Commons Sitting of 19 June 1835

MINUTES.
New Writ issued. A New Writ was ordered on the Motion of Mr. E. J. STANLEY, for Bury St. Edmond's, in the room of Lord CHARLES FITZROY, Chamberlain to his Majesty's Household.
Bill. Read a third time:—Capital Punishments.
Petitions presented. By General SHARPE, from the Handloom Weavers of Sanquhar, for a Board of Trade.—By Sir GEORGE CREWE, from the Clergy of Matlock, for Protection to the Protestant Church of Ireland; from Belper, for a Clause in the Western Railway Bill, to prevent Sunday Travelling.—By Mr. PRYSE PRYSE, from three Places, for the Better Observance of the Sabbath.—By Mr. Serjeant JACKSON, from Cork, against any further Grant to Maynooth College.—By Mr. G.J. HEATHCOTE, from Hawley, for an Inquiry, into the Operation of the Slavery Abolition Act.—By Mr. INGHAM, from the Shipowners and others of South Shields, against any Alteration in the Timber Duties—By Dr. BOWRTNG, from the Unitarians of Bath, for an Alteration in the Dissenters Marriages' Bill; from Port Glasgow, against any Alteration in the Timber Duties.—By Mr. GILLON, from Falkirk, against any further Grant for Building Churches in Scotland.—By Messrs. RIDLEY COLBORNE, BOWRING, and M'CANCE, from several Places,—for the Repeal of the Duties on Newspaper Stamps.—By Mr. PLUMPTRE, from several Places, against compelling Soldiers serving in Foreign Countries to attend Roman Catholic Church Ceremonies; from Northbourne, for Relief to the Agricultural Interest, from the East Kent Agricultural Association, to the same effect; from Margate and Ramsgate, against the Duty on Spirit Licenses.—By Sir EARDLSY WILMOT, from Birmingham, against Drunkenness, and for Legal Measures to prevent it.

FACTORIES ACT.
MR. Brothertonrose to present a Petition from an individual of the name of James Turner, residing at Manchester, complaining of certain practices connected with the Factory Bill, and which he was confident the House, when informed of them, would be of opinion ought to be dispensed with. It would be in the recollection of the House that an Act had passed two years ago for regulating the labour of children in factories. That Act required that no children under eleven years of age should be employed in factories, without producing a certificate of a surgeon, to prove that they were of a proper age. The surgeons, it appeared, were empowered under the Act, to charge sixpence for each certificate they gave. A practice had obtained of requiring the children to produce certificates every time they changed their employers. This he conceived to be a very injurious practice, and, generally speaking, it was so considered—for his

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part, he thought it also a very unjust one.
Mr. Mark Phillipsconsidered that the matter complained of was a very great hardship on the poor people. He had never expected that the Bill would give satisfaction to the class of people for whom the House was legislating, and he now regretted much that he had been so true a prophet. The House would surely think that the payment of the 6d. was indeed a hardship upon people whose average earning did not amount to more than 3s. per week—it actually operated as a preventive on the poor children from going from one employment where work was scarce to that of another master. He was sorry that the petitioner had not pointed out some means whereby the money for the certificates might be furnished, in case the House should consider it necessary to retain that clause. The matter was well deserving the attention of the House.
Mr. Hindleywas also of opinion that the matter was well deserving the interference of the House, because in many cases he thought the inspectors had far exceeded their duty. One of them, Mr. Richards, who was in the populous district of Manchester, had laid down a rule, whereby he had appointed one hundred and fifty surgeons, from whom only he would receive certificates. He had also made it imperative upon boys or girls of sixteen years of age who changed their employment to produce a certificate; and yet if, from any cause, they were within the month again to change they must again produce a fresh certificate, which made such a patronage as the appointment of surgeons valuable. In his report that gentleman stated, as his reason for always requiring fresh certificates, that the children were much in the habit of changing from one master to another, and he thought the tax would have the effect of making them more steady; but he doubted whether the Bill gave him any such powers. The hon. Member for Manchester regretted that a remedy had not been suggested; but the amendment of the Act of last Session which he intended to propose would be a remedy. If some limitation were not fixed as to the age at which children should be employed in these factories, the relief the House was anxious to afford them would not be obtained. He had been told by a respectable manufacturer in Manchester, that even if a child was under ten years' old the surgeon would grant a certificate
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that the child was twelve years if the manufacturer said that the child would be useful to him. He was determined, when the estimate for the payment of the inspectors was brought forward, to oppose it until their reports, which he had frequently moved for, were laid upon the Table.
Mr. Aglionbybore testimony to the respectability of the petitioner and should most cordially support any measure of the hon. Member opposite for the relief of the working classes.
Petition laid on the Table.

MAYNOOTH COLLEGE.
Mr. Sergeant Jacksonpresented a Petition from several hundred inhabitants of Cork, praying that no further grant of public money might be allowed for Maynooth College. The petitioners complained that the interference of the Roman Catholic Clergy had done away with all freedom of election; and that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were well able to support that establishment, as they paid in voluntary contributions to one man more than would support the College twice over. The clergymen educated at Maynooth by the public bounty were not at all the most efficient promoters of peace and good will among the Irish people, for it was a notorious fact, of which every day's experience furnished lamentable illustration, that they turned their chapels into political arenas, and used their pulpits as rostra from which to spout the most inflammatory doctrines to their misguided and credulous flocks—in fact, English gentlemen could form no adequate conception of the extent to which the priests carried the agitation disturbance. Everything English and Protestant was the subject of unceasing, and unmitigated attacks by the present race of priests educated at Maynooth. At every election they were the busiest agents, and the greatest promoters of disturbance.
Mr. O'Dwyersaid the Protestant Clergy interfered much more, and more mischievously, at elections than the priests.
Mr. Shawdenied that there was any comparison between the two bodies. The Roman Catholic clergymen proposed and nominated candidates, and dragged the freeholders to the place of polling in a manner which, if it had been done by Protestant clergymen, he should consider most disgraceful. The Protestant clergy, no doubt, exercised the right of suffrage, but then they did not go beyond the pale

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of that right, and become the stimulators to outrage and violence. Look to the conduct of the Catholic clergy that week in Carlow; they were there found proposing and seconding the candidates, and, not content with that, they were exerting all their influence their station and calling gave them in marring the independence and purity of election by coercing the will of the electors, and goading on the populace to violence and outrage. Their power, if not checked, would supersede the power of all law and Government, and spread general confusion and discord throughout the country.
Mr. O'Connelltook the liberty of saying that the statements of the right hon. and learned Gentleman were totally false. It was true that Catholic Clergymen had spoken at elections, and seconded the nomination of candidates; for instance, one of them seconded Mr. Vigors, a Protestant Member. Their speeches were printed and published, and it would be seen that they did not deserve the character given them by the correspondents of the right hon. Gentleman as to their existing violence. Were there not many persons in Ireland who would be ready, and were exceedingly anxious for opportunities, to prosecute them, if they said one word that would make them liable? But their protection was, that they carefully avoided violating the law, while, as men and citizens, they exercised that right to which they were entitled. But, on the other hand, there was violence used against the Catholics by the Orange party, particularly in one county, for no other reason than because they were Catholics. Was the right hon. Gentleman aware that almost all the Protestant clergy interfered with elections? ["No, no."] He would tell them of one case where they did, and he could mention names if he chose. Mr. Mahony, of Dromore. But he utterly denied the charge against the Catholic clergy.
Mr. Shawwould call the recollection of the House to a recent occasion, on which the hon. and learned Member made the same assertion respecting other correspondence which he (Mr. Shaw) had received. The hon. and learned Member then as confidently asserted as he did now that his (Mr. Shaw's) information was false. The hon. and learned Gentleman was ever ready with his confident assertions, which were afterwards disproved. But what was
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the result in the case he alluded to when inquiry was made? He would leave that to the judgment of the House. [Mr. O'Connell: What case do you allude to.] The case of David Murphy.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, he would deny that his assertions were disproved in that case. Mr. Shaw's own documents did not substantiate his former accusation.
Mr. Shaw—I leave that to the judgment of the House and the country.
Petition to lie on the Table.

TITHES (ENGLAND).
Captain Pechellrose pursuant to notice to present a Petition from Samuel G. Pechell, Esq., a Captain in the Royal Navy, and farming his own land in the county of Hants, complaining of the vexatious proceeding of his vicar, the Rev. Thomas Cook Kemp and praying for a speedy Commutation of Tithes. The hon. Member begged to state that in the remarks he might feel it to be his duty to make, he did not intend to convey any censure on the clergy generally, but lo show the necessity of altering the present law of Tithes. He then went on to say that he should request the indulgence and favour of the House while he recapitulated some necessary details. As it could not be supposed that he should be very familiar with this subject, he trusted the kindness of the House would be extended to him. It appeared that in 1826, the Rev. Thomas Kemp entered on his vicarage, and immediately gave notice that all compositions for Tithes should cease, the petitioner's composition at the time being 19 s. 9s. 6d. though only valued at 11 l. 19 s. He had therefore been paying 11 l. 10 s. 6d. more than the value, which composition however he was still willing to continue to the new vicar, knowing how essential it was to keep on a good footing with the clergyman, as well on his own account, as being a Magistrate for the common benefit of society. The reverend Gentleman however refused the old composition and actually proposed an increase of 20 per cent, which was of course refused by the whole parish. The vicar then commenced a series of vexatious proceedings in tithing hay and grass, and positively made no distinction between the grass cut daily for the use of the husbandry horses, and the grass rut for other purposes. At last a claim was set up for the tenth acre of all turnips grown on the farm, which be-

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ing for the depasturing of the sheep, could not be tithed. This claim was resisted because the tithe of agistment for the sheep fed on those turnips had been tendered. The vicar then proposed to bring a friend to settle all differences; and this Friend actually turned out to be his own solicitor, who took advantage of the unreserved conversation of the petitioner, the consequence of which was, that a notice was soon served on him of a suit being commenced in the Court of Exchequer for the tithes of turnips generally, and the vicar refused to make any specific demand which might have been settled either by arbitration or before two justices. The trial however proceeded, the claim for turnips generally was abandoned, but the tithe of turnips that had been pecked up in advance of the fold was demanded. The custom of the country and the common practice is to peck up the turnips to prevent any damage to the flock by the turnip-greens and to prevent them from running to seed. The turnips in this case were pecked up or hoed in the part of the field not hurdled off but which was in the course of being so hurdled; and even part of the flock had access to the whole field. But the Chief Baron decided that because the entire flock had not access at the time of the pecking or hoeing the turnips so pecked up, they were liable to tithes, thus drawing a line beyond which turnips could not be hoed or pecked. Chief Baron Lyndhurst said the turnips might be pecked in the rear of the fold, but not in advance of it. Now was there ever anything so absurd as this and so very injurious to the system of turnip cultivation? If these turnips had been severed and removed from the spot either for sale or for feeding cattle and cows in a yard, then the vicar was clearly entitled to his tithe, and such could be easily set out. But how was it possible to set out the tithe of turnips hoed up and left on the spot for the sheep which already had had access to them? Therefore no distinction is made between turnips pulled up for sale and those left on the ground for depasturage. Here therefore is a case in which the vicar gets the tithes of all sheep fed on the turnips and sold before the shearing time, as well as the tithe of all lamb and wool and the benefit of the manure produced on the ground for the succeeding crop. It appears that the
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Chief Baron confounded this case of pecking up the turnips for feeding the flock on the spot with those cases decided 120 years ago of turnips removed for sale. It is well known to many hon. Members connected with country affairs that formerly turnips were only grown on the richer soils and were removed either for sale or for feeding in yards and stalls; but that in the modern system of cultivation the turnip crop has been adopted on very poor and inferior soils which were thereby prepared for a crop of corn. Now he contended that it was practically impossible to set out the tithe of turnips intended for depasturage; and he defied the Chief Baron and all the Barons of the Exchequer to point out how the object could be attained. He even defied the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. A. Trevor), whom he did not at this moment see in his place and who had been designated as the conduit pipe for conveying the opinions of the clergy, to shew how this was to be effected. It was well known that clover and grass cut for husbandry horses is exempt from being set out for tithes on account of the difficulty; and it is here decreed that no difficulty exists in setting out the tithe of turnips. Here, then, the right of tithe depends on the difficulty or facility that may be urged in setting it out. He could assure the House that this case need never have occurred had the vicar agreed to the old composition which was 11 l. more than the value of the tithe; but instead of taking to the valuable composition of his predecessor, he ventured to demand an increase of 20 per cent, when it was well known that the price of agricultural produce, depreciated as it was, would not authorise any such increased demand; and notwithstanding the unfavourable decree of the Court of Exchequer, the petitioner would not at this moment have approached the House but for continued threatened proceedings on the part of the vicar, should the petitioner venture to peck up his turnips. The petitioner had invested his capital in farming land, and he now found himself impeded in his pursuits by the conduct of the rev. Gentleman. He would now proceed to shew the consequence of the petitioner's not submitting to the imposition of 20 per cent on an already overcharged composition, by stating that the petitioner was decreed in the costs of the suit for the claim of turnips pecked, which claim

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amounted to 31 l. 6s. though valued at no more than at 30 s. He would now just state the items, and he was thereby enabled to make mention of the honourable conduct of the solicitor and counsel for the petitioner, who viewing the injustice of the case had acted gratuitously, only charging expenses out of pocket.

Plaintiff's costs were reduced on taxation from 250 l. to

166

2

5

Paid a Commissioner

38

10

0

Tithe of turnips claimed

3

6

0

Plaintiff's (the Vicar's) demand

207

18

5

Petitioner's (the defendant's) Solicitor's bill

110

10

6

Total paid

£318

8

11

for the demand of 66 s. Tithe of turnips valued at 30 s. that had been pecked up in advance of the fold, and which being under 10 l. might have been settled out of Court. Capt. P. then read the petition, which prayed for a speedy and compulsory Commutation of Tithes.
Mr. Estcourtfelt obliged to say, that he could not think that the case had been fairly stated. It was impossible that the reverend gentleman would have run the risk of expending upwards of 200 l., for the purpose of recovering the trifling sum of 3l. 6s. if he could have gone before a magistrate. The only object of the petition appeared to him to be to show the hardship of the proceeding in the Court of Exchequer, and to lay before the House the fact of the Lord Chief Baron having taken a wrong view of the matter. If such were the object of the petition, it was properly enough brought before the House. If such were really the intention the House would take time to consider of the case before coming to a decision. He, for one, was inclined to believe in the law of the Lord Chief Baron, in preference to that of the gallant officer. He had no doubt but that the clergyman had been driven to take the course he had done.
The Attorney-Generalsaid, that it seemed to him a very proper petition to bring before the House, in order to show the state of the law of the land as it at present stood, and in order to induce the Legislature to alter it. He must protest, however, against that House being in any manner considered as a court of appeal from any of the courts in Westminster Hall. Though he differed from the opinions of the noble Lord who decided the case, still he was eminent for his learning and impartiality, and he had no doubt but the decree was made in strict con-
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formity with the law of the land. In fact, the gallant officer had stated that the decision was founded upon other decisions of 150 years ago. It was to be borne in mind, that during that time there had been no alteration in the law, and the learned Baron was bound to take the law as he found it.
Mr. Humedid not understand the petition to be brought forward in the nature of an appeal at all, but for the purpose of showing the absolute necessity for a change in the law, which, as it now stood, obliged a party to incur an expense of near 400 l. in the recovery of a paltry sum of 3l. 10 s. It was all, too, for the support of the Church. Would any one say that tithes were to be appropriated to other than Church purposes? This suit was for the purpose of recovering tithes, therefore, for the support of the Church, which, in consequence of these iniquitous suits, had become a curse to the country. He trusted that the Ministry would not allow an hour to pass which they could possibly avoid before bringing in an alteration in he law in that respect.
Sir Robert Inglisthought it highly unfair to use a single case as the means of an attack on the clergy in general. Because a single instance of grievance was alleged, was that a fair ground for affixing a general stigma on the whole Church? Besides, it should be recollected that one-third of the tithes in England belonged to laymen, and if oppression was suffered in consequence of tithes, the whole offence was not chargeable to the Church. What was a clergyman to do if this tithe were not paid, but appeal to the law for redress?
Mr. Gillonlooked upon the petition as calling the attention of the House to a scandalous oppression which, it appeared to him, had been practised in this case. The clergyman claimed tithes upon turnips grown in a field upon which the sheep fed, of whose fleeces he was afterwards to receive the tithe. A case of more gross rapacity was never witnessed. The legal profession had been accused of rapacity, but so great was the impression of the hardship inflicted in this case, that the counsel and solicitor acted gratuitously, and the rapacity was all transferred to the clergyman. He trusted that the House would soon pass a law for the commutation of tithes.
Lord Sandonthought it was rather hard upon individuals who had no oppor-

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tunity of defending themselves, that they should be wantonly assailed in that House. In what other place but that did they find judges deciding upon the representation of one party, and reprobating those who had not even the opportunity of defending themselves? There was nothing more valuable than the right of petition; but there was no right which was so much abused in its being made the means of assailing the character of others. A tyrannical use was made of it; and there was nothing hon. Gentlemen should be more careful of than in their comments upon petitions which libelled the characters of those who were absent. Upon the face of the petition which had been presented the entire facts, it was evident, had not been stated. There must have been some motive beyond that of recovering 30 s. to induce any one to go to an expense of 200 l. What was the situation of the clergyman? He depended upon the payment by his flock of certain dues. In certain cases these were withheld, and if he enforced his claim, he was called an oppressor, and if he did not he might starve. Again he implored of hon. Gentlemen to be somewhat delicate in their attacks upon the characters of those who were not present to defend themselves.
Mr. Arthur Trevorprotested against these attacks on the clergy in general as most unjust and undeserved. It was the duty of the Government to release the clergy from these annoyances, by securing to them a fair provision.
Captain Pechell,in reply, delared that he threw back all the insinuations levelled against himself and the petitioner, and though the hon. Member for Durham begged to enter his protest as usual, he (Captain Pechell) should also enter his against any interference that there was any thing contained in the petition which he was not prepared to prove. The case, unfortunately, was not a novel one; there had been petitions last year presented by the hon. Member for Hampshire, expressing the alarm felt by the occupiers of the parishes in the neighbourhood of the reverend Mr. Kemp, at the decree obtained by that reverend gentleman in the Court of Exchequer; and as due notice had been given to him as well as to the late Chief Baron that the petition now in his (Captain Pechell's) hand would be presented this day, there was no cause, at any rate, for saying an opportunity had
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not been afforded of rebutting the charges advanced against the reverend gentleman. This petition was not presented unadvisedly, and he assured the House that he would not have undertaken its advocacy had there been the slightest cause for suspecting even that there could be any concealed fact lying behind, as was assumed by the hon. Member for Oxford University. It was very clear that this petition was not an appeal from the decision of the Court of Exchequer, for its prayer was for a commutation of tithes. The Attorney-General had mistaken him in saying that this decree was founded on cases decided 150 years ago. What he said was, that the Chief Baron asserted that plaintiff's case was supported by concurrent decisions; but all the cases produced were decided "120 years ago, and were for turnips severed and drawn and removed either for sale or for feeding cattle and cows." This claim and annoyance for tithe of turnips, although unprecedented in this country, had been attempted in Spain; and singular enough was it that he should have discovered such a fact at this precise moment. In 1828, the Ecclesiastical Chapter of Saragossa demanded the tithe of turnips from the market gardeners, who resisted the imposition as illegal and oppressive; and the question was decided by the primary tribunal in favour of the gardeners. But mark what followed. It was brought before a higher court where the influence of churchmen prevailed, and the exaction was confirmed. The people, however, paraded the streets and blockaded the town, and cried "long live the king, and no tithe on vegetables." The Captain General, to put an end to the tumult, declared that the tithe should not be further exacted, and that the seizure should be taken off. The petitioner now placed his case in the hands of the House, suffering, as he was under the costs of the suit, which decided that no turnips could be pecked in advance of the fold, which law went forth into the country to the alarm of those who had flocks. Although it had been said that blood could not be obtained from a turnip, he trusted that this petition would be the means of drawing the attention of the House to this branch of the subject when the Tithe Bill came before it.
Petition to lie on the Table.

LORD ELIOT'S MISSION.
Mr. Thomas Duncombe,in moving according to the notice which he had given, for the production of papers relating to the Convention that had been entered into respecting the prisoners taken by either of the belligerent armies in the north of Spain, could not help observing that there was no similar instance in our Parliamentary history where foreign politics and the relations of foreign powers with this country had been so much disregarded—he might almost say totally neglected—as they had been during the present Session: therefore it was, that he was particularly anxious to call the attention of the House to the subject. He was satisfied that it would have a mischievous effect on the internal affairs of Spain, if the lips of Members of that House remained longer closed on the subject of the Convention. He lamented that he did not see in his place the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he regretted it the more particularly, for if there was one branch of foreign policy more than another in which the noble Lord had evinced a lively interest in the establishment of freedom abroad, it was in the conduct and opinions he had manifested with regard to the Peninsula, to the distracted state of which he (Mr. Duncombe) wished to call the attention of the House. When Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood were sent to Spain, he put a question to the noble Lord, then Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to ascertain whether the object of the mission was to promote or oppose Don Carlos in endeavouring to obtain the Crown of Spain? This question was asked in consequence of an observation made by the Duke of Wellington in a speech he delivered in August last year. On the occasion he alluded to, Lord Melbourne was asked respecting Colonel Caradoc being sent into the Peninsula, when that noble Lord answered, that the gallant Officer had been sent there, that the British Government might be more quickly as well as more accurately informed as to the state of affairs in that quarter. The Duke of Wellington then observed with respect to the mission of Colonel Caradoc, that it was not usual to send persons to the head-quarters of an army unless as a sort of ally, and with the intention of giving countenance to the cause. His object, then, was to
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know whether Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood went to the head-quarters of Don Carlos as a sort of ally. The noble Lord (Lord Mahon) replied, at the time he had just alluded to, that the object of the Government in sending out the two Commissioners was to put an end to the system of warfare then prevailing. He alluded to the destruction of the villages, the massacre of the inhabitants, the putting to death the soldiers taken on each side, and said that no part of the object they had in view was to support in any way the cause of Don Carlos. Now he would ask whether any mission that could be sent out was more likely to advance a cause than this was to promote the success of the usurpation of Don Carlos. He wished the House to bear in mind the relations this country bore to Spain and Portugal and France in August last, when the treaty had been entered into which was known by the name of the Quadripartite Treaty. In this treaty Spain and Portugal mutually engaged to assist each other in expelling the persons who attempted to usurp the thrones of those countries from Spain and Portugal, and England and France were contracting parties to this treaty. France engaged to co-operate in any manner that the other three Allied Powers agreed, to promote the objects of the Treaty, and bound herself that no arms, ammunition, or armed men should depart from that country for the service or to promote the cause of the Pretender to the throne of Spain; and England engaged to co-operate with a naval force and to afford assistance by arms or ammunition to the legitimate sovereign of the Peninsula. This had been designated an abominable treaty in another place, he supposed because if it had been carried properly into effect that it must have put an end to Don Carlos's progress in Spain. Notwithstanding this treaty it appeared that British Commissioners had been sent to Don Carlos under a plea of humanity, although he had been proclaimed a traitor in Spain, and had been virtually acknowledged to be so by both England and France. The convention which had been entered into with him could have no other result than to give a more permanent form to that person's authority than otherwise would have been the case, and to continue that waste of human life and those acts of treachery and cruelty which the parties who promoted it con-

907
tended they entered into with a wish to stop. With both Colonel Gurwood and Lord Eliot he had been many years acquainted, and for both of them he entertained the highest feelings of respect. He believed that a more amiable man in private life than Lord Eliot did not exist, or a more upright man in public life; but he only complained of them now as agents of a Government whose system of foreign policy he was opposed to. He found, by the public papers, that the Convention was to place the soldiers of the usurper, or rather these traitors to their country, on the same footing as the soldiers of the Queen. The object of those persons who were to be protected was to subvert a Government which this country, by a solemn treaty, had declared to be legitimate. One of the articles of this Convention stated, that "during the present contest no person whatever should be deprived of life on account of political opinions, without being judged and condemned previously according to the laws, decrees and ordinances existing in Spain." He should like to know how this agreement could operate, unless to give force to the decrees and ordinances of Don Carlos. That person contended that, as an absolute monarch, whatever he made a decree became a law of the land. He should like also to know what difference there would be in the treatment of the Spanish soldiers or the British volunteers, in any decree made by the person he alluded to. In his opinion, there never had been anything more monstrous than this part of the Convention, for it conferred power on men in a country where, by their conduct, they had divested themselves of all the rights they had previously possessed. He had an authority, which he would quote, which authorised him in saying that Don Carlos had put himself out of the protection of the law of all nations. The authority he alluded to was Vattel, who said that those who took arms with traitors might be charged, and were responsible, for all the horrors of the war, and for the outrages and crimes committed in it. In this, case, however, the rights of loyal soldiers were put on exactly the same footing as rebels; and yet they were told that the Convention had only been entered into from a feeling of humanity. He should like to know where was this humanity the late Government was so anxious to display, when they suffered. Poland to be devastated, and that
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brave people to be removed into distant and barbarous countries? What would the Autocrat of Russia have said, if we had sent to him Commissioners, to say that no Poles should be punished until they had been tried and condemned by the Polish laws? There was another occasion in Spain, when it might have been thought that humanity would have dictated interference; he meant when Torrijos and his companions had been murdered at Malaga. They never heard of interference dictated by humanity in such cases as these, because the cruelties were perpetrated by despots. The late Ministers made no attempt to put a stop to the outrages on one side, but they determined to prevent the extreme punishment being inflicted on those who had carried civil war into the country. This was not the only form in which liberty had been injured by the late Convention. They had had an intimation of what had taken place in a conversation between Louis Philippe and the British Commissioners, a conversation most complimentary and encouraging to Don Carlos and his party, and injurious to the cause of the Queen. He trusted that he should have that conversation explained at least, for he knew that it could not be denied. If this was not explained satisfactorily, he should like to know how they could place any reliance on the Commissioners. He knew that arms and ammunition had been sent from this country to Don Carlos, and nobody could doubt that the Neapolitan Court sided with that person. Was not the promotion of the liberties of the Peninsula a fit subject for British talent? Spain now looked to England alone, as she had repeatedly done before, to protect her independence. Her liberties now trembled in the balance; and he believed, that if the House of Commons would speak out, and would repudiate the terms of the Convention, that it was not too late. He would not trouble the House at greater length, but would conclude with observing, that he did not wish to ask for any papers that would affect any negotiation in progress, but only for such information as would throw a light on the subject of the negotiations. He concluded by moving that an Address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would order to be laid before the House a Copy of the Instructions sent to Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood upon their late mission to Spain, together with Copies of all Reports and

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Communications made to the British Government by those Commissioners; and also for a Copy of any Convention for the exchange of prisoners proposed by Lord Eliot, and signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the armies in the provinces of Guipuscoa, Alava, Biscay, and the kingdom of Navarre.
Lord John Russellsaid that, in the first place, he had to apologise for the absence of his noble Friend, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He would have been present, had it not been that he had been required to attend his Majesty at Windsor. With regard to the Motion of his hon. Friend, he begged to state that he had seen the Convention that had been entered into by Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood between the commanders of the contending armies in the Biscayan provinces, and his Majesty's Government would have no objection to lay it before the House. With respect to the instructions given to Colonel Gurwood, he begged to observe that he did not believe that there was any instance of any instructions having been made public; and he doubted whether it would not be found extremely inconvenient to lay instructions of this nature before Parliament. With respect to the second part of the Motion, that all the reports and communications of Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood should be laid before the House, he must say that such a course was most unusual, and it would not be for the convenience of his Majesty's service, or for the promotion of the public good, to lay the papers before Parliament. His hon. Friend was aware that the contest going on in Spain had been carried on with great fierceness on both sides, and a Convention had been entered into between the two parties, through the intervention of the Commissioners, to diminish the shedding of human blood. He did not think that it would be proper to lay before the House any portion of the documents, until they could be wholly laid on the Table. With respect to the general argument of his hon. Friend, he would only say, that the object of sending the Commissioners out was to put a stop to the useless bloodshed going on in Spain, and to the manner in which the war was carried on in Spain. From the papers he had seen in the Foreign-office, the Duke of Wellington seemed to have carried into effect most fairly and strictly the provisions of the treaty signed last year by the Four Powers; therefore he did
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not agree with his hon. Friend in the charge he had brought against the late Government of not having acted with good faith with respect to that treaty.
Dr. Bowringsaid, he would be the last person in the House to urge the production of papers in any case in which their being furnished would be likely to embarrass the Members of the Government. He felt bound to add, however, that it was with great gratification that he saw this subject introduced to the notice of the House. The people of Spain were looking, with great anxiety, to what was the feeling of this country with respect to the great struggle in which they were engaged. In that country existed all the elements necessary to the establishment of their future liberty; the slightest expression of sympathy on the part of England would insure their complete developement. No one who had not visited Spain could judge of the degree of affection which was there felt towards this country, or of the extent to which she relied on us for countenance and encouragement; no one who had not visited Spain could know how completely our interests were associated with hers, or how intimately were connected with her success, in her present struggle, the cause of Reform in this country, and of general freedom. If there was any deficiency of sympathy in this country with the cause of good government in Spain, it might be referred to the fact that the Spanish government had not rendered justice to the Spanish people. Don Carlos, in the North, bad associated himself with certain popular feelings; and the existing government of Spain had experienced much difficulty, because it had not, by liberal measures, sufficiently identified itself with the interests of the people. The name of Don Carlos had been associated by the people with ancient and popular institutions, and the government of the Queen had perilled its cause from a want of liberality. It had not found a response to its call in the hearts of the people; it had not even courted an alliance with them; it had shackled the press, and instead of acting on principles of freedom and liberality, had adopted the maxims of arbitrary power. If the Spanish government acted as it ought, there was no danger for the cause. No country in the world was better calculated for popular institutions; and the time might arrive when Spain would be as great as at those periods of her history

911
with which everything exalted was associated. It could not be too often repeated that there was no country in which more of the elements of freedom existed than in Spain. He hoped, therefore, that its government would associate itself with the recollections of ancient greatness, and establish a system of constitutional freedom on a sound and enduring basis.
Viscount Mahonconcurred with the noble Lord in regretting the absence of the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, because, though that noble Lord was, of course, bound to obey the summons of his Majesty, yet it would have been much more satisfactory to have heard from the noble Lord himself, who, from the office he held, must be much more conversant with them, a statement of some of the details connected with this subject. He only expressed his personal feelings when he declared his regret that the noble Lord opposite thought it his duty to refuse the papers for which the hon. Member for Finsbury moved; but the noble Lord having said, that not to refuse the papers would be to establish a bad precedent, and to take a course which would be inconvenient to the public service, he considered himself bound to yield his assent to the noble Lord's objection. He begged to inform the House, however, that he was authorized by the Duke of Wellington to state that, as far as his, the noble Duke's, feelings and wishes were concerned, he was not only willing, but desirous that his instructions to Lord Eliot, his dispatches to Lord Eliot, and also that the previous correspondence from Madrid—indeed, that everything which could bear on the present Question should be produced. He was, at the same time, authorized by the Duke of Wellington to state, that he did not in the least wish to press on his Majesty's Government to produce papers that they thought ought, under the circumstances, to be withheld; but the noble Duke was persuaded that the more closely this question was examined in all its bearings, the more it would be seen how completely unfounded were the attacks which had been made on his Administration. He confessed he had witnessed, with great surprise, the attacks on the Duke of Wellington in connexion with this subject; and he alluded not merely to those of this evening, but also to others out of this House. If ever there was a transaction which he should have thought was beyond
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the reach of party spirit—which was founded on no principles but those of justice and humanity—which was stained by no motive mean or sordid—he should say, it was that convention which the Duke of Wellington so judiciously framed, and which Lord Eliot so ably and judiciously executed. He trusted he might be allowed to add that, in his opinion, and, if he were not misinformed, also in the opinion of his Majesty's Government, Lord Eliot had done himself great credit by the skill, judgment, and temper with which he had conducted that difficult negotiation. He hoped the country would, at some future time, derive the great advantages of Lord Eliot being employed in some still more difficult and important mission. To return to the Convention: he really could scarcely believe that the hon. Member for Finsbury could be aware of the system of barbarity which previously existed. In Navarre the prisoners on both sides were, on being taken, cruelly treated, and a few hours afterwards killed. If the hon. Member had been more fully informed on these points, he would surely not have indulged in the observations he made, he would surely not have disapproved of a transaction which tended to put an end to such a system. He was persuaded that the hon. Member would have taken a very different view of the subject, if he could only have witnessed that which the letters of Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood described. They stated, that on the very evening when Lord Eliot reached the head-quarters of Zumala-carreguy there were twelve or fifteen prisoners that had been taken in the course of the day, and were ordered to be shot the next morning; but Lord Eliot interceded to save them, and Zumalacarreguy acceded to his request. When the prisoners were informed that they owed their lives to Lord Eliot's humanity, they naturally expressed the greatest joy and the deepest gratitude to their deliverer. If such facts as these had come to the knowledge of the hon. Member for Finsbury, and to the House generally, he was confident that a very different feeling must prevail. He thought the question one in which all civilized nations were interested. Not only ought nations to be bound together by the common feelings of civilization and humanity, but as they were all exposed to the chance of civil war, it was to their interest to pre-

913
vent a precedent being set for a most rancorous and exterminating animosity being indulged in. But the hon. Member for Finsbury stated that this Convention was unfavourable to the established Government of Spain. So far from that being the case he could assert that the mission was undertaken with the full concurrence of General Alava; the Convention was submitted to him before Lord Eliot's departure, and he most completely concurred in it. He would refer, also, to a declaration made by Martinez de la Rosa, a statesman whose talents and public character were, as they ought to be universally respected. In answer to an attack made in the Chamber, of Procuradores by Signior Galiano, that eminent statesman took the opportunity of defending every point of the Convention as favourable to the Queen's interest, and to the Queen's Government. Martinez de la Rosa not content however with that, went on to bear testimony to the conduct of the late Administration in a manner so gratifying to his feelings that he trusted the House would allow him to bring it to their recollection. The Minister to whom he was adverting stated with reference to the Duke of Wellington and his right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth that "He must say all their official conduct towards Spain had been marked by a strict and honourable fulfilment of the treaties, and every act of theirs bespoke a wish to befriend the Queen's Government." This was after the Duke of Wellington and his right hon. Friend had resigned office, so that there could not have existed any political interest to prompt the gratifying testimony borne. He would also beg leave to refer the hon. Gentleman to a letter he perhaps had seen in the public papers from General Cordova, and which appeared in the Spanish papers on the 19th of last month. That General, who was second in command in the army of the Queen of Spain, entered, in that letter, into a defence of every article of the treaty. The letter stated that the lives of not less than five hundred of the Queen's soldiers, and one hundred of the urban-guards, had been saved in consequence of the Convention. Perhaps, however, the hon. Gentleman would say, "Yes, but much greater advantages were derived from the Convention, by the Carlists; how many of them were saved?" His reply would be—not one. General Cordova
914
stated that not one of Don Carlos's army received any advantage from the Convention. Now, unless the hon. Member for Finsbury thought he better understood the interest of the Queen of Spain than the Queen's Prime Minister, or than the Queen's own General, or than the Queen's own Minister in London—unless the hon. Gentleman thought this, it really did appear to him that he had given such testimony as must change the opinion of the hon. Gentleman on this subject. In the Convention as at first proposed, the Queen's General suggested several alterations, which were agreed to. He would also add to the list of facts he had furnished, that after the Convention was proposed and signed by Lord Eliot and General Zumalacarreguy, at that time it being considered only a stipulation, the Queen attached great importtance to its being converted into a Convention, so that the Convention was as much the act of the Queen of Spain's Government as it was that of the late Administration. He would take this opportunity of adverting to a notice he had thought right to give of a Motion relating to the recent Order in Council; he had no wish to interfere inconveniently with the business conducted by the Government, but he thought the House would feel that if the subject was to be discussed at all, there ought not to be much, delay in bringing it forward. When that Motion came before the House he could enter more fully into matters respecting Spain, than he should feel himself justified in doing on the present occasion. He believed, however it would be found that the Convention concluded by Lord Eliot would be honourable to the English Government, beneficial to the Government of Spain, and worthy the high character this country had always borne, and which he trusted it would always be the wish of this House to adhere to and maintain.
Mr. Cressett Pelhamwas understood to argue against the principle of interference in the civil wars of neighbouring States, and the danger of establishing a precedent for foreign interference in England. What, he would ask, would Oliver Cromwell have said if Louis 14th had claimed a right to interfere to protect the Royalist prisoners taken during the wars of the Commonwealth, when England was struggling for liberty? As he had mentioned the name of Cromwell he must do

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him the justice to say, that he had humanely interposed to protect the French Protestants who had been driven from their country. He must own that this Convention appeared to be undertaken in a spirit of humanity which claimed the approbation of all enlightened men. In his opinion, the late Administration had wisely interfered for the promotion of humanity without running the risk of incurring expense or provoking further contest.
Colonel Evanscould not see the necessity which existed for the present Motion. The Members of the late Government did not think it necessary to call for the production of any papers to vindicate their characters respecting the objects they had in view in the formation of the Convention. Neither did the present Ministry attempt to arraign those motives, or to cast any blame on the conduct of the Commissioners who executed it. On the contrary, they had given their predecessors unqualified praise for this portion of their foreign policy. There was, therefore, a perfect coincidence of opinion on this subject between the parties in England whose characters and interests might be chiefly affected by it. For my own part (said the gallant Colonel) I at first felt somewhat uncertain what had been the effect of this measure in Spain, and made anxious and particular inquiries with respect to its operation on the parties whose conduct it was intended to influence. I have now, however, great pleasure in stating that, from all which I can learn, the conduct of the noble Duke throughout the negotiation has been marked by an entire fidelity to existing treaties—to the honour of England and the obligations she had entered into relative to the recognition of constitutional liberty abroad. I now feel convinced that he has pursued a sound and faithful as well as benevolent policy in his late measures adopted towards Spain. If there has been anything that can fairly be complained of in connexion with any part of the transaction, it is the subsequent indiscretion of a gallant acquaintance of mine, (Colonel Gurwood) relative to a reported conversation with an illustrious individual abroad (the King of the French) as stated in the newspapers. I have little doubt that the opinions and sentiments attributed to these individuals are much distorted in the statement which appeared; but, however that may be, no blame attaches either to the noble Duke for the spirit
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in which he originated the Convention, or to the Commissioners for the manner in which they carried it into operation. On the contrary, the conduct of both is the just theme of approbation amongst those whose opportunities of observing its effects on the spot entitle them to every confidence.
An Hon. Membercongratulated the House that the Question had been brought forward, as it had elicited so much to be approved of in the conduct of those who had the management of the humane negotiation as well as the honour of England in their hands. He was inclined to give credit to Lord John Russell for his motives in withholding the papers referred to at this crisis. It was highly gratifying to find the successors of those who had filled the most important trusts coming forward to vouch for the integrity, honour, and regard to public faith which their predecessors had evinced in the discharge of their duties. Indeed, it was a subject of just congratulation to Englishmen, that notwithstanding the frequent changes which had lately taken place in the Government of this country which tended to give to foreign countries an impression of the instability of our country, but one feeling prevailed as to the execution of the treaties which had been entered into. The British Government might be prevented from any direct interference with the state of Spain, but he thought it advisable that on every occasion the subject should be brought under the attention of the British public, and that every possible opportunity ought to be taken to express a sentiment which might strengthen the relations of amity that subsisted between the two parties.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, after the satisfactory statement of the noble Lord he would suggest to the hon. Member for Finsbury that the right course would be for him to withdraw his Motion. The House must be perfectly satisfied with what this Convention had effected. It was delightful to understand that the first result of this stipulation, or Convention, or whatever it was, was the saving of human life. It appeared that the Queen's ministers and generals were satisfied with the Convention; therefore he did not see why any one in this country should quarrel with it. He would once more express his hope that his hon. Friend would not persevere with his Motion.
Mr. Thomas Duncombewould leave his Motion entirely in the hands of the noble Lord, trusting that he would furnish as much information as he conveniently could.
Motion withdrawn.

DISTURBANCES AMONG THE LABOURING POOR.
Mr. Arthur Trevorrose to move for copies of any information in the possession of his Majesty's Government relative to the recent disturbances among the labouring poor in Ampthill, Bedfordshire; Chesham, Bucks; and Eastbourne, Sussex. He said it could not but be matter of regret that in attempting to carry into effect the provisions of the new Poor-law, some disturbances had broken out. Though he deprecated them, he could not be altogether surprised at them. There were some points in that measure which he thought extremely objectionable—there were some points in it which amounted to neither more nor less than saying that the poor were strangers to the feelings of their more fortunate fellow, creatures—that their nature was not so sensitive as was the nature of the higher classes. When he saw the social compact violated, as it was by this law, he could not be surprised at what had taken place; and he feared that, before they had passed through the winter, other cases of a similar kind to those he was now bringing under the consideration of the House would occur. In so saying, he spoke not his individual opinion only, but the opinion of many experienced persons, among whom were some of the magistrates of the county in which he resided. He thought that the information for which he was about to move, could not fail to show the temper of the people towards the law in question. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—"That there be laid before the House copies of any information his Majesty's Government may have received relative to the recent disturbances among the labouring poor in the parish of Ampthill, in the county of Bedford; Chesham, Bucks; and Eastbourne, Sussex."
Lord John Russellsaid, that the only objection he had to the production of the papers was, that the information would come before the House in a better way when the Commissioners of the Poor-laws presented their Report, and they informed him that they would be able to do so by
918
the end of this month. That Report would take notice of any riots or disturbances against the alterations which had taken place in the law affecting the poor. He had desired particularly that the Report should be full respecting the disturbances which had taken place in Eastbourne, Ampthill, and Chesham. With respect to the riots in Devonshire, they were caused by a number of boys and women, who misconstrued the intention of the Poor-laws. These persons objected to receiving in food the relief which they had been accustomed to receive in money; but it was to be hoped they would become reconciled to it. The advantage of the present system was, that the giving of the food afforded substantial relief, but when, money was supplied, it was too often carried to the gin-shop. There had been no disturbances in consequence of dissatisfaction with the Poor-laws of a very serious character. The ordinary police had been in every case equal to the suppression of the riots. He thought the hon. Gentleman had better wait for the information he required till it was furnished by the general Report.
Mr. Arthur Trevorsaid, that understanding from the noble Lord that the Report of the Poor-law Commissioners would be shortly laid upon the Table of the House, he would not press his Motion. He sincerely trusted that the Report would have the effect of removing the anxiety which was at present felt by many persons as to the consequences of efforts to carry the Poor-laws into full effect. Under the present circumstances he begged leave to withdraw his Motion.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
Mr. Fowell Buxtonrose pursuant to notice, to move "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire whether the conditions on which the 20,000,000 l. were granted for the Abolition of Slavery have been complied with." He was aware that he might expect considerable opposition to the Motion; and he would at once admit, that the honour of the country was pledged, and its best interests committed, to the payment of the 20,000,000 l. if the planters had fulfilled the conditions imposed on them, and observed the promises they had made. He was prepared, however, to show that the terms of the agreement had not been fulfilled by the planters; and, that no excuse or apology was to be

919
found in the conduct of the negroes for that breach of faith. In entering upon this subject, he felt that the part he had taken with respect to the emancipation of slaves in the colonies, imposed upon him at the present period a duty of the utmost responsibility, and from which he could not shrink with any regard to consistency. From the terms of the Motion of which he had given notice, he should assuredly be understood to allude to the necessity there existed for the British Parliament to watch, with an attention almost amounting to jealousy, the conduct of those persons officially intrusted with the charge conferred upon them by the Act of 1833; the object of which was to relieve the slave population of our West-India possessions from the infliction of the lash, and other odious evils, inseparable from the state of degrading servility in which they were held. The House would recollect the high tone of remonstrance then held by several hon. Members connected with the West-India interests, as to the impracticability of the measure proposed for extinguishing the hateful relation between the slave and the master; and the prophecy of many, that the measure must fail of effecting what it rashly proposed to accomplish. Gentlemen, he sincerely hoped, would see that it was their duty, under the circumstances he was about to detail, to take some decisive step, or to adopt a positive resolution to prevent the money apportioned by way of compensation to the owners of slaves, or rather as the ransom of the slaves themselves from their state of bondage, from being disbursed until the promises and stipulations should have been fulfilled, under which it was announced to the House that this large sum of 20,000,000 l. was to be advanced to the owners of slaves, by way, as it was termed, of compensation for the loss of the services of their slaves. It was necessary that he should, in limine, recall to the recollection of the House some of the melancholy forebodings indulged in as to the results of the measure. A right hon. Gentleman, now elevated to the Peerage (Lord Ashburton), spoke with considerable confidence, inspired by his general knowledge on the subject of our commerce and colonies, and even went so far as to prophesy what would be the effects of the total emancipation of the negroes in the West Indies from slavery. Recollecting these prophetic and portentous announce-
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ments, he had looked with attention to the returns made to the House upon this subject—returns which, so far from supporting the noble Lord's authority as a prophet, showed how completely these confident predictions had failed. He would read to the House an extract from Mr. Baring's speech on the subject, delivered on the 7th of June, 1833:—The hon. Member accordingly read a long extract from that Gentleman's speech, for which see Hansard's Third Series, Vol. xviii., p. 492, 494. Had those predictions, the hon. Member continued, been fulfilled? Had our manufactures and commerce declined, and were our ships rotting in harbour? As to the price of sugar, so far from being doubled or trebled in consequence of the abolition of slavery, it was, if anything, rather lower than it had been for the average of the ten years preceding the abolition of slavery. He wished to ask his right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he had found a deficit of 3,000,000 l. in the Sugar-duties?—Whether the emancipation of the slaves had been attended with all the serious financial difficulties foretold by the right hon. Gentleman? Had our West-Indian Colonies separated from us? The hon. Member expressed his desire of being taunted at the end of two years as a false prophet. He had not recalled the hon. Member's predictions for the purpose of taunting him, but for the purpose of shewing, in countries where slavery still continued, such as America—and where the same doctrines were current—how little reliance was to be placed on bold assertions and confident predictions of the evils of freedom, even when they came recommended by the undoubted probity and peculiar acquaintance with commerce and colonies of the late Member for Essex. In reply to the representations made by the great body of West-India Proprietors, he would confidently state, that by the slave population in these islands, the boon of freedom on August the 1st, had been received in a way which would have done credit to the most enlightened people. Had he said five years ago that freedom granted would not be accompanied with rivers of blood—with scenes of unexampled desolation, he should have been set down as an enthusiast. Now the real facts were before them; it was saying little to assert, that no blood was shed. Not one act of violence was committed—there

921
was no boisterous merriment—no uproar of joy. On the evening of the 31st of July, as the moment of liberation was approaching, which was to make so great a change on them and their condition, transforming them from things, and chattels, and brutes, as they are described in Colonial Acts, into citizens and subjects of the British Empire, with her laws and her power to defend them—that moment found every chapel and place of worship thronged with worshippers. It passed over in deep and solemn silence, and was at length broken by a burst of praise and thanksgiving to that Almighty Power which had redeemed them from bondage; and the day which was to have let loose the rude passions of a savage multitude, passed over in profound tranquillity, and in acts of simple and grateful devotion. So passed Friday, the 1st of August. On the Sunday the Slaves did that which we had so long in vain laboured for—they abolished the Sunday markets. But what did they do on the Monday morning? Did they, which had been predicted a thousand times, refuse and reject all labour? Did they "pass their hours basking in the sunshine of a luxurious but languid soil?" In 1832 he was examined before the House of Lords, for several successive days, and amongst the multitude of questions proposed he was asked:—"Suppose Emancipation were granted this evening, what would be done to-morrow morning?" His answer was,—"To-morrow morning is an early day. Perhaps they will enjoy themselves a little. I should say, that on the following Monday they would proceed to work." Lord Sligo was sitting by at the time. Lord Sligo was Governor of Jamaica when the liberation was effected, and these are his words:—"The 1st of August, the day of Emancipation, was devoted, in most parts of the island, to devotional services. Saturday was a holiday. On Monday the apprentices turned out to their work, with even more than usual readiness, in some cases with alacrity, and all with good humour." He was compelled to turn prophet upon the subject of that inevitable rebellion, which haunted Gentlemen's imagination. "Do you believe," he was asked, "that if Parliament were to grant privileges to the Slaves (which the Colonial Legislature would not authorize), those privileges would be granted without producing a rebellion on the part of the
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Slaves?" His answer was—"The planters would be in a state of rebellion." Again he was asked—"Would there not be an insurrection of the negroes?"—"No; I think the real danger of the case, and so I stated the other day, is, that the planters would be disposed to rebel. The danger is not with the negroes." Now let them look at the fact as Lord Sligo stated it;—"They (the negroes) will be quiet unless forced into rebellion by the conduct of the overseers, and, I am sorry to say, many of the masters and managing attorneys encourage them. There have been several petty disturbances, in almost every instance caused by the intemperate conduct of the overseers, or exaction by the proprietors or managers." Again he was asked—"There being difficulties attendant upon the emancipation of the negroes in what way do you propose to obviate them?"—"The way I should propose would be, simply to subject the negroes to those motives which induce men to work everywhere else,—make it their interest,—throw them upon their own resources; and whether black men or white men, or men of any colour, or in any climate, I think there would be more labour obtained than there could be by force." And what did Lord Sligo say upon that point? After many months' experience he said,—"As far as the work of the negroes is concerned, it is now found that, except on Saturdays (when they work in their own provision grounds), as much work as is required can be had for wages." The House would see how my speculations on these points had been in conformity with subsequent events,—how thoroughly his expectations had been fulfilled—but nowhere had they been so fulfilled as in Antigua. The fairest answer would be found there, where there was no intervening apprenticeship,—where the negroes were "thrown upon their own resources," and, under these circumstances, they had realized all that had been predicted in their favour. He could not expect that the House would be so indulgent as to listen to the variety of details, all equally satisfactory, which he had to produce on this subject; but a few facts, derived from unquestionable authority, he mi In, perhaps, be permitted to state. "I found," wrote an eminent individual, on the 27th of November, 1834, "in Antigua, where, on the 1st of August, entire and unqualified freedom was given to the slave, that

923
the work of the plantations is conducted most satisfactorily, and at a far less expense than before." The Speaker of the House of Assembly, in a speech delivered on the 30th of October, 1834, said:—" That, far from desponding, he looked with exultation at the prospect before them. The agricultural and commercial prosperity was absolutely on the advance; and, for his part, he would not hesitate to purchase estates to-morrow." Mr. Loving, the chief of police in that island, wrote on the 7th of January, 1835:—"You may tell all our friends that matters are working vastly well in this island. The rural population exhibited a peaceful and moral deportment during the Christmas holidays, that would have done honour to any country in the world; and in no past year did the season of West-Indian revelry, frolic, and debauchery, blow over with such tranquillity." Another individual wrote to a noble Member of this House on the 14th of February, 1835:—"As to disturbance, there has been nothing like it since the celebrated 1st of August, but the island has been even more quiet than at other times." But he could not attempt to lead the House through all the details he had before him. He would, however, ask, was the tranquillity of the island disturbed? Gentlemen would recollect the arguments in favour of an intermediate state—of the extreme danger of passing, per saltum, from slavery to freedom. The two islands of St. Kitt's and Antigua were contiguous, and under the same governor. Granting the force of those arguments, against the sudden and entire establishment of freedom, the point of danger was not at St. Kitt's, where apprenticeship existed, but at Antigua, where none of these precautions were used. What was the result? Was there danger among the free negroes of Antigua, or among the half-freed negroes of St. Kitt's? Look at one fact. A few days before the 1st of August, the Governor, his staff, and his force, passed from Antigua to St. Kitt's, for this plain reason, because he apprehended danger, not on the island where entire freedom was given, but in the colony where it was only in part conceded. But he would go to the Christmas holidays, a period of great danger in every slave colony, but, according to the old notions, of peculiar and excessive danger in a colony where slavery had expired. For 100 years they had established military law
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during these holidays, and, for the first time, that practice was departed from; and why?—because they felt perfect security under their new circumstances. In further confirmation of the perfect tranquillity which had prevailed, he would quote a passage of a letter from the chief of the police, up to an early period of the present year:—"There had not been a single crime of any atrocity perpetrated by the free negroes of this island, since their emancipation;"—while, as it was quite unnecessary for him to inform the House, such offences were of constant occurrence before that time. But how much have they heard of the want of an inclination in the negroes for the enjoyments and luxuries of life? How often had the walls of that House heard, that if they could implant within the breast of the negro a desire for the luxuries and enjoyments of civilized life, all would be well? But unhappily the negro had no such tastes. He had an inclination, however, it now appeared for some of the enjoyments of life; marriage for example. "To the best of my recollection," said a clergyman, 5th January, 1835, "during the seven preceding years I have spent in this island, there were solemnized in my church 103 marriages. Since the 1st of August, a period of five months only, I have already solemnized 61 marriages of the newly freed people." The House would hardly be prepared to hear of the refinements in which they were disposed to indulge. A person who had been gratified by the industrious and obedient conduct of the negroes on his estate, wrote:—"I collected all my negroes and asked them what stores of clothes, &c. I should order for them from England? They all declined my offer, saying, they preferred waiting till they could see what would be the fashions, and then they might ask me to buy for them, if they could not purchase for themselves." Another gentleman who had long resided in Antigua, and on whose testimony he could entirely rely, assured him that at a meeting of a friendly society there, consisting of some hundreds of apprentices, the males attended almost all of them in kid gloves: the females, without exception, protected by parasols. And these were the people in whom a taste for the indulgences and luxuries of life could not be implanted. But the poor planters were to be ruined. They might receive compensation for their slaves, it was said, but who

925
would repay them for their buildings and grounds which would cease to bear any value. A gentleman recently from Antigua, gave him this piece of information:?—"The price of land has advanced considerably since the 1st of August. In the town of St. John's it has been doubled in value. More ground has been opened in the island since that period, than was ever known to have been done before in the same time." Were the negroes industrious? A gentleman on whom he could entirely rely, wrote to him, on the 25th of April, 1835, as follows:—"The negroes are a much-defamed people. In all Antigua I know but one disinclined to work since the 1st of August, and he is an idiot. They are as able and willing to labour as any people under the sun, if they receive proper remuneration for their labour,—they give their labour for small wages, about 6d. per day." But nothing perhaps would more clearly place before the House the advantages which the proprietor of West-India property would derive from freedom, than this Summary of an estate of 185 acres, situated in the Island of Antigua, from the months of January and February, of the last three years. He had obtained it through the medium of an hon. Member of this House, then present, and he had his authority for stating, that the proprietor, though an indulgent master to his negroes, had been his whole life long, a determined enemy of emancipation. He received at the early part of this year letters from his manager. The manager generally complains of the idleness of the free negroes on the estate. He says, "their laziness is unbearable"—(January.) "It was impossible, I find, to make more than one hogshead of sugar per day!"—(February.) "The people do not work. How am I to get off the crop, and put in the ensuing? I hardly know. As to provision ground, I know not when I shall be able to prepare any."—(February.) A note of admiration marked his surprise or indignation at their exorbitant demand of two bits per day (seven-pence British,) for wages. He would proceed to read the Summary of what was obtained from the Estate:

HOGSHEADS OF SUGAR POTTED.

1833.

1834.

1835.

January

5

January

10

January

10

February

10

February

9

February

14

Hhds.

15

Hhda.

19

Hhds.

24

926
The industry of the two first months of 1835, then produced five more hogsheads than 1834, and nine more than 1833.

OF RUM.

None was made in January in any of these years.

1833.

1834.

1835.

February-0

February-95 galls.

February-128 galls.

This requires no comment.

NUMBER OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.

1833.

1834.

1835.

Grown person Children

103

Grown person Children

99

Grown person Children

83

under twelve

51

under twelve

52

under twelve

2

154

151

85

Fewer grown persons, then, were employed in 1835 than in any of the preceding years, and the number of children was reduced from fifty to two. What could be said, then, of the manager's complaints: and how sympathize with his despondency?—Or how reconcile such results with his accounts of the idleness and unbearable laziness of the negroes. In the two months for which accounts had been received of this year, much more sugar and rum had been made, more field-work had been done, than in the like period in former years; less was left to be done, the provision ground (of which he knew not how he could prepare any) was all prepared, and the work was done by fewer hands than in the corresponding months of the two preceding years. With a reduction of forty per cent, of the numbers employed, forty per cent, more work was done than on an average of the two preceding years! He would mention another anecdote, which is applied to Antigua, he believed, though he was not certain. A friend of his, an hon. Member of this House, met with a gentleman, an acquaintance of his, who possessed West-India property. He asked him, "How are things going on in the colonies?" "Bad enough," was the reply; "the negroes are the most ungrateful, indolent, worthless rascals in the world." I am afraid, then," said my friend, "they will never get in the crop." "Yes they will," said his friend, "that is the worst of them—they'll do nothing out of gratitude, but they'll work like furies for wages." And these are the people of whom some slender hopes might be entertained if they could but be got to work at any price. They worked well, it seemed, for 6d. a-day. In Jamaica, the Christmas holi-

927
days and days preceding and subsequent to that period, passed over without any disturbance, as appeared by a variety of letters addressed by the special magistrates to the Marquess of Sligo. These gentlemen had the best opportunities for judging, and they were unanimous in stating, that no peasantry in the world could have conducted themselves with more propriety than they had. Some state that "all was quiet;" others, that there was perfect tranquillity; another, that the conduct of the negroes was "very exemplary,"—"perfectly tranquil and orderly,"—"most regular,"—"all at work cheaply and well,"—" praiseworthy in the extreme,"—"irreproachable and admirable,"—"blameless,"—" most orderly,"—" most satisfactory,"—" most orderly, correct, and obedient." He selected only a few of the epithets applied by the special magistrates to the conduct of the negroes since their emancipation, as the best answer to the predictions of convulsion in this island, as a consequence of the measure. A report had been drawn up by the special magistrates, confirmatory of the quiet state of everything on 452 estates, and not a single complaint against the negroes. From the papers which had been already presented to the House, it would be seen that as much labour could be obtained for wages as was required. From the reports of the special magistrates and planters to the Marquess of Sligo, it appeared that "The negro will work for money, and work cheaply too;" that "a disposition to work in their free time, on terms equally favourable to the proprietors, was not only general, but universal, among the negroes in some parishes—"the negroes have shewn that they are easily to be satisfied with wages," "I never knew them so greedy for money, so industriously anxious to earn it;"—I have been hiring apprentices to dig cane boles, in their own time, at from 40 s. to 50 s. per acre cheaper than the current price paid to jobbers;"—"coppers hung, and plumber's work done in the apprentices own time, and I can hire as many labourers as I require for the estate from the neighbouring estates, in their own time." In the Marquess of Sligo's despatch dated the 10th of February, 1835, he says,—"I think that the crop will be, if not more, at all events a full average one;" and in a subsequent despatch, dated the 6th of March, 1835, he adds—"nothing can be
928
going on better than everything in this island." Governor Smith wrote to Lord Aberdeen, in April, of the present year. During the last quarter of 1834, the apprenticed labourers have produced 2,764 hogsheads more than the planter had a right to calculate upon, and the produce of this year, notwithstanding unfavourable weather, exceeds that at the same period of 1831: 24,676 hogsheads have been shipped from the river Demarara alone, during the last six months, more than (with a dimunition of one-sixth of his labour) he had a right to expect." In another letter to the same noble Lord, Governor Smith, stated—"The whole colony is perfectly tranquil. Indeed, the general good conduct of the labouring population is such, that it is impossible, in any quarter of the British dominions, that the same extent of numbers can conduct themselves better than the apprenticed labourers in this colony." And again, on the 4th of March,—"In this colony, complete tranquillity prevails, the industry and good-will of the labourers are acknowledged by the planters themselves. Where there are complaints, in nine cases out of ten, they arise from the quantum of work attempted to be exacted, and not the labour itself. In very many cases the labourer was more sinned against than sinning. There is not one estate where a reasonable quantity of work is not performed. Since the 1st of August, no white man has been struck or ill-treated, nor a single building or cane-field set fire to." From these accounts, particularly from Antigua, it was fair to infer that the Legislature might have safely and wisely provided at once to emancipate the slaves completely, if it had trusted to human nature. But he would content himself with congratulating the House, and the negroes themselves, on what had been done so happily in this respect, and the little evil there was fairly to be anticipated from a measure of so much humanity. Trying them by every test, the negroes had shewn themselves worthy of the boon granted them. The disposition evinced by the negroes, since the attainment of freedom, had been cheerful and industrious in the extreme. The amount of the proceeds of their labour on various estates, so far from being diminished, had actually increased since that event. In short, their conduct had not only refuted the calumnies so profusely spread against them, but had sur-

929
passed the warmest expectations of their most sanguine friends. He wished he could have closed his case at this point, and had not found it necessary to make further remarks, having for their object to shew that the same disposition to fulfil engagements had not been manifested by other parties to the contract which has been entered into on the subject of emancipation. Had the planters performed their engagements to the negro, as the negro had performed his duty to the planter? Had they acted up to the promises given on their behalf?—promises to the effect that the whip, as a stimulant to labour, should be abolished, that females should not be subjected to corporal punishment,—that the special magistrates alone should inflict punishment,—and that, in fact, the negroes subject to the obligation of working a certain number of hours a-week for their masters, should, to all intents and purposes, be free. It was settled that no part of the money was to be paid until provision had been made for carrying into effect the intention of the Act. It could not, indeed, be denied, that the condition on which the 20,000,000 l. had been given, was, that the negroes, subject only to the daily task, should be substantially free. He must, however, quote certain documents to shew that the conditions on which the money was granted had not been fulfilled by the planters. The object which he had in view was, that the money should not be paid to the planters till such an inquiry had been made as would enable the House to see whether the settlement of the Question of Negro Slavery had been adjusted in an adequate and satisfactory manner. Had the planters and slave-owners done that upon doing which, 20,000,000 l. was bestowed on them? The project of the Bill of the noble Lord (Stanley) in the Resolution, ran thus:—"Subject to the obligations imposed by this Act, all persons held in slavery on the 1st of August, 1834, become to all intents and purposes free, and discharged from all manner of slavery; and from and after the 1st of August, 1834, slavery shall be, and is, utterly abolished, and declared unlawful throughout the British Colonies, plantations, and possessions; and that the power of the whip, as a stimulant of labour, shall cease; that females shall not be flogged; that neither master nor local magistrate, but only spe-
930
cial magistrate, shall inflict punishment; that the allowances hitherto granted by law shall be continued; that the negro shall be liable to work for his master for a certain number of hours each week, but that, subject to this obligation only, he shall be free; that no part of the money hall be paid till adequate and satisfactory provision has been made for carrying these principles into effect; and, finally, that the Act in principle is to be irrevocable—it cannot be altered at all—till the alterations have received the assent of his Majesty, nor unless the alterations accomplish the objects of the Bill as fully as the Bill itself." He would ask the noble Lord (Stanley) whether the plain understanding of all these conditions was not, that, hereafter, the apprentice in our colonies shall, after giving his labour to his master for a certain number of hours, be free?—[Lord Stanley: Yes.]—Exactly so. The condition announced by the noble Lord was, "That the negro should have, after that service, all the rights of freedom," and "that no taint of the servile condition should be suffered to remain as respected the apprentice." "That no corporal punishment should be inflicted; nor should he or his connexions be insulted by the use of the lash." The noble Lord appeared to be aware that the craving of the slave-owner for absolute power over the slave was so undeviatingly active, that he withdrew by his Bill all former restrictions, "so that no taint of slavery should remain to impeach the new-born rights of the apprentices in our Colonies: and it was distinctly stated, that the Act provided "that the Colonial legislatures themselves should be positively bound to legislate on this subject in the spirit of the Act of the Imperial Parliament. Nay further, that no Act of the Colonial legislature, on this important subject, though enacted in that spirit, should be of force or validity till it was sanctioned by his Majesty in Council.—[Lord Stanley: The suspending clause was struck out in the Committee.]—Still he contended that every Act on this subject, passed by the Colonial legislatures, was suspended till ratified in England. Those legislatures were not at liberty to pass a law, and enforce it in the Colonies, touching the negroes, till a formal recognition should have been despatched from the Government of Great Britain to the Colonial Government.
Sir George Greysaid, that the clause to which the hon. Member alluded merely referred to Local Acts, and provided that if, in the course of that species of legislation, any thing should be found to contravene the Imperial Act, an Order in Council might prevent
Mr. Fowell Buxton: That was precisely what he contended for; that legislation was not left to the Colonies as regarded the rights of the negroes, that the Colonial Assemblies could only legislate in minor matters, and even then that their Acts could not be carried into effect till they had received the assent of the King in Council. The Order in Council approving the Act for the Abolition of Slavery, arrived in the Colonies early in May, 1834, when the planters were told that they had an indefeasible right to the grant of 20,000,000 l. Upon this understanding between the Government at home and the colonists, it was natural to infer that the Colonial legislatures, and the persons thus benefited by this large grant of public money, would be prepared to act in obedience to the Slavery Abolition Bill, and in furtherance of its spirit. But had they so acted? He answered, no. It was not too much to suppose, that by such a Bill it was intended the apprentices should have the ordinary privileges of freemen—those common but indispensable rights without which liberty could be nothing but a name. For example: the freeman, after having discharged his duty to his master as required by the Act, in the time indisputably his own—say the Saturday afternoon—should be at liberty to walk along the high road, attend a meeting, if he conducted himself properly, vote for a favourite candidate, if he had the necessary qualification of property, visit his own wife residing upon a neighbouring estate, and complain to the person sent specially from England to hear his complaints, and protect him from the violation of his rights, if he should feel himself in any respect, however trifling, aggrieved. Who would say, that the apprentice, delivered from every taint of slavery, was not to have these moderate privileges? By the Act of the Jamaica legislature, however, for walking along the high road, in his own time, he was an offender liable to punishment. By attending a meeting a second punishment was incurred; by voting for a candidate, or
932
indeed voting at all, he was a third time a transgressor of the law; by making his complaint, slight and trivial in the eyes of the white man, but important to him who had better reason than we had to value every part of freedom, he was once more an offender; and he was undoubtedly a criminal for the fifth time if he should visit his own wife on a neighbouring estate. ["No! No!"]—It was so, however, in the 27th clause of the Act of 1833, and in the 7th clause of the Act of 1834. All persons leaving the estate to which they belonged were liable to be apprehended by the constable, to be adjudged vagabonds, and to be treated accordingly. There was an exception, however, in favour of the wife, for she was permitted to visit her husband on a neighbouring estate, though her husband was not allowed to go to her. Why should there be an exception in favour of the wife, without also including the husband? Had justice been done to the negroes by the planters? In his opinion it had not. There was scarcely an instance in which the promises held out to the negro population had been satisfactorily redeemed; the West-India legislatures had set themselves to work, to undo and thwart all the kind intentions of the British Parliament. The Acts of the Colonial legislatures ought to have been laid before the House, in order that before the money was paid to the planters, it might be ascertained how far they had acted up to their agreement. Why was it that the Acts of the Colonial Assemblies were not laid before the House?—[Sir George Grey: They would be laid on the Table if called for.]—If called for! It was announced in the King's Speech, that the Acts of the Colonial legislatures in reference to the Emancipation Bill, which were to become laws on their being approved of by his Majesty in Council, should be laid before Parliament immediately; but they had not been produced. He had done his duty on the occasion, for, at an early period of the Session, he had moved for copies of all Acts passed by the Houses of Assembly for the abolition of slavery in his Majesty's dominions, and yet up to the present period no one in the House, except his hon. Friend, knew anything at all about them. This country would pay the money blindly if it paid it now; but the House ought at least to inquire and see if the conditions of the contract had been adequately and satisfactorily fulfilled before

933
paying it. If they had been satisfactorily fulfilled, he should be as glad as any one to see the money paid; but if they had not been fulfilled, he was sure the House would agree with him, when he said that the 20,000,000 l. ought not to be paid. With regard to the appointment of local magistrates, he must observe that when the Bill was discussed in 1833, nothing made a deeper impression on him, or more reconciled him to the general principles of the measure, than the declaration of the noble Lord (Stanley), that impartial persons should be appointed by the Crown to act as magistrates. He relied on that promise, and he might add, the noble Lord urged that point so much, that he confidently trusted it would have been carried into effect. The noble Lord said, that "stipendiary Magistrates, appointed by the Crown, uninfluenced by the local assemblies, free from local passions, and unbiassed by party prejudices, who will administer equal justice to the rich and the poor, the black and the white; who will watch over and protect the negro in his incipient state of freedom, and will aid and direct his inexperience in forming a contract with his master, which must have so material an effect upon his future life." What was the fact? According to letters which he had received, it appeared that in one island, out of eight magistrates, five were connected with estates; in another, out of twenty-one or twenty-two magistrates, seventeen were planters, or attornies, or agents; and in a third, there were thirty special Magistrates connected with the planters. He had received accounts of these facts from a variety of quarters; and he did not hesitate to lay them before the House for the purpose of putting hon. Gentlemen on their guard against paying the planters the whole sum of 20,000,000 l. without seeing that the conditions on which it was given had been complied with. It might be said, that the Governor carefully selected proper persons for the office. He doubted that, as he had reason to believe that very improper persons had been appointed. He was going to say, that in one case, a person convicted of crime had been appointed a Magistrate, but he would not say so—for he was not convicted, he was acquitted, but his name was afterwards struck out of the Council, yet that man had been appointed a Magistrate. [Lord Stanley wished to know the date of the
934
appointment and the colony?] He did not wish to name individuals, or enter into numerous details, but he could assure the noble Lord that his assertion was strictly true. All he wanted by his Motion was, to suspend the payment of the twenty millions till the House could judge whether the conditions of the contract had been fulfilled on the part of the planters. He came to another point, and one too on which the noble Lord had laid great stress. On bringing in the Bill, the noble Lord dwelt on the destruction of morals caused by the infliction of corporal punishment on females. The expressions used by the noble Lord on that occasion were to the following effect:—"To talk of preparing the slave for freedom, to speak of developing or ripening his moral faculties to render him capable of enjoying it, and yet show him, that all the domestic ties of his home may be violated; that his wife, that his daughter, that, his sister, may be at the pleasure of the overseer of a plantation, all be subject to corporal punishment upon their bare persons, was a mockery and an insult."* Since that time, however, a sort of bye-law had been passed, according to which it was lawful to inflict certain punishment on juvenile offenders, and to show how that law had been acted on, he would give a case which occurred in St. Kitt's, and it took its rise from Mr. Wilson, a Special Justice, having given a general permission to whip the small gangs on estates, whose conduct might be deemed, by those in authority over them, to be impertinent. The case was as follows:—"Ann Mahon, a girl of fifteen years of age, had given offence to her master, who had taken improper liberties with her, which she resented. Her master in consequence accused her of not watering the garden properly, and called upon the auxiliary constable of the estate, desired him to do his duty according to the orders he had received from Mr. Wilson. The constable then took her round the waist, and carried her to the mango tree, where, assisted by two men, each holding a hand of the girl, he, after unbuttoning her frock, and taking off her handkerchief, proceeded to flog her with a bunch of tamarind twigs, after which infliction she was compelled to work in the garden until dark." He had a great file of atrocities
* See Hansard, (third series) vol. xvii. p. 1202.

935
which he could produce, but he would not detain the House with citing them. He wished, however, to refer to an extract from the St. Christopher Advertiser of the 10th March, 1835, relative to this case. It appeared from this, that a meeting of the Special Magistrates was held on the previous Thursday, and the case of Ann Mahon came under their consideration. The opinion of the Solicitor-General was taken on the right which the authorities had to inflict such a punishment, and it was to the following effect:—"That, although Mr. Justice Wilson might fairly have considered he was not exercising an unsound discretion in awarding this punishment, yet, that he (the Solicitor-General) was inclined, under the 17th clause of the Imperial Act, to advise for the future, that it be not resorted to by the Special Magistrates." The opinion of the Magistrates varied; Mr. Wilson said, he would adopt the punishment, as he could not see what else was to be done with the young people on the estate.—"Mr. A. H. Rawlins felt it his duty to say there, openly and candidly, that he had, in two instances, given such an order, but that he had done so from a feeling of humanity, and with strict justice to the apprentice and to the master. He was equally bound candidly to say, that he knew at the time that he was giving this order, that it was illegal; but he did it in his discretion, and was prepared to take the consequences—he should continue to exercise that discretion, notwithstanding the opinion of the Crown officer, as he conceived that nothing but the Court of King's Bench had power over the discretionary acts of a Magistrate." "Mr. Fahie considered that he ought to continue such a species of punishment, for he conceived it founded on humanity and sound policy. Two other Magistrates refused to agree to the punishment, and said they never would give such an order." He could mention other cases, but these happened in one colony. The Emancipation Act was to do away with the symbols of slavery, as well as slavery itself, and it was under the conviction, that every trace of such barbarities would be swept away, that the compensation was voted. He proved, however, that the whip, to a limited degree, was still in frequent use. Now, when the noble Lord wanted to get rid of slavery entirely, how did it happen that penal gangs were still allowed in the
936
colonies. Would the House believe, that though the Act of Emancipation declared that no master or overseer could inflict punishment—or put supposed offenders into the penal gang, the practice was still allowed by the 21st clause of the Act of Assembly to which he had already referred.
Lord Stanleywas understood to say, that the clause in question had no reference to such a punishment.
Mr. Buxton: All he could say on the point was, he had received the fact as he had stated it; and it was because there was some doubt on the subject, that he called for the appointment of a Committee, to see how far the intentions of the Act of 1833 were answered, and its provisions enforced. The 49th Clause of the Act provided for the punishment of insolence on the part of the negro. This was unquestionably a very indefinite offence, and when the clause in question was under the consideration of the House, it had been asked whether looking a man in the face might not be construed into an act of insolence? For this very vague offence, however, no less than thirty-nine lashes were ordered to be inflicted on the negro. He was certainly of opinion, that if they punished the insolence of the negro, they ought to visit the offence, when committed by the planter, with equal severity. Lord Sligo was of a similar opinion as to the justice of restraining the overbearing conduct of the planters and overseers; for he said, in his despatch of the 13th August, that the negroes were quiet, well-tempered, and tranquil; but at the same time dwelt upon the violence of the overseers, as being calculated to excite them to rebellion. By what measures, then, were the cruelty and injustice of the planters, which ought to be so carefully watched and guarded against, checked and punished? By the 49th Clause of the Act, they got off with the slight punishment of a fine of 5l. of that, or 3l. 11 s. 3d. of this currency.
Lord Stanley: I must inform the hon. Gentleman, that he labours under a misapprehension. The Clause to which he refers, directs that a line of 5l. should be paid on the commission of certain offences; but that clause does not deter the negro from preferring his charge, if he should think fit, before any of the Superior Courts.
Mr. Buxtonacknowledged, on looking

937
at the Act, that the Clause contained the provisions stated by the noble Lord; but still he would put it to the House whether, when the offence of insolence on the part of the negro was so severely punished, that that of cruelty, when committed by the planter, should be only visited by a fine of 3l. 11 s. 3d. What he was anxious principally to impress upon the House was, that they should not pay over the money to the planters, until they saw that the liberty awarded by it to the negro was in no way curtailed; that the bargain between the country and the planter was fulfilled by them, and that the negro should, in the words of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) enjoy every right and privilege of a freeman, subject only to the contract of labouring a certain time for his owner. The noble Lord then said, "He proposed, that every negro should, from that day, not after a year or two, but forthwith, be entitled to claim to be put in such a situation as would prepare him to enjoy all the rights and privileges of a freeman—a situation in which he would no longer bear about him any taint of a servile condition." He suspected, however, that certain taints of slavery were allowed still to remain on the character of the negro; he wished to have an inquiry instituted, in order to judge of their existence, and, if possible, to have them removed. He understood, too, that the Colonial Assemblies had passed several Acts incompatible with the spirit of the Emancipation Act, though such laws could not be considered binding until they had actually received his Majesty's consent. He had not the slightest wish to impede the payment of the gift to the West-India planters, but he warned the House against proceeding too hastily with the payment, for if the people of this country found that the same cruelties were practised after as before the passing of the Act of 1833, they must feel regret at the passing of a measure for which they sacrificed so much, with so little benefit to those whom it was designed to relieve. He was satisfied that the negroes were generally quiet under the present system but there were some instances in which he had been informed that it was not unlikely that they would be forced into rebellion by the conduct of overseers and masters and that an impediment would be thus thrown in the way of the success of the great experiment which Parliament had
938
made. He was only anxious that justice should be done to both parties, and that the contract, as entered into with the planters, should be strictly fulfilled. He would state one fact, to show that the measure had conferred no slight benefit on the planters. He had been told, that a gentleman in Trinidad had purchased a man and a maid servant for forty dollars, and that the amount of compensation awarded to him for these servants, under he Bill of 1833, was no less than 200 l. The price of land, also, had considerably increased in the island of Antigua, and in St. John's it had doubled in value. He was not about to propose that anything which the planters received as a boon, should be withdrawn; but he called upon the House to see that they obtained those benefits for which they had bargained. The hon. Member concluded by moving, "That a Committee be appointed to Inquire whether the Conditions on which the twenty millions were paid to the West-India planters had been fulfilled."
Sir George Greycommenced by observing, that the speech of the hon. Member had not only differed from the Motion of the hon. Member, but that the Motion which he had submitted to the House departed considerably from that of which he had given notice. Reassured the hon. Member however, that he was satisfied his conduct was dictated by none but the purest and most honourable motives. The character of the hon. Member stood far too high for humanity, and love of freedom and justice, to leave his motives, on that occasion, open for a single moment to any imputation of a derogatory character; and, therefore, he felt it his duty, in opposing even the amended Motion of the hon. Member, to award him the credit to which he was entitled, by declaring that he felt a perfect conviction that the spirit in which the hon. Member submitted his proposition to the House was that of a man deeply imbued with the feelings of honour, justice, and real humanity. The Motion of his hon. Friend he took in point of fact, to mean that the payment of 20,000,000 l. to the West-India proprietors should be suspended until a Committee report whether the conditions on which the grant was made had been fulfilled. [Mr. Bux ton ex pressed his assent.] He saw by his hon. Friend, that he acquiesced in his interpretation of the Motion. Now he would just ask, whether

939
the Committee for which he had moved could by possibility make a Report which would give satisfaction to the House o the country? Was the Committee to inquire into Acts which had been passed by the Colonial Assemblies, or were they to investigate the cases of cruelty said to be committed by planters, proprietors and Special Constables, throughout al the islands of the West-Indies? If an inquiry, then, was to be instituted into these particulars—and he conceived the on these the hon. Member rested his case—Would it be possible for a Committee to come to any impartial, satisfactory decision without communicating the fact of the appointment of such a tribunal to the West-Indies—without acquainting the persons on trial with the nature of the charges which were to be preferred against them, in order that the parties interested might be able to prove or disprove such statements as those which the House had that night heard? Was it possible that the Committee could be called upon to frame its Report on the evidence collected from private letters, newspapers, and such sources, without at least hearing the parties whom they affected, and affording them the opportunity of rebutting such accusations? Were these facts which had been detailed by the hon. Member, and which referred to but a small minority of the islands, to be taken as condemnatory of the conduct of the whole of the planters to whom the 20,000,000 l. were due; and were those under whose sanction liberty had been established, to be branded with a breach of engagement, because on a few occasions some acts of cruelty had been committed, which he reprobated with as strong feelings of indignation and abhorrence as those by which his hon. Friend was actuated? He did not mean to express a doubt that some transactions had taken place since the passing of the Act of 1833, which disgraced those who took part in them. But was his hon. Friend so ignorant of human nature—had his acute eye fixed itself to so little purpose on this British Act of Parliament—this Charter of liberty to the negro, as not to know that whatever might be the regulations of the Act of Parliament, and however its provisions might be enforced, they could not change the nature of the West-Indian planter, and could not prevent those ill effects which must result from a change by which arbitrary power
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was wrested from those who were henceforward made responsible for their acts? If the hon. Member foresaw that such occurrences must take place on the passing of the measure of 1833, he should never have consented to its adoption until he received a pledge, that under it every attribute of slavery should be totally abolished, and that no payment should take place until he was satisfied of that event; but the hon. Member took the sense of the House on two occasions relative to his views, and they rejected his propositions when accompanied by such conditions. He thought, therefore, that the contract could not be fairly disturbed, because—without at all wishing to screen or wink at acts of cruelty—individual acts of hardship and oppression might in some cases be adduced. His hon. Friend brought forward the two instances of Antigua and Bermuda, in which he understood him to argue, that the conditions of the Act had not been complied with. [Mr. Buxton had excluded them.] He saw no notice of the exclusion in his hon. Friend's Motion. Was it to be understood that his hon. Friend had abandoned the conclusion at which he seemed anxious to arrive from his statements with reference to these islands. Would it be just to say to the planters in the West-Indies, "We agreed to give you this money on one condition; we now propose that you shall receive it on another?" Let the House consider what a bad precedent such conduct on our part would hold out to other nations. He should be sorry to give the slave-owners in the slavery States of America any pretext for a similar step, by enabling them to point to the course which had been taken by the Parliament of Great Britain—by the Representatives of a country renowned for the maintenance of its national faith. While he trusted hat in many respects he held the same opinions as his hon. Friend—while he rusted that he entertained similar feelings of humanity for the oppressed, and of detestation for the oppressor, he hoped that he should never be found ready to gratify those feelings at the expense of the national faith and honour, which he hoped a British Parliament would neither now nor at any future period do anything to tarnish or impair. The House could not fail to remember that it was the duty, as it would be the care, of the Government at home to keep a watchful and vigilant eye over

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the West-India colonies—over every law passed by their Colonial Legislative Assemblies, and the practical execution of those laws; and he (Sir George Grey) on the part of the present Government, would pledge them to the hon. Member opposite, that the fullest inquiry and investigation in a manner most satisfactory to the hon. Member himself should be instituted into every case which the hon. Member could suggest, if the Government was furnished with a sufficient specification of the nature and necessity of such inquiry. He had already stated this to his hon. Friend, who had brought many cases of complaint to him at the Colonial-office, and with respect to some of which his hon. Friend had already put notices upon the books, and he had only requested in instances where no information as to the circumstances could be found among the Records in the Colonial-office, that he should be allowed time for such information to be sent for, and the case thus fully met. To this he had pledged himself to the hon. Member, and on that pledge he had acted; information had been sent for in reference to those cases, and with respect to any other complaints which might be adduced by the hon. Member, or by any one else, the Government would take every means to procure information for the satisfaction of this country, to reduce existing grievances, and to afford protection to the apprenticed labourers. The hon. Member had alluded to acts of cruelty and oppression, but he would, in the absence of information, refer the hon. Member to the character of the Governors of the British West-Indian colonies, men of tried humanity, who would not suffer those acts without at least representing them to the Government at home. It should, however, not be lost sight of, that there were many acts which could not be controlled by them, but, as their despatches generally showed, which arose from that demoralized state and condition of society in the colonies, which was the consequence of the long-continued system of slavery, and which could not in one day be removed. Would any man assert, that the Marquess of Sligo would refuse justice or protection to any class of the subjects of his Sovereign over whom he had been by that Sovereign intrusted to preside? Again, the despatches of Sir Lionel Smith, the Governor pf Barbadoes, manifested the position for
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which he (Sir George Grey) had contended, and he was satisfied that his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Buxton) would not think that distinguished Officer was playing into the hands of the planters by his system of Government. He would call another witness (Sir Carmichael Smyth, the Governor of Demerara), than whom no man had laboured more strenuously in the protection of the rights and interests of the apprenticed labourers. The effects of the exertions of that Officer had already manifested itself in the improved spirit of the planters in his colony. But to return to the Question more immediately before the House, he must call their attention to the conditions upon which the money was made payable. Those conditions were stated in the 44th section of the Act of Emancipation, which provided, that no part of the said sum should be applied for the benefit of any person now entitled to the services of any slave in any of the colonies aforesaid, unless an order "shall have been first made by his Majesty, with the advice of his Privy Council, declaring, that adequate and satisfactory provision had been made by law in such colony for giving effect to this Act, or unless a copy of such Order in Council duly certified shall have been transmitted to the Lords of the Treasury for their guidance and information." The effect of this clause was to delegate to his Majesty's responsible advisers these duties, and he would ask, how it was possible for this House to make away a right made indefeasible by this Act of Parliament, and at the same time place in the hands of a Select Committee the powers of the Government to withhold payments legally demanded and chargeable under and by virtue of this Act.
Mr. Powell Buxtonsaid, that if the hon. Baronet would refer to the 16th section of the Act, he would find that after reciting the various regulations necessary for giving effect to the Act, it provided that "nothing therein contained should be construed to extend to prevent the enactment by the respective governors, councils, and assemblies, of laws and ordinances necessary for that purpose."
Sir G. Greywas perfectly aware of the provisions of the clause to which the hon. Member opposite had called his attention, and only regretted that the hon. Member had not read the remainder of the Clause, for the House would then have seen that it was nevertheless provided that any

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enactment, regulation, provision, rule, or order, which should in anywise be repugnant or contradictory to the act should be void, and of no effect. The object of this was manifest, for it was impossible at once to legislate in detail, and it was therefore necessary to leave it to time to judge of the propriety of such regulations, and for carrying into effect the great principles of the Emancipation Act. So also in the 23rd section, it was provided that acts passed by local legislatures with similar, but improved, enactments to those contained in the measure of slave relief, should supersede the provisions of the latter on being confirmed by his Majesty in Council. He was, however, prepared to say, that as yet no such instance had occurred as that for which this 23rd section provided, and every enactment of the original measure still remained in full force and effect. How, then, was the House circumstanced at the present moment with respect to the colonies? The hon. Member for Weymouth had thrown aside, and out of the scale, the situation of Antigua and the Bermudas. The next in order were Trinidad, the Mauritius, and St. Lucia. In those colonies no local legislation had taken place, but orders in Council had been issued by his Majesty, against which no remonstrance had been made, and yet the hon. Member for Weymouth would withhold the money until he was satisfied that in enacting those ordinances right had been done. The three next colonies were Honduras, British Guiana, and the Cape of Good Hope. From them ordinances in furtherance of the Emancipation Act had been sent home—had been amended and altered by the Government here, and on being returned so altered had been adopted and were now in full force and effect. He would next inquire what degree of justice would it be to say to the slave-proprietors of these colonies. "You have passed inadequate and unsatisfactory ordinances, which the Government of the day at home have altered; so altered, you have submitted to them, and under them the apprentice labourers are in peace, yet we will not pay you that to which we are pledged (because we may have been wrong) until a select Committee of the House of Commons shall have gone through them and pronounced an opinion upon their propriety?" Surely the hon. Member for Weymouth would not hesitate to exclude
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together with Antigua and the Bermudas, these six colonies from the sweeping effects of the Motion which he had submitted to the House. The authorities in the Cape of Good Hope were entitled to some extraordinary good feeling, inasmuch as they had reduced the period of apprenticeship by two years. For this, at least, they were entitled to some credit on the score of humanity. The hon. Member for Weymouth had dwelt much upon the other West-India Colonies, which he (Sir G. Grey) had not yet named, and of these he would first allude to the island of Jamaica. With respect to what had fallen from his hon. Friend, in reference to the declaration made by his noble Friend (Lord Stanley), that the Act of the Colonial legislature of Jamaica transmitted to the Government, of which his noble Friend had formed a part, a declaration made advisedly and under responsibility, his hon. Friend must make out that Parliament was called upon for that declaration to censure in the most marked manner possible the conduct which had in that instance been pursued by his noble Friend. He doubted not that his noble Friend would be fully able to justify himself; but he (Sir G. Grey) would not on the part of the present Government shrink from any portion of responsibility which might attach to the Administration by which that important decision had been come to. It was but due to his noble Friend and to the House to state further, that his Majesty's present Government was satisfied that the course pursued in that instance was correct, and that by it they were prepared to abide. With regard to the spirit in which his noble Friend behind him (Lord Stanley) had dealt with the West-India Colonies, he could cite extracts from the printed papers before the House, but this he at present thought to be unnecessary. He would, however, refer his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Buxton) to the despatches in 1832 of Earl Mulgrave,—a nobleman from whom his hon. Friend could not differ in sentiment, who had held the Government of Jamaica in times of great difficulty and delicacy, and who instead of subjecting himself to reproach had won for himself immortal credit. That noble Lord was the organ of communication between the Government at home and the colonial interests in Jamaica, and with the means of information which he possessed, was

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the best guide for the Government here to take, and whose opinion as to the act of the Colonial legislature in furtherance of the Emancipation Act was entitled to the fullest weight. The noble Earl in his despatch communicated to the Government, that the act had passed the House of Assembly through all the stages except the last, which was one of form, and that on the first point, that of the general principles of the measure, he did not think there existed the slightest ground of complaint, for many of the provisions of their (the colonial) act had adopted the very words of the English measure of the Emancipation. On the second point—viz. the details and minor points, the local Legislature desired a postponement, in consequence of a difference of opinion upon those details and minor points prevailing amongst themselves; but in order to afford the British Government a substantial proof of their sincerity they expressed their full approbation of the measure passed by the Imperial Parliament. With such information before it, could the British Government withhold its approbation of the colonial act thus described and would the House then consent to censure such approbation declared by his noble Friend behind him—Lord Stanley? He would also repeat his inquiry, whether this measure, on the part of the Colonial legislature, could, in the remotest degree, affect that indefeasible right to a share in the receipt of that sum, for the payment of which the British Government stood pledged to the colonies generally? To the Government of Earl Mulgrave that of the Marquess of Sligo succeeded, and the latter nobleman had enforced upon the colonists of Jamaica the necessity of filling up those defects which prevailed in the preceding local legislation, and to remedy them in a supplemental Bill. The Colonial legislature acceded to the suggestion in all points but two, and those two points the Marquess of Sligo, from his local knowledge, was enabled to inform the Government at home were impracticable. Hence it was manifest the House of Assembly had throughout shown a determination not only to accede to suggestions, but to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the Slavery Abolition Act, and to carry out into effect its details and its principles. Would the House, then, now agree with his hon. Friend, the Member for Weymouth in censuring the Act
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as inadequate and unsatisfactory? Reference had been made by his hon. Friend to a Colonial Act of Assembly passed in 1834, and he concurred with his hon. Friend in the opinion that it did not show that good spirit in the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica which he could have wished but he must again remind the House, that he distinguished between the feeling of the Legislature and that of the residents generally in that colony. The whole population was not to be included in any censure to which that measure might give rise. It had been transmitted to, and was now under the consideration of, the Government, and would be dealt with without reference to party or colour. It had been stated that it was intended there should be no restriction upon the apprentice labourers during their servitude, but the Act of Parliament itself had in terms provided punishment for insolence of conduct and insubordination during that period, and the British Legislature was in this respect alone to blame, as the Colonial Legislature had only carried out those provisions, awarding (as we understood) the amount of punishment. By the 22nd section of the Act, the military, civil, and other franchises, to which the negro apprentice was entitled, were also strictly and scrupulously maintained, and the Colonial Act did not infringe or trench upon those rights and privileges, so that, on that head, no censure could attach. With regard to St. Kitt's, Nevis, Tobago, and the other colonies, they had passed ordinances, which, after amendment at home, had finally been adopted by them. The Virgin Islands had as yet furnished no act, and until their acquiescence was received they would not be entitled to any share of the compensation. On the whole, he contended that his hon. Friend (the Member for Weymouth) had shown no grounds for the censure which his motion (if carried) would cast upon his noble Friend (Lord Stanley), and the Government to which he was attached; he had shown no grounds for taking this measure out of the hands of the responsible advisers of the Crown, or for removing from them those powers which had been delegated to them by an Act of the Legislature, and thus hold them up as being unworthy of watching over the important interests of the British colonies, and disqualified for the stations which they had been called upon by their Sovereign to fill.

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His hon. Friend must make out a case of this kind to justify the introduction of a Bill, for such it must be (which many hon. Members would not support, though a few might vote for a Committee of Inquiry), to render defeasible those powers already conferred. The House, in considering the present Motion, ought not to forget that on the faith of the payment of the awarded compensation in the course of the ensuing autumn, engagements had been entered into, and the result of the postponement, which must be the consequence of the appointment of the proposed Committee, would lead to most disastrous commercial effects. He trusted that Parliament would not re-open this question, but that, on the faithful performance of the conditions contained in the Act of last Session, it would pay this money according to the pledge which it had already given. There was one other branch of the subject which, though it was not connected with the point of money, required some observations on his part, after what had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for Weymouth; and that regarded the conduct of the stipendiary Magistrates. Now, he concurred with his hon. Friend in saying, that the powers vested in the stipendiary Magistrates ought only to be confided to impartial men, who in all controversies between the masters and the apprentices ought to have no bias either to one or the other, and who, acting fairly and indifferently on their responsibility to the Local Government, and through the Local Government to the Government at home, could be looked on with confidence by every class of the community among which they were sent to administer justice. He admitted that there had been a grievous miscalculation as to the number of local stipendiary magistrates necessary to carry the law into effect. It had been thought that 100 magistrates would be sufficient; but that number was too small, and it therefore became necessary for the governors of several colonies, acting upon the discretion with which they were vested, to appoint individuals to occupy that wide unoccupied field, which it was quite impossible for 100 magistrates to occupy. What then was the course pursued by the Government? It had been made a subject of complaint against Lord Sligo by the Colonial Legislature, that he had refused to grant this special commission to the local magistrates generally. Lord Sligo
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had placed in the commission persons resident in the colony; but in no one case had he placed in it any person interested in apprenticed slavery. The hon. Baronet then proceeded to read a dispatch sent by Lord Sligo to Mr. Spring Rice, descriptive of the measures which he had adopted on this subject, and also part of the reply sent by his right hon. Friend to that despatch. Did his right hon. Friend content himself with cautioning Lord Sligo how he filled up these commissions? No; he called on his Lordship to state the number of stipendiary magistrates sent out from England, who were able to perform the duties imposed upon them with ability and impartiality, and upon receiving that statement, he declared his intention of sending out such a number as would enable the executive Government to meet all the exigencies of its new position. His noble Friend, Lord Aberdeen, in augmenting the number still further, acted on the same principle as that on which his right hon. Friend had acted. The House would find, on looking at the Estimates for this year, that there was a charge for 135 stipendiary magistrates to be voted. Of this number 35 had been added by Lord Aberdeen, acting on the same great principle of their being impartial men, unconnected with the colonies. Lord Glenelg had carried the principle still further, for he thought that it was better that Parliament should grant a larger sum of money to defray the charge of a greater number of magistrates, than leave their present power in the hands of the local magistrates. He had, therefore, sent out instructions to the Governors of all our colonies in the West Indies, and also to the Governors of the Cape of Good Hope and of the Mauritius, ordering them to withdraw the special commission from every magistrate who was a planter in their governments. He also ordered them, in filling up such commissions as might become occasionally vacant, to select men who were not planters, but who were as free as possible from all local bias or interest. It was clear, that if the special commission was withdrawn from the local magistrates, an additional number of stipendiary magistrates must be employed. It was therefore now proposed to put twenty-five more into the commission. When the charge for them came to be voted, it would be for the House to decide whether it would agree to appoint that increased number, or whether it would leave

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a number of these special commissions in the hands of the local authorities. His noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Department had not adopted this course, because he had received intelligence from the colonies that the local magistrates had abused the powers with which they were vested by the special commission. Indeed, he had informed the local governors that those powers had not been withdrawn from any notion that they had been abused, and had commissioned them to communicate to the local magistrates the thanks of his Majesty for their services in any way which they might deem to be most agreeable to their feelings. With regard to the report which his hon. Friend had read from a colonial newspaper, respecting the observations which had been made by several of the magistrates, at a meeting of the magistrates assembled to consider the legality of whipping females, he had only to observe that he had not seen it. He understood, however, that in the island where it occurred the Solicitor-General had written to the authorities at home stating, that doubts had arisen upon the legality of that practice, expressing his wonder how they could have arisen, since it was clearly prohibited by law, and declaring his intention of remitting, till he heard from home, every sentence of every magistrate which should impose so improper a punishment. This functionary, in his opinion, was perfectly correct in the view which he had taken of the law, and he insisted, that by the Act of 1833, the power of flogging females was entirely taken away. He pledged himself to his hon. Friend, that if he (Mr. F. Buxton) would state to him any case of misconduct on the part of any stipendiary magistrate, it should be instantly examined into; and that, if it were proved, that stipendiary magistrate should be dismissed. In making this statement, he was not giving his hon. Friend any vague or indefinite pledge, for it was in strict consistency with the past conduct of the present Government, of the late Government, and indeed of every Government which had anything to do with the question. His hon. Friend had said, that there must have been misconduct, as some of the special magistrates had been dismissed. Undoubtedly it was so. Lord Sligo had reported some such cases to the Government at home, and the conclusions to which his Lordship had come upon them had been confirmed by
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the Colonial Department in this country. In other cases where the misconduct seemed to arise out of an error of judgment only, a reprimand had been deemed a punishment sufficiently severe upon the magistrates, and, therefore, in such cases the special commission had not been withdrawn. He assured his hon. Friend, that the most vigilant circumspection had been used, and would continue to be used, by the Government at home, and by the Governors of our colonies abroad, over the stipendiary magistrates; and he did not think that any act of misconduct, oppression, or cruelty would be committed by them without drawing down upon them, as occasion might require, a reprimand or dismissal. If his hon. Friend would bring forward any cases of misconduct, cruelty, or oppression, he pledged himself on the part of the Colonial Department, to grant a full and patient inquiry into them; but be thought that until the Government had been convicted of being either negligent, or partial, or cruel, his hon. Friend ought not to call upon the present Parliament to take from the Government that power which a former Parliament had confided to its care, nor to disgrace the Government by calling on the House to accede to a proposition which would affix the bitterest stigma upon it. The hon. Baronet then proceeded to express his concurrence in the statements which the hon. Member for Weymouth had made, to prove that the negro was capable of being moved by the stimulus of wages, and that for wages he would willingly work. He could corroborate that statement from other quarters. He had heard from a relation of his own residing in Antigua, that with a less amount of labour his estate had been more productive last year than it had been in the years 1832 and 1833, before slavery was abolished. He, therefore, hoped that the House would consider itself bound by the law which had abolished slavery. He conceived that nothing could be more injurious to the colonies, and indeed to the country at large, than to Consider any questions which had been settled by law as open questions. The experiment of the Abolition Act had succeeded to a greater extent than its warmest friends had anticipated, and it was a glorious reflection for those who had made it, to know, that during the ten months which had now elapsed since the 1st of August, 1834, when it first came into operation, not one

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act of violence or injury had been committed upon any white, and that not more than one black man had been hurt out of a population of 800,000 negroes, whom it was still necessary to keep in subordination. He was happy to say, that a better feeling between the master and the apprentice was daily growing up in the West Indies. The letters of Lord Sligo (which he read to the House) were full of the most satisfactory proofs that the growth of this kindly feeling was uniting all classes, rich and poor, black and white, together for the protection of their common interests. If the House wished to promote a union so desirable, it would not sanction the present Motion for a Committee; for if that Motion were carried, the payment of the money would be suspended for a year at least; and believing that such a suspension would be injurious to the national honour, that it would be derogatory to the national faith, that it would be ruinous to thousands, and that it would exasperate the white without benefitting the negro population, he should oppose it to the utmost of his power. He felt that he had performed very inadequately the task which his official duty had that evening imposed on him, but he still hoped that the House, listening, if not to his arguments, to the arguments of those hon. Gentlemen who might rise after him, would pause before it entertained the present Motion, and that it would be convinced of the paramount necessity for taking such a dangerous step, before it ventured upon a measure which would impair the national character for justice and good faith, which he was sure that his hon. Friend would be the last man to injure under the sanction of his name and respectability.
Mr. Buckinghamsaid, he was glad that he had given way to the hon. Baronet, the Under Secretary for the Colonies, as it had enabled him, in common with the House, to enjoy the advantage of listening to the very able and satisfactory speech of that hon. Gentleman—able from the clear and convincing manner in which the statements had been laid before the House, and satisfactory, as containing the solemn declarations and public pledges of his Majesty's Government to see the Abolition Act carried into effect in all its integrity, as far at least as their power and authority could achieve so desirable a result.—As, however, he (Mr. Buckingham) had taken a very deep interest in the Question of Slave Emancipa-
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tion from an earlier date than the proposition for abolishing slavery in that House; as he had taken part also in the discussions on the Question while this great charter of negro liberty was passing through the House, he hoped he might be forgiven for desiring to say a few words on this occasion. In reverting to the discussions on this Question, he could not help recalling with pleasure the fact, that he had always contended for immediate emancipation without delay and without price; and the result had but too clearly proved that in so contending for this right of the slave, he had seen somewhat more clearly into futurity than those by whom this immediate and uneompen-sated emancipation was opposed;—for it was now shown that the labour of the same individual after his emancipation, was worth more to his employer than while he was a slave; and that estates on which the slaves were set wholly free, were of greater value to their owners after that event, than they were before: which must clearly show that compensation was unnecessary, as the planters were, by the abolition of slavery, benefitted instead of injured; and to give them twenty millions for a change which had turned out as was predicted to be to their advantage, rather than their wrong, was a reckless waste of money, to call it by no milder name. While, on the other hand, the complete success of the experiment of immediate abolition, as tried and proved in Antigua, and the Bermudas, shewed that the apprenticeship was as unnecessary as the compensation; and that both might have been safely dispensed with, by which the enormous cost to the nation, and the six years of suffering to the apprentice might both have been saved. It might be perfectly true, according to the language of the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) that there could be no benefit in discussing these subjects from day to day. But on the other hand he (Mr. Buckingham) was perfectly satisfied that there was great utility in discussing it occasionally: for the facts elicited in such debates would go forth to the world, and produce their proper influence on the Colonies, and on the mother country. It was for this reason that, though he was gratified with the sentiments and declarations made in the name of his Majesty's Government by the hon. Baronet opposite, he was at the same time of opinion, that the House and the country ought to feel glad that the hon. member for Weymouth (Mr. Buxton) had introduced the subject for discussion. In reply to that hon.

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Member's statements, it had been shown, and he thought satisfactorily, that the Government were not themselves parties to any breach of contract in the matter, and that they had taken such steps, by the purification of the local magistracy especially, as were likely to check any disposition to such breaches in future, among those functionaries. But at the same time, it could not be concealed, that faithfully as England and the English Ministry had done their duty, the colonial authorities, hitherto, at least, had not so well performed theirs;—and surely in the bargain made there were two contracting parties, from each of whom certain conditions were to be exacted, as the act prescribed. Every one who remembered the discussions on the act must remember that when the originally proposed loan of fifteen millions was transformed as if by the suddenness of magic, into a gift of twenty millions: the reason urged for such a rapid and immense advance was this:—that it was a large sum it was true—but then, it was to purchase freedom for the slave—to give liberty to the captive—to abolish corporeal punishment by the whip—to place the African on a level with the European in the administration of justice, and, in short, to secure to the negro—save and except only the reservation of a portion of his daily labour for his former owner—all the rights and privileges of a free man: and it was asked triumphantly, whether the British nation, in its high feeling of chivalrous devotion to freedom, would not readily pay even this large sum as a munificent sacrifice on the altar of justice. But what if the sacrifice were to be made, and the justice to be still withheld, surely this would be a source of deep regret and disappointment to those who were to pay the money. The twenty millions were to be given to purchase certain substantial and valuable blessings to 800,000 of our fellow subjects, and if these substantial and valuable blessings were not attained by the payment, then was it a mockery to talk of the compact being faithfully fulfilled. The House should see, then, how the matter stood, for he (Mr. Buckingham) should be able to prove to them, not from mere newspaper paragraphs, but from authentic and undoubted authority, that in the island of Jamaica, at least, the conditions have not been fulfilled. He would not go through all the details of those conditions, but he would select only three, and they were these:—first, that the flogging of females by the whip should cease after the first of August 1834:—next,
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that the apprentices should be put in a condition to obtain their manumission at a fixed and moderate rate:—and lastly, that justice should be impartially administered between the negro and his master in all cases of dispute. He would prove, then, that these conditions had been grossly violated in the letter and in the spirit, in Jamaica at least, and he would argue from this, that the owners by whom such violations had been perpetrated, ought to have their individual compensation suspended until satisfactory explanations, if that indeed were possible, had been given of their conduct. The authority he was about to cite was that of Dr. Madden, who had been sent out by the government of this country about two years ago as a stipendiary magistrate, to Jamaica: but who, after residing there for more than a year, and endeavouring to do his duty in a truly English spirit, being determined to uphold the integrity of the Abolition Act, and protect the negro from oppression, had met with such persecution from the local magistrates and persons connected with the planters, and the Colonial Union, that he had felt himself obliged to give up his appointment in disgust, and return to England; though, in proof of the general excellence and propriety of his conduct, he had received the most valuable testimonies as to his zeal, ability, and irreproachable conduct, from the two Governors of Jamaica, Lord Mulgrave and the Marquess of Sligo. This gentleman had resolved to publish his observations on the state of society in Jamaica which were now passing through the press, and would appear in a few days, under the title of "Twelve Months in the West Indies." The work had not yet been published: but Dr. Madden had favoured him (Mr. Buckingham) with an early copy of such sheets as were printed; and from these as he held the fragments of those volumes in his hands, he would cite the passages adverted lo, to show that in these three particulars, the abolition of flogging of females the self-redemption at a fixed and reasonable rate of the apprentices, and the impartial administration of justice, the planters and magistrates of Jamaica had grossly abused their powers and forfeited all claim to compensation till these acts were satisfactorily explained. The following were two cases only, among many, of the female floggings. He said:—
"The negroes are prone to shamming when they want to escape from labour; but the result of this propensity is, that every sick negro

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is suspected of being a shammer. On one occasion, a woman was pointed out to me as a shammer by an overseer. The woman was limping before the Busha's house, and when I asked what was the matter with her, I was answered, 'Oh, nothing at all, Sir, the woman is shamming lameness.' I asked had she been seen by the doctor? I was told that she had, and had been recommended a dose of salts. I said to Mr. Jerdan, who was with me, ' That is no shamming; observe how the woman drags her left leg after her, call her and see if she can raise her left arm to her head.' The woman was told to do so, but she could only lift it with her other hand. I said to the overseer, 'This young woman, Sir, is not shamming, she is dead of one side, and she is not able to work.' I was assured if such was the case, she should not be required. In the course of three weeks (when I happened to be absent in the parish of St. Mary,) the same paralytic woman, I was informed on my return, had been to my house with a complaint which she would not go away without making to my wife; she was crying a good deal, and stated that for refusing to work she had been flogged on her paralytic hand."—
Such a case as this needed no comment: and he (Mr. Buckingham) would offer none, but leave it in the words of the writer. There was another case, however, more touching still. It was this:—A woman was brought to Dr. Madden by the overseer, as a shammer, and she had been flogged before, but without effect, as she still persisted in her having a pain in the skin, which is the usual mode of describing pains in various parts of the body. After a description of the first interview, Dr. Madden said:—
"I begged the overseer to withdraw, and again urged her to tell me what was the matter? I could learn nothing except that the marks of a recent flogging were very visible. I imagined it wag the effects of this punishment she meant by 'pain in the skin.' I told her I saw nothing at that time to disqualify her for labour. I called the overseer in, and requested him to allow her some customary gratuity, which had been withheld as a punishment; and that the woman would and must go to labour. The obstinacy of this perverse woman now began to give way; she burst out a crying and said, "Well, Massa! God judge one day 'tween you and me!" I again urged her to inform me of her illness: it was in vain, however; but I satisfied myself there was no shamming in the case. The unfortunate woman was labouring under one of the most awful maladies a female is subject to."
He would pass, however, from this painful and revolting picture, to the part of Dr. Madden's work in which he speaks of the self-redemption of the apprentices; and
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this was so remarkable, that he must beg to request the special attention of the House to it. The writer said:—
"The eighth clause of the amended Abolition Act enabled the apprentice to redeem himself from servitude, upon payment to his master of the appraised value of his services. This clause, had it been so worded as to prevent the misconstruction of its intent would have been the most valuable clause in the whole Act. But, as it stands, the power of procuring a reasonable award is so limited, that I have lately been obliged to dissuade almost every applicant from applying for a valuation. The Corporation have proved stronger than the British Parliament. When a negro applies to the special justice to purchase his liberty, the latter calls upon the master to appoint a local Magistrate to proceed to a valuation. When the two Magistrates meet they name a third, who must also be a local Magistrate; and according to the age, sex, health, and occupation of the negro they ought to decide. There is one thing obvious at the first glance; there are two local Magistrates and one Special Justice; and it is evident that the interests of the slave-owner have been most looked to in this arrangement. The matter respecting the mode of conducting the valuation is so vaguely expressed in the Act, that the amount to be adjudicated is left entirely to the discretion of the Magistrates, without any reference to the scale of valuation; and this unfortunate defect has been the occasion of an immense deal of misunderstanding between the special and local Magistrates. In some instances the estimate has been as high as 170 l. a sum for which no negro has certainly been sold for many a-year in Jamaica: in others it has been as low as 20 l. for an adult, and from 10 l. to 15 l. for children; which, being in currency, is about one-third less in sterling money. In Kingston I believe there have been more applications for negroes to purchase their liberty, than, I believe, in all the rest of the island, with the exception of Spanish Town. In all eighty apprentices have obtained their freedom before me, either by valuation or by mutual agreement; and the average valuation has been 25 l. each. In one instance a tradesman was valued at 80 l. in the others it varied from 16 l. to 35 l. I have now been almost a-year in the island: I have attended a great many slave sales, and I have seen no negro sell for more than 30 l. and I believe the very last slave that had been levied on for an owner's debt, and sold in Jamaica, I saw put up on the day previous to the 1st of August, on the steps of Hasty's Tavern, in this town Kingston, the last exhibition of this kind that was to disgust the beholder; and in this instance the property put up was a young woman, strong and healthy, and she was knocked down to the highest bidder, which happened to be the only one, for 5l. 6s. 8d.

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Here, then, was a case for inquiry which might well demand the earliest and most earnest consideration of the British Government. Hon. Members would no doubt recollect the two great arguments by which this unnecessary prolongation of slavery under the new and inappropriate name of apprenticeship was defended. First, it was said to be indispensable, in order to prepare the slave for the otherwise too sudden transition from a state of slavery to a state of freedom; a precaution shown to be wholly uncalled for, as the experiment tried in Antigua and the Bermudas, of immediate emancipation, had been most successful, and would have been equally so everywhere else. Secondly it was said, to be an additional compensation given to the slave owner by presenting him with the value of six years labour at a reduced rate, in addition to the compensation of twenty millions; and this, no doubt, was its real nature in the eyes of the planters themselves. But according to the testimony furnished by Dr. Madden, these apprentices were forced to pay for the redemption of their term of six years labour, a much larger sum than slaves usually sold for before the Abolition Act was passed at all; so that in such cases, at least, the planters would first get the full value of their slaves in their share of the twenty millions Compensation Fund, and then be paid a second time by having more than the full value by the excessive redemption price; thus getting repaid thrice the original purchase money for their slaves—once in the labour and profit had out of them in their previous state of slavery—a second time in the compensation money paid by the nation; and a third time in the self-redemption of the slave at a larger price than all and thus performing a treble robbery; for the first act of making a man a slave was an unjustifiable wrong; the second of asking compensation from the public purse was an aggravation of that wrong; and the third of demanding compensation from the unhappy slave himself, whom the nation had already redeemed, was an accumulation of wrong, that it required more than usual hardihood and effrontery to perpetrate and defend He (Mr. Buckingham) would come now, however, to the concluding portion of the case, and shew, from the undeniable testimony of Dr. Madden, that besides the flogging of females, and the exorbitant demands for manumission, there was nothing like impartial justice administered be-
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tween the negroes and their oppressors. The following were only a few of the cases that he would venture to cite from Dr. Madden's pages; he said:—
"Since August, 1834, various outrages have been committed by white people on negroes. One planter has been indicted for shooting at an old woman, and, after wounding her severely, discharged the second barrel at her, but fortunately without effect. The Grand Jury ignored the bill—Another gentleman was indicted at the October Court, for outrage on a sick negro woman. The Grand Jury ignored the bill. Another planter was indicted for the murder of his negro, by shooting him, and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.—Another gentleman, an overseer, was committed to gaol a few weeks ago, for the murder of a boy, by shooting at a number of negroes assembled in a hut, in the act of singing hymns. He has not been yet tried, but from the exertions making for him I have no expectation he will be convicted.—Another gentleman was tried in October last, for causing one of his negroes to be severely torn by dogs, for going without permission to bury his wife, who had been dead three days, and had been refused sufficient time to prepare her coffin. The strenuous exertions of the Chief Justice obtained a conviction: he was fined 100 l.—But in the majority of cases convictions are not to be expected: Such cases are not given on newspaper authority. I have taken them from the sworn informations. Is this a state of things to be remedied under the present system? In my opinion it is not."
It was unnecessary to add anything to these recent and vivid, and he feared too faithful pictures of West-Indian Society, drawn by the pen of one whose testimony was unquestionable. With these statements he would leave the case to the judgment of the House and the country; and whatever might be the fate of the Motion of the hon. Member for Weymouth, he (Mr. Buckingham) should feel that he had endeavoured to do his duty towards the poor oppressed negro, by drawing the attention of the people of Great Britain by whom the twenty millions were to be paid, to the violations of good faith on the part of those towards whom, in a moment of reckless extravagance, which he would not dignify by the name of justice or generosity, this immense sum had been voted in payment for that liberty, which the slaves ought never to have had taken from them, and which it should not have cost either them or the country a shilling to regain.
Mr. Claymerely rose to ask whether his hon. Friend, the Member for Weymouth, after the very able, eloquent, and

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satisfactory speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir George Grey) would think it necessary to persist in his Motion? In his opinion nothing but a positive breach of faith on the part of any of the Colonial legislatures could justify the Government of this country in withholding the amount of compensation which had been voted by the British Parliament; and it did not appear to him, from anything which had been stated by the hon. Member for Weymouth, or from anything that he had heard from the Colonies themselves, that any such breach of faith had taken place. The exculpation of the Government from the charge of negligence, too, was, he thought, most complete, and he thought the task might now be safely left to the Government of working out the details of the measure which had passed last Session. He happened to know that large commercial transactions had been entered into on the faith of the payment of the money, and any breach of that faith would be attended with most disastrous consequences. If the hon. Member should divide the House on the Question, he would find that he would lose the support of many sincere friends to the cause he advocated, and it would not be well to let it appear to the public that there was even the appearance of a falling-off in the numbers of those who were in that House the promoters of negro emancipation. He trusted that the hon. Member would see the propriety of withdrawing his Motion.
Mr. O'Connellwould also implore his hon. Friend to withdraw his Motion. Every object that he could have in bringing it forward must have been amply answered in the speech which had been made by the right hon. Baronet. He (Mr. O'Connell) derived a consolation, and an assurance that the views of negro emancipists would be fully met, not only from the propriety and accuracy of the materials of which the right hon. Baronet's speech was composed, but also from the liberal spirit which pervaded and gave a character to every passage of it. From all that had been stated, the hon. Member must now be satisfied that all those abuses of which he complained were watched over with a vigilant eye friendly to the Emancipation of negroes, and willing to punish any acts of oppression on the part of their tyrants. Opposed as he had been to the original grant of twenty millions, he still felt bound to say, that the country
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had now ample value for the money. Feeling, as he did, that there never was a man so well formed by every qualification to advocate the cause of suffering humanity as the hon. Member for Weymouth (Mr. F. Buxton), he still felt confident that he might safely leave the matter in the hands of the Government.
Mr. Fowell Buxton,in reply, said, he felt that the speech of the hon. Baronet (Sir. G. Grey) must have made a deep impression on the House; and, accompanied as it was by numerous suggestions from the friends of emancipation, he felt that he had no alternative. He felt that it was indispensable on his part, wishing to do the best for those of whom he was the humble advocate, to withdraw his Motion. The Government had now taken upon itself a greater responsibility than it had hither to done in carrying the measure of emancipation into effectual operation; and he had no doubt they would do all that was possible to effect that object. It never was his intention to withhold the twenty millions, but that its payment should be accompanied with the intimation that Government was pledged that the intention of the Legislature should be carried into effect.
Motion withdrawn.

SUGAR DUTIES.
On the Motion that the Order of the Day for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of Ways and Means being read,
Mr. Cutlar Fergussonpresented a Petition from the East-India Company for a reduction of the duties on sugar and other articles, the produce and manufacture of British possessions in India. The right hon. Gentleman supported the prayer of the petition. Our possessions in India stood upon a footing distinct from that of any colony at any time possessed by England. That immense empire had been acquired without the charge of a single shilling to the State. India had paid the expenses of those very armies which had been employed in its subjugation. The claims of India were well entitled to the favourable consideration of Parliament. She had been under the necessity of remitting to this country—for the purpose of paying political and other charges, for which she had no return—a sum amounting, annually, to 2,400,000 l.; and by the Act which was lately passed, additional charges had been imposed upon her to

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the extent of 800,000 l. a-year. This enormous sum was paid from the revenues of India, and all that India required was, that common justice should be done to her. Hitherto she had received nothing but the greatest injustice at our hands—injustice which we could not repair, unless we materially altered the whole system of our policy towards her, and, particularly, those fiscal regulations by which she was oppressed. It was extraordinary that India—the most distant of all our possessions, and which ought, on that account, to have had every allowance made in the way of duty—had been subjected to an increase of fifty per cent, on all her chief articles of produce, beyond that imposed on the produce of the West-India colonies. East-India sugar paid a duty of 32 s. per cwt., and West-India sugar only 24 s. Coffee, the produce of the East Indies, paid a duty of 9d. per lb., whilst, from the West Indies, it paid only 6d. Here was a case in which the House was called upon to interfere. India had not only to complain of the different scale of duties charged on her produce from that levied on produce of the West Indies, but she had, in addition, to complain that the cottons and muslins of England paid a duty of only two and a-half per cent, in India, while those of India were charged ten per cent. here. Upon the silks of India there was a duty of twenty per cent., whilst those of England paid only two and a-half per cent, in India. English hardware and woollen cloths were imported into India duty free. The gradual decrease of the importations of the manufactures of India into this country were extraordinary. In 1804, the importation from India into this country, of three articles, amounted to 2,072,612 l.; in 1814, it was reduced to 1,266,608 l.; in 1833, it amounted only to 316,000 l.; and now it was altogether ceased. He would next show how much this country had gained, while India had been losing in the proportion he had just stated. In 1804, the value of our exportations of piece goods to that country was 31,943 l.; in 1814, 109,480 l.; and in the year 1833, it amounted to the sum of 1,528,880 l. In the district of Dacca, 500,000 persons employed at the loom were reduced with their families, to misery and want, by the substitution of our manufactures for the manufacture of India. He had stated in substance the injuries which India had
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received by reason of the system pursued towards her. It was time that this injustice should cease. India asked fair treatment—she asked no favour—no preference—she claimed that which in justice and in right ought never to have been denied to her—to be put upon an equal footing with our other colonies.
Mr. Crawfordhad a similar petition from a considerable body of the merchants of London to present, but he would make no observation alter the able statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
Petition to lie on the Table.
The House resolved itself into a Committee of Ways and Means.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that as his hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Ewart) had given notice of a Motion upon the subject, to which the petitions just presented related, perhaps it would be as well that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) should pave the way by moving a Resolution. On accepting office, it undoubtedly became one of his first duties to consider the very important Question which was then about to be brought before the Committee; and having collected, from several different sources, but, at the same time, sources in which he placed the utmost confidence, that the Question had been brought under the consideration of the late Government, he naturally felt desirous of ascertaining in what condition it had been left by them. When the present Government came into office, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) found that a very general impression had gone abroad, that it was the intention of their predecessors to renew the sugar duties for the present year, according to the scale now existing. That being the case, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) became anxious to ascertain whether it were the fact or not; because he felt that at all times, and more especially at a period when the value of colonial property was rapidly fluctuating, that if there were one duty more incumbent than another upon those who were called upon to discharge the offices of Government, it was not lightly to abandon any engagement, or to disappoint any expectation which might have been held out by those who had previously composed the Administration. If, in addition to all the other inevitable inconveniences consequent upon a change of Government, all the implied or expressed

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engagements made by the retiring Government were to be disregarded by that which succeeded it, the consequences to a commercial country like this could not be other than calamitous. Acting upon the indistinct information he had received, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had felt it his duty to ascertain positively what the views of the late Government had been, when he found that no definite engagement upon the subject had been entered into by them. He collected especially from the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, that he (the right hon. Baronet) felt himself perfectly free to deal with the subject as he should think fit if he had continued in office. But whilst he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) made that statement—whilst he felt it to be his duty to make it for the information of his hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool, giving him any advantage he might derive from it; he also felt it to be his duty to state, that an impression had been conveyed to the West-India interest, which induced in them a perfect belief that the duties during the present year would not be disturbed. He had seen the Representatives of the West-India interest upon the subject, and had learned from them, that, in consequence of representations made to them in March last, they had communicated with their correspondents in the West Indies, and informed them that no alteration in the duties was likely to take place during the present year. He believed the same impression generally pervaded the great mercantile interests of the city of London. He knew that at the present moment the condition of the West-India planter was one which required the peculiar and sedulous attention of the Legislature; and he trusted from the spirit which seemed to prevail in all quarters, that no step would be inconsiderately or incautiously taken which would in any respect prejudice the interests of that class. With the knowledge of the facts to which he had referred, he felt that he had no duty to perform but one, and that was for the present year; and under the peculiar circumstances which existed, to propose to Parliament the continuance of the present duties. He felt, perfectly, the full weight of the observations which had been made relating to the necessity of doing justice to India, but if it was essential to do justice, he felt that it was equally necessary to do
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justice to this country; and so strongly was he impressed with the necessity of justice being done to both countries, that he had no hesitation in declaring, that any attempt to depend upon, or permanently to abide by the discriminating duties, was one which he would not undertake. On the contrary, although it did not refer particularly to this Resolution, but to the principle involved, he was willing and anxious to tell his right hon. Friend, and others who were interested in the question, that even in the course of the present Session, in a matter in which he did not feel himself restrained by the considerations to which he had adverted, he hoped to give an earnest of what he thought ought to be done. In the observations which had been made, one article had been more particularly adverted to—he meant coffee. With this article he felt that the House was perfectly free to deal according to its discretion, and in the course of the present Session it was his intention to propose an equalization of the duties on coffee. He was well aware that this was not the proper time to discuss that point, but he hoped he should be excused, if in referring to the sugar duties he not only made a declaration of his principles and opinions upon that subject, but did more by giving his right hon. Friend an assurance that he should find in the present Session, something done to warrant the fulfilment of that declaration. He should be sorry to be considered by the House, and particularly sorry to be considered by his right hon. Friend, in moving the renewal of the sugar duties for the present, as giving any kind of sanction to the permanent continuance of the discriminating duties. But in departing from that system, due regard must be had to the interests which had been created. He did not despair of the possibility, even in the course of the present Session—having secured the continuance of the duties for the present—of some consideration being given to the subject of the future duties. It was of importance that the subject should not be altogether passed over in silence, but that the West-India interest should have an opportunity of considering not only the duties for the present year, but also those which were to come. It was also of importance that the East-India interest, which he hoped would be an improving interest under the new Charter, should have an opportunity of considering

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the subject. Having thus stated, shortly, the grounds upon which he proposed the Resolution with which he was about to conclude, and having taken the opportunity of explaining the course which he meant to pursue hereafter, it was not his wish at that late hour, unless he should be compelled to do so, to go into the question further. He could not enter into the discussion of the principle with his hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool, because he did not support the Resolution on principle, but upon the peculiar circumstances of the case, and on the correspondence which had taken place between the West-India interest and their agents in this country. The latter had communicated to those whom they represented that the sugar duties were not to be altered during the present year, and under these circumstances he did not feel it his duty to make any alteration. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving a Resolution that towards raising the supply to be granted to his Majesty the several duties upon sugar and molasses be continued for the present year.
Mr. Ewartsaid, he had understood that if there had not been an absolute pledge given, at least there had been an understanding countenanced by the late Government, that the discriminating duties should be repealed this Session.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerbegged to correct the error into which his hon. Friend had fallen. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had already stated not only that no pledge had been given, but that the right hon. Baronet lately at the head of the Government, had distinctly assured him that he had given none, but he had taken the same opportunity of stating, that, from official information derived from the Government, although no pledge was given, the Colonial agents had been induced to communicate to their correspondents that no alteration would be made in the sugar duties.
Mr. Ewartresumed. He said that justice to India required that these duties should be altered. We were bound by the India Bill to improve, as far as was in our power, the condition of that empire. But how could British capital get into India if we did not open our market for the produce of that country? When the West-India Bill was under discussion, his hon. Friend, the Member for the Tower Hamlets, and other hon. Members, de-
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clared that they only agreed to the compensation to the planters on the understanding that the existing monopoly was to be removed. The case of India was one of the most aggravated cases of injustice which had ever been brought under the notice of the House. How gross was the injustice of annihilating the manufactures of India, while we incumbered its raw produce with disproportionate duties. This was not an Indian question alone, but it was a question of great interest also to the British capitalist and commerce. He was happy to hear from his right hon. Friend that we were to have some alteration hereafter. He held that in the declaration which the House had received from his right hon. Friend, was contained an assurance of the principles upon which he acted, and the manner in which he intended to carry them into operation, and therefore he believed that he should consult the feelings of the House, and of those hon. Friends of his whose peculiar sources of knowledge on this subject, and the nature of whose constituencies, enabled them to judge of the best course to be pursued, by looking upon the principles of the Government and the statement of his right hon. Friend, as an earnest at least, if not a pledge, that something would be done at the earliest opportunity. He should therefore throw himself upon the House, and if his hon. Friends thought that he ought to rely upon the great probability of liberal measures being proposed, he should not press his Motion: but if if his friends wished him to take the sense of the House upon it, he would certainly do so.
Mr. Humeadvised his hon. Friend, after what had been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to press his Motion. For the last fifteen years he had heard, year after year, promises of justice being done to India, and he hoped they would now be speedily fulfilled. He believed those connected with India expected too much, and those connected with the West-Indies feared too much. We had by our policy been ruining the commerce of India, and he feared that unless a more liberal course were promptly adopted, we should be unable to maintain that empire and the necessary establishments there. He hoped the Session would not pass without the subject being fully brought under the consideration of the House that all parties might know what

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was to be done hereafter. He looked upon the statement which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made of his intentions with regard to coffee as an earnest of what ought to be done in every other article. If the Government should not do justice to India, he should be happy to join his hon. Friend in forcing that tardy measure of justice which had been so long delayed. No colony belonging to any country had ever been treated by the mother country as India had always been treated by England, and he hoped the injustice would at length be put an end to.
Mr. Bagshawbelieved, that although no positive pledge was given as to the alteration of these duties when the twenty millions were voted, still it was understood that a simultaneous boon would be given to India. It was the duty of this country more especially at the time when there was a defalcation of the revenue of India, to give encouragement to the growth of sugar in that important colony.
Mr. Chapmanexpressed his deep regret at the declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that no alteration was to be made in the existing duties during the present Session. Nothing would tend to promote commerce with India or encourage the shipping interest more than an alteration of the sugar duties. Ships from India were now obliged to bring one-third of their cargoes in stones, while sugar was lying on the beach.
Lord Sandonwas inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Middlesex, who said that different parties, connected with each interest, hoped or feared too much from the equalization of these duties; for a very long time must elapse before the reduction of the duties on East-India produce could produce such a change in the general prosperity of the country as to be important in a commercial point of view. Whatever change might be made, it was most desirable that both the West and East-India proprietors should know, beforehand, what they would have to expect from the Government, and a gradual approximation to an equalization would be preferable to any more sudden adjustment. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take the expediency of this principle into his consideration, in any plan he might propose.
Mr. Poulett Thomsonagreed also in the opinion that the advantages and disad-
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vantages anticipated, both on the one side and the other, from the equalization of the duties on sugar, were much exaggerated—but that did not diminish the desire he felt that full justice should be done to the East-India producers. At the same time he thought his right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had given an assurance sufficiently satisfactory when he expressed his concurrence in the principles laid down by the hon. Member for Liverpool, and his anxiety that those principles should be, as speedily as possible, carried into effect. He, too, afforded an earnest of the sincerity of his intentions in this respect, by the intimation of his resolution to propose to the House an immediate reduction of the duty on East-India coffee, He did not concur in the sorry expectations which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Sudbury with regard to the reduction of the coffee duties. He did not participate in his melancholy forebodings, knowing that the supply of coffee from the West Indies was at present below the demand, and that the East Indies were altogether excluded from a share in that lucrative trade, which, if opened, would now be peculiarly advantageous to those countries, from the increased demand for that commodity. As to West-India sugar, much of that was exported from hence to the third markets, where it was to compete with the Java, and Manilla sugars; so that the reduction of the sugar duties would not be of so much extensive service to the East Indies as many expected. There was already, an over supply of sugar for this country, the West-India sugars being unrestricted, and entering into competition in the third market. He trusted that in consequence of the means which the cultivation of sugar would afford for the employment of capital, East-India sugar, before long, would hold its proper place in the market and afford employment for our shipping: at the same time, he thought that the sanction and support now given by the Government and the House, to the principle of equalization, would have as good an effect in promoting the application of capital to the purpose of the cultivation of sugar, as it the difference between the duties themselves had been actually taken off this Session. He regretted to find, from the statement of the right hon. and learned Member for Kirkcudbright, that as to another article upon which protec-

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tion had been offered to the East-India produce, a serious decrease in the quantity exported had taken place. He alluded to cotton. He had hoped that, from the opening, many years ago, of the markets of this country to the East-Indies, the result would have been that we should have received a large supply; but he trusted in this article, as in that of sugar, the additional employment of capital under the new system—the new regulations which had been made as regarded the tenure of lands, and the settlement of Englishmen, in India, would have, hereafter, a very different effect on production; and that they would not long have to deplore a decrease in the place of increase, in the quantity produced. The hon. Member for Middlesex, seemed to suppose that the Government ought, in the course of the present Session, to bring forward a proposition for the equalization of the differential duties on East-India produce. Would the hon. Member explain in respect of what articles he supposed these differential duties to exist? When he first became connected with the Board of Trade, they were about sixteen articles of produce, in respect of which the differential duties were imposed. By the changes lately introduced twelve out of those sixteen were placed on a footing of equalization; and there now remained four, only, as to which the duties were different; sugar, coffee, tobacco, and spirits. As to tobacco, the hon. Member would recollect that this supply did not come from the British possessions.—[Mr. Hume: But it might.] It certainly might, but it would then have to compete with that of the foreigner, and we should have to give up so much of the duty. The reduction of the duty on spirits would not produce any material benefit. The only other article was that of coffee, and any observations on that were unnecessary, for the hon. Member for Middlesex had already expressed his approbation of the course which his right hon. Friend proposed to pursue respecting coffee.
Mr. Peasesaid, that the introduction of a new system, after the alteration consequent upon the Emancipation Bill, would involve the trade in great confusion and uncertainty. Sugar was the only article the West-Indian could send to this country in return for our manufactures. Although he was not opposed to a gradual equalization of the duties, he had some
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doubt, whether the extensive changes proposed as long as the Slave-trade was carried on so vigorously at Cuba and the Brazils, would be so advantageous as was expected.
Mr. Elphinstonehoped that the duties would be equalized. If that were the case the consumption of sugar would be increased. Since 1790, the consumption of tea had increased considerably, and the consumption of coffee had increased twenty-fold, and there was no reason, but the high duties, why the consumption of sugar had not increased equally to that of tea and coffee.
Mr. Warburtonsaid, that if it were true, as the noble Lord (Sandon) had stated that extravagant notions were entertained as to the advantages and the disadvantages that would accrue from the equalization of the sugar duties, he hoped the noble Lord would not insist upon what appeared to him unnecessary—viz: that whenever the attempt was made to approximate the produce of the West to the East Indies, in that respect they should only go on by such small and insensible degrees, as could neither be of sensible advantage to the one, nor sensible disadvantage to the other. But as it was acknowledged that the approximation must be made though gradually, why not take a step? If it would not affect either party in a serious degree, why not at once take a step? He thought it would be of great advantage to the East Indies, without being of great disadvantage to the West Indies, because whatever sugar was thus thrown into the market, as to the degree to which it would affect the sugar market, it would only be so far, and in that proportion, which the sugar thus introduced bore to the whole of the sugar brought into the European market: so that the only disadvantage to the West Indies, would be the extent to which such quantity of sugar thrown into the market, affected our market at home, as the price of sugar here was regulated by the price in the market of Europe. He knew not what better opportunity could be had for making the experiment than the present moment, when the competition between the East and West India proprietors would, in consequence of the Slave Emancipation Act, be one of free labour. He wished the Government clearly to explain their intentions on this subject. They seemed to think that to make an alteration of the

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duties all at once would be too great change, and that some notice of such measure ought previously to be given Now he wanted to know what notice would be given in the course of the pre sent Session? Was a Committee to b appointed to consider the propriety of equalizing the duties, or was some resolution to be passed by the House? He trusted that the equalization would not be gradual, but that it would be effected al at once.
Mr. George F. Youngthought the equalization of the duties ought to take place gradually, and he hoped that the present Session would not be allowed to close without some notice being given to al interested parties of the intention to alter the existing duties.
Mr. Patrick Stewartfelt convinced from what he knew of the feelings of tin West-Indian body, that no objection would be entertained on their part to the general support which had been expressed in favour of the principle of equalizing the sugar duties. The objection urged by them last year to the proposition was an objection in point of time; and the same objection existed to a certain degree at the present moment. It could not fairly be said that the labour in the West Indies was free. The negroes were in a state of apprenticeship; and during the term of their apprenticeship, the owners were compelled to provide them with clothes and other necessaries. A similar burthen was not endured by the East-India interest, and he, therefore, thought that the West-India proprietors ought to be allowed to emerge from the state in which they were placed by the Slave Emancipation Act before a total equalization of the sugar duties took place. He took it for granted that when the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer talked about reducing the duties on East-India sugar and coffee, he meant the reduction to apply only to sugar and coffee which were bona fide the produce of British India, and not to sugar and coffee which came from foreign territories in India. It was well known that half the sugar introduced into this country under the description of British India produce was in fact the produce of foreign territories in that empire.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerwould be extremely sorry to have it inferred, as perhaps might be the case, in consequence of the observations, which had just fallen
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from the hon. Gentleman, that it was his (Mr. Rice's) impression that the present state of the sugar duties ought to remain unchanged until the expiration of the term of apprenticeship to which the negroes in the West-Indies were bound. Before that period it might become the duty of the House to alter those duties; but undoubtedly the burthen thrown on the West-Indian body by the Slave Emancipation Act would be one of the circumstances to be considered in the case. With respect to the reduction of the duty on East-Indian coffee, it was certainly his intention to confine it to such coffee as was the growth of British India.
Mr. Mark Philipsconceived that the value of West-India property had been increased rather than depreciated by the Slave Emancipation Act. He pressed on the Government the importance of taking into consideration the equalization of the sugar duties at the earliest possible period.
Mr. Buckinghamsaid, that though he had so recently addressed the House on the oppressions of our West-Indian fellow subjects, he could not refrain from offering a few observations on the grievances of our equally valuable East-Indian fellow subjects among whom he had passed so many years of his life, and whose interests he should always feel it his duty to advocate and defend. There was one short argument, he thought, by which the imperative necessity and absolute justice of reducing the duties on East-Indian produce might be incontrovertibly shown, and to this alone he would confine himself. The House would remember that two years ago, it had granted a new charter of Government to the East-India Company, by which entire freedom of trade was extended to all British subjects, whether English or native-born, by which colonization was to be permitted to all capitalists who chose to settle in India, and by which our shipping and manufacturing interests were all to be greatly benefited. Now, if the Government granted these privileges in a truly honest spirit, and with sincere and upright intentions,—it was indispensable that they should at once reduce the duties on East-India produce to a level at least with those on West-India produce; as without such reduction, free trade was a mockery—colonization a farce—and neither our shipping nor our manufacturing interests could be benefited in the slightest degree. To confirm the charter, therefore, and to prove their own integrity of intention, such reductions were

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imperatively demanded of them: and until made, the charter would not be complete. Some honourable gentlemen on both sides of the House had to his (Mr. Buckingham's) extreme surprise, asserted that the advantages of these reductions to the East-India Trade had been greatly exaggerated; but for his part, he was disposed to believe they had been greatly under stated. He would not detain the House by a lengthened argument upon the subject at this late hour of the night; but he would just enumerate, in a few sentences, some of the advantages which the equalization of the duty on sugar alone would produce. Its first operation would be to call into profitable cultivation large tracts of soil in India—by which profit to the capitalist, and profit to the cultivator and peasantry would be realised,—and by which also the revenues of India, derived chiefly from the land, would be largely augmented, while the people were benefited at the same time. It would furnish the merchants of India with that which they now wanted, an article of profitable return for their remittances to this country. It would then afford to ship owners, a valuable article of heavy freight, for want of which, ships bringing home light goods, were now often obliged to put in as heavy cargo, large stones, and other unprofitable ballast; and above all, it would increase the outlet for our manufactures; for those least acquainted with political economy must be aware that the amount of our exports to India are not limited by our power to send out goods, but by the quantity of profitable returns to be brought back from thence. We could double or treble our exports in a single year, if we could bring back profitable returns; and with a hundred millions of people an immense market might be found, if their produce were released from their present burthens, so as to enable them to be brought home and sold at a profit. He (Mr. Buckingham) had indeed been sometimes taunted with having been a false prophet, in predicting a larger increase in the trade of India than had already taken place. But he had always contended for a free trade between England and India, and no trade could deserve that name, which was still burthened as that of India is, by these excessive duties on its raw produce. Take off these, and it would be like releasing a giant from his fetters. After which, but not before, we should see the mighty energies of the two countries gradually developed, and all the advantages predicted gradually realised, One word more before he
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sat down. It was contended that whatever advantages the East Indies might gain by these reductions, the West Indies must lose. From this he entirely dissented. If the quantity of sugar to be consumed in the world had arrived at its maximum and could not be possibly increased, then, no doubt, the additional quantity of East-India sugar brought into the market, would leave a corresponding quantity of West-India sugar unsold. But was it not notorious that the reduction in price of any commodity of general use, increased its consumption? If so then considering the universal taste for sugar, and the certainty that the humbler classes especially would use much more of it, if it were made cheaper, and thus brought more within their reach, it appeared to him quite certain that a largely increased sale of cheap East-India sugar might take place by reason of such increased consumption, without at all trenching on the quantity still required from the West-Indies to supply the old and established markets. If his position were correct, the reduction of duties on the produce of the East Indies might then be set down as one of those very few commercial changes in which there would be a very large benefit to many classes, without any probable or perceptible injury to any; and, therefore, he conjured his Majesty's ministers not to delay this act of justice a moment longer than they could possibly avoid.
Mr. Goulburnexpressed his entire concurrence in the sentiments of the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the course the right hon. Gentleman proposed to adopt. He hoped that the Question would receive the fullest and calmest consideration, and that his Majesty's Government would not allow themselves to be led away by statements of particular individuals.
The Resolution was agreed to. House resumed.