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 LIB RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN 1VLR.SITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
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 • ••
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 ON THK 
 
 MOTION OF SIR GEORGE STRICKLAND, 
 
 FOR 
 
 THE ABOLITION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP, 
 
 FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1838. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX. 
 
 BY W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND M.P. FOR NEWARFi. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 J. HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1838.
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BV IBOTSON AND I'AI.MER, SAVOY STREET.
 
 In acceding to the request which has been made to 
 me from various and opposite quarters to publish 
 the following speed), or perhaps I should rather 
 say statement, in a form as accurate as possible, 1 
 find it necessary to prefix one or two remarks. 
 
 The lateness of the hour at which it was delivered, 
 the promiscuous and discursive nature of the alle- 
 gations which it was intended to meet, and the 
 number and variety of topics properly belonging to 
 the subject, made it necessary to study compression 
 wherever it could be done without the greatest in- 
 justice to my purpose. For this reason I made 
 many references from memory while I had the 
 originals in my hands, and in some, perhaps fre- 
 quent instances, gave to my statements the appear- 
 ance of being unsupported, while they were, in fact, 
 of the most authentic description. Omissions of this 
 description I have endeavoured partially to supply, 
 while collecting, as faithfully as was in my power, the 
 substance of the speech, by the aid of such neces- 
 sarily brief reports as the newspapers have supplied.
 
 IV 
 
 Some points material to the argument on which I 
 meant to have touched, I have treated concisely in 
 an Appendix, and I have likewise added there some 
 of the longer passages to which reference was made. 
 
 I am sensible that the statement must appear, to 
 those who know how^ moving are some of the facts 
 of this case, to be hard and unfeeling. It was not 
 for brevity's sake alone that I avoided, where I 
 could, expressions of feeling which the conduct of 
 several parties might have elicited ; but rather 
 because I was, in the first place, sincerely anxious to 
 avoid introducing into the case any new elements of 
 bitterness, and, in the second, unwilling to make 
 professions which circumstances would have rendered 
 fairly open to suspicion. I am, however, not tlie 
 less sensible that I speak and act, with reference to 
 the negroes of the West Indies, under a solemn re- 
 sponsibility ; and that if those who term themselves 
 the negro's friends are indeed his only or his 
 best friends, the West Indians, collectively and as 
 individuals, are deeply guilty of injustice and in- 
 gratitude. 
 
 UlliC' 
 
 '^- v5^
 
 SPEECH, &c. 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone said — 
 Mr. Speaker, — If I regard the lateness of the 
 hour at which we have arrived, the number of mem- 
 bers now congregated within these walls, and eager 
 for the decision, and my own inadequacy to fulfil 
 the task which is before me, I utterly despair of 
 being able to attract the attention of the House : 
 but remembering, on the other hand, the vast and 
 manifold interests involved in the issue of this 
 debate, the singular course which the discussion of 
 this evening has in general taken, until the speech 
 of the noble lord the Secretary for the Home De- 
 partment, and the fact that no one belonging to the 
 body which stands accused before you has as yet risen 
 to make a statement of their defence, I am encou- 
 raged to make the effort, and I trust to your favour 
 and indulgence to bear me through. For I may 
 indeed entreat that indulgence, in a sense far stronger 
 than that which the request usually bears, and as I 
 have seen you on a recent occasion listen for hours 
 
 B
 
 to one at your bar pleading for a theory of consti- 
 tutional rights, I am confident you will give the like 
 opportunity to one connected with a body who are 
 virtually at your bar, and who have to plead for much 
 more than political rights alone : these, indeed, are 
 involved, — their property too is involved in the vote 
 of this House ; but what is weightier far, their cha- 
 racter is not less involved ; for if it be true that the 
 negro population of the West Indies is suffering 
 under general hardship through their neglect, no 
 words can be strong enough to describe their delin- 
 quency. Sir, when the Abolition Act of 1833 was 
 brought forward, to his immortal honour, by the 
 noble lord the member for North Lancashire, we 
 who had seats in this House, and were connected 
 with West Indian property, joined in the passing of 
 that measure : we professed a belief that the state 
 of slavery was an evil and a demoralising state, and 
 a desire to be relieved from it; we accepted a price 
 in composition for the loss which was expected to 
 accrue ; and if, after those professions and that accept- 
 ance, we have endeavoured to prolong its existence 
 and its abuses under another appellation, no lan- 
 guage can adequately characterise our baseness, and 
 either everlasting ignominy must be upon us, or you 
 are not justified in carrying this motion. 
 
 But I utterly and confidently deny the charge, as 
 it affects the mass of the planters, and as it affects 
 the mass of the apprentices. Yet, in declaring it to 
 be without foundation, I do not ask you to accept
 
 3 
 
 that assertion on my credit, but I refer you to tlie 
 proof which shall follow. I am aware that I must 
 speak under prepossessions, though I have striven 
 with all my might against them : and I desire that 
 no jot or tittle of weight may be given to my pro- 
 fessions or assertions; — by the facts I will stand or 
 fall. And oh, Sir, with what depth of desire have 
 I longed for this day ! Sore, and wearied, and irri- 
 tated perhaps with the grossly exaggerated misre- 
 presentations, and with the utter calumnies that 
 have been in active circulation without the means 
 of reply, how do I rejoice to meet them in free dis- 
 cussion before the face of the British Parliament ! 
 and I earnestly wish, that I may be enabled to avoid 
 all language and sentiments similar to those which I 
 have reprobated in others. 
 
 Now, Sir, the first point I have to put is one on 
 which, if need were, I should be content to rest: we 
 are at this moment in the midst of a parliamentary 
 inquiry : and 1 say the argument is resistless against 
 violently putting a period by legislation to that 
 inquiry, the renewal of which was unanimously re- 
 commended by your own committee of last year. 
 How is it possible, with that recommendation before 
 you, to declare that we are ripe for a final adjudica- 
 tion ? But in the abundance of arguments which 
 present themselves to me, I shall not dwell strongly 
 upon this point. I must, however, express my 
 astonishment, that those very parties who first de- 
 manded a parliamentary investigation, are now, 
 
 B 2
 
 after having had, in J837, the opportunity of stating 
 tlieir case, the parties to protest against hearing the 
 other side of the c[uestion. And is the House aware 
 of the composition of that committee, which vvas 
 appointed in 183G, and re-appointed in 1837, to 
 examine this subject ? I will read the names. 
 They are — 
 
 Mr. T. F. Buxton, Mr. Oswald, 
 
 Sir G. Grey, Mr. Lushington, 
 
 Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Thornely, 
 
 Mr. W. Gladstone, Mr. A. Johnstone, 
 
 Mr. Baines, Lord Sandon, 
 
 Mr. Plumptre,* Sir J. Graham, 
 
 Mr. Labouchere, Lord Howick. 
 Mr. P. Stewart, 
 
 Very few of these are from the Conservative party. 
 Only three are connected with West Indian property, 
 and of these one is the hon. member for Ashburton, 
 the brother to the hon. and learned member for the 
 Tower Hamlets. Can any man listen to the recital 
 of these names, and then need to be told, that if 
 there had been a bias upon the mind of that com- 
 mittee, it would not have been a bias favourable to 
 the planter ? 
 
 And yet that committee had furnished a report, 
 an unanimous report, in the year 1836, having then 
 before its view the defects in the existing colonial 
 laws, in which they stated, — 
 
 * Afterwards replaced by Sir Stratford Canning.
 
 " Under these circumstances, your committee feel 
 hound to express their conviction that nothing could 
 he more unfortunate than any occurrence which 
 had a tendency to unsettle the minds of either class, 
 with regard to the fixed determination of the Impe- 
 rial Parliament to preserve inviolate both parts of the 
 solemn engagement by which the services of the ap- 
 prenticed labourer were secured to his employer, 
 for a definite period, and under specified restrictions." 
 
 And they went further than this ; for they gave a 
 positive opinion upon the merits of the apprentice- 
 ship itself. 
 
 " Upon a general review of the evidence which they 
 have received, they conceive that they are warranted 
 in expressing a belief, that the system of apprentice- 
 ship in Jamaica is working in a manner not unfavour- 
 able to the momentous change from slavery to 
 freedom which is now going on there." 
 
 Next, as regards the views of ]Vlr. Buxton. That 
 gentleman had felt the injustice of deciding without 
 hearing. He declared, in November last,* " It can 
 hardly be expected that Parliament will pronounce 
 its verdict until our evidence has been stated in 
 detail, and the apprentice holders have been heard in 
 reply." He had further said, *' I am utterly deceived 
 if you find one hundred men in either House, who 
 will vote even for inquiring whether the appren- 
 ticeship ought to be abolished." Such was, I must 
 say, Mr. Buxton's unbiassed opinion, with the evi- 
 dence before him. It is stated that he has altered 
 
 * Appendix A.
 
 6 
 
 it more recently. I claim the authority of his for- 
 mer declaration. I have a high respect for his 
 motives, and every confidence in his judgment when 
 acting for himself, but less, I admit, when he has 
 been thrown into the boiling caldron of agitation. 
 The letter I have quoted is from North Repps Hall : 
 at another hall, Exeter-hall, I am more suspicious 
 of his opinions. 
 
 But as regards his connexion with the report of 
 1836, I need only say that he was present at the 
 discussion when it was unanimously agreed upon, 
 and that he took an active part ; and the meeting was 
 a numerous one. My recollection of what passed on 
 that occasion, and of expressions which were used, 
 is extremely distinct : and although I should not 
 think it desirable needlessly to enter into those de- 
 tails, I should feel it my duty to do so, if any 
 attempt w^ere made to question the fact, that Mr. 
 Buxton was bona fide a concurring party to that 
 report. 
 
 Is it not a remarkable circumstance, that of all 
 those to whom the House delegated this momentous 
 inquiry, not one could be found to move or second 
 this resolution, which has been left at the mercy of 
 strangers, and but one of fifteen members of the 
 committee has spoken in its support. 
 
 Sir, I divide the argument on the merits of this 
 case into two parts : the first, that which regards 
 the relations between the planter and the negro; 
 the second involving those between the planter and 
 the imperial legislature. 1 admit, I avow, I con-
 
 tend, that these are questions entirely distinct ; and 
 if a case of hardship can be made out affecting the 
 bulk of the black population, then I think their 
 wrongs call in the first instance for redress ; and that 
 although the planter might, in such case, have a claim 
 on the government for compensation ; and although 
 1 am well aware that in practice his postponing that 
 claim till his hold on the services of the negro had 
 been absolutely withdrawn, would in practice deprive 
 him of the hope of obtaining for it a fair considera- 
 tion, yet still, because the theory of justice requires 
 it, I am content to depend simply upon this issue, 
 the condition of the negro population. And if 1 go 
 first in time to that branch of the argument which 
 I have placed last in importance, it is only that I 
 may disembarrass my mind of the pecuniary ques- 
 tion, before I proceed to argue what is most weighty 
 and essential. * 
 
 I maintain then, Sir, that there is a compact in 
 this case. There has been much special pleading 
 upon the term. And, indeed, it is in strictness 
 difl[icult to say what compact there can be between 
 a supreme legislature, and subject bodies or indivi- 
 duals ; because a compact by its definition implies 
 that two parties are agreeing to do something which 
 they had the power not to do; while, on the other 
 hand, the idea of a supreme legislature implies, that 
 it has, in the last resort, an absolute control over all 
 that belongs to the governed, and, consequently, they 
 cannot give to it what it already possesses. But in
 
 8 
 
 substance and in practice it is otherwise. We hear 
 constantly, for example, of the original contract or 
 compact between the ruler and the subject. Where 
 is that contract written, or in what store of archives 
 is it preserved ? It is written in the nature of 
 things ; it is merely a form of expressing the essen- 
 tial obligatory relations which connect the parties. 
 And so in this case ; there vi^as all the substance, 
 there was the nearest possible approach to the form 
 of a contract in the Abolition Act of 1833, ratified 
 by his Majesty ; it had every sanction that the pro- 
 ceedings of Parliament could give, and it had a yet 
 deeper foundation on the immutable principles of 
 justice. 
 
 As between the administration of Lord Grey and 
 the W^est Indian body, the compact was clear even in 
 form. To show this I will state, in the presence of 
 the noble mover of the bill, who will correct me if I 
 am inaccurate, that before the final basis of the plan 
 of emancipation was submitted to Parliament, Lord 
 Spencer and Lord Stanley, on the part of the go- 
 vernment, had an interview with several gentlemen 
 on the part of the West Indians, to whom they 
 oflferedthe choice of the following three alternatives, 
 in the nature of compensation. 
 
 The first : a grant of twenty millions, with twelve 
 years' apprenticeship. 
 
 The second : a grant of twenty millions, a loan of 
 ten millions, and a seven years' apprenticeship.
 
 9 
 
 The third : a grant of fifteen millions, a loan of 
 ten millions, and a seven years' apprenticeship. 
 
 The West Indians preferred the first ; but any gen- 
 tleman will perceive, from equating these three alter- 
 natives, that in the estimation of the government, the 
 extra five years of apprenticeship were of the value 
 of five millions sterling, paid seven years in advance; 
 and I advert to this for the purpose of showing, 
 first, how specifically the apprenticeship"^ bore a 
 computed value as part and parcel of the compensa- 
 tion ; and, secondly, that when Parliament indicated, 
 as was believed by the noble lord, a disposition to 
 refuse its assent to these terms, he, acting as he did 
 with the strictest honour, felt himself bound to them, 
 until released by the agreement of the West Indian 
 proprietors, to accept a compensation, less, as I have 
 shown, by five millions at seven years' advance, 
 than that which the administration had deemed to 
 be an equitable amount, 
 
 1 will next show that the remaining term of this 
 apprenticeship continues to bear a marketable value, 
 by a reference to cases in my possession. 
 
 I take first the case of forty-eiglit negroes, whose 
 services were purchased in December last by Mr. 
 Spencer Mackay, a planter of Demerara, at 92/. 
 sterling per head, for the residue of their time, 
 amounting to two years and seven months. Next, 
 that of about one hundred negroes, whose time was 
 purchased at the same period by the government of 
 
 * Sec appendix B.
 
 10 
 
 British Guiana, at about 100/. sterlinf^ for eacli 
 labourer. I request the House, in passing, to observe 
 the very high value of effective labour in that colony: 
 it is not the apprentice alone who has to pay clearly 
 for its purchase. 
 
 Lastly, I quote a case, from Jamaica, dated no 
 farther back than the 20tli of January last, and an- 
 nounced by the last packet, in which Mr. Robert 
 Page assigned to Mr. Joseph Gordon, as attorney for 
 Sir Alexander Grant, the services of the Hill Side 
 apprentices, comprising of able-bodied persons about 
 thirty, with certain others, for lOOOZ. sterling. 
 
 Thus the House will see with what perfect confi- 
 dence the West Indians are reposing on the faith of 
 the British leoislature, and with what entire uncon- 
 sciousness of the charge, that the compact between 
 them has already been made void. 
 
 And now with regard to the amount of the consi- 
 deration which the West Indians received. It has 
 been said, not only by Lord Brougham, which is of 
 less moment, but by such persons, for example, as 
 the Bishop of London — of whom I shall never 
 speak but with sentiments of the highest respect and 
 esteem — that the planters have been sufficiently 
 compensated for the labour of the slaves by the 
 grant of twenty millions, without the guaranteed 
 labour of the apprenticeship. It is alleged, and com- 
 monly, that they are enormous gainers by the bar- 
 gain. I deny it; but I do not complain of the in- 
 sufficiency of the compensation ; it was a noble and
 
 11 
 
 a generous act in the Parliament to vote it. 1 only 
 remind gentlemen, that although twenty millions 
 sound as a large sum, when you come to buy up the 
 property of whole communities, or the labour re- 
 quired to make it available, you must necessarily 
 deal in large sums. I find, for example, the agri- 
 cultural produce of Ireland valued at 36,000,000/. 
 annually, which, at twenty-five years' purchase, 
 would give, for the gross value of land and labour, 
 (and both are included in the case before us,) 
 900,000,000/. The agricultural produce of England 
 I find valued at 156,000,000/. annually ; which, at 
 thirty years' purchase, would similarly give 
 4,680,000,000/. The fair and real test is not the 
 absolute but the relative magnitude of the sum, as 
 compared with the consideration received for it. 
 
 Now, the noble lord, the member for North Lan- 
 cashire, in his speech of May, 1833, valued the 
 labour of the slaves at 30,000,000/. It was, how- 
 ever, valued by appraisement, under the assistant 
 commissioners of compensation in 1834, at 
 51,000,000/. ; and a most authentic record, namely, 
 the averages of actual sales as ascertained by the 
 commissioners, taken during a period of depression, 
 namely, that from 1822 to 1830, gave a value of 
 45,000,000/. Over and above this was involved the 
 whole amount of the lands, works, and buildings, 
 which were dependent on the supply of labour. For 
 this, then, it was that you gave twenty millions, paid 
 six years in advance, with an apprenticeship to 
 1840.
 
 12 
 
 But further, we must recollect, that the experi- 
 ment of apprenticeship at the time was considered by 
 the most eager promoters of abolition as one that 
 would be ruinous. The noble lord, (for example,) 
 now secretary at war, (Lord Howick,) prophesied 
 that it would fail to secure labour. Somethino^ was 
 of course to be allowed for that uncertainty, con- 
 nected with those anticipations, nor are the West 
 Indians to be reprobated if they have been falsified. 
 
 Now, Sir, it has been observed, that property has 
 become marketable durin<r the apprenticeship, and 
 that a stimulus has been given to the cultivation, 
 and that these causes have made the West Indies 
 absolutely gainers by the change. 
 
 With regard to the first, the case is this : — Before 
 the abolition of slavery, the excitement upon that sub- 
 ject had been such, as to throw the greatest uncer- 
 tainty upon the title of West Indian property. In 
 a state of which uncertainty was the main charac- 
 teristic, it became better worth the while both of 
 buyers and sellers to wait for some settlement of the 
 question, than to run the enormous risks on the one 
 hand, or incur the immense losses on the other, 
 which would then have attended the transfer of the 
 property. But when the Abolition Act was passed, 
 you gave a new legal guarantee to the labour on 
 which the planter depends ; security was sub- 
 stituted for doubt, and estates became saleable. But 
 at what price ? We have the evidence of Mr. Mil- 
 ler and Mr. Oldham,* given before the committee of 
 * Questions 3798-9, 4345.
 
 1836, to the effect that the price paid has been little 
 beyond a number of years' purchase corresponding 
 with the remaining term of apprenticeship. Mr. 
 Miller was asked, with respect to an estate sold at 
 6,000Z. (and which had been valued, more than 
 twenty years back, at CO,OOOZ. currency,) whether 
 that sum was fixed on a calculation that the returns 
 during the apprenticeship would replace it; and 
 whether nothing was allowed for the subsequent re- 
 version ? His answer was, that it had been valued 
 with reference to the probable returns during the 
 apprenticeship, and that they gave little considera- 
 tion to the reversion. Mr. Oldham testified that he 
 had bought for 12,000/. what cost 35,000/,, and he 
 was willing to be a buyer, but only at four years' pur- 
 chase. 
 
 Next, with reo^ard to the encourao-ement of culti- 
 vation. There is no doubt that such has been in 
 some instances the fact : often, as respects sugar, to 
 the injury of other products. But what was the 
 nature of this compensation ? It was money paid 
 altogether in advance ; it was paid for two things, 
 (besides the freedom of the children,) first, the 
 fourth part of the apprentice's working-time for six 
 years, and next for his whole time at the end of that 
 period. Thus, a large portion of the money was 
 actually given six years before the equivalent for it 
 was to be rendered. Of course the intermediate 
 effect was release from incumbrances, and increased 
 activity ; but it was burdening the future to relieve
 
 14 
 
 the present — it was as if a man in this country 
 slioukl raise money by anticipation, six years before- 
 hand, for the improvement of his estate ; or as if 
 one should obtain it by post obit bonds ; and what 
 could possibly be more inaccurate, than to mistake 
 an artificial stimulus of this description for stable 
 and permanent prosperity ? In point of fact, we 
 have not yet arrived at the real solution of this ques- 
 tion, and we shall not know with any certainty, un- 
 til the apprenticeship has expired, how stands the 
 account between the state and the planter. 
 
 But I proceed to circumstances of probability 
 which bear upon that future solution. 
 
 I find from the evidence before the committee of 
 1836, that the crops were only kept up at their pre- 
 vious amount, when the whole interest of the com- 
 pensation money* was laid out upon them ; but I 
 have shown that a part of that money does not pro- 
 perly belong to the period of apprenticeship, and 
 therefore we have here the resources of the future 
 forestalled, in order to meet the present necessity. 
 
 I shall next give some facts, which I take on ac- 
 count of their lying within my own private know- 
 ledge, and tending to show in the first place the 
 general depreciation of West Indian property, not 
 specially connected with the Abolition Act. 
 
 The estate of Lacovia, in Jamaica, was purchased 
 by Mr. Watt about the year 1813. It stood in his 
 books charged with 115,000/. The compensation 
 
 * Appendix C.
 
 15 
 
 upon it would be about 4,200/., the people being two 
 hundred and fourteen. It was bought within the last 
 year for 9,000/. by a person to whom local circum- 
 stances ofave it an extra value. Here we have a dis- 
 appearance of 100,000/. 
 
 The Campbell estates in Jamaica are termed 
 Holland, Fishriver, and Petersville. On the death 
 of their possessor in 1821, they were charged with 
 legacies and annuities to the amount of 63,000/. 
 They were mortgaged at the time for 81,000/. As- 
 suminof the whole* to have been absorbed under 
 these heads, we have a value thus indicated of 
 144,000/. The compensation upon the three did not 
 reach 14,000/. The estates or shares in them have 
 changed hands under the apprenticeship, at prices the 
 aggregate of which is 29,000/., leaving unaccounted 
 for, the sum of 101,000/. I am not awarQof any- 
 thing in these cases which renders them exceptional. 
 
 I proceed to another case, which I believe repre- 
 sents West Indian property under the most favour- 
 able aspects, and which does exhibit the effect of the 
 Abolition Law upon its value. The facts lie entirely 
 within my own knowledge. A planter holding four 
 estates in British Guiana estimated them, in the year 
 1831, at 300,000/. The estimate is more than justified 
 by the fact, that in the year 1826 a moiety of two of 
 these four estates, which were worth about one-third 
 part of the entire 300,000/., was sold for 75,000/. ; 
 and that the number of people, upon the whole, being- 
 one thousand three hundred and ten, is demon-
 
 16 
 
 strated, by the amount of compensation actu- 
 ally paid for them, to have had a value as slaves, 
 under the averages of the commissioners, amounting 
 to 160,500/. ; wliile the lands, works, and buildings, 
 are usually taken in British Guiana at as much more. 
 This proprietor has received 72,400/. as compen- 
 sation money, leaving 227,600/. against the estates. 
 He w^ould gladly agree to dispose of his interest in 
 them after 1840 for 100,000/. payable at that time ; 
 leaving a loss of 127,600/., or about 42i per cent, on 
 the entire value. And this I believe to be in every 
 respect an advantageous case. 
 
 Sir, I have laboured this point hard, at the risk 
 of w^earying the House, because I feel that if the 
 West Indians had really enjoyed a gainful bargain, 
 and this in addition to being charged with a broken 
 engagement, that new circumstance would have 
 added a deeper dye to the baseness of which they 
 are accused. 
 
 And I must still make reference to the most au- 
 thentic mode of proof, namely, the general returns of 
 produce and revenue for the colonies, from, their 
 great export, that of sugar, for which there has been 
 a tendency to sacrifice every other article. 
 
 I take accordingly the quantity of sugar imported 
 into this country, and the Gazette average price, first 
 in the year 1814, where the proceeds were highest; 
 next in the years 1816-18, after the peace; (in both 
 these cases the Mauritius is excluded from the re- 
 turns ;) thirdly, in the years 1832-4, a period of great
 
 17 
 
 depression, and the last years of slavery : and 
 fourthly, the years 1835-7, being those of appren- 
 ticeship. They stand thus — 
 
 Quantity, Gazette Average 
 
 ^*^- in Tons. Price per Cwt. ^^°^^ Proceeds. 
 
 1st. 1814 - 196,200 - - 735. A^d. - - £.12,484,000 
 
 2d. 
 
 1816 - 
 
 1817 - 
 
 1818 - 
 
 Average 
 
 1832 - 
 
 1833 - 
 
 1834 - 
 
 .1835 - 
 
 1836 - 
 
 1837 - 
 
 Average ■ 
 
 185,000 - - 
 190,400 . - 
 196,100 - - 
 
 435. 6|rf. 
 
 49 8 
 
 50 
 
 275. 81rf. 
 29 71 
 29 5 
 
 335. 6d, 
 40 10 
 34 71 
 
 - - £.8,354,000 
 
 - - 8,850,000 
 
 - - 9,163,000 
 
 
 3)571,500 
 
 - 3 ) 26,367,000 
 
 
 - 190,500 
 
 - - £.8,789,000 
 
 3(1. 
 
 211,000 - - 
 209,000 - - 
 214,000 - - 
 
 - -. £.5,855,000 
 
 - - 6,196,300 
 
 - - 6,209,500 
 
 
 3 ) 634,000 
 211,300 
 
 - 3)18,351,800 
 
 
 - - £6,117,260 
 
 4th, 
 
 200,000 - - 
 197,000 - - 
 184,000 - - 
 
 - - £,6,700,000 
 
 - - 8,045,000 
 
 - - 6,366,000 
 
 
 3)581,000 
 
 - 3)21,111,000 
 
 
 . 193,660 
 
 £.7,037,000 
 
 If then we compare the annual proceeds under the 
 apprenticeship, favoured as they have been by high 
 prices, with the three last years of slavery, we have an 
 increased return of £.920,000 annually : but if with 
 the highest returns which the West Indies have made, 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 a decrease appears of £.5,447,000 : and if with the 
 first years of the peace, a decrease of £.1,752,000. 
 
 The profits have been chiefly in the crown colonies, 
 where legislation under the Abolition Act has been 
 within your own control. 
 
 Jamaica has gained nothing, as appears by the 
 following calculation. 
 
 1st. 1832 - - 71,570 tons, at £.27 15 per ton. 
 
 1833 - - 62,850 - - 29 13 — 
 
 1834 - - 62,810 - - 29 8 — 
 
 3)197,230 3)86 16 
 
 Average - 65,776 tons, at £.28 18 
 
 Average gross price - - £.1,874,000. 
 
 2(1, 1835 - - 57,430 tons, at £.33 10 per ton. 
 
 1836 s - 52,700 - 40 17 — 
 
 1837 n - 44,200 - - 34 12 — 
 
 3) 154,330 3) 108 19 
 
 Average - 51,400 tons, at £. 36 6 
 
 Average gross price - - £.1,865,880. 
 
 I regret to say that Antigua is also a loser, under 
 the operation, however, wholly or partially, of na- 
 tural causes, since 1834. 
 
 1832 - - 7,160 tons. 1835 - - 8,730 tons. 
 
 1833 - ^ 6,480 — 1836 - - 6,770 — 
 
 1834 - - 12,850 — 1837 - - 3,600 — 
 
 3)26,490 3)19,100 
 
 Average - 8,830 tons. Average - 6,360 
 
 Value - £,251,655 Value - £.230,868
 
 19 
 
 And thus, Sir, having shown the amount of present 
 returns, and the probability of future loss, I have only 
 to add on this part of the subject, that I do not re- 
 gret that loss, whatever it may eventually be. I do 
 not complain that, bearing a share as a portion of the 
 community, the planters should likewise make an ad- 
 ditional and a heavy sacrifice. To emerge from such 
 a state as that of slavery without serious loss, would 
 be alike beyond our deserts and our anticipations, but 
 I think it hard only, that an accusation of enormous 
 profits should be brought when the case is likely to 
 prove the very reverse.^ 
 
 I now approach the more essential portion of the 
 argument. There was a compact. Has it been broken 
 by the West Indian body, or by the Assembly of Ja- 
 maica? Sir, when the bill of 1833 was passed. Par- 
 liament itself provided a criterion for determining 
 absolutely whether the substance of the compact 
 had, so far as legislation was concerned, been fulfilled. 
 
 The decision was referred, by some strange error, 
 not to an unseen and unknown committee, but to the 
 king in council and to his administration, acting on 
 their public responsibility ! In every single case, this 
 the appointed authority has long ago declared the 
 conditions to have been fulfilled. But a question 
 arises respecting the subsidiary and secondary legis- 
 lation, required for carrying out the spirit of the 
 Act. I do not seek to avoid this question, but it is 
 a distinct one. And here I neither myself comprehend, 
 
 * Appendix D. 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 nor can I undertake to vindicate, the conduct of the 
 Assembly of Jamaica. Heartily do I wish that it 
 were in the power of those who hold the pro- 
 perty of the island to influence more sensibly the 
 composition of that body, by whose acts they must 
 be bound. I observe, however, in the first place, 
 that the questions now raised are supplemental 
 questions, not comprised in the Abolition Act but 
 beyond it : and in the second, that Parliament in the 
 last resort has the responsibility, for it retained the 
 power of supplemental legislation in its own hands. 
 It has retained that power in law, for in the sixteenth 
 clause of the Abolition Act it makes no absolute sur- 
 render to the assemblies, but merely states that it 
 cannot be exercised by the British legislature " with- 
 out great inconvenience." It has retained the power 
 in practice, because in the year 1836, when an useful 
 law of Jamaica, denominated the Act in Aid, had been 
 suffered to expire. Parliament interposed, and with- 
 out protest, except, I believe, on the part of the then 
 member for Bath, a bill was passed for renewing that 
 colonial act, and thus you have laid at your own 
 doors the responsibility, if legal abuses and defects 
 have not been removed. Had you reserved no 
 power of interference with details short of breaking 
 up the entire compact, I will not now inquire 
 whether the merits of the question might have been 
 different. 
 
 I now proceed to the case of Jamaica, and I shall 
 endeavour to deal with it explicitly and in good faith.
 
 21 
 
 without omissions, though my memory may not 
 enable me to gather and notice all the allegations 
 that have been made in the entire course of this 
 debate. I shall not refer to anonymous and unau- 
 thenticated statements, but I shall found my argu- 
 ment almost wholly upon the public reports of re- 
 sponsible officers, laid upon the table of this House, 
 and open to exposure if their statements bad been 
 false. I should blush to follow the course of the 
 honourable gentleman (Mr. Pease) who seconded the 
 present motion, and who occupied the House with 
 allegations from nameless persons, which it is wholly 
 impossible to test. No, Sir, I had forgotten ; in his 
 courtesy he promised me the name of his informant : 
 vote away the apprenticeship to-night, and give me 
 the name to-morrow morning ! Really, Sir, to ad- 
 vance such charges, and to expect that within a few 
 hours of their promulgation this House is to go to a 
 definitive vote on their uninvestigated credit, is the ve- 
 riest mockery of justice that imagination can conceive. 
 But I thank the honourable and learned gentle- 
 man, the member for the Tower Hamlets, (Dr. Lush- 
 ington,) for he, first of his whole party, seems to 
 have disclaimed the idea of deciding this question 
 upon rare and individual cases, and to have been 
 struck with the idea that it was well to refer to the 
 accredited statements which public functionaries 
 have sent home. Sir, I agree with him; but, from the 
 source to which he has referred me, I will show the 
 falseness of his conclusions : and I agree with him 
 in another principle which he laid down, that
 
 22 
 
 we are to be bound by the rule and not the ex- 
 ception in the conduct of the planters; I join issue 
 with him on the very terms which he stated, and which 
 at the moment I took down, *' that tlie contract has 
 been broken by a very large and preponderating ma- 
 jority of the island of Jamaica." 
 
 First, as to the abuses in the law : they were for 
 the most part before the committee of 1836, when it 
 came to its unanimous report. As to those which 
 have since come to light, they are completely met, 
 together with the first, by the provisions of the bill 
 now before the House. That bill, says the honour- 
 able and learned member for Dublin, (Mr. O'Connell,) 
 goes to establish a dictatorship or a despotism in the 
 West Indies. Sir, it is true that the provisions of 
 the bill for the protection of the negro are most 
 stringent : the constitutional rights of their employ- 
 ers are utterly set aside in the bill, to secure that 
 great object : and I enter into no questions of poli- 
 tical privilege, I freely waive those rights, not now 
 for the first time, but as I have ever been ready for 
 such a cause to do : I think that the West Indians, 
 on every ground, but especially as non-resident pro- 
 prietors, are bound to yield everything for the pro- 
 tection of the negro : in the substance and principle 
 of the enactments of the bill I entirely concur : and 
 I have a right to ask, why have we not had this legal 
 remedy at an earlier period ? Sir, I do not hesitate to 
 state my deliberate belief that the postponement is 
 mainly owing to Mr. Sturge and his coadjutors.* 
 
 * Appendix E.
 
 23 
 
 They went to the West Indies. They accepted the 
 civilities, the hospitalities, of managers and planters : 
 they stored up all allegations of abuse until they had 
 reached a distant land, where it would require much 
 time to investigate their truth. They pursued a 
 course the very opposite of that which in common 
 sense would be followed by men anxious only for the 
 truth. What right had Mr. Sturge to distrust the 
 willingness or the power of Sir Lionel Smith to in- 
 vestigate his allegations ? After all, it is to him that 
 they have been referred : it is upon his report, in the 
 shocking case of James Williams, that we rely. 
 Why was this not done in the first instance ? why 
 was Sir Lionel Smith, in whom perhaps, as much as 
 in any governor of any of our colonies, temper, 
 talent, principle, and judgment are combined, thus 
 suspected by Mr. Sturge? Even his politics, I be- 
 lieve, are akin to those of the administration. Now, 
 had he gone to Sir Lionel Smith with the narrative of 
 Williams, the inquiry would have been instituted, 
 the report sent home early in the last session, and 
 the Government would have come down with an irre- 
 sistible demand for new enactments : twelve months 
 of many difficulties and some suffering would have 
 been avoided, but an opportunity for agitation and 
 excitement would have been lost. So much for the 
 case of defects in the law, which has been seriously 
 raised in this debate with regard to Jamaica alone, 
 and which I have thus argued affords no ground for 
 abolishing the apprenticeship.
 
 24 
 
 1 pass to consider the actual condition of the ap- 
 prentice population ; for if the practice on the 
 whole be good, you would scarcely punish with se- 
 verity the deficiencies of the law even were they of 
 a dillerent order. Remember always, that the ques- 
 tion is, whether the generality or the majority of the 
 planters have violated the compact. 
 
 I divide the evidence into two classes: that which 
 is ex -parity and that which has a public authority, 
 or has been subjected to investigation. And with 
 respect to the first,* I apprehend I am justified in 
 arguing, that the only use which can be made of 
 it is, as a reason for inquiry : it cannot warrant a 
 definitive vote. Upon any other principle, no man, 
 no relation of life, can be secure. I need only then 
 consider the authenticated statements, for the pur- 
 poses of this debate, and these afford no ground of 
 serious allegation, except in the case of Jamaica. 
 
 Now, Sir, I differ from those who have preceded 
 me in the means I have pursued for the collection of 
 the general efTect of the evidence from the papers 
 on your table. I am prepared to rely upon the 
 reports of our governors and of the stipendiary 
 magistrates. Attempts have been made to impeach 
 the veracity of these gentlemen : yes, made by per- 
 sons who themselves are not ashamed to be accusers 
 upon anonymous or irresponsible testimony. It is 
 said, that the magistrates receive the hospitalities 
 of the planters; and it may be true: but the House 
 is to recollect, that in the West Indies, dispersed as 
 
 * Appendix F.
 
 25 
 
 is the population, and the country destitute of inns, 
 the man who refused hospitality would be regarded 
 in the common opinion as a monster ; it is given as a 
 matter of course, and almost a right, and not as a 
 matter of personal favour. If, however, I grant, that 
 from this cause there may be an influence — is there 
 none to countervail it ? These magistrates are a body 
 of English gentlemen ; many of them from those ser- 
 vices which are marked by the highest sense of 
 honour; without West Indian interests or preju- 
 dices : but this is not all ; they are judicial officers, 
 and yet they are not, as judicial officers should ordi- 
 narily be, exempted from the control of the execu- 
 tive government, but they are absolutely dependent 
 for their subsistence on the respective governors, 
 and dismissible at their pleasure, while the gover- 
 nors, I need not say, represent the administration at 
 home, so that if there were matter of charge against 
 them it would redound upon the imperial authori- 
 ties : but there is no evidence of the kind. There 
 have, however, been two actions against them, with 
 unfavourable verdicts given by Jamaica juries. And 
 here I may say, I am not favourable to the interpo- 
 sition of West Indian juries, as at present consti- 
 tuted, between the planter and the apprentice : and 
 my honourable friend, the Under Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, can correct me if I am wrong in 
 stating that he knows this is with me no new opinion. 
 But let us take them as they are. Two verdicts 
 were found against special magistrates : yet it is fair
 
 26 
 
 to add, that I find, in page 133 of the Parliamentary 
 Papers, Part V., that Mr. Colin Chisholm, a consi- 
 derable proprietor and attorney, had been fined 100/. 
 at the Surrey assizes for an assault on Mr. Special 
 Justice Bourne. I could cite, on the other hand, a 
 case of a special magistrate, who was fined seven 
 thousand guilders, not by a jury, but by professional 
 judges, holding their appointments from the crown, 
 for an assault on a white person. These magis- 
 trates are not infallible : but is it to be supposed 
 for a moment, that a body of one hundred and fifty 
 English gentlemen could be terrified out of the dis- 
 charge of their solemn duties by the results of three 
 actions in Jamaica, one of which was favourable, 
 while in the other two the charges were borne, and 
 properly borne under the circumstances, by the 
 government ? These magistrates have the freest 
 access to the negroes : they spend their time in iti- 
 nerating over the estates : they have all the means 
 of information and the will to use it, and to their 
 information I appeal. 
 
 We have in the Papers, Part V., a despatch of Sir 
 Lionel Smith's, dated 8th September, 1837, convey- 
 ing fifty-six inclosures, which are the last quarterly 
 returns from fifty-five special magistrates. It did cer- 
 tainly appear to me, though it had not so appeared to 
 the honourable and learned gentleman, (Dr. Lush- 
 ington,) that as these reports contain for the most 
 part specific answers to a set of twelve questions 
 from the governor upon the state of the negroes, the
 
 27 
 
 natural course was to place them in a tabular form ; 
 and I shall now give the most important of the results, 
 particular by particular, point by point. He has 
 done otherwise : as he has read individual state- 
 ments respecting free children who are tended by 
 their parents alone, so I could read an account from 
 a magistrate who states that they are neglected by 
 their mothers, but supported by the planters; but I 
 shall look for general results. He boasts that he 
 has thrice read the documents : what avails it, when 
 his repeated perusals have only enabled him to read 
 partial extracts which coincide with his views, and 
 to make that general allegation respecting the effect 
 of their evidence as a whole, which I will utterly 
 overthrow by the process I have stated. 
 
 With hardly an exception, they testify to the good 
 disposition of the negroes. 
 
 As respects the reciprocal feeling of employers 
 and employed, nine only of the fifty-five report it to 
 be otherwise than good. I deeply regret that there 
 are nine such reports : but let us not forget the forty- 
 six. 
 
 As respects the nine and eight hour systems, the 
 House should know that this has been one of the 
 great causes of bickering : I will not detain you by 
 explaining the phrases further than to say, that they 
 denote different distributions of the time legally 
 exigible, of which the first is taken to be more con- 
 venient to the nesrro than the other. Now of the 
 fifty-five, twenty-nine only make a special report on
 
 28 
 
 this subject; and I take it for granted therefore, 
 where they only deal in general terms, that they 
 had no specific grievance to mention. And how are 
 these twenty-nine subdivided ? Of the twenty-nine, 
 one says, that the eight-hour system prevails, and is 
 not unpopular with tlie negroes : another, that it is 
 falling into disuse, because the negroes have begun 
 to dislike it : two, simply that it is in general use : 
 and twenty 'Jive, that the nine-hour system is in 
 general use. 
 
 The next important question of grievance is, that 
 which relates to the customary indulgences. Their 
 withdrawal in certain cases has been made matter 
 of serious complaint. They were not legally de- 
 mandable under the Abolition Act ; but I think that 
 in equity and in kindness they were due; and I am 
 willing to be bound by these principles, as if they 
 had the stringency of law. The committee of 183G 
 reported that they were very generally given on the 
 larger properties : I do not, however, stand on that 
 report, and I look to the special magistrates to assure 
 me what is the conduct of the majority. There are 
 thirty special reports upon the point. Of these one 
 states that they are commonly given, on condition 
 that the negroes shall work for wages. Three state, 
 that they are given as a consideration for extra 
 labour. Two state, that they are generally with- 
 held. Twenty-four state, that they are generally 
 given without reserve. 
 
 Another point is, that of manumissions, on which
 
 29 
 
 there is, undoubtedly, a case of hardship. I think 
 the tribunal has been a bad one, and I deeply regret 
 it, if the negro has been in any case paid one pound 
 or one shilling beyond the real value of the labour 
 he has bought out. On this subject there are nine- 
 teen or twenty special reports. Eight state that 
 there is little desire to redeem the residue of the 
 apprenticeship : eleven or twelve, that the negroes 
 are too poor, or the valuations too high. But now 
 let us look at the amount of the grievance. And 
 here again I refer you to an authentic statement. 
 In page 89 of Papers, Part V., you vy^ill find a re- 
 turn of concluded and unconcluded valuations, from 
 the 1st November, 1836, to 31st July, 1837; the 
 average term bought up was three years and five 
 months, the average price 18/. sterling, or 29/. 
 currency : a price higher, probably, than it should 
 have been, yet not of the enormous character that 
 has been represented, considering that the manu- 
 mitted negroes are, on the whole, I apprehend, of a 
 superior class : nor, on the other hand, have the 
 great mass been repelled, for it appears that in 
 these nine months one thousand and twenty valua- 
 tions have been concluded, four hundred and five have 
 remained unconcluded. Now, Sir, I do trust, that 
 allowing for the possibility of error in units, I have 
 dealt fairly by the House and by the merits in the 
 manner in which I have here addressed myself to 
 the examination of the evidence. 
 
 I pass to another important subject, that of edu-
 
 30 
 
 cation. Now this has always been a sore point during 
 West Indian discussions, and old prejudices are not 
 easily removed ; but the state of feeling undergoes 
 daily improvement, and that improvementwill, please 
 God, continue, if it be not intercepted by the present 
 agitation. Again I refer you to a public document : 
 it is the report, dated Oct. 19, 1837, of Mr. La 
 Trobe, a gentleman appointed by the present go- 
 vernment, and not being a member of the church 
 of England, to inquire into the state of education. 
 I find in the eleventh page of that report, 
 
 ** That active opposition to the various plans set 
 on foot for the education of the apprentice or his chil- 
 dren, by whatever religious denomination they maybe 
 proposed, is rarely to be met with, either on the 
 part of the authorities or of influential individuals." 
 
 And again, — 
 
 " It is to be admitted, that many exhibit great 
 apathy with reference to the question, yet it is no 
 less true that the change of public opinion on this 
 head in the island has been such as to surprise 
 those acquainted, for even ten years past, with the 
 colony, and with the strength of prejudices, which 
 the former state of things had apparently rooted in 
 the mind of the community at large, beyond all hope 
 of speedy eradication : and when every few months 
 give proof of an advance in the public feeling on 
 this head, and bring with them the hearty and 
 liberal co-operation of many influential individuals, 
 who, up to a recent date, comparatively, were fore-
 
 31 
 
 most in opposition, there is certainly every en- 
 couragement held out to the friends of education, at 
 home and in the island, and far more reason to 
 wonder that so much has been already achieved, 
 than that so much remains to be done." 
 
 I now come to the most painful portion of the 
 case ; the abuses connected with the management 
 of certain prisons in Jamaica. Even here I must 
 observe it is satisfactory to find that, as in the first 
 place, the learned gentleman has dealt only with the 
 case of Jamaica, containing a minority of the entire 
 apprentice population, so, with reference to the cases 
 of cruelty, we have only to deal with a small and di- 
 minishing minority of that minority, for they refer only 
 to those, I believe, who have been convicted under the 
 Abolition Act. Now, Sir, let me say, that I have no 
 apology to offer for the monstrous offences which 
 have been detected in the workhouse of St. Anns, 
 and, in various degrees, in a few of the other 
 workhouses of Jamaica : but I ask again, do they 
 affect the mass ? Do they establish a rule ? I might 
 say, you cannot prove this : I deprecate the method 
 of the learned gentleman, who refers to some paper 
 from the parish of Trelawney, signed by seventy- 
 three persons, on the subject, I believe, of la- 
 bour, and on that evidence he proposes to convict 
 the whole white population of Jamaica ; but they — 
 no, I beg pardon, the white and coloured population 
 of Jamaica, amount to between forty and fifty thou- 
 sand. I shall, however, give you positive evidence
 
 32 
 
 that the cases of these workhouses are exceptions, 
 the evidence of Sir Lionel Smith. And let no man 
 say that governors are ignorant. He w^rites from 
 a personal inspection, which, much to his honour, 
 he caused to be instituted into the state of the work- 
 houses, before the mission of Captain Pringle, and 
 before he had received the evidence of Mr. Sturge. 
 On the 12th of June, 1837, he writes, as gentlemen 
 will find at the 310th page of the Papers, Part IV. 
 
 ^* Having lately returned from an inspection of 
 the greater part of these buildings, I am enabled to 
 report that, in most instances, I found them well re- 
 gulated and under a careful supervision, from which 
 the special magistrate is by no means excluded : and 
 I have every reason to believe, from the disposition 
 manifested by the local authorities, that I shall have 
 no difficulty in obtaining such modifications of the 
 existing rules, as may appear to me desirable." 
 
 And at a later period I think he announces his 
 further progress in the examination, without vary- 
 ing from the tenor of this report. 
 
 But observe. Sir, this is a question of pri- 
 son discipline, not of apprentice law. The prison 
 discipline of the West Indies may be bad : but let 
 gentlemen remember, that this is ordinarily one of 
 the last departments which is affected by social 
 ameliorations. As in England persons are unwisely 
 beginning to call workhouses by the name of prisons, 
 so in Jamaica the district prisons are habitually 
 called by the name of workhouses. Now are gentle-
 
 33 
 
 men aware what were the sufferings and abuses 
 detected in this country by the philanthropic Howard, 
 no more than some half century ago ? Do they know 
 what my hon. friend Mr. Buxton published in his work 
 on prison discipline, dated, I think, in 1818? Nay, 
 have they read the reports of the prison inspectors 
 but two or three years back, with regard to the gaol 
 of Newgate? If they have, they will be slow in 
 applying to the prisons of Jamaica a test, which 
 those of England itself are but beginning to be able 
 to bear. 
 
 Again, it is to be remembered, that in the cases 
 w^hich have attracted so much attention, there has 
 been delinquency alleged on the part of two special 
 magistrates. One has not been heard. One has been 
 dismissed. He does not represent the character of 
 the body. 
 
 But I shall now beg leave to introduce another 
 question which the honourable and learned gentle- 
 man has altogether avoided, one however which was 
 urged with tremendous and resistless force during 
 the discussions on slavery, the question of punish- 
 ments : one which does exhibit facts connected with 
 the mass, and not with single cases alone, because we 
 have periodical returns from all the magisterial dis- 
 tricts of all the punishments inflicted, made by those 
 who have pronounced the sentence. I refer you to 
 page 332 of the Papers^ Part V. You will there find 
 that in the month of May, 1837, there were punished 
 in Jamaica, males by whipping, 282 ; otherwise than 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 by whipping', 855; females 8G0 ; total 1,997. But 
 by the month of August an immense improvement 
 is exhibited : we then find males punished by whip- 
 ping, 105 ; otherwise than by whipping, 585 ; fe- 
 males, 498 ; total 1,188 : so that there is a decrease, 
 in three months, of nearly one-half upon the aggre- 
 gate of punishments, and of nearly two-thirds upon 
 the floggings. I regret that any should remain : 
 yet how diff'erent is this authentic statement, for the 
 colony, the peccant colony of Jamaica, from the re- 
 presentations that have been made by the opponents 
 of the apprenticeship. 
 
 Sir, I hope that, as well as the infirmity of me- 
 mory will allow, I have dealt with every allegation 
 regarding Jamaica. I have gone fully into the case, 
 because the greatest stress is laid upon it by the 
 supporters of the resolution. A right honourable 
 friend reminds me that I have not mentioned the 
 floofoino' of females. But I have dealt with it in 
 substance. In the instances where it has been 
 proved to have occurred, it has been the grand 
 abuse in the prison discipline : it is in itself mon- 
 strous — is a legal otfence against the Abolition Act : 
 it cannot be punished with too much severity ; and, 
 but for the course taken by Mr. Sturge, it would 
 have been eifectually prevented long ago : but it is 
 a question of prison discipline, not of the appren- 
 ticeship system. 
 
 Undoubtedly it was an omission in the Abolition 
 Act— no human wisdom could foresee everything —
 
 35 
 
 that when you were most properly providing an in- 
 dependent jurisdiction for the adjudication of ques- 
 tions between planter and apprentice, you did not 
 also make provision, that the stipendiary magistrate 
 should have an effectual control, in all respects, 
 over the prisons to which he was to sentence offen- 
 ders : yet this fault is not with the planters ; and I 
 entreat the House to consider what would be the 
 effect of rejecting the bill, and carrying the reso- 
 lution ? The bill of the government does stop the 
 abuse : if it be now a legal offence it may be 
 stopped without any bill ; but if not, the resolution 
 makes no provision whatever against it, and there 
 is nothing to prevent its introduction into every 
 prison in Jamaica ! 
 
 Sir, I pass to the other case on which the sup- 
 porters of the resolution have staked its issue, that 
 of British Guiana. Against the other colonies 
 allegations are not made. I think myself, therefore, 
 justified in omitting to consider them. The honour- 
 able seconder of the motion (Mr. Pease) chose to 
 introduce British Guiana. Truly can I say to him, 
 "I thank thee for that word." He talked of the 
 blue books, and stated he had read them. He must 
 have dreamed it. I do complain of gentlemen who 
 make reference to parliamentary documents, to which 
 they have evidently paid no real attention. He 
 utterly overlooked the plainest and broadest state- 
 ments of those books ; and gave us instead a mass 
 of private and wholly unauthenticated allegations, 
 
 D 2
 
 3(j 
 
 chiefly of individual cases, which it is of course 
 impossible to meet one by one ; and I will not meet 
 them by replies of a similar order from planters and 
 attorneys. I shall avoid the practice which I have 
 blamed in my opponents, and out of those very 
 books I shall utterly confute him (unless where it 
 has been done by my hon. friend the Under Secre- 
 tary for the Colonies already) upon every point that 
 he attempted to raise. 
 
 He raised a point upon a decrease of population, 
 with an enormous increase of produce : a decrease 
 which he admits he cannot prove, and an enormous 
 increase which I can disprove. Sir, the average 
 import of sugar from British Guiana was, in the 
 years 1832-4,* 41,790; in the years 1835-7, it was 
 about 47, 978 tons. There may be a slight inaccuracy 
 in this return. It exhibits an increase of one- 
 eighth, for which I account by the following not 
 imaginary causes : The increased investments in 
 works and machinery — the succession of three 
 remarkably fine seasons — the circumstance that 
 sugar cultivation in British Guiana has been gra- 
 dually, for a series of years, supplanting every 
 other, — and, lastly, the introduction of several thou- 
 sands of additional labourers. 
 
 He complained next, that the distance to the field 
 was taken out of the time of the negro. He seems 
 to be quite ignorant that Lord Glenelg has long 
 ago declared that it should be computed as a part 
 of the time due to the master, and that Lord Glenelg 
 
 * Appendix G.
 
 37 
 
 lias the power of regulating the law upon the sub- 
 ject as he pleases. 
 
 He complained of the treatment of the sick ; and 
 he mentioned that upon the estate of Wales, in 
 which those with whom I am connected are con- 
 cerned — but he took away all personal point from 
 the attack by adding, that the sickhouse there was 
 one of the best — lamp-oil and other nauseous sub- 
 stances were administered to invalid negroes, to 
 ascertain the reality of their indisposition. He had 
 this from one of his anonymous friends, with whom 
 I should be delighted to make acquaintance across 
 the table of one of the committee rooms of this 
 House. Sir, I need hardly say I have no informa- 
 tion on this monstrous statement : but I hope the 
 House, when thev have heard what is the oeneral 
 treatment of the labourers of British Guiana, will 
 think me justified for the present in disbelieving it. 
 If the hon. gentleman shall think fit to introduce 
 into the bill before the House a clause forbidding 
 to administer lamp-oil to the negroes, he shall have 
 my best assistance. But, seriously. Sir, I invite the 
 honourable gentleman to supply me with a state- 
 ment of his charges, that an immediate inquiry may 
 be instituted. The result of that inquiry, be it 
 what it may, shall be entirely at his service. 
 
 With regard to his general statement, I may offer 
 in answer one which 1 myself received from Mr. 
 Willis, lately a judge in British Guiana, and now 
 advanced to an office in New South Wales by 
 Iier Majesty's government, in the presence and hear-
 
 38 
 
 ing of the late member for Weymouth, of the mem- 
 ber for Leeds, and other gentlemen. He said no- 
 thing indeed of lamp-oil, but something of wine, 
 meat, and soups provided for the sick : he stated that 
 the practice of medical men on estates was considered 
 to be very valuable : that there was no point in 
 which the planters of British Guiana were more 
 commendable than in their treatment of the sick 
 apprentices. 
 
 And similarly with regard to the reduction of 
 food : I know, in those cases of which I am cognisant, 
 that the labourer receives ten pints of rice weekly, 
 (when plantains are deficient,) which are stated to 
 yield forty-five pounds and upwards of edible food, 
 together with three pounds of salt fish, and several 
 other allowances. 
 
 But I think I am justified in citing the twelfth 
 question addressed to the fifteen stipendiary magis- 
 trates of the colony, as comprehending both these 
 heads, and their answers ; and here, long as I have 
 necessarily been, I am scarcely afraid of wearying 
 the House ; the conciseness of their replies, in 
 general, is a perfect curiosity. The question com- 
 mences thus : 
 
 " Have any complaints been preferred to you 
 during the last month, from any apprenticed labour- 
 ers, respecting their clothing, food, treatment, or 
 upon any subject ?" 
 
 And now I take the latest answers that are 
 printed, those for February 1837. They run to 
 this effect.* 
 
 * Papers IV. p. 574.
 
 39 
 
 *'None. None deserving of notice. None. Two — 
 the parties were fined. No. None. None deserving 
 of notice. None. No. No. No. One referred to 
 the sheriff. None. None. None." 
 
 I have made no undue selection. This is the 
 general tenour of the reports. And is it in the face 
 of facts like these, that upon nameless testimony 
 gentlemen can expect a British parliament to break 
 faith with the planters of Guiana ? 
 
 And now, Sir, I take the condition of mothers, and 
 the abandonment of the free children. And I will 
 show, as was shown by my honourable friend (Sir 
 G. Grey) last night, that the planters have done 
 much more than was required of them, either by 
 the letter or the spirit of the compact. The parents 
 were bound to support the children, or apprentice 
 them : they have not supported, they have not ap- 
 prenticed them : but the reports of the magistrates 
 apprise you, in answer to question fourteen, that upon 
 every estate throughout the colony, except three, the 
 planters, without either present or prospective equi- 
 valent, have continued to supply to the free children 
 the whole maintenance and care which in a state of 
 slavery they had received. But who are these three 
 unnatural proprietors, that form the exception to the 
 general practice? No, Sir, not even these shall be 
 left to the honourable gentleman. The estates 
 named are those of Best, Tuchen de Vrienden, and 
 Vreesenhoop. Attracted by the similarity of the 
 last name to that of Vreedenhoop, an estate be- 
 lonjj^ino^ to Mr. Gladstone, I was induced to make
 
 40 
 
 inquiry into these cases, and let the House mark 
 the result, resting however, of course, on private 
 information. I received a letter this day from a 
 proprietor of the first, Tuchen de Vrienden, forward- 
 ing* to me a copy of one from the manager, in which 
 he says, — 
 
 *^ I can verify on oath, that the allowance of food 
 and clothing, prescribed by law, was regularly of- 
 fered for the free children, and as regularly refused." 
 
 T apprehend he means prescribed by law for slave 
 children. The reason ofthe refusal was this: theparents 
 had been persuaded, that by accepting the allowances 
 they would incur at least an implied obligation to 
 bind the children as apprentices, to which they 
 were averse. 
 
 The estate of Best, I understand, is in pecuniary 
 diflSculties, and on the verge of sequestration. The 
 estate of Vreesenhoop is actually in sequestration, 
 and of course the court would not allow, in the 
 accounts, any except legal charges. 
 
 The honourable gentleman also referred to the 
 amount of punishments ; but what a strength of 
 case have we here ! When the noble lord intro- 
 duced his resolutions for abolition in 1833, he re- 
 ferred to the case of British Guiana, to show, a 
 register of punishments being there regularly kept, 
 what was the amount of corporal suffering inflicted 
 under slavery. Two hundred thousand lashes was 
 the number which he then reported. And how 
 stands that subject now? Why, Sir, the use of the
 
 41 
 
 lash, as a stimulus to labour, has died a natural 
 death in Guiana.* The last five months show 
 eleven corporal punishments upon a population of 
 70,000 persons, yielding an average of seven hun- 
 dred lashes by the year; not, be it observed, for 
 neglect of work, but for theft.t And yet we are to 
 hear, in utter contempt of the demonstration afforded 
 by this extraordinary and progressive reduction, of 
 the failure forsooth of the apprenticeship system, 
 and the essential vices in its principle ! 
 
 I think the honourable gentleman also complained 
 that the forty-five hours of labour, exigible by law 
 from the apprentice, were so distributed through the 
 week, as to render valueless the remainder of his 
 time. Certainly the method by which this end could 
 be attained must be curious, and I should be glad 
 to have the receipt. But again I meet the honour- 
 able gentleman from the reports of the special 
 magistrates. If he will look to question five, he 
 will find that the hours of labour are almost always 
 comprised between seven and half-past two, or half- 
 past three : and how would the English workman 
 rejoice if he could secure such a limitation ! But 
 further ; I find by the answers to question four, that 
 task- work is almost universally resorted to ; and I ask 
 who in his senses ever heard of a compulsory arrange- 
 ment of hours for task-work, or can deem this reply 
 
 * Papers, Part IV. p. 583. 
 
 + Sec Sir J. C. Smyth's Speecli of Feb. 3. 1838, in the 
 Guiana Clironicle of Feb. 5.
 
 42 
 
 compatible with the accusation of the honourable 
 gentleman ? 
 
 With regard to the prisons of British Guiana, no 
 charge has been made ; but I may mention a state- 
 ment received from Mr. Willis by myself, in the pre- 
 sence of the same gentlemen as I before mentioned. 
 He stated to me, that the prison discipline was lax 
 and defective, but not cruel ; that precisely the same 
 method of treatment vi^as pursued with apprentices, 
 and with white persons, specifying soldiers in parti- 
 cular ; that the treadmill was not more severe than 
 those of England ; and that the white persons suf- 
 fered from it considerably more than the blacks. 
 
 Lastly, Sir, with respect to wages. I rejoice to 
 say, that the field labourer of British Guiana can 
 earn at the rate of from three to four shillings a day. 
 Even in Jamaica he can earn up to half a dollar. 
 But in British Guiana it is as I have stated from my 
 own knowledge : I would rather, however, refer you 
 to the two last reports of magistrates on the subject, in 
 pages 556-7 of Papers, Part IV., where they report 
 that the negroes work for wages in the field at the 
 rate of in one case three shillings, in the other three 
 and ninepence, per day of ten hours. 
 
 Sir, I trust that from the reports of these gentle- 
 men, from their public statements, liable to contradic- 
 tion, and made under constant liability to dismissal, 
 I have disposed of the charges of the honourable 
 gentleman, and I boldly ask him, where is your case 
 ai>ainst British Guiana ?
 
 43 
 
 But what will you say to Sir James Carmichael 
 Smyth? a gentleman of undoubted honesty, and not 
 less unquestionable talents — a gentleman whose bias 
 is in favour, and I will say excusably in favour, of 
 the negroes upon every doubtful point. He exer- 
 cises a most vigilant superintendence. He lives close 
 to the negroes at George Town, and he invites and 
 encourages them to resort to him with their com- 
 plaints. And he it is who tells you, that the labour- 
 ers of British Guiana are an orderly, a happy, an 
 industrious, an improving population ; he it is who 
 says to you, " I challenge comparison with any 
 county of Great Britain/^"^ 
 
 But I cannot refrain from mentioning to the House 
 two circumstances that have very recently taken place 
 upon estates within my own private knowledge ; for 
 it is no part of my policy to suppress what tends to 
 exhibit the amiable qualities of the negro character, as 
 it is, I grieve to say, on the other side to conceal 
 whatever is for the credit of the planters. On 
 one estate, (that of Vreedenhoop,) an inundation 
 suddenly occurred, which threatened the most serious 
 mischief. It was Sunday morning — there was no 
 legal claim upon them — but the labourers turned out 
 to a man to erect a dam, and prevented the mischief. 
 
 The other is really a touching incident. I 
 hold in my hand the Guiana Chronicle of October 
 1 1th, 1837, containing an advertisement of subscrip- 
 
 * Speech to the Court of Policy, February 3rd, 1838. From 
 the Guiana Chronicle, February 5th.
 
 44 
 
 tions raised within tlie colony in aid of those collected 
 at home last year, for the relief of the distressed High- 
 landers. Among the subscriptions are sums from 
 the apprenticed labourers of twenty-two estates ; and 
 I rejoice to say, that the largest amount is from the 
 estate of Success, where it exceeds twelve pounds. 
 It is affecting to see, not, I am happy to think, the 
 poor, but the humble labourer of British Guiana, thus 
 already mindful of his distant fellow-subjects. It 
 shows the advancement of the negro population. 
 But it also shows the friendly relations — the white 
 persons on that estate are chiefly Scotchmen — sub- 
 sisting between the different classes, and surely it 
 speaks volumes against the proposition for a violent 
 interference between them.^ 
 
 Sir, if there had been in Guiana a breach of con- 
 tract by defective laws, the fault would have lain 
 with the government; because I believe that the whole 
 legislative power over that colony, except in the case 
 of taxation alone, where it is controlled by a court 
 called the Combined Court, is in the hands of the 
 povernment at home. 
 
 But I will not leave even that supposition to 
 stand. Mr. Jeremie, in the year 1836, examined with 
 the eye of a lynx all the colonial abolition and 
 supplemental laws. Every man who knows his 
 eminent abilities can appreciate that examination. 
 Mr. Jeremie told me, before my honourable friend 
 Mr. Buxton and others, that he thought the legisla- 
 
 * Appendix H.
 
 45 
 
 tion of Britisli Guiana, with few and immaterial 
 exceptions, was even then entitled to be termed ade- 
 quate and satisfactory. 
 
 Now, Sir, you have heard of the authority of Mr. 
 Buxton, and of the committee of 1836, on the abo- 
 lition of the apprenticeship. But observe also, in 
 particular, that of Sir James Carmichael Smyth. He 
 declared, as he has been cited by the noble lord, 
 (Lord John Russell,) on the 3rd of February last, — 
 
 " I consider the continuance of the present system 
 until the 1st of August, 1840, as identified with the 
 future welfare of this magnificent province." 
 
 But add to this, that when first he heard of the 
 agitation at home, so early as in a despatch of the 
 19th March, 1837, he wrote to my Lord Glenelg 
 as follows : — 
 
 '^ / assure your lordship that I should much regret 
 and lament the doing away of the apprenticeship. I 
 deprecate any sudden change or the abandonment 
 of a system which, in British Guiana at any rate, so 
 completely answers. Neither the planters nor the 
 labourers are prepared for any immediate alteration. 
 Of other colonies I presume not to speak nor to 
 offer any opinion ; but in British Guiana, not only 
 the letter but the spirit of the act of parliament 
 abolishing slavery and introducing apprentice la- 
 bour have been so strictly enforced, that no act of 
 tyranny, of cruelty, or of oppression, can take place 
 without the speedy detection, exposure, and punish- 
 ment of the person so offending."
 
 46 
 
 And now learn, from a subsequent passage, wliich 
 way, had he suffered himself to be influenced by 
 personal motives, that influence would have tended. 
 He subjoins : 
 
 " In thus advocating the continuance, for the 
 present, of a system which, to a hasty observer, may 
 appear to be too favourable to the interests of the 
 planter as put in opposition to those of the la- 
 bourer, I beg to explain to your Lordship, that I 
 am influenced solely by what I conceive to be the 
 general good, and that the apprentice system (if 
 carefully superintended in its details) appears to 
 me to be equally necessary and advantageous to 
 both parties. If I was susceptible of being in- 
 fluenced by unworthy motives, the continued op- 
 position and ill-will I have experienced on the part 
 of the most influential of the planters would rather 
 have induced me to have arrived at the conclusion 
 that the apprentice system ought to be abolished. I 
 am, however, of a decidedly contrary opinion ; the 
 managers and the labourers are daily approximat- 
 ing ; not only wages for additional labour are be- 
 coming more common, but fields of sugar-canes are 
 weeded or cut down by agreement. Labour is, in 
 fact, finding its level and its value ; nothing can be 
 going on better, and I do not think that the perma- 
 nent well-being of the labourer would be accelerated 
 by any immediate change of system. We have 
 everything to expect from persevering in the pre- 
 sent plan ; it is impossible to foretell wliat mis-
 
 47 
 
 chievous effects a sudden and (in my humble 
 opinion) an uncalled-for change might produce." 
 
 And now, Sir, I beseech the House to consider 
 the utter impossibility of any adequate legislative 
 preparation for the abolition of the apprenticeship 
 in August 1838. Let me suppose, what, except 
 for argument's sake, I regard as a purely chime- 
 rical supposition — that you could carry your reso- 
 lution, and pass your bill in June. It might arrive 
 in the West Indies by the 1st of August. We 
 require poor laws, police laws, jury laws, electoral 
 laws, vagrant laws, laws for prison discipline. We 
 require at least a currency in which it may be 
 physically possible to pay wages to the mass of 
 the apprentice population. Do you expect that, 
 upon the naked announcement of your will, there 
 will in a moment spring into existence a whole har- 
 vest of legislative measures, which are permanently 
 to fix and determine, in every colony, the social 
 condition of a whole people ? But perhaps you 
 will say, this legislation ought not to have been 
 postponed, and the islands must suffer for their 
 fault. Not so. Sir : the government are responsible 
 for it. Lord Glenelg, I apprehend, wrote thus to 
 Sir J. C. Smyth, on December 29th, 1837. 
 
 " It is perfectly true that to the utmost extent it is 
 and has been the endeavour of her Majesty's go- 
 vernment to avoid every measure which v,^ill prede- 
 termine the nature of the relations which are to 
 subsist between employers and servants in the West
 
 48 
 
 Indies after Aug. 1, 1840. They have 'postponed 
 that inquiry until the time shall arrive for viewing the 
 question under the many different aspects in which it 
 must be regarded wheJi all the necessary information 
 shall have been collected,'' 
 
 Nor was this from the government alone. The com- 
 mittee of 1836 reported in exactly the same sense; and 
 the right honourable gentleman, (Mr. Labouchere,) 
 who sat as chairman of that committee, knows that I 
 am correct in saying, this recommendation was pecu- 
 liarly desired and pressed by those who are termed 
 the friends of the negroes. And they were right. 
 The obvious reason being, that in the prospect of 
 so great a change, it is well to make your prepara- 
 tions with the advantage of the utmost possible de- 
 gree of knowledge which can be gathered from the 
 experience of the apprenticeship. 
 
 What then are you prepared to do ? Will you 
 throw all these communities into a state of anarchy? 
 Will you cast forth the aged among the apprentices 
 upon the world, and leave them to the mere mercy 
 of those planters who are so much vituperated ? 
 They have no claim to relief, no means of subsist- 
 ence. The Abolition Act was passed with the 
 general, and I will say, the bond fide concurrence of 
 the West Indian proprietary body ; and yet it took 
 two years to arrange, very imperfectly, the laws ne- 
 cessary for regulating a transition state of only six 
 years' duration; and can it now be expected that all 
 the measures which should attend emancipation can
 
 49 
 
 be adjusted in an instant ; not, be it observed, with 
 the concurrence of the West Indian body at home, 
 but in the midst of their general and indignant pro- 
 testations ? 
 
 And further, I am sure that the House will feel the 
 necessity of observing some analogy and proportion 
 in its method of dealing with different questions, and 
 with the several classes of her Majesty's subjects. 
 Compare the child of nine years old — and some say, 
 under — entering your factories to work eight hours 
 a day— and some say, more — for a livelihood, with 
 the child of nine years old in British Guiana, sup- 
 ported without labour by the proprietors of the soil. 
 What shall we say of the Irish peasant with his six- 
 pence a-day ; of the handloom-weaver with his four 
 shillings a-week ? — what shall those of us who have 
 such poor constituents say to them, when next we go 
 among them, and see their wasted frames stooping 
 to their toil for twelve or fourteen hours in the day to 
 procure a bare subsistence,when wetell them we have 
 no aid to afford them, but that we have been busy 
 in rescuing from his seven-and-a-half daily hours the 
 negro of British Guiana, who can employ his extra 
 time at the rate of three shillings and sixpence, or 
 four shillings a-day? 
 
 But more. Are you ignorant of the slave-trade 
 that is now in its fullest vigour between Africa and 
 the West ? I am credibly informed that 50,000 human 
 beings were brought last year to a single port of South 
 America. Have you considered how many cargoes of 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 lliem are now upon tlicir deadly passage ? Have 
 you inquired why and how that trade is carried on ? 
 I do not mean alone that in your public negociations 
 you tamper with it from year to year, and rest in the 
 feeblest and most ineffectual measures, instead of de- 
 claring that trade to be a piracy, or of letting the 
 world know, at all events, who are the nations and 
 the governments that prevent its being so declared : 
 not this alone, but I ask, are not the manufacturers of 
 this country they who supply the means of support- 
 ing this monstrous traffic? The British manufac- 
 turer sends his goods in British ships to the Brazils, 
 and receives for them cotton, the produce of slave la- 
 bour. But a portion of those goods are made for an 
 ulterior purpose ; they are adapted to the African 
 market ; they are reshipped from the Brazils to the 
 coast of Africa, and there exchanged for the human 
 ware that passes from Africa to Brazil. 
 
 And have you, who are so exasperated with the 
 West Indian apprenticeship, that you will not wait 
 two years for its natural expiration, have you in- 
 quired what responsibility lies upon every one of 
 you, at the moment when I speak, with reference to 
 the cultivation of cotton in America ? In that coun- 
 try there are near three millions of slaves. You 
 hear not from that land of the abolition — not even of 
 the mitigation — of slavery. It is a domestic insti- 
 tution, and is to pass without limit, we are told, from 
 age to age ; and we, much more than they, are re- 
 sponsible for this enormous growth of what pur-
 
 51 
 
 ports to be an eternal slavery. It is the demand 
 which creates the supply; it has been the de- 
 mand for cotton to support and extend your 
 manufactures, under which slaves have been multi- 
 plied in America, and which has made the breedin^^ 
 trade in the northern slave-states, and the carrying 
 trade towards the southern slave-states, and the vast 
 increase of the entire servile population. You con- 
 sumed forty-five millions of pounds of cotton in 1837, 
 which proceeded from free labour ; and, proceeding 
 from slave labour, three hundred and eighteen mil- 
 lions of pounds ! And this, while the vast regions 
 of India afford the means of obtaining, at a cheaper 
 rate, and by a slight original outlay to facilitate 
 transport, all that you can require. If, Sir, the com- 
 plaints against the general body of West Indians 
 had been substantiated, I should have deemed it an 
 unworthy artifice to attempt diverting the attention 
 of the House from the question immediately at issue, 
 by merely proving that other delinquencies existed 
 in other quarters ; but feeling as I do, that those 
 charges have been overthrown in debate, I think my- 
 self entitled and bound to show how capricious 
 are honourable gentlemen in the distribution of their 
 sympathies among those different objects which call 
 for their application. 
 
 And now, Sir, I have completed my long and weari- 
 some detail, and I commit this weighty question, 
 with the utmost confidence, to the justice of a Bri- 
 tish Parliament. 1 ask for justice alone, and to 
 
 F *>
 
 52 
 
 that demnnd tlio legislature of England cannot be 
 deaf. I have no fear of the effect of any of the ar- 
 guments which have been used in this place ; but I 
 am aware that means of a different character have 
 been put into requisition. All the machinery of pri- 
 vate solicitation and intrigue has been at work, and 
 a pressure almost intolerable has been exerted, it is 
 probable, upon nearly every one of those who hear 
 me. Yet I am fearless of the result. The threatened 
 measure cannot pass here or elsewhere. You have 
 been urged by demands, addressed to you not as 
 members of the British Parliament, not as rational 
 beings, but as if you were mere machines, intended 
 simply to indicate the views of parties outside these 
 walls. I have requested no vote, nor would I stoop 
 to such a course ; but when any gentleman has 
 named the subject to me, I have said simply, hear 
 the case. You are yet, in some sense, the mind and 
 the deliberate wisdom of the nation, and you will 
 act in the spirit of that high capacity, not in sub- 
 servience to blind impulses from without, originating 
 no doubt in benevolent motives, but founded upon 
 information most partial, inadequate, and erroneous. 
 If I have failed in provingthatwhich I undertook, it has 
 been my weakness and my shame, but it has been the 
 misfortune of one of the strongest cases ever submit- 
 ted to Parliament. I read but yesterday an article in 
 a morning journal* on this subject, with sentiments 
 which I will not characterise, lest I should add one 
 * The Morning Clironicle,
 
 53 
 
 more to the expressions of irritation which, contrary 
 to my will and intention, may have escaped me 
 while I have addressed the House. The writer did 
 not reason of justice or of humanity ; but he recited 
 certain resolutions upon this subject, and went on to 
 say, '^ These resolutions are intelligible enough ; ho- 
 nourable members are aware of the weight of the 
 body from which they proceed, and require no hint 
 from us as to the course which they ought to pur- 
 sue." Sir, I stand in the face of Parliament ; I 
 have laid before you the facts of this case, myself 
 bewildered by their multitude. I have laid before 
 you considerations of policy and of statesmanlike 
 foresight, considerations of equity and plighted 
 faith. I will not intimate a suspicion, nor presume 
 to entertain a doubt, as to the principle upon which 
 members of this House will to-night regulate their 
 conduct ; I retort the language of that scribe in a 
 sense most opposite to his. Honourable gentlemen 
 can require from me no hint as to the course which 
 they ought to pursue. 
 
 Sir George Strickland said — Mr. Speaker, I think 
 that I shall best discharge my duty by not offering 
 one word in reply. 
 
 The House divided — 
 
 For the amendment, (that the Slavery AhoHtion Act 
 
 Amendment Bill he read a second time) .... 269 
 Against it . . . . , . . 205 
 
 Majority .... 64
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 In justification of what was said in the speech, I subjoin larger 
 extracts from Mr. Buxton's letter, dated Northrei)ps Hall, Nov. 3, 
 1837, most earnestly recommending the perusal of the whole 
 document. 
 
 ** I am not convinced of the propriety of making a grand effort 
 for procuring the abolition of the apprenticeship in 1838. It 
 seems to me an improbability of the highest order that we should 
 succeed in such an attempt. What is our present situation ? A 
 contract sanctioned by the legislature exists — loe maintain that 
 its conditions have been violated, and that therefore it ought to 
 cease. 
 
 *' Upon this matter of fact we are at issue ivifh the West In- 
 dians, and it can hardly be expected that Parliament ivill pro- 
 nounce its verdict until our evidence has been stated in detail, and 
 the apprentice-holders have been heard in reply. I observe that 
 some of our excellent and zealous friends have expressed an invin- 
 cible aversion to parliamentary committees. But I cannot supi>ose 
 that Parliament will decide so grave a question, and dissolve an 
 existing contract of its own making, without inquiry ; and an in- 
 quiry in this case implies a parliamentary committee. I take it 
 then for granted that to an investigation before Parliament we 
 must go.
 
 56 
 
 "1 have supposed that you will get coimnittees to investigate the 
 question, whether the contract has not heen virtually dissolved hy 
 the misconduct of the planters. That I am persuaded you will 
 never do. / am utterly deceived if you Jind a hundred men in 
 either house who will vote even for inquiring whether the appren- 
 ticeship ought to be abolished. With these views, I venture to 
 pronounce our failure to he certain, if we emhark in the attempt 
 * to secure entire freedom to the negroes in 1838.* " 
 
 Mr. Buxton proceeds to mention, 
 
 1. The emancipation of the non-praedials in 1838. Of this he 
 says with truth and force, — 
 
 ** Without exposing ourselves to the charge of endeavouring to 
 break faith y or violate the contract, we might with irresistible force 
 demand that this part of the bargain shall be carried into execu- 
 tion." 
 
 2. Negro education. 
 
 3. Entire freedom after 1st August, 1840. 
 He resumes, and says, — 
 
 " I suhmit, then, whether it would not be better to attempt the 
 great and practical measures to which I have alluded, than to in- 
 troduce a topic which, besides failing of any beneficial effect, will 
 divert the attention of Parliament from measures which involve no 
 violation of principle, are in unison with the act abolishing 
 slavery, and would prove, if carried, of incalculable benefit to the 
 negro. 
 
 ** Another consideration has great weight with me. It is said 
 there is danger of tumult in the West Indies when the period ar- 
 rives for the emancipation of the non-praedials. If the negroes learn 
 that their friends in England are making a mighty effort for the 
 abolition of the apprenticeship, they will naturally anticipate suc- 
 cess ; and their disappointment will be deplorable, and their ex- 
 citement dangerous, when they learn that the hopes, in which they 
 have been taught to indulge so confidently, have not been realised. 
 Anything like tumult would he laid hold of by our opponents in 
 the West Indies ; dreadful punishments would be inflicted ; and 
 the very disturbance would be construed into an argument for 
 some restrictions upon their future liberty, I cannot think that 
 we should be justified in exciting hopes which must prove falla- 
 cious.
 
 57 
 
 *' I have thus placed before you my views upon the present crisis." 
 I take my extracts from the *' Patriot" newspaper of Thursday, 
 Nov. 16. 
 
 B. 
 
 Lord Stanley, July 24, 1833. 
 
 (Mirror, 3301.) 
 
 " T distinctly stated when 1 introduced the measure, and I do 
 not hesitate to avow it now, that I consider the period of appren- 
 ticeship to he part of the compensation to be paid the proprietor." 
 Mr. Fryer — ** Why are we to pay anything ?" 
 Lord Stanley, — '* The honourable gentleman asks me a very 
 short and a very pithy question. ' Why are we to pay anythino- ?' 
 My answer is, because the principles of justice require that we 
 should not take away a man's property without remunerating him 
 for it." 
 
 Extract from a despatch of Lord Glenelg to the Marquis of Sligo, 
 dated Downing Street, 31 March, 1836; and by' the latter 
 communicated to the House of Assembly of Jamaica on the 24th 
 May. 
 
 " The abolition of slavery, and the subordinate measures required 
 to render it effectual, present a course of events altogether peculiar 
 and anomalous. 
 
 *' That great act was nothing less than a national compact, of 
 which Parliament was at once the author and the guarantee. 
 Binding the people of the United Kingdom to the payment of a 
 grant of unequalled magnitude, it also bound the emancipated 
 slaves to contribute compulsory labour for several successive years, 
 while it imposed upon the Assemblies the obligation of reconciling 
 by proper laws the duties of the negro population, as apprenticed 
 labourers, with their rights as free men. 
 
 ** On the part of the British treasury, as on that of the eman- 
 cipated slaves, the agreement has been carried into complete exe- 
 cution.
 
 58 
 
 " It follows, Parliameiit is tlierefore at once entitled and bound 
 to enforce by its power the })erforniancc of any ))art of the duty of the 
 Assembly of Jamaica towards the apprenticed labourers which that 
 body may themselves have failed to I'ulfil." 
 
 C. 
 
 Report of 1836. 
 
 1. Question 5397. Mr. Jones paid about 88/. sterling for extra 
 labour, or, according to question 5378, 128/. : he had 400 appren- 
 tices: his cultivation fell off by one-third. The interest on his 
 whole compensation money at four per cent, would be from 310/. 
 to 320/. 
 
 2. Question 3556. Mr. Miller paid about 150/. sterling for 
 extra labour. Had 320 apprentices. Interest on the whole com- 
 pensation money would be about 256/. His crop fell off by one 
 tenth. 
 
 3. Question 4581, 4820, 4888, 4902. Mr. Oldham had under 
 4,000 apprentices. He had paid 7,000/. currency, or about 4,500/. 
 sterling, in a year, for extra labour. He kept up his crops. But 
 the interest of the whole compensation money would be, at four 
 per cent., little over 3,000/. sterling. 
 
 4. Question 5037 et seq. Mr. Shirley paid the whole interest 
 of the compensation money, and made the same crops. 
 
 To charge the old colonial interest of six per cent, would of 
 course change the aspect of these calculations ; but what planter 
 could now command such an investment on adequate security ? 
 
 It seems certainly not too much to say, that one half of the 
 compensation money must be regarded as given for the time of the 
 free children in 1834, and that of the adults from 1840. The ap- 
 prenticeship in this view should, strictly speaking, be credited only 
 with one moiety of the interest, and the remainder should be re- 
 garded as an accumulating fund, to meet the increased expenses of 
 the approaching period of absolute freedom.
 
 59 
 
 D. 
 
 In order to complete that part of the argument which regards 
 the account between the State of Great Britain and the planters, it 
 is highly requisite to take into view such probable evidence as is 
 already within our reach, having reference to that, now not distant, 
 period, when the emancipation will be brought finally to the test of 
 experience. 
 
 There are two questions for consideration : the first whether the 
 negi'oes will be willing to work habitually, continuously, and gene- 
 rally, in West Indian agriculture : the second, whether the planters 
 will be able to pay them such wages as, supposing there is a degree 
 of inducement which would suffice, will lead them to continue the 
 present cultivation. 
 
 As regards the first, the balance of probabilities, however subject 
 to doubt, appears to be in its favour. The circumstances which 
 throw uncertainty upon it are, in some but I trust few cases, the 
 want of good feeling between the labouring class and those set over 
 them ; the progress of the free children towards maturity without 
 their being trained to industrial pursuits, or, in a considerable num- 
 ber of instances, by any religious education ; the facility with which 
 it is likely they may be able to obtain patches, or what have been 
 called pocket-handkerchiefs, of land ; and the fact that the manu- 
 mitted field-labourers do not return to that employment after eman- 
 cipation in the apprentice colonies. 
 
 But, upon the other hand, their abandonment of that occupation 
 may be owing to the demi-servile associations which attend it : 
 while apprenticed, they appear always willing to work in their extra 
 time, and commonly for wages at field or manufacturing labour ; 
 and although the cases of Bermuda and the Bahamas are quite 
 irrelevant, there is also some encouragement in the case of 
 Antigua. 
 
 That island* differs from nearly all the other West Indian colo- 
 nies in the cheapness of labour, the comparatively high cost of 
 maintenance, which is by imported food, the general approjiriation 
 of the available land, a larger portion of resident proprietors, a po- 
 
 * See " Jamaica under the Apprenticeship Sy^jtem,'' by Lord Sligo, p. 107.
 
 GO 
 
 pulation whose spiritual interests have been more extensively cul- 
 tivated, and in the absence of religious discord. 
 
 Still, had there been that general and invincible repugnance to 
 field labour on the part of the negro which was once presumed, 
 would not the emancipation have been followed by a systematic and 
 determined strike, and that, in turn, by a disposition on the part of 
 the poorer proprietors to break up their lands into small allotments, 
 as has, 1 understand, been the case to some extent in Jamaica? 
 
 It is dillicult to say whether or how far the decline in the crops 
 of Antigua is chargeable upon the abolition of coerced labour. 
 
 The second question is more formidable. The East Indian 
 competition must, one should suppose, now that the duties are 
 equalized, be found to exercise a most depressing influence, within 
 no very long period of time, on the prosperity of the West Indian 
 colonies, as countries exporting sugar. It does not appear how 
 the prices at which Bengal can supply our market, will sufl^er the 
 West Indian planter to offer such wages to the negroes, then a free 
 peasantry, as should divert them from their plots of ground to a 
 more steady and laborious cultivation, however far it may be from 
 real severity of toil, and however he may be aided by the plough, 
 and by rattooning, and by that great reduction in the expenditure 
 connected with the management of estates which will probably at- 
 tend the increased need of economy. 
 
 The importations from the East Indies have been as follows 
 during the years which have followed the passing of the Abolition 
 Act: — 
 
 1834 - - 4,800 tons 
 
 1S35 - - 5,500 tons 
 
 1836 - - 7,800 tons 
 
 1837 - - 17,000 tons. 
 
 E. 
 
 On Mr. Sturge's retention of the statements which he had ob- 
 tained in Jamaica, Lord Glenelg thus writes to Sir Lionel Snnth, 
 in a despatch dated 1st February, 1838, and to be found at page 264 
 of the Papers, Part V.
 
 61 
 
 *' I confess I deeply regret tliat the circumstances which have led 
 to the present inquiry, instead of having been brought under the 
 notice of her Majesty's government for the first time in a pamphlet 
 printed and circulated in this country, were not fully stated to you 
 in Jamaica when they first came to the knowledge of the parties, 
 through whom they have at last happily transpired. Had this course 
 been adopted, the dismissal of Mr. Rawlinson would have taken 
 place at a much earlier period, and the authentic statement of the 
 written disclosures, contained in the evidence now before me, would 
 long since have supplied a motive and laid a foundation for a more 
 complete remedy than it has yet been in the power of the govern- 
 ment to provide against the recurrence of such enormous abuses." 
 
 And Sir Lionel Smith writes, dating 16 July, 1837, (see p. 271 
 of the same papers,) 
 
 " It would be puerile in me to complain of the want of personal 
 courtesy in Joseph Sturge, but I do complain of his want of con- 
 fidence in me to put him in the way of the best information. 
 
 " I should have felt obliged to Joseph Sturge if he had told me of 
 any abuses he had discovered in our system towards the apprentices." 
 
 F. 
 
 In illustration of the natural liability of all ex parte statements 
 to the grossest exaggerations, I cannot avoid quoting the following 
 passage from the Times of Feb. 27. 
 
 " Lord Brougham was certain, that if he had found amongst 
 the records of cruelty in the colonies a passage like the present — 
 if he had found that children of four, five, and seven years of age, 
 answering to six, seven, and nine in this cold climate, had been 
 sentenced to years of solitary confinement, under the authority of a 
 colonial secretary, or under the authority of those appointed by 
 and responsible to him — if he had found that children of those ten- 
 der years had been shut up for months and years in solitude, he 
 could not have found a climax more appropriate for his closing 
 appeal, in the narration of cruelty which he had given to the 
 House ; but there was nothing so bad as the present case in the re- 
 cords of West India Slavery."
 
 62 
 
 This reft'rretl to three female children in Milhimk Penitentiary. 
 I had seen them within a day or two of tlie speech, cheerful, well 
 behaved, remarkably healthy in appearance, and without the 
 slightest disposition to complain. A Committee of the House of 
 Lords has since investigated the allegations, and found them 
 wholly destitute of truth. But if fiction can gi'ow into such mag- 
 nitude in traversing the short mile which separates the Penitentiary 
 from the Houses of Parliament, how can ex parte statements im- 
 ported from the West Indies be received without hesitation, or acted 
 upon by conscientious persons without inquiry ? 
 
 APPENDIX G. 
 
 The return in my possession (from Messrs Corrie S^ Co. 
 Mincing Lane) is as follows : 
 
 DEMEIIARA. 
 
 BERBICE. 
 
 Year. 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 
 Great Bri- 
 tain. 
 
 34,060 
 34,850 
 30,510 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Total: 
 
 Year. 
 
 Great Bri- 
 tain. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Total. 
 
 2,760 
 2,650 
 3,850 
 
 36,820 
 37,700 
 34,360 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 
 6,870 
 4,670 
 4,200 
 
 410 
 340 
 
 6,870 
 5,080 
 4,540 
 
 1835 
 1836 
 1837 
 
 34,260 
 38,520 
 33,600 
 
 3,750 
 4,680 
 
 38,010 
 43,200 
 
 1835 
 1836 
 1837 
 
 6,300 
 10,260 
 
 7,800 
 
 20 
 420 
 
 6,320 
 10,680 
 
 It will be perceived that I have not got the Irish return for 1837. 
 I assume it to bear the same proportion as the British to that of 
 1836. This will give about 4,000 tons for Demerara, and 325 tons 
 for Berbice.
 
 63 
 
 1QQO A ^ i'i'oi« Demerara 108,880 tons. 
 loo2 — 4 
 
 
 0111 Berbice 16,490 
 
 3)125,370 
 
 41,790 tons. 
 
 Q^. ^ C From Demerara 118,810 
 »jo- / ^ From J3erbice 25, 1 25 
 
 tons. 
 
 3)143,935 
 47,978 tons. 
 
 K. 
 
 I had wished to call the attention of the House to the apparent 
 fact, that however unsatisfactory our West Indian history, and 
 under all present disadvantages, still the relations between whites and 
 blacks in those colonies seem less incapable of permanent rectifica- 
 tion than those between the analogous classes in the United States, 
 or in other colonies of European nations, or even than those 
 which exist between our own colonists and the respective aborigines 
 in some other quarters. 
 
 Utterly denying that intellectual culture and civilised habits will 
 ensure the permanent elevation and happiness of men, I yet believe 
 that all his faculties are meant to be developed in unison for his 
 perfect well-being ; and looking to such information as we have re- 
 specting Saint Domingo or Hayti, and Liberia, I think it is not too 
 much to say, that the social fusion of the two races is of the highest 
 importance in the case before us. 
 
 It is clear that a milder and more christian sentiment begins to 
 prevail among the dominant class. The late Mr. Froude observes 
 early in the year 1834, that the general body of the planters had 
 " eaten dirt,"* admitted the time for emancipation to be come, and 
 
 * Froude's Remains, vol. i. pp. :546 — 8.
 
 64 
 
 no longer protested against the imputations thrown upon the state of 
 slavery. And again, in the island of Barhadoes, Mr. Hart, a Mis- 
 sionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, became 
 unpopular and was complained of, some ten years back, for admit- 
 ting a black to the Holy Communion in company with whites. 
 But writes Mr. Froude in January 1834,* " Last Sunday, when I 
 received the Sacrament at his church, at which near 200 people 
 were present, all colours were mixed indiscriminately." 
 
 If there be a general progression of this kind, and a sincere re- 
 cognition of religious brotherhood, we may hope to see wrought 
 out a final harmony and amalgamation between races hitherto 
 never combined, except upon terms shameful to one and deterioriat- 
 ing to both. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 335. 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 9, line 2, for seven years, read twelve years. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 IBOTSON AND PAI-Mr.U, PHINTFRS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
 
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