Part 13

On this as on other occasions, different motives would operate on different men, in prompting them to concur in the measure. For my own part, I sincerely declare, that to the respectable gentlemen who took the lead on that occasion, I give the fullest and most unreserved credit for having been actuated by an earnest desire of reforming the West Indian system. But it must be acknowledged that the transaction in some of its parts, especially since we have had new light reflected back on it from recent West Indian communications, exhibits an appearance of having been befriended by some of its promoters with a view rather to defeat, than to promote, the abolition of the Slave Trade. Be this however as it may, in the year 1796 a Committee, consisting of the most respectable West Indian proprietors, having been appointed to take into consideration what steps should be taken respecting the Slave Trade, resolved among other things, “That, for the joint purposes of opposing the plan of Mr. Wilberforce, and establishing the character of the West Indian Planters, it is essential that they should manifest their willingness to promote actively the cause of the Negroes, by such steps as shall be consistent with safety to the property of individuals, and the general interest of the colonies;” and they requested a most justly respected member of the House of Commons to move in Parliament, “That an address be presented to His Majesty, requesting him to recommend to the colonies the adoption of such measures, as may promote the increase of the Negroes, gradually diminish the necessity of the Slave Trade, and ultimately lead to its complete termination; and also as may conduce to their moral and religious improvement, and secure to them the certain, immediate, and active protection of the law.” This address was moved and carried with the warm support of all the West Indian party in Parliament; [Sidenote: Applications to the Colonies] and was transmitted, to the Governors of all the islands by the Duke of Portland, accompanied by letters urging the colonial legislatures to second the wishes of the House of Commons; private and confidential letters being written to explain to the Councils in the different islands, the amicable purpose with which this otherwise perhaps questionable measure had been proposed, and assuring them, “that the adoption of some legislative provisions relative to the Negroes was indispensably necessary, not only to stop for the present, but gradually to supersede the very pretensions at a future period, to a measure of direct abolition of the Slave Trade by the mother country.”

Thus the concurrence of the West Indian legislatures was requested by their own tried friends and counsellors, on that most acceptable and pleasing ground, of superseding the abolition of the Slave Trade. It might have been conceived, that, by the administration of such a powerful opiate, the _esprit de corps_ of the islands would be lulled asleep; and, though it might even be from motives less pure than those of their friends at home, that they would at least adopt the line of conduct which had been recommended.

[Sidenote: Colonial answers.]

But how different has been the issue! You are already apprized of the conduct of the island of Barbadoes, to which Lord Seaforth, most honourably glad to avail himself of an opportunity of introducing the measure under such favourable auspices, recommended the rendering a capital crime, the wilful murder of a Negro, which is now punishable only by a fine of about £.11. 10_s._ sterling.

The Assembly of Jamaica assert, “that the right of obtaining labourers from Africa is secured to them on the most solemn engagements; and that they never can give up, or do any act that may render doubtful, this essential right.” The General Council and General Assembly of all the Leeward islands state, “that the right of procuring labourers from Africa, has been secured to us by repeated Acts of Parliament, &c. We, therefore, never can abandon it, or do any thing that may render doubtful this essential right.” The language of these answers is but too intelligible. But some communications lately made to Parliament, render it if possible still more clear than it before was to all considerate and impartial men, that it is in vain to expect much effect from the regulations which any colonial acts may prescribe.

It may here perhaps be proper to state, that since the abolition of the Slave Trade came into question, acts have been passed for securing better treatment to the Slaves. It is no more however than justice to the Island of Jamaica, to take this opportunity of declaring, that the Legislature of that island had passed a law rendering the murder of a Slave a capital crime, and containing various other salutary regulations, before the motion for abolishing the Slave Trade had been brought forward; though at the same time a fact then became public, which affords a curious proof how little the treatment of Slaves is really affected, one way or another, by public laws. For it appeared from the Assembly’s own communication, that, for three years immediately preceding this last reformation, an interval happening to take place between the repealing of a former consolidated Slave law for the protection and security of the Slaves,[41] and the passing of a new one, there were for three years together no laws whatever in being for the protection and security of the Slaves; and yet it was not found that the smallest difference in the treatment of the Slaves had been occasioned. They were just as well secured without laws as with them. In truth, as was before stated, the real protection of a Slave must lie in his master’s disposition to protect him.—But to resume the discussion.

What has been already urged may perhaps appear sufficient to prove, that all the colonial laws for reforming the vices of the West Indian system, must be practically inefficient. Nor can any farther argument be necessary, in order to enforce a conclusion so manifestly resulting from the circumstances of the case. To some persons however it may render the point still more clear, to know, that the inefficacy, to say no worse, of the late Colonial Slave Acts, is decisively established even on West Indian authority itself.

For, about two years ago, on the application of His Majesty’s Secretary of State to the Governors of the West Indian Islands, for information as to the manner in which the late Acts for the better protection of Slaves had been executed, it clearly appeared, that though those laws had been passed so few years before with so much pomp and circumstance, yet that their provisions had never been carried into effect. This applies not merely to the impossible regulations, so to term them, prescribing the precise quantity of the food and clothing, and labour and punishment of the Slaves, but to all those regulations which really were of perfectly easy execution. There had been the same entire neglect of the religious and moral regulations, in which the Owner’s duty was clear and easy, even granting that his success might be difficult and doubtful.

This utter neglect of the Slave laws might alone have tended to give effectual confirmation to the suspicion, that the laws had been intended for the protection of the Slave Trade, rather than of the Slaves. This indeed was plainly stated by a British Officer, who was resident in one of the islands in 1788, when one of the earliest and best of these boasted laws was enacted. It was the general language of the Colonists at the time, that its only real operation would be, to supersede any similar measures which might otherwise be adopted by the British Parliament. But much to the honour of the Governor of the only island from which any satisfactory information has been returned, he has distinctly stated,—“The Act of the Legislature, entitled, “An Act for the Encouragement, Protection, and better Government of Slaves,” appears to have been considered, from the day it was passed, until this hour, as a political measure to avert the interference of the mother country in the management of Slaves. Having said this, your Lordship will not be surprised to learn, that the 7th clause of that Bill has been wholly neglected.”

It may be proper to mention, that the clause which has been thus wholly neglected, was enacted for the express purpose of securing, as far as possible, the good treatment of the Slaves, and ascertaining the causes of their decrease. Some farther information, much to the same effect, was contained in a letter to the Secretary of State, from another correspondent, concerning the encouragement which the law had required to be given to Slaves to marry.

After this, can any reasonable expectations be entertained, that the Colonial Legislatures will cordially concur in any measures for the abolition of the Slave Trade? Can the Abolitionists be deemed uncandid, for not greatly confiding in any statutes which those assemblies may enact, in co-operation with the British Parliament, for the abolition of the Slave Trade?

[Sidenote: Laws for the protection of Slaves ineffectual in the old French, Spanish, and Portuguese Settlements.]

It ought earlier to have been stated, as an additional proof of the inefficacy of all legal regulations for the government and protection of Slaves, that they have fallen into practical disuse even in countries in which the matters do not themselves enjoy that political freedom with which all such regulations are peculiarly at variance; and where, it might have been preconceived, a government perfectly despotic possessed abundant means of giving effect to its own regulations.

The better treatment of the Slaves in the Spanish and Portuguese Settlements, is much more to be ascribed to the influence of their religious zeal, and its happy consequences, than to the institution of a Protector among the one, or to the provisions of the Directorio on the other.

Again, under the more despotic system of government which was established in the French islands before the revolution, the Code Noir, and various other edicts, which from time to time had been issued, concerning the treatment of Slaves, were become a mere dead letter. It is a curious proof, how much the practice and the opinions and feelings produced by it may differ from the law, that the free coloured people had for an entire century been legally entitled to that equality of rights and privileges with the whites, the granting of which, by the national assembly of the mother country, produced so violent a ferment among the white inhabitants of St. Domingo; and the retractation of which, after its having been granted, followed by fresh grants and fresh retractations, produced the confusion which terminated in the loss of that flourishing colony.

But besides that fundamental objection to statutes, for regulating the treatment of Slaves, and securing for them, to use the words of the colonists themselves, the _certain, immediate, and active protection of the law_, that they must prove utterly inefficient; [Sidenote: Legal protection of Slaves in an abject state of slavery either impracticable or unsafe.] I must frankly acknowledge my opinion, that all those legal regulations which, in the various particulars of treatment, interfere between the Master and Slave; which interpose between them some external authority to which the Slave, when ill used, is to have a right to apply for protection and redress; unless, as I before observed, they are not executed, must prove in practice unspeakably dangerous. This is true at least where Slaves are in a state of such abject slavery as that which has so long prevailed in our West Indian islands, and where the Slaves so greatly outnumber the free men, and the difference between Slave and Freeman, is marked and palpable. In extreme cases of ill-treatment, or rather in cases of enormous cruelty, it might be practicable to apply some remedy, by the means of that regulation which was established in Athens, and which, with additions most grateful to a humane mind, prevails, we are assured, in the Spanish islands, of allowing the Slave when extremely ill treated, to be transferred to another owner. But this regulation is not applicable to those particulars of treatment, which are constant and systematic, such as underfeeding, overworking, and other general vices of management, whether arising out of degradation, absenteeship, speculation, the pressure of the times, or any other of the causes which have been above specified. And it is these systematic vices which constitute the real evils in the condition of the bulk of our Slaves.

In these cases of systematic management, of daily and almost hourly recurrence, the interposition of a new tribunal of appeal for checking the master’s authority, and compelling him, by the dread of penalties, to be more liberal in his allowances of food and rest, and more abstemious as to labour and punishment; in short, to force him to amend the Slave’s treatment in future in all the undefinable particulars into which it ramifies, or even to compensate to the Slave his past ill usage, would in practice be soon found productive, not only of extreme discontent, insubordination, and commotions on private properties, but of the most fatal consequences to the safety of the whole colony. Sunk as the Slaves at present are, we are assured they do not feel into what a depth they have been depressed. We are told that they are not shocked, as we are for them, by the circumstances of a Negro sale, or by the other degrading particulars of their treatment; the spirit of the man is extinct, or rather dormant within them. But remember, the first return of life after a swoon is commonly a convulsion, dangerous at once to the party himself, and to all around him. Impart to the Slaves the consciousness of personal rights, and the means of asserting them; give the Slaves a power of appealing to the laws; and you awaken in them a sense of the dignity of their nature, you call into life a new set of most dangerous emotions; of emotions, let me repeat it, beyond measure dangerous, while you continue the humiliating and ignominious distinctions to which they now unconsciously submit. When you encourage your Slave to take account of his rights, and measure them with his enjoyments: when you thus teach him to reflect on the treatment he is receiving; to compare his own condition with that of Slaves under other masters; to deliberate about obtaining redress; and, at last, to resolve to seek it: when you thus accustom him to think, and feel, and decide, and act; to be conscious of a wrong; to resent an injury; to go and relate the story of his ill usage, thus daring to harbour the idea of bringing his master to punishment and shame: when you even enable him to achieve this victory; Do you think that he will long endure the wrongs he now tolerates? It is a remark, if I mistake not, of an ancient historian, who had the power above all others of placing before his reader the scene he represents, that in that celebrated instance in which a whole army, being hemmed in on all sides by the enemy, was compelled, according to the barbarous practice of ancient warfare, to submit to the shameful condition of going under a sort of gallows, that each man was rendered most sensible of his own dishonour, by seeing the shameful appearance of his comrades in that disgraceful exhibition. And can you think that, when affection combines with indignation, a Negro will bear to see the wife of his bosom, or a mother the children of her rearing, driven through their daily work like the vilest of the brute creation; and that too when each man can consult with his fellow, when all they see around them almost are blacks? Above all, but here I anticipate—when St. Domingo, and the lessons which it inculcates, occur to the mind.

Surely enough has been said to shew, that there is no alternative, no practical medium, between keeping the Slaves sunk in their present state of extreme degradation, an idea for which no one, I trust, will be found hardy enough to contend, and introducing the milder system of what may not improperly be termed Patriarchal vassalage (to which the abolition is an indispensable preliminary) as the state of training and discipline for a condition in which they may be safely admitted to a still more advanced enjoyment of personal and civil rights.

[Sidenote: Mr. Burke’s plan respecting the Slave Trade.]

And in this place, where we are considering the different modes which have been proposed for effecting the abolition of the Slave Trade, it may be proper to notice another plan of gradual abolition, which has been often mentioned, though it has never been yet produced. No one can doubt that attention is justly due to it, when they are told that it claims the late Mr. Burke as its author. In duty to that great man himself, as well as to the cause which I am defending, this matter should be explained. Some years before the abolition of the Slave Trade had been named in Parliament, Mr. Burke’s attention had been drawn to that object. His stores of knowledge were so astonishingly ample and various, that it is difficult to suppose any subject on which his great mind was not abundantly furnished. But certainly very little was known, even by men in general well-informed, concerning the nature and effects of the Slave Trade on the coast, but much more in the interior of Africa. Nor had we then obtained any of that great mass of information concerning the West Indian system of management, which was procured through the authority and influence of Government, and which could no otherwise have been obtained. Mr. Burke, however, drew up the heads of a plan for regulating the mode of carrying on the Slave Trade in Africa, and a system for securing the better treatment of the Slaves in the West Indies.

When, after the whole subject had been thoroughly investigated, a motion for the immediate abolition of the Slave Trade was made in the House of Commons; Mr. Burke honoured it with his support. He indeed stated, that he himself had formerly taken up ideas somewhat different, with a view towards the same end; but he added, expressing himself in that strong and figurative style which must, methinks, have fixed the matter of his speech firmly in the memory of all who heard him, that he at once consigned them to the flames, and willingly adopted our mode of abolition. I can with truth declare, that in private conversation, he afterwards expressed to me his concurrence in our plan. It is a little hard, therefore, that the authority of that great man should now be pleaded against us. Still harder, that this should be the only use made of it, that, instead of any attempt to give effect to his intentions, his plan of abolishing the Slave Trade should be rendered practically subservient to the continuation of that traffic. In short, that his name should be used in complete opposition to his example. As to the nature and effect of his proposed plan, I had the opportunity of perusing it only hastily, and I have endeavoured, hitherto in vain, once more to procure a sight of it. It is still however I believe in being, and will I trust appear in some authentic form.

The plan itself was probably no more than a rough draught, or rather his first thoughts on a subject, for forming a right judgment on which, a full and exact knowledge of facts must be particularly necessary. That on any subject, even the first thoughts of so great a man claim the highest deference, I willingly allow. But may I not be permitted to indulge a persuasion, that, from farther information than it was possible for any man then to possess, concerning the nature and effects of the Slave Trade in the interior of Africa, into which no traveller of credit had then penetrated for some centuries, Mr. Burke would have been convinced of the inefficacy of the regulations he proposed to establish for the coast. Of his West Indian regulations, I will only say, that while, unless completely neglected in practice, they would probably have excited an opposition even more efficient than abolition itself; while they would have been open from beginning to end to all objections, grounded on interference with the internal legislation of the colonies; they would, more than any other plan ever heard of, have been liable to the objections which I have lately urged against imparting personal rights and the privilege of complaining to a legal protector, so long as the Slaves remain in their present condition of extreme degradation.

[Sidenote: Greater efficacy of abolition.]

With this plan for abolishing, as by a strange perversion of terms it is styled, instead of confirming and perhaps perpetuating, the Slave Trade, by the gradual operation of colonial statutes, a plan which, though tried under the most favourable of all circumstances, has absolutely failed; which has been declared even by West Indian authority itself to have been proposed for the sake merely of getting rid of the interference of the British Parliament; which has been clearly proved to be utterly inefficient as to practical execution, and which, if it could be executed, would immediately become inconceivably dangerous—With this measure, founded on principles essentially and unalterably incompatible, either utterly inefficient or mischievously active, compare the effects of the measure which we propose, the abolition of the Slave Trade.

The bad effects of the continual introduction of African Slaves are so manifest as scarcely to need suggesting. The annual infusion into the West Indian Colonies of a great number of human beings, from a thousand different parts of the continent, with all their varieties of languages, and manners, and customs, many of them resenting their wrongs, and burning with revenge; others deeply feeling their loss of country and freedom, and the new hardships of their altered state; must have a natural tendency to keep the whole mass into which they are brought, in a state of ferment; to prevent the Slaves in general from emerging out of their state of degradation; and to obstruct, both in them and in those who are set over them, the growth of those domestic feelings and habits, and the introduction of those more liberal modes of treatment, which might otherwise be deemed both safe, and suitable in the case of Slaves whose characters were known and who were become habituated to their situation. But the grand evil arising from the continuance of importations from Africa, is, that till they are discontinued, men will never apply their minds in earnest to effect the establishment of the breeding system.

But all farther importations being at length stopped, the Slave market now no longer holding forth any resource, the necessity for keeping up the stock would at once become palpable and urgent. All ideas of supply from without, being utterly cut off, it would immediately become the grand, constant, and incessant concern of every prudent man, both proprietor and manager, to attend, in the first instance, to the preservation and increase of his Negroes. Whatever may have been the case in the instance of men at once both liberal and opulent, the mass of owners have, practically at least, gone upon the system of working out their Slaves in a few years, and recruiting their gangs with imported Africans. The abolition would give the death-blow to this system. The opposite system, with all its charities, would force itself on the dullest intellects, on the most contracted or unfeeling heart. Ruin would stare a man in the face, if he did not conform to it. The sense of interest so much talked of, would not as heretofore, be a remote, feeble, or even a dubious impulse; but a call so pressing, loud, and clear, that its voice would be irresistible.