Part 19

“I consider my case a hard one, and thousands are in a similar situation. I shall merely state a few simple facts as regards myself. About four years ago, upon the understanding and belief that the question, as to a fair protection in favour of our colonial sugar over foreign, or more especially slave labour sugar, was for ever set at rest, I became the purchaser of a fine estate in the island of Jamaica, for the sum of ten thousand five hundred pounds. In order to give every justice to the property, I sent out a fine new steam engine, and various other kinds of machinery and agricultural implements—in short, have expended upwards of seven thousand pounds, over and above the proceeds of all the produce made upon the estate during the course of the last four years (so that it now costs me about eighteen thousand pounds) in the hopes of eventually reaping a fair return. And this would have been the case for crop 1847, had not the unexpected and cruel measure of admitting slave-labour sugar at a low duty been introduced and carried by Lord John Russell last year. My attorney in Jamaica, before he was aware of such a rash and heartless step being taken, made out a statement of the expected crop and expenditure on the estate for the said year 1847, taking sugar at a moderate price, by which he showed a good surplus of one thousand pounds; but, alas! ere the produce came to market, prices fell so low, that in place of making any profit (though the estate made a good crop) I shall lose from one thousand to twelve hundred pounds, besides the interest on the eighteen thousand pounds of capital. This, you are aware, is perfectly ruinous, and I have been obliged to write out to my attorney, in order to save my property at home, to stop planting any more canes in the meantime; and, unless government immediately retrace their steps, to abandon the estate altogether. I am sorry to say, that this has been the hard fate with many a proprietor already, and must, ere long, overwhelm the whole colony. My property was considered one of the finest in the island, and if it perish none can stand. I might give particulars of many cases of extreme hardship, but it is needless to multiply these, as you must have many similar facts from other sources.”

The following letter is taken from a late number of a Jamaica newspaper, and we recommend it seriously to the attention of our readers:

“_To the Editor of the Jamaica Despatch, Chronicle, and Gazette._

“‘Coming events cast their shadows before.’

“SIR,—I have just returned from Lucea, where I have witnessed a sight any thing but gratifying to my feelings.

“A vessel has arrived from ‘Trinidad de Cuba,’ to load with the mill and machinery, coppers, and other apparatus, from Williamsfield Estate in this parish, late the property of Mr Alexander Grant. The estate has, since Mr Grant’s death, been, from the difficulty of the times, abandoned; and Mr D’Castro, the owner of the vessel now at Lucea, has purchased the fixtures for an estate settling in Cuba.

“Is not the fate of Jamaica estates foreshadowed in this circumstance? Is it not a melancholy reflection that we are being wantonly sacrificed by our fellow countrymen, solely for the aggrandisement of foreigners?

“It does not require, Mr Editor, a prophet to foretell the fate of Jamaica sugar properties, and that for every man’s property destroyed here half a dozen will flourish in Cuba. A new branch of trade is opened to us, and for a few months, no doubt, it will be a brisk one. I would strongly recommend gentlemen who are advertising properties for sale to send the advertisement to Cuba; an estate now is not worth more than the cattle and machinery on it, and our neighbours in Cuba, might obtain all the machinery necessary for the settlement of their sugar plantations on very easy terms; and it will be, no doubt, exceedingly agreeable at some future time, when necessity compels us to quit our own country, to seek a living in Cuba, to see our late still, steam-engine, or coppers, and if we, are particularly fortunate, obtain the superintendence of any one of them. I am, Mr Editor, your obedient servant,

A PROPRIETOR.”

“Hanover, Oct. 23, 1847.”

With such facts and testimony before him, what man in the possession of his reasonable senses can doubt that our West Indian colonies are, at this moment upon the verge of ruin? We use the word in the most literal sense, and we are not very sure that we are justified in retaining the qualification, for ruin, in its worst shape, has already fallen upon many. Lord John Russell is said to be a bold and intrepid man, but there is a weight of responsibility here enough to appal the boldest man that ever held the office of prime minister of Britain. The question is not now one of depression of trade. The rashness of former cabinets in dealing with the property of the colonists, and their unaccountable hesitation and delay in granting any remedial measures, or an increased supply of labour, have accomplished _that_ already. The question now is, SHALL THESE COLONIES BE AT ONCE ABANDONED? We look for an answer, not to the colonists, but to Lord John Russell himself. He is the party who has directly consummated their ruin, and from him the country at large are entitled to demand a full explanation of his policy. Is it his purpose that these colonies, once styled the brightest jewels of the British crown, shall be thrown waste and abandoned? If it is, let him say so boldly. The country will then be enabled to record their opinion of his judgment, and, notwithstanding all that has taken place of late years, we will not do the honest-hearted people of Great Britain the injustice, for one moment, to doubt of the strength and tenor of that opinion. If, as we hope and trust, he never contemplated these results, when in a rash moment, and perhaps with no unnatural eye to a little temporary popularity, he forced on the measure of 1846, let him say so—let him make the only reparation in his power for former errors; and although much mischief has already been done, the colonies may yet be saved, and a sacrifice so terrible averted.

While such is the situation of our own colonies, upon whom we forced emancipation, let us see what is doing in the slave countries, to whom we are handing over our custom. The increase in the sugar produce of Cuba, as we have already seen, is from 50,000 to 200,000 tons, and is still rapidly increasing. The slave-trade is going on at a multiplied ratio, and perhaps the friends of the African will be glad to learn a fact, for the correctness of which we can vouch. Not three weeks ago, a large mercantile house in Glasgow received orders to send out a supply of blankets to Cuba, because, as the writer said, the slaves have become so much more valuable, owing to the enhanced price of their produce, and the new sugar market now opened, that the owners must take more care of them. Humanity, it would seem, begins to develop itself when it goes hand in hand with profit.

And yet, perhaps, we have used the word “humanity” a little too rashly. Let us hear the testimony of Jacob Omnium, which we extract from his late able letter to Lord John Russell, as to the manner in which our cheap sugar is at present manufactured in Cuba:—

“I spent,” says that intelligent witness, “the beginning of this year in Cuba, with a view of ascertaining the preparations which were being made in that island to meet the opening of our markets. To an Englishman coming up from Grenada and Jamaica, the contrast between the paralysed and decayed aspect of the trade of those colonies, and the spirit and activity which your measures had infused into that of the Havannah, was most disheartening.

“The town was illuminated when I landed, in consequence of the news of high prices from England. Three splendid trains of De Rosne’s machinery, costing 40,000 dollars each, had just arrived from France, and were in process of erection; steam-engines and engineers were coming over daily from America; new estates were forming; coffee plantations were being broken up; and their feeble gangs of old people and children, who had hitherto been selected for that light work, were formed into task-gangs, and hired out by the month to the new _ingenios_, then in full drive.

“It was crop time: the mills went round night and day. On every estate (I scarcely hope to be believed when I state the fact) _every slave was worked under the whip eighteen hours out of the twenty-four_, and, in the boiling houses, from five to six p.m., and from eleven o’clock to midnight, when half the people were concluding their eighteen hours work, the sound of the hellish lash was incessant; indeed, it was necessary to keep the overtasked wretches awake.

“The six hours during which they rested they spent locked in a barracoon,—a strong, foul, close sty, where they wallowed without distinction of age or sex.

“There was no marrying amongst the slaves on the plantations; breeding was discouraged; _it was cheaper and less troublesome to buy than to breed_. On many estates females were entirely excluded; but an intelligent American planter told me he disapproved of that system; that the men drooped under it; and that he had found the most beneficial effects from the judicious admixture of a proportion of one ‘lively wench’ to five males in a gang of which he had had charge. Religious instruction and medical aid were not carried out generally beyond baptism and vaccination.

“Whilst at work the slaves were stimulated by drivers, armed with swords and whips, and protected by magnificent bloodhounds.”

Gentlemen who clamoured for emancipation, in this way is the sugar which you are daily consuming made! You would not have it when produced by slaves in your own colonies, and under the humane protection of your own overruling laws; you are content to take it now—at the instigation of Mr Cobden and his confederates, without the slightest scruple or remorse for having ruined thousands of your countrymen—because you can have it cheaper through the sweat and the life-blood of the slave! Is this morality? Is it justice? Is it even—to descend to lower motives—wisdom? Can you not see before you the time when, after the West Indian colonies are abandoned, a gigantic monopoly will accrue to the slave-growing states, and the sugar, for the paltry saving on which article all has been sacrificed, again become as dear, possibly much dearer than before? Recollect it is not an article like wheat, or any common species of food, which can be reared upon every soil. There is but one region of the earth in which it can be grown, and even there it cannot be grown profitably, except through a large expenditure of capital, and by means of an almost limitless command of labour. Cuba and Brazil _have_ both. Our colonies _had_ both in sufficiency, until, by cutting off the one, you almost annihilated the other. Go one step further, or rather continue in the course you have begun a very little longer, and the capital of the West Indian colonies will be wholly and irretrievably dissipated. Irretrievably—for, after what has passed, it is in vain to think that any British subject will again embark his capital in such a trade, with no better security than that of our fiscal laws, fluctuating every year under the influence of short-sighted agitation, and regulated by men whose sole intelligible principle is the continued possession of power. Once let our colonies be annihilated—their capital of nearly two hundred millions be swallowed up, principal and interest—their market, which took from us annually three millions and a half of British manufactures, closed—and the inevitable result will be a monopoly of sugar to the slave-growing states, high prices, and in all probability, which the bullionists ought to consider, a perpetual drain of gold.

We have quoted only a fraction of the evidence of Jacob Omnium with regard to the present aspect of affairs in Cuba. Much there is of painful and even sickening detail as to the treatment of the slaves, in order that an augmented supply may be thrown in upon our now unscrupulous market, for which we must refer our readers, if they wish to peruse it, to the pamphlet itself. But lest it should be thought that such testimony merely applies to the condition of the unhappy slaves at present in Cuba, we shall go further, and show that the late measure of the Whig Government has given a tenfold additional impetus to the slave trade; and that all our efforts to restrain it—efforts which, at the smallest calculation, cost this country annually a sum of half a million—are, as they must be under such circumstances, wholly futile and unavailing.

“In February last,” says the author of the above letter, “the market value of field negroes had risen from 300 to 500 dollars—a price which would speedily bring a supply from the coast. The accounts thence of the number of vessels captured, and of the still greater number seen and heard of, but not captured by our cruisers, bear ready witness to the stimulus which you have afforded to that accursed trade. It is only during the last year that we hear of _steam-slavers_, carrying nine hundred and fifty slaves, dipping their flag in derision to our men of war.”

The list of the slave captures between October 1846 and April 1847 amounts to no less than twenty-four vessels, from which between two and three thousand slaves were taken. This hideous amount of living cargo was crowded into five vessels, the other nineteen having been captured empty. This, however, is understood to be a mere fraction of the whole amount, and that the recent seizures have been much more numerous. One of our ships, the Ferret, is said to have taken no less than six slave vessels since she has been upon the coast.

The impulse which the government measure of 1846 has given to the slave trade in every part of the world is something perfectly enormous; but its mischievous and inhuman effects will best be understood by a reference to ascertained facts. Prior to 1846, the traffic in slaves between the African coast and the Spanish colonies had been gradually declining, and had in fact almost disappeared. The exclusion of slave-grown sugars from our home market had nearly forced the Cuban proprietors into a different system, and arrangements were pending in that colony for the emancipation of the slaves, just at the time when Lord John Russell came forward in favour of the chain and the lash. The consequence was, that in the first instance the Cubans withdrew their slaves from the coffee cultivation, which was the least profitable, and set them to work at the sugar-canes. The price of the negro consequently rose, and the trade is prospering abundantly.

So much for Cuba. Let us now see what is doing in Brazil. The following article is extracted from the _Jamaica Times_, of 8th. October last.

“Though it may be an act of supererogation to accumulate arguments in support of the proposition that an equalisation of the sugar duties must necessarily give an impetus to the slave-trade, it may not be amiss to point out such instances which may come before us of an illustrative tendency. In a communication recently addressed by Dr Lang to the British public, it is stated as an unquestionable fact, that a great stimulus to the cultivation of sugar in Brazil had been afforded by the late change in the duties; and consequently that the slave trade, which had been rapidly declining for some time past, had revived as briskly as ever, especially at Pernambuco, which is by far the most conveniently situated port in the empire for this traffic—being so far to the northward and eastward, and consequently so favourably situated for taking advantage of the south-east trade wind, that a vessel from that port may often run across to the coast, as it is called, that is to Africa, in half the time she would take either from Bahia or Rio Janeiro. A schooner of one hundred and twenty tons, the _Gallant Mary of Baltimore_, he added, had arrived at Pernambuco a day or two before his arrival, and was then lying in the harbour for sale; and during the short period of his stay she was purchased for seven hundred and fifty pounds by a slave merchant in the place, and was to be despatched to the coast a day or two after he sailed for England.

“This is one instance of the manner in which the increased consumption of slave-grown sugar is acting as a premium to the slave trader. We offer a second in the fact recently communicated from Africa itself, that the slave-trade on the west coast was never more brisk than it is at present; that thirteen hundred and fifteen slaves had been landed from slave vessels at Sierra Leone from May 4th to June 28th of this year; that the last slaver taken was a Brazilian brig, although for deception called the Beulah of Portland, U.S.—she was sent in by the Waterwitch: this vessel had five hundred and ten slaves on board.

“Nor is this all; for we have just learned from an authentic source, that Crab Island (a small tributary island lying to the eastward of Porto Rico) is now in course of being settled for the first time, for the cultivation of sugar; and that very recently one of the proprietors—not content, it would appear, with the customary mode of obtaining slaves—had succeeded in removing a number from one of the French islands adjacent,—a proceeding which, as might reasonably be expected, has caused the question to be raised among the _amis des noires_, whether it is legal to deport slaves from any French colony. Putting this point of the case, however, out of view, we have unquestionable evidence of the increasing importance of slave cultivation, at the very moment when the free labour colonies are struggling to maintain their very existence. We only beseech ministers to look upon these two pictures—on the one hand slavery triumphant; on the other, freedom struggling in the dust—and then persist, if they can, in the line of policy which has produced such results.”

But it is needless to multiply examples. The encouragement has been given; the increased importation of slaves to the foreign colonies has taken place; and the planters of Cuba and Brazil are already preparing for their monopoly. The following figures, set forth in a late official return, speak volumes:—

1845. 1847. Machinery exported from England to Cuba, £4807 £17,644 Ditto from do. to Brazil, 17,130 35,123

£21,937 £52,767

And this independently of such machinery as has been bought up and transported from our colonies!

Such have been the effects of the recent Whig measure; and it is for Parliament to decide whether we shall incur the national reproach of continuing any longer in a course so heartless, so unwise, and so inhuman. An attempt may be made, as in the case of the currency laws, to shelve the consideration of the sugar duties, through the convenient medium of a committee. If so, the fate of our colonies may be considered as finally sealed. This is not a case that admits of delay, nor are parties actually at issue upon disputed matters of fact. The whole question resolves itself into this—is free trade to be allowed to run riot, and are our oldest colonies to be given up to it immediately as a sacrifice? A very intelligent correspondent writes, with reference to protective measures:—

“It may be the interest of the ministry to allow this appointment of a committee, as for months they will shelve the question. These months to us are of the utmost value, as during the crop, which commences in January and ends in June in the West Indian colonies, we must decide whether we are to make any preparations for the future. If no concessions are to be made, ABANDONMENT _is the only course to save further loss_. I believe the West Indians want no committee on their case. The hardships must be admitted. What we require is a fair, but not a prohibitory duty; such a one only as will put us on a footing to compete with those parties who enjoy what we are denied—_an abundance of cheap and regular labour_. This protection must be granted until we have the labour, and also some means of commanding its regularity.”

In conclusion, we would ask the free-traders themselves, whether the course which has been pursued towards these colonies is equitable or defensible, even on their own acknowledged principles? How far do they intend or propose that these principles should be carried? Is all traffic, even that in human flesh and blood, to be free? If so, let us come to a distinct understanding on the point. If the code of morals maintained by Mr Cobden is of so truly philanthropic and catholic a nature—if “buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market” is to be adopted throughout the world as a universal and unexceptionable rule—then, in the name of common sense, let the free-traders be consistent to their creed, let emancipation become a dead letter, and let the slave markets of Africa be thrown open to every customer! Do these gentlemen intend to maintain that there is any thing of free trade in the system, which ties our own colonists hand and foot, prevents them from making use of the capabilities of their soil, dissipates their capital, and then quietly abolishes all distinctive duty between their produce and that of countries which have not chosen to adopt the same system? Is the fleet upon the coast of Africa a symbol of free-trade principles, or the opposite? Why, what a laughing-stock must that be in the eyes of the Spaniards! what an egregious proof of the most silly inconsistency that ever yet was perpetrated by a nation! We will not, forsooth, permit foreign nations to traffic in slaves, and yet we give them the monopoly of our market, knowing all the while that upon that importation alone we are dependent for a cheap supply! We ruin our colonies, transfer our custom to the foreign slave-driver, and with him, as has well been said, _cheap sugar means cheap slaves_!

We are glad to see that _The Times_, though differing with us in many economical points, has lately taken up this view, and spoken out with its customary ability. We extract from the number published on 17th January.—