Part 38 (2/2)

Lord Grenville then read the resolution of the Commons. This resolution, he said, stated first, that the Slave Trade was contrary to humanity, justice, and sound policy. That it was contrary to humanity was obvious; for humanity might be said to be sympathy for the distress of others, or a desire to accomplish benevolent ends by good means. But did not the Slave Trade convey ideas the very reverse of this definition? It deprived men of all those comforts, in which it pleased the Creator to make the happiness of his creatures to consist,--of the blessings of society,--of the charities of the dear relations.h.i.+ps of husband, wife, father, son, and kindred,--of the due discharge of the relative duties of these--and of that freedom, which in its pure and natural sense was one of the greatest gifts of G.o.d to man.

It was impossible to read the evidence, as it related to this trade, without acknowledging the inhumanity of it, and our own disgrace. By what means was it kept up in Africa? By wars instigated, not by the pa.s.sions of the natives, but by our avarice. He knew it would be said in reply to this, that the slaves, who were purchased by us, would be put to death, if we were not to buy them. But what should we say, if it should turn out, that we were the causes of those very cruelties, which we affected to prevent? But, if it were not so, ought the first nation in the world to condescend to be the executioner of savages?

Another way of keeping up the Slave Trade was by the practice of man-stealing. The evidence was particularly clear upon this head. This practice included violence, and often bloodshed. The inhumanity of it therefore could not be doubted.

The unhappy victims, being thus procured, were conveyed, he said, across the Atlantic in a manner which justified the charge of inhumanity again.

Indeed the suffering here was so great, that neither the mind could conceive, nor the tongue describe, it. He had said on a former occasion, that in their transportation there was a greater portion of misery condensed within a smaller s.p.a.ce, than had ever existed in the known world. He would repeat his words; for he did not know, how he could express himself better on the subject. And, after all these horrors, what was their destiny? It was such, as justified the charge in the resolution again: for, after having survived the sickness arising from the pa.s.sage, they were doomed to interminable slavery.

We had been, he said, so much accustomed to words, descriptive of the cruelty of this traffic, that we had almost forgotten their meaning. He wished that some person, educated as an Englishman, with suitable powers of eloquence, but now for the first time informed of all the horrors of it, were to address their lords.h.i.+ps upon it, and he was sure, that they would instantly determine that it should cease. But the continuance of it had rendered cruelty familiar to us; and the recital of its horrors, had been so frequent, that we could now hear them stated without being affected as we ought to be. He intreated their lords.h.i.+ps, however, to endeavour to conceive the hard case of the unhappy victims of it; and as he had led them to the last stage of their miserable existence, which was in the colonies, to contemplate it there. They were there under the arbitrary will of a cruel task-master from morning till night. When they went to rest, would not their dreams be frightful? When they awoke, would they not awake--

--only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges?--

They knew no change, except in the humour of their masters, to whom their whole destiny was entrusted. We might, perhaps, flatter ourselves with saying, that they were subject to the will of Englishmen. But Englishmen were not better than others, when in possession of arbitrary power. The very fairest exercise of it was a never-failing corrupter of the heart. But suppose it were allowed that self-interest might operate some little against cruelty; yet where was the interest of the overseer or the driver? But he knew it would be said, that the evils complained of in the colonies had been mitigated. There might be instances of this; but they could never be cured, while slavery existed. Slavery took away more than half of the human character. Hence the practice, where it existed, of rejecting the testimony of the slave: but, if this testimony was rejected, where could be his redress against his oppressor?

Having shown the inhumanity, he would proceed to the second point in the resolution, or the injustice of the trade. We had two ideas of justice, first, as it belonged to society by virtue of a social compact; and, secondly, as it belonged to men, not as citizens of a community, but as beings of one common nature. In a state of nature, man had a right to the fruit of his own labour absolutely to himself; and one of the main purposes, for which he entered into society, was that he might be better protected in the possession of his rights. In both cases therefore it was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labour during the whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labour. Hence the Slave Trade and the colonial slavery were a violation of the very principle, upon which all law for the protection of property was founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade, to an individual, it was derived from dishonour and dishonesty. He forced from the unhappy victim of it that, which the latter did not wish to give him; and he gave to the same victim that, which he in vain attempted to show was an equivalent to the thing he took,--it being a thing for which there was no equivalent; and which, if he had not obtained by force, he would not have possessed at all. Nor could there be any answer to this reasoning, unless it could be proved, that it had pleased G.o.d to give to the inhabitants of Britain a property in the liberty and life of the natives of Africa. But he would go further on this subject. The injustice complained of was not confined to the bare circ.u.mstance of robbing them of the right to their own labour. It was conspicuous throughout the system. They, who bought them, became guilty of all the crimes which had been committed in procuring them, and when they possessed them, of all the crimes which belonged to their inhuman treatment. The injustice in the latter case amounted frequently to murder. For what was it but murder to pursue a practice, which produced untimely death to thousands of innocent and helpless beings? It was a duty, which their lords.h.i.+ps owed to their Creator, if they hoped for mercy, to do away this monstrous oppression.

With respect to the impolicy of the trade, (the third point in the resolution,) he would say at once, that whatever was inhuman and unjust must be, impolitic. He had, however, no objection to argue the point upon its own particular merits: and, first, he would observe, that a great man, Mr. Pitt, now no more, had exerted his vast powers on many subjects, to the admiration of his hearers; but on none more successfully than on the subject of the abolition of the Slave Trade. He proved, after making an allowance for the price paid for the slaves in the West Indies, for the loss of them in the seasoning, and for the expense of maintaining them afterwards; and comparing these particulars with the amount in value of their labour there, that the evils endured by the victims of the traffic were no gain to the master, in whose service they took place. Indeed, Mr. Long had laid it down in his _History of Jamaica_, that the best way to secure the planters from ruin would be to do that which the resolution recommended. It was notorious, that when any planter was in distress, and sought to relieve himself by increasing the labour on his estate, by means of the purchase of new slaves, the measure invariably tended to his destruction. What then was the importation of fresh Africans, but a system tending to the general ruin of the islands?

But it had often been said, that without fresh importations the population of the slaves could not be supported in the islands. This, however, was a mistake. It had arisen from reckoning the deaths of the imported Africans, of whom so many were lost in the seasoning, among the deaths of the Creole slaves. He did not mean to say that, under the existing degree of misery, the population would greatly increase; but, he would maintain, that if the deaths and the births were calculated upon those, who were either born, or who had been a long time in the islands, so as to be considered as natives, it would be found that the population had not only been kept up, but that it had been increased.

If it was true, that the labour of a free-man was cheaper than that of a slave; and, also, that the labour of a long-imported slave was cheaper than that of a fresh-imported one; and, again, that the chances of mortality were much more numerous among the newly-imported slaves in the West Indies, than among those of old standing there, (propositions, which he took to be established,) we should see new arguments for the impolicy of the trade.

It might be stated also, that the importation of vast bodies of men, who had been robbed of their rights, and grievously irritated on that account, into our colonies, (where their miserable condition opened new sources of anger and revenge,) was the importation only of the seeds of insurrection into them. And here he could not but view with astonishment the reasoning of the West Indian planters, who held up the example of St. Domingo as a warning against the abolition of the Slave Trade; because the continuance of it was one of the great causes of the insurrections and subsequent miseries in that devoted island. Let us but encourage importations in the same rapid progression of increase every year, which took place in St. Domingo, and we should witness the same effect in our own islands.

To expose the impolicy of the trade further, he would observe, that it was an allowed axiom, that as the condition of man was improved, he became more useful. The history of our own country, in very early times, exhibited instances of internal slavery, and this to a considerable extent. But we should find that; precisely in proportion as that slavery was ameliorated, the power and prosperity of the country flourished.

This was exactly applicable to the case in question. There could be no general amelioration of slavery in the West Indies, while the Slave Trade lasted: but if we were to abolish it, we should make it the interest of every owner of slaves to do that, which would improve their condition, and which, indeed, would lead ultimately to the annihilation of slavery itself. This great event, however, could not be accomplished at once; it could only be effected in a course of time.

It would be endless, he said, to go into all the cases, which would manifest the impolicy of this odious traffic. Inhuman as it was, unjust as it was, he believed it to be equally impolitic; and if their Lords.h.i.+ps should be of this opinion also, he hoped they would agree to that part of the resolution, in which these truths were expressed. With respect to the other part of it, or that they would proceed to abolish the trade, he observed, that neither the time, nor the manner of doing it, were specified. Hence, if any of them should differ as to these particulars, they, might yet vote for the resolution, as they were not pledged to anything definite in these respects, provided they thought that the trade should be abolished at some time or other: and he did not believe that there was any one of them, who would sanction its continuance for ever.

Lord Hawkesbury said, that he did not mean to discuss the question, on the ground of justice and humanity, as contradistinguished from sound policy. If it could fairly be made out that the African Slave Trade was contrary to justice and humanity, it ought to be abolished. It did not, however, follow, because a great evil subsisted, that therefore it should be removed; for it might be comparatively a less evil, than that which would accompany the attempt to remove it. The n.o.ble lord, who had just spoken, had exemplified this; for though slavery was a great evil in itself, he was of opinion that it could not be done away, but in a course of time.

A state of slavery, he said, had existed in Africa from the earliest time; and, unless other nations would concur with England in the measure of the abolition, we could not change it for the better.

Slavery had existed also throughout all Europe. It had now happily, in a great measure, been done away. But how? Not by acts of parliament, for these might have r.e.t.a.r.ded the event, but by the progress of civilization, which removed the evil in a gradual and rational manner.

He then went over the same ground of argument, as when a member of the Commons in 1792. He said that the inhumanity of the abolition was visible in this, that not one slave less would be taken from Africa; and that such as were taken from it, would suffer more than they did now, in the hands of foreigners. He maintained also, as before, that the example of St. Domingo afforded one of the strongest arguments against the abolition of the trade. And he concluded by objecting to the resolution, inasmuch as it could do no good, for the substance of it would be to be discussed again in a future session.

The Bishop of London, Dr. Porteus, began, by noticing the concession of the last speaker, namely, that if the trade was contrary to humanity and justice, it ought to be abolished. He expected, he said, that the n.o.ble lord would have proved that it was not contrary to these great principles, before he had supported its continuance; but not a word had he said to show that the basis of the resolution in these respects was false. It followed then, he thought, that as the n.o.ble lord had not disproved the premises; he was bound to abide by the conclusion.

The ways, he said, in which the Africans were reduced to slavery in their own country, were by wars,--many of which were excited for the purpose,--by the breaking up of villages, by kidnapping and by conviction for a violation of their own laws. Of the latter cla.s.s many were accused falsely, and of crimes which did not exist. He then read a number of extracts from the evidence examined before the privy council, and from the histories of those, who, having lived in Africa, had thrown light upon this subject before the question was agitated. All these, he said, (and similar instances could be multiplied,) proved the truth of the resolution, that the African Slave Trade was contrary to the principles of humanity, justice, and sound policy.

It was moreover, he said, contrary to the principles of the religion we professed. It was not superfluous to say this, when it had been so frequently a.s.serted that it was sanctioned both by the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. With respect to the Jews he would observe, that there was no such thing as perpetual slavery among them. Their slaves were of two kinds, those of their own nation, and those from the country round about them. The former were to be set free on the seventh year; and the rest, of whatever nation, on the fiftieth, or on the year of Jubilee. With respect to the Christian dispensation, it was a libel to say that it countenanced such a traffic. It opposed it both in its spirit and in its principle; nay, it opposed it positively, for it cla.s.sed men-stealers, or slave traders, among the murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals upon earth.

The antiquity of slavery in Africa, which the n.o.ble lord had glanced at, afforded, he said, no argument for its continuance. Such a mode of defence would prevent for ever the removal of any evil; it would justify the practice of the Chinese, who exposed their infants in the streets to perish; it would also justify piracy, for that practice existed long before we knew anything of the African Slave Trade.

He then combatted the argument, that we did a kindness to the Africans by taking them from their homes; and concluded, by stating to their lords.h.i.+ps, that, if they refused to sanction the resolution, they would establish these principles, ”that though individuals might not rob and murder, yet that nations might--that though individuals incurred the penalties of death by such practices, yet that bodies of men might commit them with impunity for the purposes of lucre;--and that for such purposes they were not only to be permitted, but encouraged.”

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