip) this writer tells us, "has been almost, if not wholly
discontinued, in Jamaica." Now, it is utterly false, that
any restraint is put in this practice by the law of Jamaica.
the abolition of the driving whip was proposed, indeed, to the
Assembly, by Lord Bathurst, in 1826, but rejected.
It was then proposed by a Member, at least to substitute the cat
for the cart-whip, but even this modification of the driving
system was also rejected; and the very reason given in the
Assembly by Mr. Hilton, for refusing a compliance with
Lord Bathurst's wish, was the danger to be apprehended from
such an innovation of established usage as that of
relinquishing the driving-whip. As for "the driving-whip,"
the Barbadoes Assembly "consider it to be inseparable from
slavery." (See Reporter, No. 21, p. 305 and 307, and the
Parliamentary Papers, and the Jamaica Journals of the day, there
referred to. Even so late as the 22d March, 1828, we find
Mr. Huskisson, in a despatch to the Governor of Jamaica,
remarking that "his Majesty's Government cannot acquiesce in the
defence which is made by the Assembly for retaining
the use of the whip in the field, and the punishment of
females by whipping." And yet, in the face of such
evidence, this advocate of slavery has the hardihood to affirm,
that the baneful practice, as he terms it, of driving the
human team with the cart-whip, is almost, if not wholly,
discontinued in Jamaica. Can any untruth be more gross
than this?
3. "Save, as the punishment of crime, the use of
the whip in the West Indies," he further tells us, "is
discontinued." Discontinued! by the law? By that of
Jamaica, most certainly, its use is undiminished. At this
very hour it may there be used, for any offence or for no
offence, to the number of thirty-nine stripes, (and in Barbadoes
there is not even this wretched limit) on the bare body of any
man, woman, or child, without the slightest liability to
question, by any master or overseer of slaves. the terms
of the Jamaica law are, "and in order to RESTRAIN arbitrary
punishments, no slave shall receive anymore than ten
lashes, unless the owner, & c. or overseer is present; and no
such owner, &c. or overseer, shall punish a slave with more than
thirty-nine lashes at one time, and for one offence." To
this extent then every man is at liberty, without being obliged
to prove that any offence has been committed, to inflict the
torturing punishment of the cart-whip. A look, a gesture,
construed into insolence; a suspicion of feigning illness; an
involuntary omission; the langour of weariness; incapacity of
exertion - all may be punished, and are legally punished, as
crimes under this mild system. (See also, No. 45, p. 424.)
4. If asked "why we have left out of the picture the
tortures to which slaves are put at the mere caprice of their
masters, the dismemberments, the chainings, the wanton
floggings, the separate selling of slaves who are united in
families, the cruel severing of nature's sweetest and holiest
times, the answer is, that if such atrocities ever existed, they
have for many years past ceased to disgrace the colonies; and
that to assert that they now exist, in any degree, is a
foul, gross, malignant calumny, the falsehood of which is
notorious to every one who has taken the trouble to read and
examine the evidence on the subject, and more notorious to none
than to the crafty forgers of these monstrous lies." This
unblushing assertion is the very reverse of truth - the very
climax of audacious imposture. In reply to it, look only
at the Jamaica law, last quoted, for the tortures which a master
or overseer may legally inflict, at his caprice, on any slave;
and next look to the official returns from the West Indies for
the tortures actually inflicted, as these are detailed, not by
abolitionists,, but by Colonial functionaries, and in the
recorded decrees of Colonial Courts of Justice. See, for
pregnant examples, the returns of the Fiscal of Berbice,
(Reporter,
[Pg. 13] -
that work with common attention. He charges it with having
revived the abortive accusations of Mr. Buxton.
Now, Mr. Buxton's accusations referred, exclusively, to
the slave trade. The Anti-Slavery Reporters, Nos.
42 and 44, refer to a new and perfectly different subject,
namely, the state of slavery in the Mauritius; a subject
on which Mr. Buxton had not entered. With respect
to the Reporter, No. 42 in particular, against which the
displeasure of the Baronet and his friends seems to be chiefly
directed, we are quite at a loss to conceive to what part of it
they mean to apply their severe and vituperative remarks.
The charge we bring against Sir R. Farquhar, in that
number, is confined to a single point, and, if it be untrue, is
capable of the easiest confutation. It is chiefly drawn
from a comparison of his own official correspondence, while
Governor, with the official returns from the Mauritius, recently
laid on the table of parliament. Have we quoted that
correspondence or those returns unfairly? If not, wherein
can we have calumniated or maligned the Hon. Baronet? Is it
true, or is it not, for example, that, on the 1st of
February,1812, he wrote to Lord Bathurst, to say that it
had been in his power, “by a series of measures, to
ameliorate the condition of the slaves?” And, is it
also true, or is it not, that a return having been obtained from
the Mauritius to an order of the House of Commons, calling for
all regulations of this description during his administration,
not one such has been forth-
---------------
Nos. 5 and 16); the returns of the Protector of Berbice,
(No. 43); the case of the Mosses, (No. 47); also No. 40,
p. 305, No. 44, passim, &c. - Then as to the cruel separation of
families, the utter falsehood of the assertion that it has
ceased, will be proved by referring to the Reporter, No. 18, p.
251, and No. 19, p. 272-275, which last contains the law and
practice on this subject as officially announced. Nay, so
recently as the 14th of March, 1826, the Duke of Manchester, in
a despatch of that date, expressly states that he is not aware
of any law in Jamaica to prevent the separation of husband and
wife, of parents and children; and, indeed, it is impossible to
open a Jamaica Gazette, even the most recent, without seeing
that, in accordance with the power of separating families, which
the state of the law enables the master to exercise at his
discretion, is the constant weekly practice. - And
yet, says this veracious writer, “if such atrocities ever
existed, they have for many years ceased " adding, “ that to
assert that they exist in any degree, is a foul, gross,
malignant calumny,”- “monstrous lies," the work of
crafty forgers." And all these facts too, to which we have
adverted, and which will be found more fully detailed in our
preceding pages, are taken not from any dubious, or concealed,
or suspicious source, but from authentic and official public
documents, laid before Parliament by the Ministers of the Crown,
and drawn by them from colonial records, which have been
prepared and kept, and are verified, either by colonial slave
holders them selves, or by functionaries acting under their eye
and with their privity. Such are fair specimens of the
daring impostures with which we have to contend! And let
it never be forgotten (see Reporter, No. 18, p. 255) that thirty
years ago, writers equally unprincipled, and witnesses equally
mendacious, came forward, on behalf of the slave traders and
slave holders of this country, to eulogize the loveliness of the
slave trade itself, and to load with the foulest reproach and
obloquy those who ventured to unveil its hideous lineaments to
public view. The present writer is a worthy inheritor of
their principles as well as imitator of their practices, and he
will shortly, we trust, experience their fate. His
attempts to sanctify crime and varnish guilt, and to hide out
from our view, and from our hearing, the sighs, and groans, and
tears, and blood, of our fellow men, will, like theirs, be
consigned in no long time to the universal execration of
mankind; while the abominations which he and his fellows now so
zealously patronize, and even hold up to public veneration, will
take their place, as the slave trade has already done, in the
list of the felonies, and murders, and piracies which are deemed
worthy of the extremest penalties of the law.
[Pg. 14] -
coming? Our observations, therefore, in that number, as
far as they were inculpatory, had no connection with Mr.
Buxton's charges, or with the slave trade. They
referred to the variance between his official communications
respecting the condition of the slave population, and the facts
of the case as indicated by the subsequent returns. If
these observations are unfounded, nothing is easier than to
refute them. The “measures” said to have been taken, have
only to be produced. They have been called for, and have
not been produced. If they exist, let Sir Robert
now produce them, and then let him visit, with his severest
animadversions, not those who have noted the fact of their
non-production, but those who have violated their duty in
suppressing them when called for.
Sir Robert Farquhar, and his friends, have
fallen into another mistake. They have chosen to consider
the Reporter, No. 44, with all its horrid detail of cruelties,
as intended to inculpate him. That may, possibly, be its
effect, but certainly was not its intention. Its sole
purpose was, what it professes to be, to give "a picture of
negro slavery existing in Mauritius," not under the
administration of Sir Robert Farquhar alone, but under
that of General Hall, General Darling, Sir Lowry Cole,
and General Colville, in short, the general condition of
the slaves in the Mauritius, independently of al governors and
all administrations. This also is a new question,
distinct from that hitherto brought before parliament by Mr.
Buxton. It is a question also, not personal to Sir
Robert Farquhar, but which respects the whole servile
system, the general state of the law and the practice, with
regard to the treatment of slaves in the Mauritius. And
the Duke of Manchester, or treatment of slaves in the Mauritius.
And the Duke of Manchester, or Sir Benjamin D'Urban,
might as well regard our expositions of the evils of slavery in
Jamaica or Demerara, as a personal attack on themselves, as
Sir R. Farquhar regard in this light our attack on the
slavery of the Mauritius. We do not wonder at the
excitement he has manifested, if he conceives himself personally
implicated in every act of cruelty or oppression, which is
stated to have taken place during his government. We defer
any further observations till we have seen his reply.
3. Emancipation of Negro
Children.
At one o'clock of the morning of the 5th instant, in a very
thin House, Mr. Otway Cave, moved the following
resolutions, which were negatived without a division, and,
indeed, without a debate, if we except some weighty preparatory
observations of the Honourable Mover.
"Resolved, 1st. That no human Legislature has any
lawful power to abridge or destroy the natural rights of life
and liberty, unless the owner shall himself commit some criminal
act that amounts to a forfeiture.
"2. That although neither the Government nor the
Legislature of this country have arrogated to themselves the
power of destroying the natural rights of innocent British
subjects, or of delegating any such power to other authorities,
it is a notorious fact, that in many British Colonies lying
remote from the immediate observation of the Government,
innocent British born subjects are, from the time of their
birth, robbed of their natural rights, and converted into
slaves.
“3. That it is the especial duty of this House, as the
representative
[Pg. 15] -
of the people, to take effectual measures for protecting all
British subjects, that shall be born henceforward in the West
Indian Colonies, from similar violations of their natural,
inherent, and paramount rights as human beings.”
”We respect the motives which have influenced Mr.
Otway Cave on this occasion. We must still, however,
think the course he has pursued unfortunate, and the time ill
chosen. Who could ever have supposed it possible, that
after a session of four months' duration, a motion of which
formal notice had been given in the preceding session, a motion
too of such vital importance, and big with so many vital
interests, would at last have been shuffled into a corner; that
at the unseasonable hour of one o'clock in the morning, on
almost the last day of the session, when no rational hope could
be entertained of a beneficial discussion or a favourable
result, when the House had been nearly emptied, resolutions so
momentous, and so sure to be opposed, should have been brought
forward and attempted to be passed? Such a course was
hardly fair either to the friends or the opponents of our cause;
and not even dreaming that such a thing was within the verge of
possibility, almost every individual who felt an interest in the
question had with drawn; though, had they remained, they could
only have used their influence to induce the mover to select a
fitter time for his propositions, to which, independently of
this circumstance, we ourselves could not but be favourable.
4. -
Freedom of Trade. - Sugar Duties
Several discussions have taken place on these important
questions, and with a better prospect of favourable results than
we have hitherto been permitted to entertain. The
approaching termination of the East India Company's charter has
given a stronger impulse to the desires that had been awakened
in the country of throwing open the trade of India and China; of
permitting the unrestrained introduction of British capital and
skill into our Eastern empire; and of removing the injurious and
immoral protection now given to the productions of slave labour
as compared with those of free labour. We look
forward with increasing hope to the consummation of our wishes
on these points, and intend, during the recess, to advert to the
subject more at large, with a view to the extended examinations
and discussions which will certainly take place in the ensuing
session.
5. -
Civil Rights of the free black and coloured Inhabitants of our
Colonies.
On the 1stof June, Dr. Lushington presented a petition on
behalf of this class, imploring the Imperial Parliament to take
their case into consideration, and to extend to them the common
rights and privileges of British subjects, of which they are now
unjustly deprived; which he accompanied with some appropriate
observations. Sir George Murray said he was pleased
to see petitions, from any individual or class of persons in the
colonies, addressed to the Imperial Parliament, as it marked the
confidence of such persons in its wisdom and justice, a
confidence extremely desirable, considering the relations which
existed between a colony and a parent state, comprehending
dependence on the one side, and protection on the other, with
respect to the people of colour, he was
[Pg. 16] -
of opinion that in any colony, and especially in those where the
distinction existed of freemen and slaves, it was a most
desirable policy, that all the members of the former should
participate in all the advantages of the superior class,
notwithstanding differences of colour. An opinion,
however, existed in the colonies, that changes in this respect
should be made with caution. It was in this spirit that
the local legislature of Jamaica had passed acts in favour of
the coloured inhabitants, and within the last few years had
further conceded, to particular individuals belonging to the
class of the free people of colour, special enactments, giving
them the same rights as his Majesty's white subjects in that
colony enjoyed. The Government, however, so little
shared in this opinion, that in an Order in Council recently
issued, they had at once removed all the various disabilities of
the coloured inhabitants of Trinidad, and they had made similar
concessions in the colony of Berbice, thus giving to the
colonial legislatures an example of perfect liberality, in
legislating for the equal claims of this class to civil and
political liberty. He trusted the example would produce
the most salutary effect on the other colonies. A spirit
of liberality was gaining ground, and he looked with confident
hopes to increased progress in the cause of the petitioners.
Dr. Lushington agreed with the Secretary
of State for the Colonies, that the Assembly for Jamaica had
improved within the lasta fifteen or twenty years in their
dispositions towards the people of colour; but he could not view
the concession of political privileges, by special acts made to
particular individuals, during the last seven years which had
been mentioned, as an evidence of increasing liberality.
For among all these private enactments, there were only seven,
in all that space of time, which gave to coloured persons the
same rights as the whites enjoyed. In every other instance
the concessions were much restricted. He therefore hoped
that some more general and effectual measure might be adopted,
so as to save him the necessity of pressing the subject on the
attention of Parliament in its next session.
The valuable enactment to which Sir George Murray
referred, for the removal of all civil disabilities from this
class of persons in Trinidad, is dated the 13th of March, 1829,
and purports that Whereas by certain laws and ordinances
heretofore made by the authority of the King of Spain before the
cession of Trinidad to His Majesty, and by certain laws,
ordinances, and proclamations since issued, his Majesty's
subjects of free condition, but of African birth or descent, are
subject to various civil or military disabilities in the said
island, to which His Majesty's subjects of European birth or
descent are not subject; and it is expedient that all such
distinctions should be abolished and annulled: - His Majesty
therefore is pleased to order that every law, ordinance, or
proclamation in force, within the said island, whereby His
Majesty's subjects of African birth or descent, being of free
condition, are subject to any disability, civil or military, to
which His Majesty's subjects of European birth or descent are
not subject, shall be, and are same and each of them are and is
forever repealed and annulled.
---------------
Louden: Printed by Bagster and Thoms, 14, Bartholmew
Close.
[NEXT: Anti-Slavery
Monthly Reporter - No. 50] For July, 1829. [No. 2, Vol.
iii.]
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