PETITION. (Hansard, 15 February 1859)

LORD BROUGHAM

then presented a petition from the Inhabitants of the Parish of Saint Catherine and the surrounding Districts in public meeting assembled at Spanish Town, Jamaica, for the suppression of Slavery and the Slave Trade, and said he had wished that their Lordships should be reminded of the steps which they had taken in 1839, and of the beneficial results which had ensued. Upon that occasion the Portuguese and Spanish slaves trades were especially specified as calling for more active measures toward their suppression. It appeared now that the Portuguese slave trade had entirely ceased, and although that was no doubt in some measure owing to the steps which had been taken by this country, and partly in consequence of their Lordships' address just read, still it would be most unjust to withhold from the Portuguese—aye, and from the Brazilian Government too—the credit of having entirely and absolutely fulfilled their engagements with us; and not only was that the case, but they also acted well to the emancipated negroes. So completely had circumstances changed that in Brazil coloured persons were admitted to official privileges and to an equality of social intercourse, from which, he grieved to say, they were still debarred in the United States. The Spanish slave trade, however, still survived, notwithstanding all our attempts to put it down, and it was to this subject that the petition he was about to present to their Lordships had reference. That petition was similar to one which had been presented last Session by the right rev. Prelate opposite (the Bishop of Oxford), with an eloquence that would not soon be forgotten, and was adopted at a public meeting held at Spanish 389 Town, and attended chiefly by free negroes who had experienced the benefits of our wise and humane conduct in regard to slavery. The petition, he had been informed on the most reliable authority, had been adopted at a very numerous meeting chiefly of free negroes and mulattoes. It was signed in good and legible handwriting, by upwards of 800 persons, principally people of colour, and it was a circumstance worthy of notice that out of that number only two or three had been obliged to resort to the expedient of using a mark for the purpose of signature. That was a circumstance which he thought proved that the coloured people had considerably improved in education. One of the grounds of complaint set forth by the petitioners was the introduction of slave-grown sugar into their markets; and, while adverting to that point, he might take the opportunity to state that, although he and his right rev. Friend opposite (the Bishop of Oxford) had been held up by some of the West Indian body as their adversaries, yet his noble Friend behind him (Earl Grey), who had presided over the Colonial Department, would bear him out in saying that, in company with the late Lord Ashburton, the late Lord Denman, and the late Duke of Wellington—that illustrious man, whose loss they lamented daily and hourly, whether the subject of their deliberations related to home or to foreign affairs, to peace or to war—he (Lord Brougham) had with them maintained the policy and the justice of excluding slave-grown produce, and giving this protection to sugar produced by free labour, a boon in comparison with which all the other favours West Indians now asked were trifling indeed. The want of a protection from the competition of slave labour was one of the grounds of complaint in the present petition. The petitioners also entered at length into an enumeration of the other evils connected with the existence of the slave trade in Cuba and Porto Rico; dwelt upon the sufferings which it entailed, and concluded by beseeching their Lordships to use every means in their power to put an end to the nefarious traffic. Justice and the faith of treaties had been scandalously violated. The first of these treaties was as far back as 1820; and in it the Spanish Government contracted with us to use their best efforts in putting down the trade, and they received the sum of £400,000 to remunerate them for any losses they might sustain by the cessation 390 of the traffic. Time went on, but as nothing was done fresh negotiations took place in 1835, when a second treaty, more general than the first, was entered into, containing a direct obligation upon the Spanish Government to aid us in putting an end to the traffic. It was not until ten years after, namely, in 1845, that they began to act a little. The Spanish Government had, in 1845, given its assent to a law—not, indeed, making the traffic piracy—but declaring it to be unlawful, and making those who engaged in it liable to punishment. The manner, however, in which the Government of Spain not merely connived at, but, he might almost say, encouraged the evasion of that law was somewhat remarkable. The observance or non-observance of its provisions depended almost entirely upon the character and disposition of the particular person who happened to be chosen to fill the office of Captain General of Cuba for the time being. One of them, Valdez, whose conduct was upon the whole entitled to great approbation, commenced his administration by allowing the law to which he (Lord Brougham) had just referred to remain in abeyance for six months, declaring that at the end of that time it should be enforced. The consequence of this long notice had been that the slave trade had become greatly augmented, during that interval. But, be that as it might, General Valdez had, at its expiration, redeemed his pledge, and had succeeded in putting down the traffic, so far as by enforcing the legal enactment that desirable result could be accomplished. The very year after the law had for the first time been vigorously put into operation, the slavers trading with Cuba had been reduced from fifty-three, which was the former annual average number, to three; while the number of negroes imported into the colony had dwindled down from 14,000 or 15,000 to between 2,000 and 3,000 per annum. Such was the change which a single man acting honestly was able to effect, and he had no doubt that if General Valdez had continued Governor of Cuba for some time longer the slave trade in that quarter would have been entirely suppressed. This, however, had not been the case, and it was abundantly proved by official documents that the Governors by whom he was succeeded, and who were for the most part men in ruined circumstances, had been selected for the office by the Spanish Government, with a view that they might repair their 391 fortunes, by means of gain acquired from conniving at the slave trade, it being confidently asserted that one of them had amassed in this way no less a sum than £90,000 or £100,000 in the four or five years during which he held the position of Captain General. It was such persons, therefore, and a small portion of the planters, who had the greatest interest in keeping up the traffic, for so far as the great body of the planters of Cuba were concerned, they were opposed, inasmuch as slaves being introduced into the island, for the purpose of cultivating the new lands, of proverbial fertility when first broken up, were the cause of having a large additional supply of sugar brought into the market; and, as a consequence, tended by their labour to diminish the profits of the old planter. He might also observe, that the Spanish Government, independently of their having connived at the slave trade, had been guilty of fraud in falsifying the returns of the number of negroes who had been imported into Cuba. Nor was this all. It appeared that the crews of slavers which happened to be seized by the custom-house officers, under the provisions of the Act of 1845, instead of being liberated at once upon their capture, were compelled by that law to serve an indentured apprenticeship of five years. Of this we perhaps had the less right to complain, because our own emancipation was followed by years of apprenticeship. He (Lord Brougham) had the great satisfaction of contributing to reduce the time from 1840 to 1838, when complete emancipation was given on the 1st of August, the anniversary also of the Brunswick accession to the Throne of these realms. But at the end of the five years for which this apprenticeship in Cuba was to continue, the negroes, instead of being set free, were taken to plantations up the country and were kept in slavery, notwithstanding the period for which they were bound had expired, in defiance of the law. How were we then to make Spain keep faith, and perform the obligations of treaty by which she had not only been bound, but had largely profited in the actual receipt of money, nearly half a million? He did not recommend the calling to her recollection the other and larger debt which she owed us, for having saved her from the domination of France. It was often times said that they who conferred benefits should have short memories, and they who received them, long memories; nor could 392 anything be more indelicate, nay more intolerable, than the man who had served you flinging the kindness in your face. In some sort, but by no means altogether, the same rule applied to the conduct of States; but there was another reason against our reminding Spain of her obligations: she would probably deny them, as it was her habit, her delusion, to pretend she had worked out her own deliverance without our aid. This was the hallucination of the Spaniards; and they might as well forget the event of which this day, the 15th of February, was the anniversary, and pretend that they had not, with their French Allies, or rather masters, been defeated in the great fight off St. Vincent, as pretend that they owed their independence of France to any other source than the arms of England in the Peninsular war. However, he would have the appeal made to gratitude of another description—that which Sir H. Walpole had defined as a lively sense of favours to come—let Spain be made to feel a lively sense of prudence in coming events; let her be told that if the slave trade of Cuba is not suppressed, the slave-grown sugar of Cuba will not be permitted in competition with the free grown-sugar of our own colonies. He conceived that a warning of that sort would not be without its weight with the Spanish people, and he hoped that ere long some such course would be adopted. As to the question of the immigration of labourers into the colonies, he hoped steps would speedily be taken to place it on a proper basis. There were some who maintained that there was no want whatever of free labourers in these colonies, while there were others who said that there was a great deficiency of them. Some persons of high authority, governors included, denied the want of labour. The matter is controversy. But how this deficiency was to be supplied was another question. He might think that the means adopted at present for the purposes of this immigration were not sufficiently guarded, and that it was possible they might give occasion for a recurrence to slavery; but all these matters were proper subjects of inquiry, for so far as information they were at present possessed of went, there certainly were not sufficient data to form an opinion upon them. He thought, therefore, it might be expedient to have a committee to inquire into the whole matter. Whether such a committee should be appointed by their Lordships or not, he had no doubt but that 393 one having a similar object in view would be appointed by the other House of Parliament, and he thought their Lordships should take the initiative, and do the best to get this most important question placed on a proper basis, it being quite manifest that such an inquiry could be conducted more advantageously to the cause of truth in this than in the other House of Parliament, in consequence of their Lordships' better mode of procedure.