Lord Stanleysaid, he had received a petition from a remote dependency of the British Crown, the very name of which was, perhaps, unknown to a great portion of the Members of that House. In consequence of an informality, he was unable to present it, but he was anxious to avail himself of the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies, to ask him if he could give the House any information on the subject. The petition was from the custos and inhabitants of the island of Grand Caymans, a dependency of the British Crown, about 160 miles leeward of Jamaica. The settlement was a very singular one. It was of exclusively British-born subjects, who, having colonized the island, lived under no law whatever, except one they had framed for themselves, giving some authority to persons appointed to act as magistrates. That was literally the only law or authority that prevailed amongst them. Until the year 1831, when they applied to the Bishop of Jamaica, and never previous, 952 had they the service and assistance of a clergyman of the established church. By their industry and communication with Jamaica they had carried on a considerable traffic, and acquired a good deal of property; their tonnage was not inconsiderable, and they had amongst them about 1,000 slaves. In the 66th clause of the Emancipation Act they were included as a dependency of Jamaica, having slaves, in consequence of their slight connexion with that island, and received a portion of the compensation money under that Act. But inasmuch as they had no laws whatever, it was clear that no registration of their slaves could have taken place, and whereas by the Abolition Act it was enacted that those only who had been registered should become apprentices under the apprenticeship system, and it having been found, but not until 1835, that those persons, although they had received compensation as persons whose slaves were duly registered, had not complied with the law, not from any fault of their own, but simply because they were ignorant of it, their slaves did not fall under the apprenticeship clause, but became immediately free. Since that period the island had suffered severely from a hurricane. Independently of their not having received any more than the compensation paid to those who still retained their slaves as apprentices, and of their not having received any assistance in the way of moral or religious education, which they were extremely anxious about, having since the year 1831, notwithstanding their poverty, built two churches and a house for the minister—they had now to state that one of their churches had been entirely destroyed by that hurricane, that the other, and the minister's residence, had been seriously injured, and that 100 of their houses had been also destroyed. Under these circumstances they came before Parliament and her Majesty, appealing in both cases for compensation and relief. He hoped he had done right in not permitting a mere form to prevent his calling the attention of the House to the subject; having gone so far, however, the motion with which he intended to conclude should come within the strict forms of the House. He should move that there be laid before the House a copy of the memorial on this subject presented to the Colonial-office. His chief object was to obtain a statement on the matter from her Majesty's Government.
§ Sir G. Greysaid, that the statement of the noble Lord with respect to the Grand Caymans, was substantially, if not perfectly, correct. The case had been brought under the attention of the Government at the time when the noble Lord was at the head of the Colonial department, by a memorial which had been presented to Lord Mulgrave, then governor of Jamaica, and had been transmitted by that noble Lord to the home Government. Shortly afterwards a change took place in the administration, and Lord Aberdeen, when he succeeded to office, referred the question to the law officers of the Crown, who gave it as their unqualified opinion, that under the circumstances all the slaves in the island were unconditionally free. His noble Friend who succeeded to the Colonial-office, recommended Lord Sligo, who was then governor of Jamaica, to act upon that opinion. This had been done, and the slaves were all liberated, and he was happy to say, that no inconvenience had resulted from the proceeding. The conduct of both the freed slaves and the white population was deserving of all approbation, though no regular system of law had existed in the island. It was thought, that the island was a dependency of Jamaica, and that it should receive a portion of the compensation fund voted to Jamaica, and it was thought, that the case was exactly similar to that of the island of Anguilla. There was, however, an unwillingness on the part of the legislature of Jamaica to have this island annexed, for the purposes of government, to that colony, and he did not think the smaller island had lost by it. The governor of Jamaica had, therefore, sent some magistrates to the Grand Caymans, who acted under the instructions received from the governor, and they found no difficulty in administering the law. With respect to the future government of the settlement, there was some intention of proposing that it should be placed under the rule of the Queen in Council, and this matter was now under consideration. As to a grant of money for the education of the negroes, he could only state, that a sum had been given for that purpose to the secretary for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, and he believed some steps had been taken for the instruction of the negroes in that settlement. He could only add, that he could not hold out the slightest hope of any addition being made to the compensation granted 954 to the slave-owners of the Grand Caymans in consequence of their loss of the services of the negroes during the period of apprenticeship.
§ Motion agreed to.