LORD BROUGHAMasked the noble Lord the Under Secretary for War (Lord Hardinge), whether there was any truth in the report that the Government intended to send to-morrow two officers to the coast of Africa for the purpose of raising black regiments for service in India. He cordially hoped that if this was not an entirely unfounded it was yet an exaggerated statement; because he could conceive nothing more strongly to be deprecated than sending men to purchase negro slaves —for it amounted to that — in Africa, with the view of enlisting them in black regiments. It would not be a free emigration scheme; but an emigration of slaves, purchased in the slave market and obtained from the native Princes, amid all the horrors, the detestable atrocities of the slave trade. If such a scheme were in contemplation, we must at once give up our negotiations with the French Government, by which we were endeavouring to obtain the abandonment of the emigration system adopted by that country; our mouths would be closed for over if we ourselves were entering upon the same course and commissioning persons to proceed to the coast of Africa and procure negroes for India. [The Earl of 459 DERBY: There is nothing of the kind.] If there was no foundation for the report, then all he could say was that he should be highly gratified, and at once relieved from the necessity of addressing their Lordships, or entering his protest against such a proceeding as he had described. He hoped his noble Friend would state to the House that there was no intention to take any such stops.
§ VISCOUNT HARDINGEassured the noble and learned Lord that the War Department knew nothing of the report to which he had referred. It had, he believed, no foundation whatever in fact.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that the stop in question might be a very dangerous one, and it would be satisfactory to their Lordships to hear that the Government had no intention of taking it. He was glad, however, that his noble and learned Friend had called attention to the subject.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he had never even heard of such a report until the noble and learned Lord mentioned it. It would, however, have been more convenient if the noble and learned Lord had given the Government some previous intimation of this question, in which case they might have been able to ascertain from what possible source such a rumour could have emanated, and therefore to give it a more positive answer. All he could say, he repeated, was that he had not heard of such a report.
LORD BROUGHAMagreed that it would have been much more convenient if he had had an opportunity of previously communicating the purport of his question to the Government. But the case was this —the report had just reached him, and, seeing that his noble Friend at the head of the Indian Department had left the House, he had no means of asking anybody except his noble Friend connected with the War Department. If he had waited until the noble Earl was in his place, it might have been too late; because the report, if true at all, purported to be that to-morrow morning two officers were to leave this country for the coast of Africa. By putting the question he had obtained the satisfactory reply that the War Department knew nothing about the matter; and he trusted the report would turn out equally groundless as regarded the Indian Department.
§ House adjourned at seven o'clock, till To-morrow, Half-past Ten o'clock.