Part 15

The assertion, that we should be injured by suddenly throwing out of occupation the ships and seamen employed in the African Trade, was shewn to stand on still weaker grounds. When at its very highest amount, an amount far higher than it will ever again reach, unless we even replace the branches which we have actually lopped off, it employed not one-sixtieth part of our whole tonnage; not one twenty-third part of our seamen. But so far as our seamen are in consideration, it will scarcely be disputed by any Naval Officer, that we should gain by the extinction of the Slave Trade.

With respect to the West Indian part of the price, as calculated by our opponents, which Great Britain must pay for obeying the dictates of justice and humanity, by abolishing the Slave Trade; we must remark, that they forget that the revenue at least, derived from the taxes raised on West Indian productions, is paid by the subjects of this country. Other objections of detail might be made to their calculations. But, passing by these, let me observe, that, above all, they utterly forget, that in this reasoning they take for granted the whole question in dispute; for the Abolitionists maintain, that, while the abolition would produce a gradual increase of our exports to the West Indies, from the improving condition of the bulk of their population; our revenue, our imports, and our marine, dependent on them, would be fixed on a basis far more safe and durable than that on which they now rest. But in considering the question on the grounds of policy, it is ever to be kept in mind, that the alternative is not, whether or not we shall take a step which is affirmed, on one side, to be big with mischief, while the opponents only maintain, on the other, that it will be productive of no injury. It is, whether we shall take a step, which may perhaps produce some slight inconveniencies, or whether we shall subject ourselves, by refusing to take it, to great and inevitable calamities. The West Indian proprietors who are friends of the Slave Trade cannot be more positive that its termination will be injurious to their interests, than the Abolitionists are, that its continuance is every moment threatening them with ruin.

But when the Colonists tell us that the system which we recommend to them, would be injurious to their own and the national welfare, in opposition to the repeatedly avowed opinions of those great statesmen, in the sense of national interest entertained by the one or by the other of whom they have all, in every other instance, concurred; are we not also entitled to say, that their system has at least had a full and fair trial, and that the issue of this experiment has been to bring our old colonies in general into such an extremity of distress and embarrassment, as even the realizing of the utmost apprehensions which our opponents have entertained from the abolition could scarcely exceed?

[Sidenote: Present West Indian System ruinous.]

Here again an immense field opens to our view. But I must take a most hasty survey of it; otherwise it would be no difficult task to prove, that the Slave Trade, and the system of management with which it is intimately associated, has, in various ways, tended to this unprosperous issue. The eyes of the public have been dazzled by the sight of some splendid fortunes, which, it is understood, have been rapidly acquired; while the liberal, not to say profuse, tempers and habits of the West Indian gentlemen, tempers and habits naturally generated by a system of slavery, as well as by a tropical climate, and which are powerfully promoted by the prodigious variations in the annual returns of their estates, tend to keep up the delusion.

But West Indian speculations, which have often been called a lottery, are, like the lottery, on the whole a very losing game. This will be the more readily assented to, when it is stated, that in Jamaica, by far the largest of our colonies, taking the whole island together, the planters capital, as was stated in 1789 to the Privy Council, by a Committee of the Council of the island, does not yield more than about 4 per cent.; and this, it is to be observed, is not obtained by all adventurers in about an equal proportion; but as some derive great gains, others are proportionably losers. In some few of the smaller islands, the profit on the capital was stated to be somewhat, but only a little more.

The facility of purchasing labourers afforded by the Slave Trade has tempted multitudes to their ruin. Sometimes a great number of Slaves, for which no adequate preparations were made, have been put to the most unhealthy and laborious of all employments, the clearing of new land, and forming of new settlements. Accordingly, it has followed for the most part but too naturally, that the Slaves have perished, and the estate has been either thrown up, or sold for the benefit of the creditors.

These are no new speculations. Mr. Long, above thirty years ago, dilated on the evils of this system in the strongest terms. He even went so far as to recommend, with a view to the prevention of them, a temporary stoppage of the importation of Slaves from Africa; and he confirmed his reasoning by appealing to the experience of one of our North American colonies, which, when involved in the deepest distress by the operation of similar circumstances, had been retrieved from a state of almost utter ruin by the adoption of a similar expedient.

We have had an opportunity of receiving but too decisive a proof of the bad effects of suffering the opposite system to go on without restraint. Even twenty-six years ago they had exhibited a display of ruin, which was scarcely equalled by the effects of any regular and permanent cause of evil, in any other age or country. It would scarcely have appeared credible, if it were not established by the records of a public court, that in twenty years, from 1760 to 1780, the executions on estates in the Sheriff’s court amounted in number to above 80,000, and were to the amount in value of £.32,500,000 currency, or about £.22,500,000 sterling. Again; of all the sugar estates in the island at the beginning of the same period of twenty years, nearly one half were, at the end of it, either thrown up as not worth cultivating, or were in the hands of creditors, or mortgagees, or had been sold for their benefit.[45]

This was many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade had ever been proposed; and one would have conceived, that the consequences of the system which had been so long pursued, might alone have produced a disrelish for it, and have predisposed the Colonists to adopt another which was recommended by the highest authorities. Prejudice, however, and party spirit, were too powerful for reason and sound policy, as well as for humanity and justice. And what has been the result? The affairs of the colonies have gone on from bad to worse, until the distress being extremely aggravated by another cause, to be presently noticed, the great island of Jamaica is represented, by its own legislature, in a state, to use the compendious terms of a very able and experienced West Indian proprietor, of general distress and foreclosure of property.

During all this time a debt to the mother country, before prodigious, has been gradually accumulating; or rather, perhaps, to say the truth, the merchants of London have for the most part become the real proprietors of colonial estates; while the resident, and even sometimes the absentee planters, have been little more in reality than their stewards and agents.

You will naturally be astonished at the facts which have been here stated; you will naturally ask, what temptations can have been sufficiently strong to prompt men to go on in such a continued course, with speculations which have proved in the main so unprofitable? It is really difficult to account satisfactorily for the phœnomenon. Much is certainly to be ascribed to the operation of that principle in our nature, the gambling principle as it may be termed, the existence and effects of which have been so well explained by Dr. Adam Smith; the disposition to overrate our probable success, and to assign too little weight to contingencies which may disappoint our expectations. However, in the present instance, besides this general cause, we may discover several specific causes of sure and highly powerful operation.

The West Indies are a very wide field, and some few instances of great and rapid success attract more notice than the far more numerous cases which terminate in ruin. The British merchant’s profit from consignments ensures a somewhat ready disposition to assist adventurers in planting. When also, as often happens, there is a glut of Slaves in the West Indian market, as they are an expensive article while they remain unsold, the planter can buy them on a proportionably longer credit. Two and even three years are not seldom allowed; the Planter therefore is tempted to purchase Slaves even if he does not greatly want them, in the hope, that before the time of payment arrives, they will have more than worked out their cost, by the sugars which their labour will have brought to market. In like manner the British merchant trusts, that before the bills drawn on him shall become due, the sugars in his hands will meet them. Thus encouraged, the planter buys. Meanwhile the Slaves must be set to work; and the inadequate funds of their master, the same cause which curtails their food and abridges their other comforts, causes them to be worked the harder. They sicken and drop off, and perish in what is called the _seasoning_, a mode of death sufficiently important and notorious to have obtained this epithet; a somewhat singular one, considering that the climate of the West Indies and Africa are so much the same. Yet this is a system, which, ruinous as it is, has a natural tendency to increase; which may grow even to an indefinite extent. The evils of it, however, though too long unacknowledged, are now at least felt by all who are not blinded by interest or passion. An immense mass of the national capital has thus been invested, I had almost said has been sunk, in our Trans-Atlantic Empire. In one respect it may be said, that, in accordance with the principles so clearly developed by the great political Economist who has been already named, our commercial accumulations have found their way to the land, and have become an agricultural capital. But it is to land many thousand miles removed from the mother country.

[Sidenote: Excessive accumulation of capital in the West Indies.]

I admit all the advantages, to their utmost extent, which we derive, considered as a maritime nation, from these distant possessions. But there are peculiar circumstances in their situation, which must make every considerate politician acknowledge how much more it would have been for the benefit of this country if a part of that capital had been employed at home. What is expended in the improvement of our own soil is so much permanently added to the wealth, resources, and population of Great Britain. It is well digested, and well assimilated nutriment; and it adds proportionably to our muscular strength. It is inseparably a part of ourselves; it must share our fortunes; and in all times and circumstances contribute to our benefit. Even the wealth which is acquired by British subjects in the East Indies is brought home to be spent in our own country. It improves our land, or it increases the funds to be employed in commercial or manufacturing enterprizes.

How differently circumstanced is that part of our national capital, which is invested in the West Indies. It is in a situation where it is peculiarly open to seizure; and where, in consequence, it often invites the attack of an enemy, while at the same time it is defended at an immense expence of the lives of our fellow subjects. From a fatal principle of internal weakness, it may at once be dissipated by the explosion of an insurrection, or it may be separated from us by other events which no one can call impossible. Not only would our gain, from a large part at least of this capital, have been greater in amount, if it had been invested within our own island; but still more, the gain, whatever it might have been, would have been held by a less precarious tenure. Of West Indian, even more truly than of any other riches, it may be affirmed, that they are apt to make themselves wings and fly away.

But notwithstanding the decisive proofs which have been adduced, of the ruinous consequences of the existing system; notwithstanding the tried efficiency, and salutary operation, of those great principles, to which, in the event of the abolition, we look for the advancing safety, happiness, and greatness of our Western Colonies; notwithstanding, still more, the acknowledged authority of that great man, whose opinion of the tendency of the abolition to promote the solid and permanent prosperity, as well as security, of the West Indies, was so repeatedly declared—I am yet aware that the statement of the contrary opinion by the Colonists themselves, and by their agents and correspondents in this country, greatly biasses the judgment of many considerate and respectable men.

[Sidenote: Probable causes of the opposition to abolition.]

Allow me therefore to make a few observations on this head, and to consider a little whether there may not be other causes besides reason and argument, from which the continued opposition of what is termed the West Indian body may probably be owing in no inconsiderable degree.

It is not surprising that a great effect has been produced by the declaration of so numerous and respectable a class of the community as that of the West Indian body, that the abolition would be ruinous to their interests; especially, considering that there has been full scope for the operation of party spirit, we should not be surprized to find this opinion held somewhat strongly and generally by the colonial world, and their numerous connections. Yet surely we have been too much accustomed to hear men predicting the most fatal consequences from incidents and measures, which have been depending, when the event has afterwards proved that their fears, if not utterly groundless, have been at least excessively magnified, to conclude that the mere circumstance of such apprehensions being entertained, is a sufficient proof of their having a sound foundation. We have already stated a striking instance of this kind, in the progress of this very contest—that of the violent opposition which was made by all the parties concerned, to the passing of the Slave-carrying Bill; a measure which a very few years after was acknowledged, as it is still universally confessed, to have been beneficial to them all. One of the most efficient of the opponents of abolition, in 1792, frankly acknowledged this common delusion; and even declared, that he anticipated the period when the question of abolition itself would afford another instance of its having occurred. He stated a particular fact in confirmation of his opinion; which, as the story is not long, it may be worth while to relate.

“There was a species of slavery prevailing only a few years ago in some boroughs in Scotland. Every child that carried a coal from the pit, was the bound slave of that borough. Their emancipation was thought by Parliament to be material; and was very much agitated in the House. It was urged by those who opposed the emancipation, that, let every man’s genius be what it might, yet that those pits in which the work, from its nature, was carried on under ground, were quite an excepted case; and that without the admission of slavery in this particular instance, the collieries could not be worked; that the price of coals would be raised to a most immoderate height; and all the neighbouring manufactories, which depended on them, would essentially suffer in their interests. After several years struggle, the Bill, however, was carried through both houses of Parliament. Within a year after, the whole idea of the collieries being in the least hurt by the abolition of this sort of slavery, vanished into smoke, and there was an end of the business.”

I hope therefore, that, notwithstanding the declared sense of the bulk of the West Indian body, I may, without being thought presumptuous, still declare, that renewed consideration has only confirmed my judgment, that the abolition of the Slave Trade would be ultimately and permanently beneficial to the West Indians themselves.

It is not lightly that I have taken up the persuasion, which has been intimated more than once, that the determined hostility with which the abolition of the Slave Trade has been opposed by the bulk of the West Indian body, is, in a multitude of instances, the effect of party spirit rather than of rational conviction after full and fair investigation. It is in the case of the West Indian party as in that of parties in general, a few men of superior zeal and activity give the tone to the rest. The residents in the islands, the greater part of whom are either engaged in planting speculations, or are looking forward to such speculations, are the real instigators of the opposition. The West Indian merchants lend them their zealous and powerful aid; and the proprietors in this country head the party, partly from an implicit confidence in the judgment of others, partly from a liberal feeling, which renders them unwilling to desert the cause of their fellow planters abroad; and if they take any share at all in the contest, their rank and fortune render it natural for them to take the lead.

By far the greater part however are actuated merely by deference for the opinion of others; and by that _esprit de corps_ which first renders men unwilling to differ from their friends, and which, by degrees, produces warmth, and at length vehemence, by mutual intercourse, sympathy, and collision.

In truth, what force of mind does it not require in a considerate man of any feeling, aware of all the low surmises, the invidious comments, the unkind constructions, the altered countenances, not to speak of the real loss of influence and connections to which he may expose himself, to resolve, on refusing to join the general party, and to adhere to his resolution; in such circumstances as those of the West Indian body; or, even still more, to quit the party he has joined, when a sense of duty commands the sacrifice. It is indeed but too true, that almost in any instance, and never perhaps in any more than in that of the West Indian connection, to break through the trammels of our party, demands the most strenuous, and, judging from experience, we should say, one of the most difficult of all efforts.

For men to emancipate themselves from this bondage, it requires not so much an uncommon degree of judgment and foresight, not even so much of impartiality and candour, as it calls for such a share of firmness and independence of mind as rarely indeed falls to the lot of men in any times, and less than almost in any other, in our own, in which fashion and party rule with such a rigorous despotism, as if it were to revenge on us our not submitting to any other yoke. Yet are there not a few West Indian Proprietors, both in and out of Parliament, who, though owners of large colonial possessions, have refused to join the West Indian body; who are exempt from West Indian prejudices, and who, to their honour, are resolved that the source from which their annual income is derived, shall not be polluted by injustice and cruelty.

There are also various individuals connected with the colonies, whose complete personal acquaintance with the whole system of West Indian management has given them an opportunity of discovering it’s vices, and has prevented their becoming the dupes of party violence or sophistry. And though, in quitting a formed party when we have once joined it, we obviously have greater difficulties to encounter, and obstacles to overcome, than even in originally refusing to combine with our brethren in constituting it, yet one splendid conquest of this kind has been made well it deserves such an epithet, for he, who knows any thing of human nature, knows full well, that these are the most difficult of all masteries.

Yet this difficult conquest has been achieved by one of those gentlemen who originally took the lead, in committing to the colonial legislatures the service of superseding the necessity of abolishing the Slave Trade by internal regulations. He has since abundantly proved that he did not support the measure, in order merely to defeat the efforts of the Abolitionists, and with a real view of prolonging the continuance of the Slave Trade; but that he conceived, that the question then at issue was, whether that traffic should be abolished by the Colonial Assemblies or the British Legislature: and now, that the former have refused to accept the commission which the House of Commons offered to instruct to them, he has embraced the other part of the alternative, and cordially co-operated in the attempt to abolish by the Imperial Parliament. Instances of such conduct as this are rare; for being rare, they are the more honourable. The mind loves to dwell on them. Perhaps, from never having been a party man myself I may feel their excellencies with peculiar force.

I might offend the delicacy of this gentleman, by mentioning his name; but surely without his leave I may venture to describe him. I fear there are but two or three others with whom, in all the following particulars, he can be well confounded. I may state him, then, to be the Jamaica Proprietor, in whom I believe humanity and kindness to his Slaves are hereditary virtues; and who, having more waste but cultivable land, than almost any other Jamaica landholder, had more to gain by the continuance of the Slave Trade, while he has been among the first to abandon, or rather to abolish it; who has ever had his eyes more open than most other proprietors to the abuses of the West Indian system, and his endeavours more warmly and actively exerted to correct them; being more exempt than most others of his brethren from West Indian prejudices, but often, I fear, counteracted by the prejudices of others; who has been desirous especially of promoting those moral reforms which would above all other improvements tend to the comfort of the Slaves, and the security and prosperity of the islands.

This is not general and indiscriminate praise; each commendation has it’s object. May he go forward in the path on which he has so honourably entered, and may he be followed by descendants, inheriting his principles as well as his property, who may perfect the work which he has commenced.

[Sidenote: Power of party spirit in the West Indians.]