§ The Duke of Wellingtonpresented a Petition from Magistrates, Bankers, Merchants, and others, inhabitants of Belfast, for a gradual and safe Abolition of Slavery, and compensation to the Planter. He had a petition to the same effect from Edinburgh. The latter was signed by 2,468 persons, and was well entitled to attention, no less on account of the respectability of the petitioners, than by reason of the justice of the sentiments contained in the petition. He proposed that the Edinburgh petition be read at 838 length. [The petition having been read by the Clerk, the noble Duke proceeded.] The petitioners referred to the Resolutions of the House of Commons in 1823 on the subject of Slavery and made them the basis of their statements. Those Resolutions tended to gradual emancipation, not immediate, by the adoption of temperate measures. He claimed credit for the different Governments with which he had been connected up to November, 1830, for acting on these Resolutions. The Order in Council of March, 1830, enforcing-manumission, would alone have led at last to the accomplishment of the Resolution of 1823, if temperately carried into effect. It was impossible not to apprehend serious evils from immediate emancipation; the interests of the slaves themselves would be endangered no less than the security of the colonies, and the parent country would not escape the consequences that must inevitably ensue. The petitioners stated, that the revenue derived from the colonies in 1830, amounted to 7,800,000l., and there was every reason to believe that it was not less than 7,500,000l. in the last year. Was it not an object to retain such a revenue as that? According to the petition, the exports and trade connected with the colonies, amounted to 120,000,000l., and there were 350,000l tons of shipping employed in the colonial trade. A large income (much diminished, however, as compared with what it had been) was received by proprietors of West India estates resident in this country. This country (putting Ireland out of the question) consumed more sugar than all Europe beside. If the West-India trade were abandoned, whence could we get sugar? Only from slave colonies, which were at this moment carrying on the slave trade in the same manner as we drew our supplies of cotton from colonies where the whole population were slaves. It would seem we were going to do this to sacrifice slaves and masters, and colonies, at an expense of losing 7,000,000l. of revenue. Such conduct appeared to him to be little, if at all, better than insanity. He held in his hand the detail of the proceeds and expenses of an estate in the West Indies, from which it appeared, there were 161 hogsheads of sugar made upon it, which were worth 6,372l.; and, of this sum, 2,965l. went to Government for duties. After the proprietor had paid every thing connected with the transfer and sale, he 839 had not above-thirtieth part for himself. Great complaints were made in this country about distress; he hoped that these accounts were exaggerated; but was not that distress to be attributed, in some measure, to the insecurity in which West-India property was placed, connected with other similar circumstances. The West-India interest was unluckily at the present time exceedingly unpopular. He had done everything in his power when in office to relieve that interest, and he was convinced that till the public felt the situation of the planters, and was willing to do them justice, the country would not cease to feel the misery that must continue to be produced by the present state of the colonies.
Lord Suffield, after the observations made by the noble Duke, could not refrain from saying a few words. He could not but remark, that the noble Duke had taken an unusual course, in entering into arguments on the subject of the petition without having given previous notice of his intention to present it. With regard to the arguments of the petitioners, and those used by the noble Duke, nothing but his great respect for the noble Duke could induce him to answer them with gravity. The noble Duke had stated, that the petition was signed by 2,400 persons, but he begged noble Lords to remember, that he had presented a petition from the same place with a directly contrary prayer, signed by between 21,000 and 22,000 of the male adults; and if the two petitions could be considered as showing the feelings of the people of Edinburgh and its vicinity, on the subject of slavery, he thought that that feeling must be considered as decidedly in favour of abolition. As to the arguments of the petitioners, it would not be difficult to show, that they contained 100 mistakes and contradictions. Then, as to the weight due to the petition, he would only say, that there was not one petition in a thousand in favour of perpetual slavery, or, as it is called, the gradual abolition of slavery, though there was not a village in England in which it was not understood that, by gradual abolition, was meant slavery in perpetuity. The great majority of the petitions presented were in favour of its immediate extinction. He (Lord Suffield) had presented 600 or 700 petitions in favour of immediate extinction of slavery already, and he had an equal number yet 840 to present. It was proved, by the evidence of persons lately arrived from the West Indies, that the condition of the slaves, so far from improving, was quite the reverse. The planters, fearing the loss of their power and authority, were now more given to flogging and to punishment than ever. He was convinced, that if the noble Duke had heard the evidence taken before the Committee, of the state of Slavery in the West Indies, he would have joined two noble Lords who were upon that Committee, and who were themselves shareholders and proprietors of property in the colonies. Those noble Lords had stated, that, after the evidence which they had heard, they would consent to sacrifice their property rather than that such a state of degradation and misery should continue. The noble Duke had said, that the emancipation of the slaves would be the ruin of the colonies, and the result of that would be, that they would be lost to Great Britain. He, on the contrary, thought that the only means to save the colonies was by emancipating the slaves without delay—under such restrictions as should be thought proper, and as he had no doubt his Majesty's Government would take care to provide. This was the hope of England—a hope in which it was determined not to be disappointed. Neither partial nor protracted emancipation would satisfy the people of England; and they would never consent to anything but total abolition. He, for his part, had no objection—and he believed he was speaking the opinion of all England when he said that the people had no objection—to grant compensation to the slaveholders, if any measure of relief were granted, provided the slaveholders could prove the loss they had sustained; but he was sure that none would ever agree to give a certain sum of money for each particular slave that was emancipated. Then, looking to the question in a commercial view, he was informed that the statements on which the noble Duke had founded his arguments, were utterly untrue; he had been told so by persons in the City, who had large transactions with the West Indies.
§ The Duke of Wellingtonsaid, that the noble Lord had not always manifested so much forbearance as he now found it convenient to advocate on presenting petitions. There was nothing unfair in the observations which he (the Duke of Wellington) had made; and whenever he had petitions 841 to present, he should lake that course with respect to them which his duty appeared to him to prescribe.
§ Earl Fitzwilliamwas unwilling to prolong the discussion, but could not avoid saying, that the petition sailed into the harbour of their Lordships' House under something like false colours. It professed to be a petition in favour of the abolition of slavery, gradual indeed, but still in favour of abolition. However, as his noble friend observed, the petition was inconsistent—inconsistent indeed; for if its reasoning were correct, there could be no greater evil for slaves and colonies than an abolition of slavery. The petitioners asserted, that the condition of the slaves was better than that of a large proportion of his Majesty's free subjects. What was the inference? Surely not in favour of an abolition, which the petition professed to support, but in favour of a perpetuation of this happy condition of slavery. Indeed, that was the result of the arguments in the petition, and in the noble Duke's speech. His opinion was, that some immediate measure of abolition was necessary; but, in speaking of immediate abolition, he did not mean, and he was sure the petitioners did not mean, that a measure should be sent out to the colonies directly, and that it should be instantly acted on in the way of emancipation. What he contemplated was, that some measure should be immediately carried into effect for substituting a new set of relations between man and man, for the subtraction of the slave from that power in reference to which there existed no appeal, and for the substitution of a system of law and justice for one of irresponsible power.
§ Petition laid on the Table.