The Marquess of Normanbywould take that opportunity of observing, with respect to the Mauritius, that though he had as yet received no official communication from the island, yet he had had information from colonial newspapers of the 3rd of March, which had been put into his hands, to the effect, that the Order in Council had arrived there, and had been proclaimed, and that total emancipation was to take place almost immediately.
Lord Broughamsaid, it was a cruel thing to think, that slavery should have existed longer by six months in the island of Mauritius than in any other of the British Colonies, whether Crown or chartered colonies, when in reality emancipation ought to have come into operation sooner there than anywhere else. He said, sooner than anywhere else, because, by the owners' own accounts, it was admitted, that one in three, or 1,000 out of 3,000 slaves, were imported into the country in direct defiance of the law, by which such importation was made a capital felony. This was the amount admitted, but in reality not fewer than one-half of the whole number of slaves in the island were imported under the connivance of various persons who had been in authority at different times, and who for their conduct therein ought to have been impeached.