On the motion of Mr. Huskisson, the House resolved itself into a committee on the Customs Consolidation act. It was his intention, he said, to put the produce of the Island of Mauritius on the same footing as the produce of the colonies of the West-Indies.
Mr. Berneltook that opportunity of complaining, that the House was at present in total ignorance respecting the extent to which the slave-trade was carried on in the Mauritius, owing to certain returns not haying been made. He therefore wished the motion to be postponed until the.House should be possessed of that information.
§ Mr. Huskissonsaid, that these paper would soon be printed, and that an opportunity would occur, on the general consolidation bill, for discussing this point; 782 but he thought there was no occasion for postponing the resolution which he now submitted.
Dr. Lushingtonhoped the right hon. gentleman would not proceed until the information alluded to should be before the House.
§ Mr. Brighthoped the measure would be brought forward in a substantive shape, and not as a part of the general consolidation bill.
Mr. Wilmot Hortonsaid, that the papers moved for had been laid upon the table, and that the delay in printing them was not to be charged against the government.
Sir R. Farquharsaid, that the papers that were ordered to be printed contained the most convincing proofs, that since early in the year 1820, no slave-trade had been carried on in the Mauritius. In regard to the rumours on this subject, they were common to the West-India islands for many years after the abolition; but he felt satisfied, that there was no more truth in them respecting the Mauritius, than there was with regard to the West-India islands. A colony's interests and character were not to be sacrificed on the ground of vague rumour, which never, in any single instance, had stood the test of inquiry or investigation. So far as the Mauritius was concerned, therefore, he had no hesitation in vouching, in the most solemn manner, that there had been no slave-trade in the island for the last five years at least; and in making this assertion, it was gratifying to him to be borne out by the most satisfactory and conclusive letters, both public and private, to the Secretary of State, from his gallant and hon. successor, who would disdain to lend his authority to the fancied existence of such practice, merely for the purpose of obtaining the credit of having suppressed them; and he therefore did hope, that a measure equally called for by justice and good policy, and one so eloquently described on a late occasion by the right hon. the chancellor of the Exchequer in the analogous case of Canada, would no longer be deferred, and that the inhabitants of the Mauritius, after all their losses, and the disappointment of their just hopes and expectations—more especially in this House last year, when the bill for the relief of the Mauritius had undergone two readings—would not be debarred another day even from the enjoyment of the full benefit of the proposed measure.
Dr. Lushingtonmade some observations respecting the landing of some slaves from a French vessel at the Mauritius.
Sir R. Farquharobserved, in reply to the learned gentleman, that the case alluded to, was that of a French vessel from Mozambique, which it was suspected intended to make a depot of slaves for Bourbon in one of the uninhabited islands of the Archipelago, to the north-east of Madagascar; but there was no landing, and the vessel was intercepted close to one of those uninhabited islands, by the exertions of captain Moresby. He put it to the candour of the hon. gentleman, whether this could be construed into a slave-trading with the Mauritius.
The resolutions were then agreed to.