Sitting of 20 February 1838

MINUTES.
Bill. Read a first time:—Foreign Imitation of the name of British Manufactures.
Petitions presented. By Sir W. MOLESWORTH, from the Working Men's Association at Leith, against the course of policy pursued by her Majesty's Government with respect to Canada.—By Colonel SALWAY, from Shrewsbury, and by Mr. JERVIS, from Denbigh, for Vote by Ballot.—By Mr. JERVIS, from Denbigh, that the income granted to the King of Hanover be discontinued.—By Sir H. VIVIAN, from Launceston, against the system of Negro Apprenticeship.—By Mr. BROTHERTON, from the members of the New Methodist Connexion Chapel in Stalybridge, from Charlesworth, in the parish of Glossop, and from Hazelgrove, for the abolition of the New Poor-law.—By Mr. WILBERFORCE, from Kingston, against abolishing the see of Sodor and Man.—By Mr. HODGES, from Feversham, for several alterations in the Poor-law Amendment Act.—By Sir R. PEEL, from the Inhabitants of Wendon, for a universal Penny-Post.—By Mr. WILLIAMS WYNN, from Carnarvon, and three other places in Wales, against the system of Negro Apprenticeship; from Montgomery, against the Municipal Boundaries Bill.—By Mr. FIELDEN, a great number in favour of a total repeal of the New Poor-law, from places in Norfolk, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Suffolk.—By Mr. D. W. HARVEY, from Merthyr Tydvil, and from Chippenham, in Norfolk, to the same effect.

RIGHT OF PETITION.
General Johnsonpresented a petition for the abolition of the New Poor-law, from the inhabitant householders of a town in Yorkshire (the name of which did not reach us). The hon. and gallant Member said, that he ought to inform the House that the parties to this petition called themselves remonstrancers, instead of petitioners in the usual way, but as the petition did not contain anything that was disrespectful to

1361
the House, he trusted he might be allowed to lay it on the table.
The Speakersaid, it was clear that the petition was not worded according to the regular form, and it would be for the House to decide whether it ought to be received or not.
Mr. Warburtonthought, that as it concluded with a prayer, the petition ought to be received.
Mr. Borthwicksaid, that though he was favourable to the object of the petition, yet he thought it so important to adhere to the regular forms of the House, that he should oppose the reception of the petition on the ground of irregularity. He hoped, however, the hon. and gallant Member for Oldham would consent to withdraw it.
General Johnsonwas understood to decline to do so.
Lord John Russellthought, that as this paper was not in the form prescribed by the House, the hon. and gallant Member had much better withdraw it now, and present it again in an amended form.
Sir R. Peelobserved, that if the parties to the document were not aware that they were departing from the rules of the House, there might be some ground of excuse, but as that did not appear, it would be better, in his opinion, to adhere to the usual forms.
The Speakerobserved, that there was nothing in the petition itself that could induce the House not to receive it. But in point of form it was a remonstrance, and not a petition, and if this were received, he could not say what sort of remonstrances might hereafter be sent up.
Mr. Aglionbysaid, that many petitions subscribed according to the forms of the House, but which in the body contained severe remonstrances, were received without objection. This document was respectfully worded, but announced itself to be a remonstrance; and he could not see why a difference should be made, or that this document should be rejected on so trivial an objection.
Mr. R. Palmersaid, he was inclined to adhere to the forms of the House. He, however, joined in the recommendation to withdraw the document for the present.
Sir G. Stricklandsaid, that as the document prayed the House to do certain things, he thought that prayer brought it within the meaning of a petition.
Sir T. Fremantlesaid, that he had looked at the document, and found that it contained no prayer at all. It was simply a remonstrance against the Poor-law Act, and did not conclude with any prayer. If it prayed the repeal of that Act, then the House might take cognizance of it; not being so, he thought it ought not to be received.
Mr. Ricehoped, the hon. and gallant Member would consent to withdraw it for the present. It was signed by one individual only, on behalf of himself and others, and therefore the hon. and gallant Member had only to communicate to that individual that the House, on a point of form, and not from any indisposition or disregard to entertain its object, could not receive it, and therefore to suggest an alteration, putting the document in the proper shape.
General Johnsonsaid, he did not think that the parties from whom it emanated would be at all disposed to make the alteration suggested; and therefore he did not feel justified in withdrawing it.
Mr. Borthwickexpressed his determination to divide the House.
The House divided:—Ayes 10; Noes 200: Majority 190.

REPEAL OF THE NEW POOR-LAW.
Mr. Fieldenrose, pursuant to notice, to move for a repeal of the Poor-law Amendment Act. The hon. Member, who was sometimes inaudible, was understood to say, that he believed this to be one of the most important questions that had ever been submitted to the consideration of that House, that question being whether the poor of the kingdom should have those rights restored to them which had been wrested from them by the Act passed for the amendment of the Poor-laws in 1834. In that question was comprised a second, and that was whether this Act should be continued until the poor were roused to rebellion, and until such a state of things was brought about that there would be no security for either life or property in this country. What were the abuses of the old system? Payment of wages out of rates, and increase of taxes thereby. But what caused this? Taxation! In 1795 it was proved by Mr. Davies, a clergyman of Berkshire, that a reduction of no less than fifty per cent. had taken place in the wages of agricultural labourers; that in the fourteenth and

1363
fifteenth centuries a day Labourer could earn a quarter of wheat for twenty-one days' labour. At the average price of labour, and the average price of the quarter of wheat for the last twenty years, a man could not earn a quarter of wheat under forty days' labour. What means had we provided to remedy this? The New Poor-law workhouses as "a test" of destitution, and a complicated machinery to affect an uniform system of administration, and correct evils and abuses dissimilar, and requiring different remedies in different parishes. This uniform system was impracticable, which the departure shows, for there has been a departure from the original "test." Originally there was but one, now there are two, the first being relief only upon condition of being shut up, the other latterly adopted at Nottingham, where the people have had out-door labour given to them by the parish at task, and without a minimum of wages. This tends to show that the original test is a failure even in the opinion of its inventors, and also to show, what is contended by the opponents of the new law, that a law of this kind to work well should be administered by those who raised the rates, and that the local government ought to be restored which had been destroyed by the new Act. The new law was unnecessary: the people were of that opinion, the payers of rates as well as the receivers of relief. There were few petitions for it, and many against it. But it had been admitted, that the operation of the old law was good in some places. What he (Mr. Fielden) contended was, that it might be just as good elsewhere; and that if abuses had crept in, they ought not to be attributed to the poor, but to those who mismanaged their affairs. It was singular that the Poor-law Commissioners had spoken well of the working of the old law in the borough of Oldham, which would be seen in their report. In those places it was said the rates were moderate, and there was no reasonable objection to the old law. Now, he asked, why could not those who complained of the operation of the old law in other places have adopted that system which had been used at Oldham? If they had so done, what necessity was there for the new law? Now, he begged the attention of hon. Members to the results of inquiries which he had made into the returns of the Poor-law Commissioners themselves, to show how
1364
far there had, after all, been any advantage in the new system over the old. From returns, continued the hon. Member, published by the Poor-law Commissioners, the poor-rates were the highest in 1818, being then 7,870,801 l.; year ending March 25, 1832, 7,036,967 l.; that ending March 25, 1835, 5,526,416 l.; that ending March 25, 1837, 4,044,741 l., showing a decrease between 1818 and 1835, of thirty per cent., between 1832 and 1835, when the rates were every year decreasing twenty one per cent., and between 1835 and 1837, of twenty per cent. When payments to be made out of the rates before the new law, and since then have been paid out of other funds, are taken into account, it is questionable whether the new law has effected any reduction of rates at all, and in this opinion I am confirmed by the reduction of rates in Lancashire, and in the West Riding of the county of York, where agitation prevails. In Lancaster (county) the decrease in rates between 1835 and 1837 is seventeen and a half per cent.; in the West Riding of Yorkshire, twenty-one per cent. In a return made to the House of Lords, and ordered to be printed, on the 22nd of May last, the expenditure is given for in-door maintenance and establishment charges for one year, ending December 25, 1836, in 125 unions, comprising 2,312 parishes, and a population of 1,666,150, all that return embraces; and I find by this return that the maintenance of the in-door paupers averages 5l. 11 s. 1d. per head for the year—that is, 2s. 1½d. per week for each person in these union workhouses, and I find that the establishment charges average 9l. 15 s. 8d. per head for the year, or 3s. 9d. per week for each person in those workhouses, So that the cost of maintenance and establishment charges of each person in your union workhouses is 15 l. 6s. 9d. per annum, or 5s. 10½d. per head, per week By the same return I find that the establishment charges in these 125 unions amount to 2l. 2s. 0¾d. per head on the whole population of the unions. And by a return in the last report of the Poor-law Commissioners, the rate per head of expenditure for the relief of the poor on the whole population of Lancashire for the year ending the 25th of March, 1837, is but 2s. 9d per head that is, only 6¼d. per head more than the establishment charges alone in those unions; and in

1365
the township of Oldham, which I have the honour to represent, the rate of expenditure for the relief of the poor for the same period is only 1s. 2¼d. per head on the population of that township; that is, 1s. 0½d. per head, less than the estabment charges alone amount to on the whole population of those 125 unions. Why, then, should this law be forced on my constituents by bullets and bayonets? They wish to know why. From the same returns of the Commissioners I find that in eighteen counties the rate of expenditure per head, with reference to the population, in the year ending the 25th of March, 1834, was less by twenty-eight per cent. than the expenditure was in eighteen other counties under the operation of the New Poor-law in the year ending the 25th of March, 1837, and in which latter eighteen counties, a reduction in the rate of expenditure of forty-two per cent. is said to have been effected since the new law was passed. In the former eighteen counties, too, the highest rate in any one of them is less than the lowest rate in any other one of the latter counties, in which the saving of forty-two per cent. had been effected. This shows that the Poor-law Amendment Act was unnecessary. Then what was the principle of this Act, and what effects on the able-bodied did its framers contemplate? The principle was, that the paupers should in no case be eligible unless they were more miserable than the lowest class who live on their labour. ["Hear, hear!"] He wondered what hon. Members meant by crying "hear, hear!" He feared they had little idea of what the tendency of such a principle must be. What were the effects contemplated? First, conversion of paupers into independent labourers, and reduction of rates; second, rise of wages; third, the diminution of improvident manages; fourth, increased content of labourers, and diminution of crime. But there were certain special effects in the eye of the original Poor-law commissioners. First, supplying a self-acting test to the merit of all claims; second, showing the requisite line of distinction between the class of independent labourers, and thereby checking the tendency to the indefinite extension of pauperism; then removing from the distributors all discretionary powers, and thereby diminishing abusive administration. Now, had the agency employed worked out the principle, and produced
1366
these effects? It was true, that the self-acting test had been adopted, and that the rates had been in some places greatly reduced by this new law. It was true that the discretionary power had been taken away, but had wages risen? Had there been a return to content? Had crime been lessened by the new law? That was the question that called loudly for an answer. Upon the point of crime, what was said by Mr. Adey, in his second Report? In the second Report of the Poor-law Commissioners (1836) Mr. Adey quotes. Mr. Since, of the Biggleswade union, who says the Act is working exceedingly well for all parties, and in confirmation says—"I challenge inquiry amongst the poor themselves, where indeed the inquiry ought to be made." He then quotes from written testimonials of several of the principal occupiers of the union; and of these one says—"I think they frequent the beer-shops as much or more than ever." Another—"I am sorry to say, that sheep-stealing and other depredations have been more prevalent since the system commenced than ever was known before." Another—"They frequent the alehouse quite as much as ever. Poaching and other depredations have increased double to any former period." Another—"I do not feel able to answer as to their frequenting the alehouses, or as regards poaching, &c., as to any alteration." Another—"The alehouses are, I think, more frequented than ever. I am not of opinion that poaching and other depredations have at all diminished, but that the greater crime of sheep stealing has increased tenfold." Another—"I think poaching and other depredations have been quite as numerous, and sheep-stealing is spreading more every year." The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had been pleased to challenge him by referring with exultation to the unions of Biggleswade and Amp hill. The noble Lord had referred to these as furnishing proofs of the extraordinary good working of the system. He had expected that this working would turn out to be not very good; but he was bound to confess, that the working had turned out to be even much worse than he had expected. He had sent two persons down into that neighbour hood to make inquiries, in order that he might be the better enabled to accept the challenge of the noble Lord. He had wished to have more evidence, and evi-

1367
dence of a very different kind from that which had been produced before the Committee. He had proposed to get evidence from twenty-one unions in which it had been alleged that the saving had been the greatest; that wish, however, did not meet with the approval of the Committee. He was permitted to take the three first unions on the list; those happened to be Amp hill, Woburn, and Bedford. He had sent two intelligent persons into those unions in search of information. What was the result of their inquiries? It was this, and further inquiry, if made by the Committee, would show whether the statement were true or false—that deaths in Amp hill workhouse had been quite frightful; that in those unions widows, orphans, and the aged, have had their allowances cruelly reduced; that wages had -not risen, but, on the contrary, that they also were reduced, while the head-money, as it is called, had been taken away; that hundreds of labourers were out of employ, and that there were not more employed than there were previous to the new law; that bastardy had increased; that the poor were suffering distress to an extent never before known amongst them; that they cannot get a sufficiency of food of the poorest sort; that their furniture is going; that their bedding is going; and that they are reduced to the last shift, of selling their clothes to buy bread. This is very horrible. All this, however, he expected to hear. But there was something infinitely more horrible than this—something so horrible that he hardly knew how to allude to it, though his duty to the country forced him to do so. He believed, that the case to which he alluded was not the only case of the kind which might become the subject of their inquiry. He believed, that the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) was aware of the existence of another case of the same description. There had been abominations practised in the workhouse of Ampthill of the most horrible description. He had been told, that the porter of that workhouse had made it a place for the corrupting of the male youth of the country. Several youths had been spoken of as the objects of this man's wicked attempts. It appeared, that one youth had been committed to gaol, perhaps to be tried for his life, on the charge of having inflicted severe wounds upon the person of this porter; but if report spoke true, it would appear also, that the
1368
conduct of this porter towards the same youth had been such as to make the porter liable to be tried for a capital offence. The youth being in gaol to be tried, the porter had left the neighbourhood, and, as was alleged, had altogether disappeared, although he, as the prosecutor, should, as a matter of necessity, be expected to be foremost at the trial. He contended, that the management and discipline of the workhouses were most illegal and unnatural. He wondered how hon. Members could, with patience, endure the thought of the savage separation of the people, and of the details of the almost worse than starvation which they were obliged to undergo. As a specimen of the latter, that is, the dietary system, he begged to refer the House to the description given by Mr. Bowen, which appeared in The Times newspaper of the 9th instant. That gentleman's description referred to the effects of the water-gruel of the Bridgewater union; among other things he stated as follows:—"It did not affect the poor people so much at first; but after the use of it for a few days they became terribly bad; it ran away from them while standing upright, as they took it. It affected them upwards and downwards; all the way down stairs, across the hall, and down the garden path was all covered every morning, and the stench was horrible all through the house, making the people ill and sick who had not got the diarrhœa." He had received a letter only that morning from a gentleman in Bedfordshire, who was a guardian, who said that he had been favourable to the new measure when it was first proposed, who liked it then, because much good was promised to be effected by it, but who now, having judged from experience of its working, had found it to be so bad in effect, that he had become as strong an opponent of the measure as he was at first favourable to it. He implored the House to consider well what he had been saying to them; he had hoped to impress upon them that of which he himself had felt quite certain—that this atrocious law would never be tolerated by the people of England. That was as sure, as it was sure that effect would follow cause; and if hon. Members should insist upon forcing this law upon the people, he must, for himself, frankly assert that he would not give much for the estate of any Gentleman in that House. The hon. Member, after thanking the

1369
House for the patience with which they bad listened to his lengthened details, concluded by moving for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the Poor-law Amendment Act.
Mr. Wakley, in seconding the motion, expressed the great satisfaction he felt at the statements which had been made by the hon. Member for Oldham, who had completely developed the injurious working of the bill. At the same time, he did not consider it at all necessary to go into details for the purpose of sustaining the motion with which he concluded. It appeared to him, that the law was so objectionable in principle, so tyrannical in its enactments, so obnoxious to the habits of the people, and so hostile to the spirit of the English constitution, that it should never have been sanctioned by that House, and ought not any longer to continue on the statute-book. The motion of the hon. Member was recommended by its simplicity. It proposed no bit-and-bit reform; it went at once to the root of the evil, and sought entirely to eradicate the mischief. He believed this act never would give satisfaction to the people of this country. In the whole of its arrangements, in the whole of its spirit, in its entire mechanical discipline, it was utterly hostile to the best wishes and feelings of the people. They were told of the benefits it had produced on the one side, and the mischief's it had occasioned on the other. It was, then, a matter of conflicting testimony; but, admitting that all the advantages described had emanated from it, he was prepared to contend equal advantages would have resulted without the introduction of such a law, and it was upon that ground he would discuss the principle, without thinking it necessary to go into minute details. According to the testimony of Mr. Gray, one of the guardians of the Chichester union, who had been examined before the Committee, it appeared that the rates in 1832 amounted to 6,399 l., and in 1837, to only 2,216 l; and where had there been a greater reduction in any of the unions which had been established? But was the Chichester union under the regulations of the Poor-law Commissioners? Was it, in any respect, regulated by the mandates of the triumvirate of Somerset-house? It was regulated by an act which had been in existence more than eighty years. Nor was there any plurality of votes in this case; but every rate-payer
1370
went to the poll and gave one vote for the election of those persons who were to distribute the funds. That was the old English fashion, and, reformer as he was, he had lived long enough to know, that there were reforms which were not improvements, and many changes, he believed, were made most unreflectingly—in some instances, exceedingly detrimental to the interests of the people. There was no dissatisfaction in the Chichester union, either among the rate-payers or rate-receivers; everything was conducted in perfect goodwill and harmony, and they wanted not the interference of the Poor-law Commissioners or their agents in that union. But how had the reduction been effected? Was not the principle the same? Had not regulations similar to those recommended by the Commissioners been adopted and carried into effect in that union? He did not object to grant that for the sake of the argument. But if, in point of fact, such rules could be carried into effect without the intervention of the Commissioners, what did they want any more with the cumbrous machinery, the extravagant expenses, and the unconstitutional powers of the establishment at Somerset-house? More unconstitutional powers certainly never were designed, fabricated, or carried into execution; for, in point of fact, the regulations of the Commissioners had all the power of statutes passed by that House; what they said was law, their resolutions became the law of the land. Was there ever any thing of the kind in England before? There never was any thing analogous to it, and the sooner they got rid of the system the better for the security and happiness of the people. He took his stand on the Chichester union; he would not move from it; and there, without the interference of the Commissioners, without their control, without any of their agents, every benefit they could derive under the existing law had been fully and completely attained. He, for one, therefore, should vote for the repeal of the bill. Sure he was the people of England would raise their voice most indignantly against the continuance of the unconstitutional and tyrannical powers of the Commissioners beyond next year, when by law they must expire. The sensibilities of the public mind were, at length, being awakened to a full knowledge of the danger to which they would be exposed by the con-

1371
tinuance of the present system, and therefore he was quite satisfied it could not be renewed. Why, he asked, had the unions been created of such enormous size? He firmly believed it was to cut off the people from all opportunity of making application to the board of guardians. No doubt it might be said, they could apply to the relieving-officer; but he was in all cases the paid agent, the tool, the slave of the guardians. The poor had nothing to do with him, they neither elected him nor could they dismiss him; and, if that officer gave an unfavourable report to the board, and relief were denied, how could the poor, at a distance of seven or eight miles, probably in a state of infirmity, personally communicate with the board of guardians? Some of the unions were twenty miles in length and sixteen broad; their enormous size did strike him as if it had been intended to preclude the poor altogether from applying to the board. He believed, many supported the present system on the ground that it was necessary to make the law severe to induce the people to raise their demands for such wages as would procure for them the necessary comforts of life. But in that case it should have been carried into operation with more moderation. Its severities should not have been enforced all at once. They should not have treated poverty as a crime, instead of a misfortune. But they carried the law in its utmost severity to one place, while in other places they had been extremely lax. In the great manufacturing towns where the people congregated, where they consulted together, knocking their heads together in order to get knowledge out of them, there they had been extremely lax; but in the rural districts, where no combination existed, the tyrannical law was enforced, and the able-bodied labourer was refused the slightest assistance outside the walls of their dark and gloomy gaols. How different had been the treatment of the labouring poor in Nottingham and in Holbeach, Lincolnshire? In Nottingham there was a large and vigorous population; and when the law was about to be introduced last year, the Whig gentry, thinking it rather a delicate experiment at a period of great pressure, generously entered into a subscription for the purpose of easing the poor rate. The sum of 5,000 1. was raised, in order to sustain and employ the poor, that there might be no inconvenient clamour with reference to the introduction
1372
of this Bill. In August last, the money being expended, they said, the principle of the Bill must be enforced; and was it enforced? No such thing. The able-bodied labourer was provided with work, and paid out of the rate as in olden times under the 43rd of Elizabeth. In Holbeach, Lincolnshire, the guardians had made application to the Commissioners; they had sent up a humble memorial to Somerset House, praying that in the extreme pressing severity of the season, so many being out of employment, the board might be allowed to exercise their discretion and give the able-bodied labourer and his family some relief. What was the answer of the commissioners? ''You sha'nt do it." No; it was not done with regard to the agricultural labourers, who were prevented by the severe inclemency of the season, by the rigors of the climate itself, and by no fault of their own, from working. This was the answer: "Break up your establishments, sell your furniture, abandon your cottages." If such had not been the language of the commissioners, they should in common honesty have used it, for in point of fact such was the practice; for what else could these men do; he was speaking of evidence which had been given before the Poor-law Committee within the last week, and the board of guardians could only say, if they spoke truth—"Our masters in London sent us down word we cannot give you relief, you must come into our gaol or be frozen to death." He did not know whether the people had died or been admitted into the workhouse; but a more inhuman decree never issued, under such circumstances, from any body of men, or one which should more excite the honest indignation of every Englishman. He wished to know why, if the principle of this Bill were so worthy of adoption, it had been deemed so flexible that in Nottingham assistance should be given out of the poor rates to the labourers in the shape of wages, while at Holbeach it was entirely withheld? No doubt the commissioners were present, as they always were, when their misdeeds were discussed in that House, and he hoped some hon. Gentleman would take care to ascertain from them why one rule had been applied to Nottingham, and the reverse to Holbeach. There was another point to which he would just advert. In what condition were the people in reference to the Poor-law inquiry now in progress?

1373
In order to sustain the law there was a plentiful supply of public money; there were the commissioners, their agents, the whole organisation of the Executive Government and Somerset House; while, in opposition to the Bill, there was neither money, ability, organisation, nor evidence. They had no means of getting evidence. In the Committee last Session, he had moved, that two or three individuals should go into the different unions, and ascertain, by inquiry among the people, the actual working of the law, find out who were opposed to the Bill, and send up their names to the Committee, in order that they might, if necessary, be called in evidence. But in support of that motion, fair, rational, and moderate, as it must appear, he was supported by only four of the twenty-one Members of the Committee, To enable the poor to make any case the utmost exertions had to be made by one individual Member of the Committee, Mr. Walter, last year. That gentleman had to embark his money and devote the whole of his time to the collection of the necessary evidence; but no such burden ought to have been thrown on the pocket or responsibility of any single individual. If the money of the country were employed on one side in propping up a law, the beneficial or injurious effect of which was under investigation, the public money ought to be employed also on the other. To allow the whole organization of the Government and supplies of the public money on one side of the inquiry, while every facility was withheld from the other, was a mockery and a disgrace to that House. He was glad this motion had been brought forward in its present simple form. Abuses there might be under the old law, and so there might be under the new, but unless they could be proved to spring naturally and necessarily from the system, they proved nothing at all. Without, therefore, entering into details, he attacked the bill on its general principle; all the good which had resulted from it might have been attained without the statute by milder means, in a way more satisfactory to the people, and more congenial to all their habits and feelings. He should therefore vote in favour of the repeal of the Bill.
Viscount Howick: I am very glad Sir, that the hon. Member for Oldham has brought this question before the House fairly and simply,—I am glad, Sir, because
1374
those representations which have been made in other places, and in a somewhat different tone, of the effects and nature of the existing law respecting the administration of relief to the poor, being this night brought forward here; an opportunity is thus given to us of meeting the assertions and statements which have been so lavishly and so unfairly made. I feel, however, some difficulty in dealing with the statements and with the speeches of the hon. Mover and Seconder; for, after having paid the utmost attention to the remarks of the hon. Members, I feel altogether at a loss to understand what is the system of Poor-law administration which the hon. Gentlemen desire to see introduced; and, further, what are the specific objections which the hon. Gentlemen have to urge against the existing law. The hon. Member for Oldham began by complaining, that by the Act passed in 1834, the rights formerly possessed by the poor had been wrested from them, and yet, very soon afterwards, the hon. Gentleman went on to assert, that there was no occasion for the introduction of the new law, because the old law was frequently exceedingly well administered; this good administration being, in fact, nothing but an enforcement of the principles of the Act which he condemns. The hon. Member for Finsbury admitted this, for he asked, what necessity was there for this law, when it was seen that all the principles on which the Commissioners proposed to act, the system which it was their duty to enforce, could be, and had been, successfully acted on without their assistance or advice; and the hon. Member cited the case of the Chichester union in proof of his assertion, thus making the proved goodness of the system an objection to the law. I wish to understand whether it be the machinery to which the hon. Gentleman objects, or the principles on which relief is administered by means of that machinery. [Mr. Wakley: to both.] The hon. Gentleman says "to both." But if so, the hon. Gentleman is not at liberty first to object to the machinery, that it is unnecessary, because the system of relief prescribed by the Commissioners could be and was acted upon without their assistance, and then to turn round and condemn the system. If the objection be to the system of relief, I wish to know what it is in that system to which the hon. Gentleman objects. The Act of 1834,

1375
introduced some new arrangements and some new machinery for enforcing an adherence to the ancient principles and long-recognised practice of this country, respecting the relief of the destitute; but I utterly deny that the system of relief which was sanctioned in the new Act is any departure from the good and ancient practice of this country, or from the proper administration of the Poor-law existing up to 1834. The hon. Gentleman protested loudly against the repeal of the 43rd Elizabeth, but he ought to be aware that that law, far from having been repealed, still remains in force—that the whole object of the Act of 1834 is to enforce the due and proper application of the principles established by the Act of Elizabeth. Nay, more than this, I say that under the machinery created by the Poor-law Amendment Act, there is not at this moment in existence any different system of relief from that which previously existed in every well-administered parish,- particularly in the north of England. The hon. Member for Oldham indeed admitted this when he asked, why should the Commissioners put the new law in force in the north of England, when the former Poor law has always there been so well administered. I am quite ready to agree with the hon. Gentleman that in general in the north of England such is the case, but there are also many parishes even there where great abuses have prevailed, and in parishes where this was not the case, there must always exist under the old law a strong tendency to similar abuses, and a constant danger that they may at any time break out. But as it is the system of relief which is more particularly objected to, let us compare the system of relief now prescribed with the long-recognised system of well-administered parishes under the law as it stood previous to 1834. The hon. Member for Oldham is well aware that in the town of Nottingham, to which allusion has been made, the system of administering relief to the poor has not been altered under the existing law, but that in the largest parish of that town, St. Mary's, it continues to be carried into effect in precisely the same manner and by the same individual who administered it for several years previous to 1834. In that large and populous manufacturing parish, even before 1834, the system of confining relief for the able-bodied, almost exclusively to the workhouse was in full operation. The same was the case at Sheffield, at Derby,
1376
and many others of the large manufacturing towns. Nottingham has been mentioned as a striking instance of a manufacturing town in which the Commissioners have not ventured to enforce their laws. I have heard with great surprise from an hon. Gentleman, who had been present in the Poor-law Committee, who has heard the evidence there of the Assistant Poor law Commissioner employed in the district in question—I have heard, with great surprise and astonishment, the statement which that hon. Gentleman has made this evening. The hon. Gentleman states, that in Nottingham neither the gentry nor the Commissioners have dared to enforce the law, because they thought it would be dangerous to do so in a place where the poor could assemble together, express their grievances, and combine to concert modes of resistance to that oppression which was unhesitatingly practised upon the poor in the agricultural districts. What are the facts respecting Nottingham? In that town, up to a recent period, the relief given to the able-bodied has been almost exclusively confined to the workhouse. But, in consequence of the revulsion in trade some eighteen months ago, great and severe distress prevailed in the town. Still, for a considerable period, the system of workhouse relief was adhered to. The guardians and the Poor-law Commissioners agreed in the expediency of adhering to that system of relief as long as it could possibly be maintained. A considerable sum, the residue of a former subscription, raised at a period of distress, together with additional subscriptions, was employed in the meantime in alleviating, as far as possible, the distress which existed; but, in the application of this money, the greatest pains were taken to adhere strictly to the principles of the Poor-law Amendment Act. Relief was given only in return for labour, and the remuneration was made so low, compared with what the parties could have earned in the ordinary course of trade, that no man who could get employed elsewhere would throw himself voluntarily on this resource. This sum was, however, expended in course of time, and this fact was stated to the Commissioners, who at once said, "The workhouse being full, it is not the principle of the new Act that relief should be refused to those who are entirely destitute," and they at once gave permission to the guardians to continue the system, heretofore carried on by voluntary contributions, by money raised under a poor-rate.

1377
But in doing this, the guardians still used the workhouse as a test, where they conceived it necessary, of the reality of the grounds which parties urged in their applications for relief. Whenever an applicant was notorious for improvidence or idle habits, relief was refused him, except in the workhouse: in cases where the distress did not seem attributable to such causes, relief was given out of doors, but still, as I have already said, in return for labour. The hon. Member for Finsbury compared the case of Nottingham with that of Holbeach, where he states that, though the distress was equally great, any relaxation of the law had been refused. The hon. Member says, out-door relief was refused at Holbeach, because, with a rural population, it was safe to do so; though in the similar case of Nottingham, the Commissioners had not refused to depart from the system of in-door relief. I am astonished that such a statement should have been made. I have shown that the ground on which the rule has been departed from at Nottingham is, that the workhouse is not large enough to receive more inmates; but at Holbeach, there being no difficulty in receiving paupers into the workhouse, application was made during severe weather of the last six weeks to relax the rule. The Commissioners, acting on what I consider to be a sound discretion, refused the application, and on this ground—that if they admitted the principle of giving relief out of the workhouse before it was necessary, the farmers and others, who were employing the labourers at no immediate profit, would at once throw them on the rates. The effect would have been this, that the good workmen, who, though there was no great service rendered by them during this weather, were employed in consideration of the services they would render hereafter—those persons would have been thrown on the rates, and must have been maintained, not by those who wanted and would be benefited by their labour, but by the parish at large—by the smaller tradesmen and others, who ought not in justice to be called on to pay for a portion of the labour which would be required in the course of the year for the cultivation of the land in their immediate neighbour hood. The Commissioners also saw another evil which would result from their consenting to relax the rule, the effect of doing so would be to take away the motive labourers now have to lay by money in the time of harvest, and in other sea-
1378
sons when they earn good wages, to provide against the not very unusual occurrence of snow in January. But in adopting this course they knew that no man would be exposed to destitution; they knew that the workhouse, with food and shelter, was ready for those who might be suffering real and urgent distress. I must here notice another statement of the hon. Member for Finsbury, which must have been not a little startling to those Members of the Committee now sitting, who remember the particular part he took in the investigation of only a few days ago. The hon. Member says, that the guardians, when relief is asked for, refuse it unless the applicants get rid of their cottages, sell their little furniture, and, in short, break up their whole establishment, and go into the workhouse. Will the House believe that that statement is not only not warranted by any facts given in evidence before the Committee, but that, on the contrary, it was proved in the course of an examination in which the hon. Gentleman himself took part, that the very opposite practice prevailed. Mr. Gulson, the assistant Commissioner, in answer to many questions that were put to him in reference to this point, said that no board of guardians with which he was acquainted had in a single instance required the applicant for relief, reduced to distress by a temporary want of employment, to sell his furniture or part with his cottage before they would give relief in the workhouse. He stated that the only case in which the possession of furniture was made an objection to persons being received into the workhouse, was that of an individual who had furniture on a scale much beyond what could reasonably be required by a person in his station, and who was thrown on the community for maintenance. He had silver spoons and other articles of plate, the possession of which was considered quite inconsistent with his being maintained at the public cost in the workhouse. Such is the substance of Mr. Gulson's statement, and my argument is, that the existing system is the same in principle and in detail as that which prevailed previous to the passing of the Poor-law Amendment Act, in those districts in which the poor-laws were best administered, as at St. Mary, Nottingham, Sheffield, Derby, Cook ham, and a variety of other places. The hon. Member for Oldham has adverted to the complaint so often repeated, of the separation of man and wife in the workhouses; but it is remarkable

1379
that, in the same speech in which the hon. Member urged this objection, he had referred with approbation to the system pursued previously to the passing of the new law at Oldham. I have turned to the evidence taken by the Commissioners of inquiry, with respect to the administration of relief in Oldham in 1833—a parish with which the hon. Member is particularly well acquainted—and it appears from that statement (a statement which during a period of five years has not been impeached) that in the workhouse at Oldham there was a complete separation of the sexes, except in the cases of old married people, who were allowed to live together. Young married persons were always separated. The hon. Member for Oldham was, I believe, himself the overseer for that 'town; he therefore was a party to this separation of the sexes. [Mr. Fielden: I was overseer of Todmorden.] I beg pardon; I fancied the hon. Member had said that he was overseer at Oldham: but the hon. Gentleman has, at all events, professed great satisfaction with the administration of the Poor-laws in that district, before the passing of the last Act. The hon. Gentleman told us, that the object of his motion is to return to the old system of relief of the poor. If that were the case, why did he propose simply the repeal of the Act of 1834? Why did he not bring forward those monstrous cases which occurred previous to 1834, and apply to them the principle, that, "those whom God had joined no man ought to put asunder?" Why did he use these inflammatory topics to excite indignation against the present system, when they were equally applicable to the system pursued at Oldham long before the Act of 1834 was thought of? And why did he altogether abstain from a reference to the same system adopted formerly, not in Oldham alone, but in the majority of the workhouses in the manufacturing districts? In most parts of Lancashire, I believe, this system prevailed before 1834 as well as at present. The hon. Member told us, that the workhouses are prisons. Are they more prisons now than they were before the passing of the Poor-law Amendment Act? In what respect are they prisons? The real hardship of a prison consisted in this—that persons could not get out of them when they wished; while the inmates of the workhouses can leave them when they think fit. They are refused, indeed, the liberty of going in and out at their pleasure. Being maintained at the expense of the industrious portion of the community,
1380
it is thought expedient that they should have this relief subject to such restrictions as will prevent them from entering into competition with those who are entirely dependent on their labour for support, but I never heard before that it is assimilating a workhouse to a prison to refuse people relief unless they comply with the necessary regulations. Relief is tendered on certain terms, but acceptance depends on the poor themselves. In a large number of the unions in the southern parts of the country, the expenditure for the poor has been reduced, as the hon. Member admits, forty two per cent.; but, said the hon. Gentleman, "notwithstanding this large reduction, the expenditure is still greater than it is at Oldham." No doubt of that; but what does that prove? Why, this; that so inveterate are the old habits of pauperism in the south of England, that even under the new system of 1834, it has not been possible to effect such an efficient ad ministration of the Poor-laws as existed previously in some parts of the north. The new system has been now less than four years in operation, and is it very surprising that in so short a time it has not been able to correct all the evils which had grown up in the long course of the former maladministration? Surely, the fact brought forward by the hon. Member, instead of being an argument against the measure of 1834, is one of the strongest arguments that can be urged in its favour. I beg pardon of the House if I do not deal with the speech of the hon. Gentleman very systematically; but really, though I gave my best attention to it, I was unable to find out the thread of the hon. Member's argument, nor have I succeeded in discovering what was the point that he laboured to prove. I have endeavoured, in vain, to ascertain what the hon. Gentleman wishes to substitute for that to which he objects. Being unable to discover the connexion of the hon. Gentleman's argument—though, no doubt, it has a connexion—I am obliged to remark upon his observations one by one, without being able to show that they bear any relation each to the other. Some of the objections of the hon. Gentleman were founded, he said, on his own inquiries. It appears, that he had employed certain persons to go from house to house in Bedfordshire to inquire for grievances, and their statement was, that the allowances of aged persons had been reduced, and that the greatest distress existed. No doubt the persons employed by the hon. Gentleman

1381
made their inquiries fairly enough; but still the result can hardly be satisfactory until it has been submitted to the test of inquiry, and till an opportunity has been given of ascertaining what answer can be given to their statements. I cannot help thinking, therefore, it would have been fairer, if the proofs of the injurious effects of the new Act had been brought from parts of the country the state of which has been the subject of public inquiry before the Committee appointed to inquire into the operation of the law. The late hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter), the coadjutor of the hon. Member for Oldham, on this question, caused an investigation to be instituted with respect to those places which, in his judgment, afforded the most striking examples of the evils of the present system. And what was the result? The state of those unions was particularly examined into, and my impression is, that the evidence in those cases so selected by Mr. Walter himself went clearly to prove this, that whatever might be the condition of the able-bodied labourer, at all events the old, the sick, and the infirm, have larger allowances, are more indulged, and are, in all respects, better off under the new system than under the old. I am sure, that the hon. Member for Oldham will not say, that this was not proved by the evidence of last year. I cannot consider it, therefore, a satisfactory way of attacking the Act to make these sort of ex parte statements of particular grievances brought up from parts of the country into which no inquiry has yet been made. Even if the facts be true, the Seconder of this motion has fairly admitted, the Act is not to be condemned on account of the existence of a few cases of abuse. The hon. Member for Finsbury has justly observed, that unless the opponents of the measure can show that it be the tendency of the Act to produce these evils—unless it be proved that they grow naturally out of the Act—nothing would be established against the system. Under the new, as well as under the old system, some cases of hardship or neglect may, no doubt, be found to exist. The utmost vigilance, on the part of the authorities, cannot prevent some such cases arising: but it remains to be decided, whether, under the new or under the old system, those cases are of more frequent occurrence? The hon. Member for Oldham said, that no petitions have been signed by the agricultural labourers in favour of the continuance of
1382
the Act; that the only petitions of this kind which have been presented, are from those interested in the reduction of rates. I am not able to say how that fact may be; there are no documents before the House to show, whether the petitions which had been presented are signed by agricultural labourers or not; but I must remark, that it is unusual for persons, suffering no grievance, and who do not require any change to be made for their benefit, to take the trouble of petitioning the House. [Mr. Fielden: Petitions were sent against the law from the agricultural districts.] The hon. Gentleman says, there are petitions against the Act. No doubt there are. Those who had to complain have petitioned; but those who had not to complain, and who saw that there existed no disposition on the part of the Legislature to make a change, have had no motive, no temptation whatever to address the House; and I am prepared to expect that no petitions, or that very few, have been presented, signed by agricultural labourers, in favour of the Act. But I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman, is he prepared to show, that in those parts where this Act has come into the most decided operation, there exists on the part of the agricultural labourers any discontent or dissatisfaction? [Mr. Fielden: "Very great?"] The hon. Gentleman says, "very great." What are the symptoms of it? Even during the past year, which was one of almost unexampled pressure, what proof was there in the agricultural districts of a general and wide-spreading discontent? Does the hon. Member find anything approaching to the state of things that existed in the year 1830? The country had then the full benefit of that law which the hon. Gentleman wishes to restore; they were in the full enjoyment then of all the blessings of that system of poor relief, which it was the desire of the hon. Gentleman to bring back to them. In that year, what was the condition of the country? Has the House forgotten the frightfully alarming state of things in the winter of 1830, when a large portion of the people were in open insurrection, approaching almost to the capital itself—when outrages of the worst description were committed in the most daring manner all over the south and west of England—when nightly fires were blazing, and almost universal alarm for the safety of their property had seized the agricultural inhabitants of the country? The present state of things was happily very

1383
different from that, and in my opinion the change is mainly to be attributed to the very Act which the hon. Gentleman laments. I am confident, that the present improved condition of the south of England is in a great measure attributable to the Act passed in 1834 for the amendment of the Poor-laws. The House will see the importance of fully considering what was the state of the country at the former period to which I have adverted, because, with that before him, the hon. Gentleman says he is ready to repeal the Act of 1834, and has even distinctly recommended a return to that practice which, under the former law, was the chief cause of all the mischief which prevailed. The hon. Member has advised us to return to the allowance system, since he said if the labourers could not obtain wages sufficient for their comfortable support, it was the duty of the country by means of forced rates to come to their aid. And, as example is better than precept, the hon. Gentleman has further told us what was his practice when he was overseer at Todmorden; he informed us that as the hand-loom weavers could not earn enough to maintain themselves in a proper manner he supplied the deficiency out of the poor rates, and assisted them with money for the purchase of materials and implements for carrying on their trade. Such was the hon. Gentleman's practice, and such would again be the practice if the new law were repealed. In my opinion (I must observe in passing) that statement affords the strongest ground for saying that the introduction of this measure into Lancashire, as well as into other parts of the country, will not be altogether useless. But as the question is whether we shall return to the system existing previous to 1834, I must call on the House to see how the system which then prevailed affected the labourers themselves, and how they have been affected by the operation of the new Act. I will not go into any length of detail, but I beg to call the attention of the House to some of the facts which appear as the result of that inquiry which formed the ground of the present law. It was almost the universal practice in the south of England, prior to 1834, for the labourers to receive low wages and at the same time some allowance from the parishes; in fact, the able-bodied labourers were, in one shape or other, in part maintained out of the rates. What were the consequences of this system? In the first place the effect was this
1384
—that no labourer received remuneration proportioned to the nature of his labour. The only consideration of the employers was, not who of the labourers was the most able and could be most useful to them, but who was the man, who, if not maintained by earning wages, would be the greatest burden on the parish. The fact was, that every man who it was thought could maintain himself without being employed was refused altogether the opportunity of earning wages. The evidence, as collected by the assistant commissioners in 1832 and 1833, distinctly proves that in many cases the moment a labourer had by any circumstances come into the possession of a small sum of money, he was refused employment till that money was expended. One instance of this kind occurred in the parish of Royston, in which a person who had sprung from humble life had accumulated a considerable amount of personal property, which he bequeathed to a number of labourers, his relations. When they received their money the parochial authorities said, "That will be a great advantage to us—it will relieve our poor-rates." The consequence was, that those individuals who were perhaps anxious to go on earning money, that they might make a provision for their old age, or in case of any infirmity that might attack them, were thrown into compulsory and involuntary idleness. They were left to spend their money as soon as they could at the beer-shops or in any way they pleased; but they were virtually prohibited from laying it by, from depositing it in savings' banks, or from employing it in any other profitable manner, and from maintaining themselves by their honest labour. A case occurred in a neighbouring parish to Royston of a person being compelled by the parochial authorities to take two paupers into his employment which forced him to discharge from his service two excellent labourers, and I will read to the House from the published evidence the account of what followed, given by Mr. Nash, of Royston. "Of the men dismissed one was John Walford, a parishioner of Barley, a steady, industrious, trustworthy, single man, who, by a long and rigid economy, had saved about 100 l. On being dismissed, Walford applied in vain to the farmers of Barley for employment. 'It was well known that he had saved money, and could not come on the parish, although any one of them would willingly have taken him had it been otherwise.' After living a few months

1385
without being able to get any work, he bought a cart and two horses, and has ever since obtained a precarious subsistence by carrying corn to London for one of the Cambridge merchants; but just now the current of corn is northward, and he has nothing to do; and at any time he would gladly have exchanged his employment for that of day labour if he could have obtained work. No reflection is intended on the overseers of Barley; they only do what all others are expected to do; though the young men point at Walford and call him a fool for not spending his money at the public-house, as they do adding, that then he would get work." I could multiply instances of this kind, and show, that labourers were refused employment because they had been frugal and industrious enough to possess themselves of a cottage decently furnished, or of one or two cows. Such was the former system; and the hon. Gentleman complains of the existing law, charging against it, that it makes no distinction between "the honest man and the greatest vagabond in England." I totally deny the truth of the assertion; I say it does make a distinction, for it secures to the honest man the legitimate reward of honesty and industry, and it leaves to the dishonest or "the vagabond" to suffer those penalties which the laws of society have provided for his misconduct. The system which the hon. Gentleman would restore in one sense certainly made a distinction also. The industrious man it punished for his honesty and industry, and the "greatest vagabond," to use the hon. Gentleman's expression, was the one who received the greatest indulgence and the greatest favour. It condemned the industrious to idleness, and gave employment and wages to the worthless; care and providence were as much discouraged as industry, and extravagance and laziness were the necessary consequences. The poor were actually driven into immorality, and reduced to the lowest state of degradation. In some parishes in the southern districts, more than half the men of the labouring population were employed in useless labour, such as digging holes and filling them up again, carrying stones away and bringing them back to the place whence they had been taken. That was the mode of employment under the system which the hon. Gentleman would restore. But that was not all. In the Report of the Poor-law Commissioners there are to be found extracts from the books of various parishes, and amongst
1386
others, of Hampton, from which it appears, that labourers were in some cases paid, not for labour, but for standing in the common pound doing nothing. I find one charge, and there are others of the same sort, for men and boys standing in the pound for six days, 6l. 7s.Again, I ask, is such the system which the "friends of the poor" wish to re-establish? There was another and a still more revolting practice resulting from that system. It was by no means unusual in those days to put the labouring poor up to auction among the farmers. The labour of honest Englishmen, guilty of no crime but that of being poor, was put up for sale, without their consent, by public auction! The system was this: the parish said, "such and such a family require 8s., 9s., or 10 s. per week for their support." Having arbitrarily fixed the sum which they deemed necessary, the next step was to hold a regular auction, at which the farmers attended and became bidders for the labour of the pauper—one said "I will give 2s. 6d. another 3s. another 4s." and ultimately the labour of the man was knocked down to the highest bidder. Suppose that one of them said he would give 5s.,the services of the pauper were immediately assigned to him without any assent on the part of the individual, without any option on the part of the labourer; the services of the unfortunate man were at once assigned to the purchaser, who paid his 5s. a-week, and the parish made up the remaining 4s. or 5s. to complete the sum deemed necessary for the support of the labourer and his family. What were the inducements to this man to work? The only inducement was this, and it was certainly of a very negative kind, he knew that if he were idle beyond a certain point, he would be taken before a magistrate and committed to the tread-mill. He might be the most industrious man, the best workman that ever went into a field, but under this system he derived no benefit either, from his skill or his industry. Hope was absolutely denied to him; he laboured under compulsion, and compulsion alone. The system was precisely and identically the same as that which, by the law for the abolition of slavery, which was passed in 1833, was applied to the black population in the slave colonies. The whole of the labouring population in those districts of England to which he had referred, were virtually degraded to the state of white slaves—to the same state of mitigated

1387
slavery as that which now existed under the law of 1833 in the West Indies, and which would continue in operation for about two years more. The system was precisely the same. The man had no inducement to labour but the compulsion of terror: he dreaded the punishment imposed upon idleness; but the hope of reward from the active and industrious application of his labour was wholly withheld from him. All power of raising himself in life was denied to him; his only prospect in the world was to drag on from infancy to old age this degrading and wretched existence. In this respect the situation of the English labourer, under the old law, was worse than that of the negro apprentice in the West Indies at the present moment, because the negro apprentice could at least look forward, at the expiration of a short space of time, to the complete termination of his bondage. Not so the English labourer prior to 1834. Up to that time the system in England was getting worse and worse. Partial efforts, it is true, were made in particular places to break through that harsh, that abominable, that atrocious system; but those efforts were extremely rare, and too often were wholly ineffectual. So that the poison—the gangrene (if I may use such an expression) was gradually but surely making progress; year after year its baneful and destructive influence was extending, and those districts in which it had once taken root seldom or never again escaped the evils of the infection. I ask the House, then, is it again prepared to revert to these evils? I admit, that the measure proposed in 1834 was a very strong measure. I admit, that the cure applied to the disease was of a character correspondent to the intensity and malignity of the distemper. But is the House prepared, upon the motion of the hon. Member for Oldham, to repeal the measure adopted in 1834, and to return to the system under which these mischiefs existed? True it was, perfectly true, as the hon. Member for Oldham had stated, and as the hon. Member for Finsbury had repeated, that, under the former law the means of an improved administration did exist. But there was no security that those means would be employed. Will the House, then, perpetrate such a cruelty to the poor man—will it commit the injustice to the whole labouring population of the country of again bringing into force a system which, whatever its advantage
1388
might theoretically be, every one knew was fraught, in its practical working, with the most distressing and most dreadful consequences to the poor, and to society at large? As to the able-bodied poor, then, I contend that the change in the law, notwithstanding its apparent harshness, has been in reality an inestimable advantage; the refusal of the Iavish relief formerly given has raised the condition of the whole class throughout the southern part of the kingdom. With respect to the really distressed, to the sick, to the aged, to the impotent, to those who had not the power of earning their own subsistence, the case is still clearer. To them the system established under the Poor-law Amendment Act has not had even the appearance of harshness, but on the contrary, has been the greatest of all possible blessings. They are not now left to the mercy of irresponsible and despotic overseers, with no redress but an uncertain appeal to the justices. There is now in every district a body of men representing the interests of that district, to which is committed the duty of deciding upon all applications for relief. There are paid officers appointed by this body, and above these officers there are the Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners, prompt to punish all cases of neglect of the really suffering and destitute poor. It is known that these powers have been usefully exerted; it is known that whenever a case of neglect or ill-usage of the sick or destitute has been brought before the Commissioners, it has been promptly inquired into and redress afforded, if not otherwise, at all events by the punishment of the guilty overseer. Did such a state of things exist under the old law? Does not every Member of the House remember how often under the old law they used to hear of the sick and dying pauper being buffeted from parish to parish, from district to district, each endeavouring to avoid the burden of maintaining him in the hour of sickness and utter destitution. The disputes about settlement led continually to scenes of this description. Paupers almost in the agonies of death were removed under the orders of magistrates from one district to another, carried in carts by overseers, and bandied about from workhouse to workhouse, until (as not unfrequently happened) death relieved them from their sufferings before a shelter was found for their reduced and emaciated frames. Does not the House remember how women in the very agonies

1389
of childbirth were still more frequently exposed to this disgraceful and inhuman system? Every one knows that, under the old laws, women in that condition, and paupers in the last stage of sickness were exposed to the greatest cruelty and the most dreadful oppression. To all that oppression, all that cruelty, an end has been put by the operation of the new law. In every case where relief is necessary, relief is now promptly and effectually afforded. The sick, the dying, the impotent, destitute women, and helpless children, all these classes obtain relief, more certainly and more effectually than they did under the old system. With respect to the able-bodied, relief undoubtedly is not now lavished upon them as it was formerly, they do not now receive indiscriminately large allowances from the parish; but, in return for that deprivation, the really honest and industrious are now enabled, without being indebted to any man, by their own honest industry, to maintain themselves in comfort, and frequently, by their active exertions, to raise themselves to a station in life far superior to that in which they were brought up. These are the consequences of the law which the hon. Member for Oldham proposes to repeal. I trust, therefore, that the House, by the decided majority by which it will negative the hon. Member's proposition, will show its approbation of the measure, and its real regard for the poor and industrious classes.
Mr. Liddellconfessed, that he had not seen the introduction of the Poor-law Amendment Act into the northern part of England regarded with any particular marks of satisfaction, because it so happened that the evils of which the noble Lord had complained as having existed under the old system had not existed there; for while the people in that part of the country considered themselves able to support their poor, they were not prepared without sufficient grounds, to admit so great a change as that which had been effected by the new law. But although it was true that he did not regard the new law with any particular affection, he felt bound to declare that he could not support the motion of the hon. Member for Oldham. He had the honour to be a member of the committee which had been appointed to inquire into the operation of the new law, which Committee had indicated every wish to go fairly and impartially into the consideration of the whole state of the law as
1390
it now existed, and had manifested no disposition to exclude any evidence which could be adduced by any member belonging to it, or in any degree tend to satisfy the country, or open the ears of the Members of that House to any just complaint that might be urged against the new law. He must, therefore, decline to support the motion of the hon. Gentleman. But after the speech of the noble Lord, though he was not prepared to follow him through all its details, yet there were some points on which he wished to offer a few observations. He had heard, with some surprise, the noble Lord arguing, as it appeared to him, that after all no very great change had been introduced into this empire by reason of the new law. The noble Lord had argued, that several districts of this kingdom were practically under similar arrangements and regulations now to those by which they were governed under the old system. It might be true with regard to some particular cases. But he would ask whether the general and universal practice of the kingdom was not that each parish should manage its own affairs under its own officers, and take care of its own poor? It was undeniable that a great change had been effected under the regulations of the new law; but he must admit that portions of it had excited in the feelings of the country, in many parts, sentiments of considerable satisfaction. But to come to the plain and simple fact, one great hardship on which the opponents of the new law dwelt was simply this: a man, without any fault of his own, might be reduced, for a time, to want relief, but however well-conducted he might have been, however respectable in character, or illustrious in talent, in his past life, he would be neglected, and no relief would be afforded to him unless he was sick, or infirm, or aged. Such a person would be met by a stern refusal of relief out of the workhouse. This regulation in many cases, had been severely felt, and, speaking as one not anxious to throw any unjust imputation on the new law, and desirous to see that law, as it was intended, a benefit to the country, he earnestly hoped that the strings of restriction might not be drawn too tight, but that inquiry might be made, and upon the information derived from that investigation, instead of going back to the old law, these restrictions of the new law might not be pulled too tight, and that, in cases where a man was proved

1391
to be in need and deserving of support, he might receive it under his own roof, and not be subjected to separation from his wife and family in a new Poor-law workhouse. That was a tangible complaint against the law, and one of the main grievances which was loudly spoken of by the opponents of the bill; indeed, it had been admitted by Mr. Gulson, in the report of the Poor-law Commissioners. The moment a man sought for parochial relief, though he might be out of employment, and have become distressed from causes over which he could have no control, it seemed to be assumed that he came to the board of guardians of his parish only to impose upon them: for the workhouse was proposed as the test of his destitution and sincerity. He must say, that, in his limited experience, he had not thus understood the people of England. In that part of the country to which he belonged, every man who was able to work was also anxious to obtain work. They were influenced by that good old English feeling which led them to strive to the utmost, and to make any sacrifice, even of life almost, rather than ask parochial relief. He did believe that in many other parts of England the feelings of the people were not so debased as to lead them to seize every opportunity of imposing on the guardians for the sake of getting a miserable pittance. Those who would take the trouble to inquire would find that in almost every case want, and want only, led such persons as those whom he had mentioned to apply for relief, and he trusted that their feelings would not be outraged, and charity poisoned at its source, by their being pointed to the workhouse as the only medium through which assistance was to be obtained. The noble Lord had referred to the abuses under the old law, with respect to imposition and the manner in which the labour of the pauper was disposed of by auction. Admitting this to have been the case in the southern and midland counties, he must say that he would rather have his labour sold by auction, than have the workhouse allowance pointed to him as the only means by which he could receive relief, being an able-bodied labourer; for bad as the first evil was, he considered the latter to be one of much greater magnitude. It was also said, that this workhouse principle of relief would induce a desire to work and get good wages, and also a habit of saying
1392
something against the day of distress among those who were fortunate enough to obtain work and good wages, and thus a spirit of economy would be infused into the labouring population, and tend to their great improvement. He trusted that this idea would be realised. A very ingenious pamphlet had been put into the hands of the Members of that House, showing that from the rate of wages in many parts of the country it was possible for labourers to lay up savings, while it was impossible in others. But while he admitted the possibility of the labouring classes being able to save something, and would most earnestly impress on them the advantage of cultivating habits of frugality and economy, in order that they might be in some measure prepared for the day of distress, he would remind the House that mankind were not in a slate of perfection, and that there were feelings and habits among the lower orders which it was difficult to restrain; and that if they did not lay up all they might save, to guard against unforeseen distress, the House should consider how many persons there were in the higher ranks of life whose education, intelligence, and means, might warrant the expectation of better things, but who did not know how to keep their expenditure within their income. If such, then, was the case, they ought to look with some degree of tenderness on the conduct of the humbler classes in this respect, though they did spend a little more than was prudent in present gratification instead of laying up their savings for a time of need. He trusted that when the Committee had concluded their labours the House would be in a condition to entertain the question of the alteration of this law; for he believed that some alterations and modifications were necessary to make it agreeable and acceptable to the public, and useful and advantageous to the labouring portion of the community. He thought the time had not yet arrived for that. It was the duty of the Committee to take all the evidence that could tend to elucidate the practice of the law, and when the Committee had concluded its labours, the House would be better able to determine on what alterations were necessary; and when they came to that he should be prepared to propose and assist the completion of certain alterations which he had in his mind, but which it was not necessary for him at present to state.
Mr. Clayshould not have troubled the House on the present occasion, although he was opposed to the motion, if it had not been that in connexion with this subject there had been publicly attributed to him certain sentiments which he had never uttered, and opinions that he had never entertained. He alluded to what had taken place recently at a meeting held in his own district with reference to the distressed Spitalfields weavers. He begged now to disclaim the sentiments then publicly attributed to him, and to declare most solemnly and emphatically (and he trusted that declaration might reach the ears of those in whose presence the statement was made) that if there was any feeling in reference to legislation—if there was any object to which he was willing to devote every energy both of body and mind, that feeling and that object was to raise the moral and physical condition of the humbler classes of his fellow-countrymen. He believed those sentiments animated the majority of the House, and that though hon. Members might differ as to the best mode of effecting that object, yet all desired to attain it, and he must take this occasion to say, that he left the responsibility of such a contrary course upon the heads of those who, within and without the walls of the House, endeavoured to convince the people that the state and condition of the humbler classes was not at all times of deep and vital interest to Members on both sides of this House. In common with the noble Lord below him (Lord Howick), he was bound to express his admiration of the honesty of purpose which had induced the hon. Member for Oldham to bring this question distinctly forward for the decision of the House. The hon. Member had evidently no second purpose, and he (Mr. Clay) was delighted, that after all the violent language which had been used out of doors by individuals and by some portions of the public press, actuated no doubt by conscientious views, but who had laboured to influence the opinions of the people of England on the subject of the new Poor-laws—he was delighted that the question had been so calmly brought to the test of a decision of the newly assembled Parliament, and that it might thus be ascertained what proportion of the representatives were to be prepared to say, that the New Poor law should be repealed. But to the motion which bad been brought forward by the
1394
hon. Member for Oldham, he was most decidedly opposed. No motion less worthy to be entertained by the House could possibly be propounded. He had been an earnest and consistent supporter of the Poor-law Bill in its passage through the House, and there was no one circumstance, in his whole Parliamentary career, upon which he looked with more unmingled satisfaction. He conceived there never had been a legislative measure grounded on clearer or more overwhelming evidence of the necessity of such a measure—on evidence more carefully sifted, than had the Poor-law Amendment Act. It was with a view to the benefit of the humbler classes that he and the majority of the House had supported that measure. The supporters of the bill had believed, that there was no other remedy for that process of demoralization which had begun to an extent which threatened to bring the labouring classes into that abyss of moral and physical degradation from which it would, in a few years longer, have been impossible to redeem them. The anticipations under which that bill had been passed, he maintained, had not been disappointed—nay, he would assert that those anticipations had been more than fulfilled, and it was to him matter of surprise that hon. Gentlemen could, after the overwhelming evidence of the beneficial effects of the New Poor-law, hold such language as had been adopted in the House to-night, and out of it, on other occasions. Had those hon. Gentlemen read the evidence given before the Agricultural Committee two Sessions back?—was there any one point on which the evidence was more convincing than that which went to show the beneficial effects of the New Poor-law? Agriculturists, merchants, farmers, indeed all who had been examined, had concurred in hat opinion. That Committee had heard from all the witnesses that the result of the New Poor-law had been the reduction of rates, the prevention of peculation, and jobbing, and the substitution for an irresponsible administration of a responsible direction, conducted by a body elected by the ratepayers themselves. It had been said, both by the hon. Member for Finsbury and the hon. Member for Oldham, that the old Poor-laws were well administered. Now, what had been the object of the New Poor-law Bill but to apply to all the parishes of England, those very salutary

1395
regulations which had been found to be necessary, even in those well-administered districts to which those hon. Gentlemen had alluded? But the results of the New Poor-law Bill were not confined merely to those which he had stated, but there had been also an improved condition in the labouring classes. The strongest evidence had been afforded, that good conduct, industry, and merit, had met their appropriate rewards—the clearest proof had been afforded that sound and wholesome relations between the employer and labourer, which previously had been so rare as almost to become matter of history, were now under the New Poor-laws rising up again. There was also reason to believe, that the condition of the labouring classes had not only morally but physically improved, and that they had now a larger amount of money in the shape of wages than formerly came into their possession in the degrading shape of parish allowance. There was proof that friendly societies, which had been on the decline previous to the passing of the bill, had, since the bill had been brought into effect, increased both in the number of their contributors and the amount of the contributions, and this fact had been particularly shown to exist in the counties of Kent and of Sussex. Another test of the beneficial effects of the New Poor-law was afforded by the saving-banks deposits, which in 1837 had increased 900,000 l. upon previous years, and that increase consisted of the contributions of small contributors. Again, it had been shown, that while the purchase of the necessaries of life had increased, the expenditure in beer-shops and other places of a similar character had decreased. With regard to the diet he could only say, that in one union in the country with which he was acquainted, the increase of the allowance of wine to the old and infirm in the workhouses had been greater than it was under the old system. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Liddell) had said, he desired greater powers to be given to the boards of guardians, and that relief should not be confined to the workhouses. Now, he was not aware of any case of emergency having been refused, but whilst he believed that the test of the workhouse should be strictly attended to, yet he thought there were cases in which that test might properly be departed from, and he believed that in no case had that departure been
1396
negatived by the Commissioners in London. However, a full and ample inquiry was now going on, and he thought the proposition of the hon. Member for Oldham would rather operate against those very classes whose interests he was most anxious to protect and preserve.
Mr. Darbycould not give a silent vote on this occasion, in consequence of what the noble Lord at the head of the Home Department had said at the commencement of the Session, when he (Mr. Darby) had said, that unless there was some relaxation in the system of relief under the new law, he (Mr. Darby) should be compelled to introduce some amendment. Now, the noble Lord opposite (Lord Howick) had said, that in the agricultural districts, there had been no relaxation of the system; if that had not been the case, he confessed himself to be guilty of neglecting to do that which he had promised to do. He (Mr. Darby) was prepared to show, that there had been a relaxation in the country districts. He did not complain of it, on the contrary, he thought that the Commissioners had used, in that respect, a wise discretion; but he did not think it right, that the noble Lord, the Secretary at War, should keep the fact from the public that such a relaxation had taken place. He had received a letter from the chairman of the board of guardians for the union of Hailsham, in the county of Sussex, stating that without some relaxation of the system it would be impossible to go on. To that letter, the Poor-law Commissioners had answered, that they had under their consideration the letter of the board of guardians, and that they regretted to learn, that owing to the severity of the weather men had been thrown out of work, and that their families were thereby reduced to a state of destitution. The letter went on to say, that the Commissioners considered with reference to those circumstances and the state of the workhouse, that out-door relief might be temporarily afforded. This relaxation had been the reason why he had not brought the subject forward, coupled with the circumstance that the Poor-law Committee had not brought their labours to a close. The Commissioners had, he admitted, allowed that letter to be communicated to other districts in East Sussex, and that course with that permission had been followed. He believed the difficulty of the new law had

1397
not arisen from the statute the 43rd of Elizabeth, but from the neglect of that statute. He admitted, that it would be difficult to return to that system, but it was strange that the order of the Commissioners of the 28th of July wholly repealed that law, and instead of task-work gave the labourer only the shelter of the workhouse. Now, this part of the new law pressed hard upon the man who, though willing, was unable, to maintain himself and his wife and children, and was obliged to enter his family and himself into the workhouse, or otherwise no relief would be afforded him. It was too much for the noble Lord opposite (Lord Howick) to say, that a workman so situated need not part with his cottage or his furniture; but he begged to know how, when he was deprived of the means of earning something, in consequence of his confinement in a workhouse, such a man was to pay his rent? He would not return to the allowance system, but he thought it was worthy, at least, of consideration, whether some means could not be devised to aid a man who, by being three months out of the twelve in want of employment, might fall into distress, without sending him and his family into a workhouse. He thought that the Commissioners had, by their order of the 28th of July last, drawn the string too tight, and he only hoped it would not break. He had one curious passage of three lines from Blackstone, which had anticipated these difficulties. That passage, after speaking of the 43rd of Elizabeth, said, "that the excellent scheme of employing the able-bodied labourers having been departed from, we cannot but observe what a miserable shift and low expedient it was for them to attempt to patch the flaws thereby occasioned." One of these flaws was the putting up of labourers to auction, and that was illegal even under the old law. But the question for the House to decide was, whether they would get rid of the present law or not, and if they did, what was the substitute which they would propose in its place. He would ask hon. Members, if the House repealed this law to-morrow, in what situation the country would be placed? The noble Lord, the Secretary at War, had been pleased to express himself in terms not the most complimentary as to the capacity of some parties who were opposed to the bill to understand its provisions. It was possible that he might
1398
not be able to take so correct a theoretical view of the measure as the noble Lord, but he had been overseer, he had been a member of the Quarter Sessions, and he had had some opportunity of seeing how it practically worked. He must say, that he considered a board of guardians much better calculated for carrying out the act of 43rd Elizabeth than an overseer. Give him an overseer of great foresight and firmness, and he would carry the provisions of that act into effect; but if a small farmer were made overseer, and were neither a man of abilities nor firmness, he would soon tell those who asked him that he could not carry it into effect. If the hon. Member for Oldham would bring forward some modification of the present law, he promised to give him his support, provided that modification was such as he could approve. It had been said, that wages had advanced since the New Poor law Act had passed, and that in the south of England they had been as low as 6s. a-week before that measure came into operation. Now, he could only say, that as far as his recollection went, wages had never been lower than from 10 s. to 12 s. a-week, and he knew that there had been no increase of wages since the Poor-law Act came into operation. Again, it had been said, that the New Poor-law would raise the wages of the labourers by giving increased employment for their children. But the real question was, if there were so many poor children of the labourers employed as would compensate for the allowance which was formerly given to each labourer under the old system, and which was now taken away. So far as his experience went, this was not the case. He would, however, not detain the House by any lengthened observations on the details of the measure, but anxious as he was, and determined as he was, to give any practicable amendment to the measure his support, he, at the same time, trusted that the hon. Member for Oldham would withdraw his motion. Some hon. Members might think that the hon. Member for Oldham ought not to withdraw his motion, but he should like to see some Member who understood the practical working of the system stand up and say, whether he could find a substitute for the present Poor-law, and tell the House in what a situation the country would be placed if this act were repealed.
Mr. Hodgessaid, that he was one of

1399
those who opposed the passing of the new law, and nothing had since passed which had induced him to be of opinion that he had then formed any erroneous views of the measure. But opposing a bill was one thing; the measure was now law, and although he admitted, and not only admitted but declared, that there was a great amount of distress and difficulty arising out of the new law, yet he could not support the motion of the hon. Member for Oldham, because he did entertain a hope that there would be some relaxation in the provisions of that law. He also looked with more hope to the present Poor-law Committee than to the last, and he saw in that Committee disposition to inquire most thoroughly into the operation of the measure. There was an observation or two, however, of the noble Lord, the Secretary at War, which had excited in his mind some surprise. The noble Lord had, as it seemed to him, uttered an imprudent challenge to the hon. Member for Oldham, to produce evidence of the dissatisfaction of the labourers with the present Poor-law. The noble Lord said that we had no such scenes now as took place in 1830; but surely that was not the only evidence of their discontent. The way to prevent the repetition of such scenes was to grant to the Committee which was now sitting on this Bill every facility for inquiring into the condition of the persons affected by that measure. The noble Lord had also stated that under the old law a system had prevailed of employing men by sitting them up to auction. He could assure his noble Friend, that something very like that took place at present. He would observe too that under the present system a great -deal more was paid for the poor than was levied by rates. In many parishes subscriptions were raised for soup, clothes, and money for the poor; in short, making an addition to the rates, which caused the benevolent portion of the inhabitants to come down with very much larger sums than they paid under the old system. In the meanwhile the niggardly and the hardhearted refused to bear their share of the burden, which fell with double weight upon the others. Feeling, however, the same repugnance to the Bill which he had entertained against it when it was first brought forward, he yet doubted whether it would be the wisest course now to repeal the Act, as next year the result of the in-
1400
quiries of the Committee would be before the House, and they could then come to the consideration of the question with much greater advantage than at present.
Mr. Harveyremarked, that if, on the one hand, there were many hon. Members who, like himself, felt it impossible, at the present stage of the inquiry, to give the motion of the hon. Member for Oldham their instant assent, so, on the other hand, he thought that it would be obvious that it was still more difficult to give the motion a positive negative, more especially after the speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord had given small or rather no encouragement to the House or to the country to hope that the Government would, in the slightest degree, relax in their attachment to this Bill.—Over and over again the Government asserted that they would pin their fame in future times upon this measure, and that, however fruitful in errors and strong in weakness all their other policy might have been, they would yet be prepared to cast to the winds every other pretension, so that they might be recognised by posterity as the authors of the Poor-law Amendment Act. If that was the sentiment with which this measure was regarded by the Cabinet, he admired the courage with which the noble Lord avowed and adhered to it; but when the House heard from the noble Lord who was now taking so active a part in the Poor-law Committee, a speech, in many parts able, and ingenious throughout, he did not know what the House in its hopes, or the country in its fears, ought to expect. While, however, he thought that this motion should not be met by a direct negative, he participated in the difficulty felt by other hon. Members as to giving it unqualified support. He could not, for one, exclude from his recollection the fact, that he had voted for the Poor-law Amendment Act, and he did so from a feeling which would still induce him to countenance many of its provisions—namely, that it gave protection to the fruits of industry, and acted as a discouragement to those who preferred idleness to honest labour. It was the same principle which had led him to oppose the claims of the state paupers, and of all those who, being able to find work, were too lazy to do it. With these impressions strong in his mind, he was not prepared to vote for the instant and unqualified repeal of the law, still less would he be entrapped into

1401
an unqualified recognition of its principle. He should therefore move the previous question. He should, however, venture one or two observations on the debate. It struck him as a singular sentiment coming from a Cabinet Minister, that the best evidence of the content of the country with the measure was to be found in the absence of extraordinary violence and intimidating rebellion. The noble Lord called the attention of the House to the state of the country in 1830; to the exasperated peasantry, at that period congregating in frightful thousands, and menacing the Government with violence; and because they found that the people were now taking a sober view of their rights, and, relying on the kindness and consideration of a reformed Parliament, were loading their table with petitions, signed by multitudes, they were asked to infer that no real difficulty, no discontent was to be found in the working of this measure. Strange presumption, bespeaking total ignorance of the feelings of the people. The noble Lord had also endeavoured to establish a principle which was entirely at variance with the experience of every individual, and also with the testimony given on the subject before the Poor-law Committee—namely, that the working classes were in an improved condition. Now, he would appeal to every Gentleman in the House who was connected with the industrious classes, either in manufactures or in agriculture, to stand up in his place and say, whether he believed that they were receiving wages equal to those which they obtained anterior to the period when this Bill passed. Nothing could be more at variance with the evidence given before the Committee. It was established by hosts of witnesses, farmers, and workmen, that before the bill came into operation, persons who were receiving eight or nine shillings a-week at wages, at the same time received from the parish money or meal, according to the number of their families, to the amount of from five to ten shillings a-week, and that since the passing of that law an able bodied man was not receiving more than eight or ten shillings a-week wages, while he was entirely excluded from all parochial aid. Could the noble Lord conceive it possible, after 2,000,000 l. or 3,000,000 l. had been abstracted from the funds formerly applied to the support of the poor, that this diminution could have no mate-
1402
rial influence on their comforts and condition? But then they were told that at the end of the next Session this Act would expire, when it would be the province of the Government to introduce a new measure. But when that time arrived, in what way was the House to proceed? Were they to legislate on the opinions of private individuals, or were they to be governed by evidence collected from all parts of the country, disinterestedly and diligently collected? As far as regarded the evidence given before the last Poor-law Committee, it was not entitled to the least consideration; and although he was not able to deny, not having acted upon it, that au improved spirit prevailed in the present Committee, yet when he called to mind that there had been already laid on the table of the House six successive reports from that Committee, and that those reports embraced the evidence of one man—and that man a Poor-law Commissioner. He would venture to ask, of what avail could be such testimony? We had had enough, and to spare, of this class of evidence. What the country wanted was, that an inquiry should be made among those persons who could alone tell the real effect of the measure. A Committee had sat to inquire into the condition of the hand-loom weavers, and volumes of its reports had been presented, which it would require the strength of a more than ordinary pauper to wield—and now a commission was going forth to make another inquiry. Why not adopt the same course, and empower the Commissioners of inquiry into the stale of the hand-loom weavers to inquire into the working of the Poor-law Amendment Act? Or, if it was thought that this would be too largely extending their labours, why not appoint a commission on purpose? If the commissioners visited the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, they would be witnesses of harrowing scenes of misery, which would afford a complete answer to the delineations of content and happiness produced by the measure, in which the noble Lord had so largely indulged. The evidence of the Poor-law Commissioner, Gulson, referred to the working of the system in the town of Nottingham. Now, the real evils of the Bill were not to be traced in large towns. The circumstance of 60,000 or 80,000 persons being brought together within a circumference of four or five miles, presented many advantages for

1403
the working of this measure, which were not to be found in the rural districts, and it was a great fallacy to confound these different scenes of operation. In large towns, embracing many parishes, such as Colchester, for instance, an union might be effected advantageous to the payers of rates, and to those relieved. In that town, there were sixteen parishes, and it was absurd to say there ought to be sixteen distinct parish workhouses, with separate officers. But the case was far different in country districts, where the population was scattered over a wide surface; the workhouse in the centre of a district extending in opposite directions, perhaps ten miles, to reach which a miserable supplicant for relief might be compelled to walk, to and fro, twenty miles. It was this circumstance that preyed so heavily on their feelings, and led them to view the measure with deep and just abhorrence. This was an evil which called aloud for redress. Then, again, it was maintained, that the wages of the working classes had improved. Now, nothing could be more opposed to the truth than this statement, and well the landlords knew it. Was it not their boast and secret congratulation that the Poor-law Bill had saved them nearly four millions sterling per annum; and in what way did this substantial saving to them relieve or improve the condition of the industrious classes. But no one who has read the evidence given before the Committee last year, or appeals to his own experience, will assert that the able-bodied labourer is receiving the same amount of Wages. The principle upon which the new Act proceeded was, that nothing but indigence of the extremest caste constituted a claim to relief. That principle it was found impossible rigidly to adhere to in practice. Let the House remember that it was entirely owing to the meritorious labours of his hon. Friend, the Member for Oldham, and to the discussions which had taken place in that House, that the labouring classes had been partially relieved from the cruel regulations which had been proclaimed from Somerset House. And even now, it is only where the masses become formidable, that the law is relaxed, while in the rural districts the same stern severity is observed. The relaxation of the rule prohibiting out-door relief, is the exception, and then only when fear intimates the prudence of so doing. If, indeed, it be otherwise, let the noble
1404
Lord so say. Let it be once clearly understood that the Poor-law guardians have the power, and that in cases of temporary distress amongst honest and industrious able-bodied labourers, out-door relief may be given; in short, that generosity and kindness were to be the ruling principle of assistance, and much, very much, of the hostility which now prevails against this Act would quickly subside. Again, the powers of the Commissioners must be restricted. Was it proper that an institution of this description should exist, so unconstitutional in its combinations, so oppressive in its authority, so irresponsible in all its decrees as the dictatorial central board by which the entire Poor-law system was managed? The opponents of this law would be greatly disarmed of their hostility if the Poor-law guardians throughout England were vested with the due discretionary power as to the administration of relief. The great, the decided error in the machinery of this Bill, was the peculiar constitution of the board of Commissioners sitting in Somerset House, vested, as they were, with an original and absolute authority, and not sitting as a board of appeal. Their authority was so extensive, that they had the power, not only of confirming, but originating, laws of the most stringent nature; a circumstance, perhaps, of all others the most repulsive to the feelings of all those who objected to the unconstitutional nature of this tribunal. It appeared to be the delight of those men to speculate upon the minimum of human subsistence, and they maintained that a labouring man, with a wife and four children, could subsist decently upon 9s. a-week, or 1s. 8d. per head. An illustration of the fallacy of this heartless calculation had lately been given in the will of a noble Lord, whose enormous wealth repudiated the notion that he was too indulgent to luxurious habits. The noble Lord (Eldon) had actually bequeathed 8l. a-year for the support of a favourite dog, being upwards of 3s. a-week, or double the allowance asserted to be sufficient for the support of an able bodied hard-working man. Now, were the admirers of the Poor-law Act prepared to say, that a brute dog was worthy of better fare, than two human beings. It was his (Mr. Harvey's) conviction, that some efficient measures must be adopted for raising the rate of wages. He had often before observed, that the Poor-law

1405
Act and the Corn-law Act could not coexist in this country. According to the existing system, they depreciated the value of agricultural labour when converted into corn—the sole food of the poor. The necessary consequence of that system was to raise the price of bread; and how, he would ask, could a labourer, situated as he had before described, with a wife and four children, support them, even with bread, upon such scanty wages as they now received? It had been his fortune to attend before a Committee of the House, before which a labourer was produced as a witness, whose tottering condition, the consequence of deficient food, had rendered it necessary to provide him with a chair while giving his evidence. The wages of this poor man were no more than 8s., and out of this miserable sum he was obliged to support a wife and several children. It was only at rare intervals that the wife had it in her power to indulge in her favourite beverage of tea; and the sustenance of the whole family was of the most meager description. This was but one instance out of many. By existing laws, and the pressure of cruelly unequal taxation, the poor man was stripped of 4s. out of every 10 s. If the appeals of the friends of the working classes in that House were unheeded, the attention of the working community out of the House would be strenuously and strongly directed towards the subject. And then they would speak with a voice of power and moral energy for which some hon. Members might perhaps wish to see substituted turbulent opposition and insurrectionary movements. This was a course into which they were too wise to be entrapped. While they perfectly knew their strength, they had the sagacity to exert it, at the fittest time and in the best way. As regarded the motion before the House, for the reasons already stated, he conceived it to be his duty to move the previous question; because, while, upon the one hand, a Committee was sitting, and a motion pending upon the part of his hon. Friend, the Member for Finsbury, for a commission to inquire into the actual working of this measure, he felt it was injurious to the real interests of the industrious classes, to vote for the instant and unconditional repeal of the Act; and still more did he deprecate the attempt of drawing the House into an unqualified approval of its principles. He would persevere in his motion.
Lord John Russellhoped, the House would not adopt the manner recommended by the hon. Member who had just sat down of disposing of the original motion. No consideration that the Committee was now sitting—no consideration that future inquiry might be made—ought to prevent the House from coming to a decision upon a point upon which he thought the House was fully and sufficiently informed—namely, whether the New Poor-law should be totally and absolutely repealed. He must say, he thought it a matter of great satisfaction to the defenders of that Act, after the unmeasured terms which had been used against it, more especially at those meetings at which the hon. and learned Gentleman said, there had been no threatening on the part of the multitude, but where, at the same time, every kind of exciting language had been used—he did think, after all these attempts, and after all such evidence as could be collected had been presented to that House, the time was now come when they might say whether they were prepared to decide that the Poor-law Amendment Act should or should not be repealed. He would be no party to holding out to the country, if this question were now put off, that any decision to which the Poor law Committee could come, or of which they had any prospect, would be at all liable to lead to the repeal of that law, or to any alteration of its main provisions. And he must also say, that although many of the charges which were made against that law seemed to have been abandoned, yet those who had lately attacked it, had attacked it on grounds different from those they had formerly advanced—namely, that it took away from the able-bodied labourer, while not in the receipt of wages, the power of getting an allowance for his family. Last year they had been told, that the chief pressure was upon the aged; and the hon. Gentleman to-night attacked it on a different account. The question mooted last year, and partly this, was, that although the bill might be applicable to, and work beneficially for, the agricultural districts, yet it was totally inapplicable to towns and manufacturing populations. The hon. Member, nevertheless, now said, it worked well in towns, and that it ought to be repealed as regarded the agricultural districts. While accusations of so shifting a character were afloat—accusations which

1407
were hardly ever brought forward without a great deal of exaggeration and mixed with a great deal of matter which did not properly belong' to the question—it was proper for the House to declare whether it would sanction or rebut the charges made against the present law. He would read to the House an extract from a newspaper with regard to the expectations entertained in reference to this motion. His own opinion was, that the excitement which had been got up in the north was altogether artificial; and that the persons concerned in endeavouring to excite a feeling of hostility to the new poor-law, did not, altogether, amount to a dozen, neither respectable in point of circumstances or intelligence. They had invited delegates from the north and other parts of the country to attend meetings, at which the people no doubt assembled, through curiosity, to hear the harangues of Mr. Oastler, Mr. Stephens, and Mr. Feargus O'Connor. The result was, that a meeting of delegates took place at Manchester, which he believed was not very numerously attended. At this meeting the most exciting language was used. The noble Lord read an extract from some newspaper stating that the motion of the hon. Member for Oldham for the repeal of the poor-law act was to be introduced on the 20th; that it would be strenuously supported by the South Lancashire Poor-law Association, which had been engaged for some months in spreading tracts to show the injustice of the Poor-law Act and that their efforts had been generally attended with conviction to the minds of the people, that the law was repugnant to the first rights which they derived under the British constitution. He would not read to the House the violent language which had been used in support of the resolutions proposed at this meeting. The resolutions, themselves, three in number, were to the effect, that the act recently passed, called the poor-law amendment act, had repealed all the wise, and humane provisions of the 43rd of Elizabeth, and had taken away the rate payer's control over the funds and the management of his own affairs; that under this new system the poor were subjected to a most tyrannical system, by confinement in large prisons, by separation of husband from wife, by difficulties thrown in the way of relief, and that its effects were to increase child murder, female suicide, and death by
1408
starvation. This was the statement made at the meeting of the delegates, collected after months of agitation on the part of the opponents of the new poor-law, and such were the consequences which they stated to have resulted from that act. They sent up a petition to that House, signed by many, no doubt, who sincerely believed that such really was the result of the law; and yet, when the question came under consideration, the hon. and learned Member, one of its chief opponents, proposed, that the representatives of the people should give no decision on it. Justice to the individuals who took this view of the subject required that the House should declare whether it sanctioned their description of a law now in operation, and by which the country was now governed. If the House agreed in that description of the law, let it not lose a moment in repealing it. If, on the contrary, the House were of opinion that it should still remain the law of the land, let it not deprive those by whom it was to be carried into operation, of the moral force which was necessary for that purpose by withholding the expression of its approbation. After the able speech of his noble Friend, as to the general effect of the law, he would not enter into details. It appeared to him, however, that notwithstanding all the descriptions which had been given of the law, and although it contained many provisions, yet that it was far more simple in its principle than was generally understood or considered. The poor-law of Elizabeth decided that certain persons infirm and impotent, should be relieved, and that able-bodied persons should be set to work. A subsequent law, the 9th of George 1st, decided that certain persons who it had declared should receive relief, should be put upon the list, but that the parishes united together should have the power of erecting poor houses, and employing them there, and that if they refused the relief given, under such circumstances, they should be struck off the list. These two acts of Elizabeth and George 1st taken together, constituted the main body of the law under the present act. The latter law was changed in 1796 by another law, departing from the principle of the former, but which he thought they had done very well to repeal in 1834. The main body of the present law to be carried into effect was, however, contained in these two acts, and what they had done

1409
by the poor-law amendment act was merely to say that there should be a better means of carrying those acts into operation. And whereas the power of giving or refusing relief, the administration under vestries, the separating of parishes according to the decision of a single magistrate, had led to great and mischievous abuses, they thought it better that there should be unions of parishes, and representative guardians for a number of parishes together, who would consult with reference to the state of the neighbour hood, and be able to decide as to the cases of individuals with reference to their general condition. They had moreover thought it better that there should be three Commissioners sitting in London, with the power to lay down rules for the guidance of the guardians. Those guardians, when cases arose where it might be necessary to afford relief, had the benefit of the views of the board in London, which acted, not in opposition to, but in accordance and co-operation with, the country boards. It appeared to him that the whole of this Poor-law Amendment Act contained little else than what he had stated, and that a great deal of what was said about the tyranny and cruelty of the rules to be carried into effect by the Commissioners, was not only exceedingly exaggerated, but completely erroneous. One of these rules had been made use of on the hustings and elsewhere as a very popular and exciting topic—he meant the separation of the husband and wife in the workhouse. Now,' in reference to that point, let him ask, was it a scheme first thought of in 1834? In those very extracts, collected by the Commissioners of inquiry before the Act passed, it was stated, that in the Liverpool workhouse the separation of husband and wife had already been effected. There was another case which he was only told of in conversation, but which he nevertheless believed to be true, namely, that there was a parish in London the guardians of which had resisted the introduction of the Poor-law Amendment Act. They went to the King's Bench, stated their case to the judges, who decided that they were free from the operation of that act. They were asked whether the husband was separated from his wife in the workhouse, and they replied "certainly, that such had always been the case, and that they could not think of any thing so improper as to admit them to remain together: and yet although that
1410
had been the case in every large and well regulated workhouse throughout the country, an outcry was raised against the New Poor-law as if it were contrary to the law of nature and the laws of God. He did not wish to go into the merits of the question. He was ready to admit that some modification of the system might be required in certain cases, and in particular parishes, but, at the same time, he was of opinion that the experience of the Commissioners, to which he was disposed to trust, would enable them to remedy the evil. His belief was, and every conversation he had with them he was the more thoroughly convinced, that they understood fully the nature of the duty imposed upon them—that they wished to perform that duty with the most humane feeling; and that no assistance which others might give them could more effectually enable them to discharge that duty well, than their own intelligence and humanity.
Sir R. Peelwas not about to enter into the consideration of the question, but he felt bound to state how and upon what grounds he intended to vote. He intended to give a direct negative to the proposition of the hon. Member for Oldham, and he could not consent to vote for the proposition just made to the House by the hon. and learned Gentleman on his left, namely, that this question should not be put, and that Parliament should express no opinion on it. When he recollected that four years since there was an universal impression on the part of Parliament and on the part of the country that the mode of administering relief then in existence was pregnant with the most injurious consequences, that it was, in point of fact, destroying property, and that, in the destruction of property, they were doing most irreparable injury to the poor, inasmuch as it was not merely property itself that was injured, but that, by the mode of its appropriation they were relaxing all the springs of industry, and holding out a temptation to idleness; when he recollected that Parliament, with the universal consent of the country, had determined to make a great experiment for the purpose of recovering the country from that state of things, he thought it would not now be either fair or candid on the part of Parliament to refuse to pronounce an opinion as to whether that experiment should be adhered to or not. He did believe that the hon. Gentleman who had made the first proposition, in com-

1411
pelting a decision on this question, would do more to establish the Poor-law Act, and to ensure its satisfactory operation, by eliciting the expressed determination of, he hoped, a large majority of that House, to uphold its principle; that the hon. Gentleman would thereby be doing more towards benefiting the principle, and towards the satisfactory operation of the measure itself, than any combination between the Ministry and Opposition could effect; because, in point of fact, while the country was in doubt as to the intention of Parliament, no system could be satisfactory. In his own part of the country, doubts had been entertained as to the propriety of enlarging the workhouses, arising from the expectation that a motion would be made in Parliament for the repeal of the law; and while those doubts were entertained—whether it were intended to adhere to the present, or revert to the old system—they would prevent the satisfactory operation of the law. He therefore, rejoiced that the hon. Member had taken the means of provoking a decision. A Committee was now sitting for the purpose of ascertaining whether, consistently with the maintenance of the principle, it would be proper to make any relaxation in the present measure. Therefore, while they maintained the principle of the existing Poor-law it would be perfectly competent for them to apply individual remedies to particular evils; if they should be satisfied upon the evidence taken before that Committee that there were grounds for an alteration. But an alteration in the details of a law was a very different question from the maintenance of an existing system. When they were told that abuses existed in the administration of the Poor-law at present, how, he would ask, could they hope to see that great experiment, which necessity had compelled them to make, carried into operation without cases of abuse and individual hardship? It would be a perfect miracle, and contrary to the ordinary course of human affairs, to recover from evils, such as those in which the previous system was involved, without having individual cases of grievance, which they might deeply lament, but to which it was difficult to apply a remedy. He understood, that the Committee was appointed with a view to ascertain whether they could, consistently with the maintenance of the principle, relax any of the provisions of the present Poor-law Act. But on the
1412
whole he was bound to say, considering the magnitude of the experiment, which was only four years under trial, it was as satisfactory as any man could expect; and under these circumstances, believing it to be absolutely necessary, not to save the property of the rich (for that was a subordinate part of the question), but to elevate the moral condition of the labouring poor, and to invigorate the springs of industry, so far as the Bill went—and it was not to be expected that a wonderful change should be made in four years—the experiment was satisfactory. He thought, that there was a gradually increasing demand for honest labour, and that he had a right to anticipate, that the ultimate consequence of this law would be an increased reward for industry. He was therefore of opinion, that it would be discreditable to Parliament to hold out a hope or apprehension, as it would be to many, that the ancient system would be reverted to. He thought, too, if they did so, that those gentlemen throughout the country who had adhered to the principle of the Bill, and who had thereby subjected themselves to obloquy, would have a fair right to cast blame upon, and on any future occasion refuse to trust to the faith of, Parliament, or to co-operate with them in the furtherance of any law which they might deem necessary to enact.
Mr. Fielden, in reply, was understood to say, that the noble Lord had stated, that he had no objections to the Bill, or at least that he did not understand his objections. Now he (Mr. Fielden) had repeatedly stated, that he objected to the principle of the Bill, to nearly the whole of its details, and to the machinery with which it had been carried out. He had endeavoured to show the pernicious working of the new law, and also that the old Poor-law, when fairly carried out, was better administered than the new Act. None of his objections to the new law had been removed by the speeches of the noble Lords and other Members who supported it; on the contrary, his dislike to the measure had, if possible, been increased by the tone of the debate. [Cries of "Divide!"] Hon. Members might attempt to shout him down, but he would tell them, that, although they refused to listen to him, there were other means of making them learn what were the feelings of the people on this subject, not only in the manufac-

1413
turing districts, but also in the other parts of the country. The working classes in England were, he firmly believed, the best people in the world; they worked harder than any other people, and were the most neglected and the worst requited class; and it was chiefly in consequence of the pernicious operation of the measure on wages that he wished for the repeal of this law. He had done all in his power to get rid of this measure, and the responsibility of continuing it would rest with the noble Lord and his colleagues.
The House divided on the previous question:—Ayes 321; Noes 13: Majority 308.
The House again divided on the question that leave be given to bring in the Bill:—Ayes 17; Noes 309: Majority 292.

List of the AYES.

Acland, Sir T. D.

Bruges, W. H. L.

Acland, T. D.

Buller, C.

Adam, Sir C.

Buller, E.

Aglionby, H. A.

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Aglionby, Major

Burr, H.

Ainsworth, P.

Burroughes, H. N.

Alsager, Captain

Busfield, W.

Alston, R.

Byng, rt. hon. G. S.

Attwood, W.

Callaghan, D.

Attwood, T.

Campbell, Sir H.

Bagge, W.

Canning, rt. hn. Sir S.

Baines, E.

Cavendish, hon. C.

Baker, E.

Cavendish, hon. G. H.

Baring, F. T.

Cayley, E. S.

Baring, hon. W. B.

Chalmers, P.

Barnard, E. G.

Chaplin, Colonel

Barneby, J.

Chapman, A.

Barnes, Sir E.

Chetwynd, Major

Barrington, Viscount

Chichester, J. P. B.

Bateman, J.

Christopher, R. A.

Beamish, F. B.

Chute, W. L. W.

Belfast, Earl of

Clay, W.

Bell, M.

Clive, E. B

Bentinck, Lord G.

Clive, Viscount

Berkeley, hon. H.

Clive, hon. R. H.

Berkeley, hon. C.

Cole, Viscount

Bernal, R.

Collier, J.

Bethell, R.

Compton, H. C.

Bewes, T.

Copeland, Alderman

Blackburne, I.

Courtenay, P.

Blake, M. J.

Craig, W. G.

Blake, W. J.

Creswell, C.

Blennerhassett, A.

Cripps, J.

Blunt, Sir C.

Curry, W.

Borthwick, P.

Dalmeny, Lord

Bowes, J.

Darby, G.

Bramston, T. W.

Dashwood, G. H.

Briscoe, J. I.

Dennistoun, J.

Broadley, H.

Divett, E.

Broadwood, H.

Douglas, Sir C. E.

Brocklehurst, J.

Dowdeswell, W.

Brodie, W. B.

Duckworth, S.

Browne, R. D.

Dugdale, W. S.

1414

Duncan, Viscount

Hutton, R.

Duncombe, T.

Ingestrie, Viscount

Dundas, C. W. D.

Ingham, R.

Dundas, F.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Dunlop, J.

Irton, S.

East, J. B.

James, W.

Easthope, J.

Jenkins, R.

Eastnor, Viscount

Jervis, J.

Eaton, R. J.

Johnson, General

Ebrington, Viscount

Jones, W.

Egerton, W. T.

Kinnaird, hon. A. F.

Egerton, Sir P.

Knatchbull, hn. Sir E.

Elliot, hon. J. E.

Knight, H. G.

Ellice, E.

Labouchere, rt. hn. H.

Erle, W.

Lambton, H.

Estcourt, T.

Langdale hon. C.

Evans, G.

Lascelles, hon. W. S.

Evans, W.

Lefevre, C. S.

Farnham, E. B.

Lemon, Sir C.

Fazakerley, J. N.

Lennox, Lord G.

Fielden, W.

Lennox, Lord, A.

Fielden, J.

Leveson, Lord

Fellowes, E.

Litton, E.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

Loch, J.

Finch, F.

Lockhart, A. M.

Fitzalan, Lord

Logan, H.

Fitzimon, N.

Long, W.

Fleming, J.

Lowther, J. H.

Fort, J.

Mackenzie, T.

Fremantle, Sir T.

Macleod, R.

Gillon, W. D.

Macnamara, Major

Gladstone, W. E.

Maher, J.

Goulburn, rt. hon. H.

Manners, Lord C. S.

Greene, T.

Marshall, W.

Grey, Sir G.

Marsland, H.

Grimsditch, T.

Marsland, T.

Grimston, Viscount

Martin, J.

Grimston, hon. E. H.

Marton, G.

Grote, G.

Maunsell, T. P.

Hale, R. B.

Melgund, Viscount

Halford, H.

Mildmay, P. St. J.

Hall, B.

Miles, W.

Handley, H.

Miles, P. W. S.

Harcourt, G. G.

Milton, Viscount

Hastie, A.

Molesworth, Sir W.

Hawes, B.

Moneypenny, T. G.

Hawkes, T.

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Hawkins, J. H.

Morpeth, Visct.

Heathcote, G. J.

Murray, rt. hn. J. A.

Henniker, Lord

Neeld, J.

Heron, Sir R.

Neeld, J.

Hinde, J. H.

Nicholl, J.

Hobhouse, rt. hn. Sir J.

Norreys, Lord

Hobhouse, T. B.

O'Connell, M. J.

Hodgson, R.

O'Conor, Don

Hogg, J. W.

Ossulston, Lord

Hollond, R.

Packe, C. W.

Holmes, W.

Paget, Lord A.

Horsman, E.

Paget, F.

Houstoun, G.

Pakington, J. S.

Howard, F. J.

Palmer, C. F.

Howard, P. H.

Palmer, R.

Howick, Viscount

Palmerston, Viscount

Hughes, W. B.

Parker, J.

Hume, J.

Parker, R. T.

Hurst, R. H.

Parrott, J.

Hurt, F.

Patten, J. W.

1415

Pease, J.

Sharpe, General

Pechell, Captain

Shaw, right hon. F.

Peel, right, hon. Sir R.

Sibthorp, Colonel

Pendarves, E. W. W.

Sinclair, Sir G.

Perceval, Colonel

Slaney, R. A.

Perceval hon. G. J.

Smith, J. A.

Philips, M.

Smith, R. V.

Philips, G. R.

Somers, J. P.

Phillpotts, J.

Speirs, A.

Pinney, W.

Stanley, M.

Plumptre, J. P.

Stanley, W. O.

Ponsonby, C. F. A. C.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Ponsonby, hon. J.

Steuart, R.

Power, J.

Stuart, H.

Price, Sir R.

Stuart, Lord J.

Pringle, A.

Stuart, V.

Protheroe, E.

Strickland, Sir G.

Pryme, G.

Strutt, E.

Pusey, P.

Style, Sir C.

Redington, T. N.

Surrey, Earl of

Rice, E. R.

Talbot, J. H.

Rice, right hon. T. S.

Talfourd, Sergeant

Rich, H.

Tancred, H. W.

Richards, R.

Thompson, Alderman

Rickford, W.

Thornley, T.

Roche, W.

Thornhill, G.

Rolfe, Sir R. M.

Tollemache, F. J.

Rose, rt. hn. Sir G.

Townley, R. G.

Round, C. G.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Rundle, J.

Tufnell, H.

Rushbrooke, Colonel

Turner, W.

Russell, Lord J.

Vere, Sir C. B.

Russell, Lord C.

Verner, Colonel

Sandon, Viscount

Verney, Sir H.

Sanford, E. A.

Villiers, C. P.

Scrope, G. P.

Villiers, Viscount

Seymour, Lord

Vivian, J. H.

1416

Wakley, T.

Williams, W.

Walker, R.

Williams, W. A.

Wallace, R.

Winnington, T. E.

Warburton, H.

Winnington, H. J.

Ward, H. G.

Wodehouse, E.

Welby, G. E.

Wood, G. W.

Wemyss, J. E.

Wood, T.

Westenra, hon. H. R.

Worsley, Lord

Westenra, hon. J. C.

Wrightson, W. B.

White, A.

Wyse, T.

White, S.

Yates, J. A.

Wilberforce, W.

York, hon. E. T.

Wilbraham, G.

TELLERS.

Wilde, Mr. Sergeant

Stanley, E. J.

Wilkins, W.

Wood, C.

List of the NOES.

Bailey, J., jun.

James, Sir W. C.

Blewitt, R. J.

Lewis, W.

Brotherton, J.

Peel, J.

Brownrigg, S.

Vivian, J. E.

D'Israeli, B.

Wilbraham, hon. B.

Duncombe, hon. A.

TELLERS.

Dungannon, Viscount

Harvey, D. W.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Young, G. F.

List of the AYES on the Second Division.

Attwood, W.

Lewis, W.

Attwood, T.

Marton, G.

Burr, H.

Parker, R. T.

D'Israeli, B.

Sibthorp, Colonel

Dungannon, Viscount

Turner, W.

Fielden, W.

Wilberforce, W.

Grimsditch, T.

Williams, W.

Hawkes, T.

TELLERS.

Johnson, General

Fielden, J.

Jones, W.

Wakley, T.

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a second time:—Waterford House of Industry; Transfer of Aid; Exchequer Bills—Re-craved the Royal Assent:—Trading Co-partnership.
Petitions presented. By the Earl of DURHAM, from a place in Durham, by the Duke of CLEVELAND, from Sudbury, by Lord RAYLEIGH, from a place in Essex, by Lord FOLEY, from Worcester and Bewdley, and by the Earl of HUNTNGDON, from Milden-Hall, Walton on the Willows, Bath, Feversham, and Bury, for the abolition of Negro Apprenticeship.

NEGRO EMANCIPATION.
Lord Broughamspoke as follows*:—I do not think, my Lords, that ever but once before in the whole course of my public life, I have risen to address either House of Parliament with the anxiety under which I labour at this moment. The occasion to which alone I can liken the present, was, when I stood up in the Commons to expose the treatment of that persecuted missionary whose case gave birth to the memorable debate upon the condition of our Negro brethren in the Colonies—a debate, happily so fruitful of results to the whole of this great cause. But there is this difference between the two occasions to sustain my spirits now, that whereas at the former period, the horizon was all wrapt in gloom, through which not a ray of light pierced to cheer us, we have now emerged into a comparatively bright atmosphere, and are pursuing our journey full of hope. For this we have mainly to thank that important discussion, and those eminent men who bore in it so conspicuous a part. And now I feel a further gratification in being the means of enabling your Lordships, by sharing in this great and glorious work, nay, by leading the way towards its final accomplishment, to increase the esteem in which you are held by your fellow-citizens; or if by any differences of opinion on recent measures, you may unhappily have lost any portion of the public favour, I know of no path more short, more sure, or more smooth, by which you may regain it. But I will not rest my right to your co-operation upon any such grounds as these. I claim your help by a higher title. I rely upon the justice of my cause—I rely upon
* From a corrected report published by Ridgway: the speech being inscribed to the Marquess of Sligo, late Governor and Captain-General of Jamaica.

1285
the power of your consciences—I rely upon your duty to God and to man—I rely upon your consistency with yourselves—and appealing to your own measure of 1833, if you be the same men in 1838, I call upon you to finish your own work, and give at length a full effect to the wise and Christian principles which then guided your steps.
I rush at once into the midst of this great argument—I drag before you once more, but I trust for the last time, the African Slave Trade which I lately denounced here, and have so often elsewhere. On this we are all agreed. Whatever difference of opinion may exist on the question of Slavery, on the Slave traffic there can be none. I am now furnished with a precedent which may serve for an example to guide us. On slavery, we have always held, that the Colonial Legislatures could not be trusted; that, to use Mr. Canning's expression, you must beware of allowing the masters of slaves to make laws upon slavery. But upon the detestable traffic in slaves, I can show you the proceeding of a Colonial Assembly which we should ourselves do well to adopt after their example. These masters of slaves, not to be trusted on that subject, have acted well and wisely on this. I hold in my hand a document, which I bless heaven that I have lived to see. The Legislature of Jamaica, owners of slaves, and representing all other slave owners, feel, that they also represent the poor Negroes themselves: and they approach the Throne, expressing themselves thankful—tardily thankful, no doubt—that the traffic has been now for thirty years put down in our own colonies, and beseeching the Sovereign to consummate the great work by the only effectual means of having it declared piracy by the law of nations, as it is robbery, and piracy, and murder, by the law of God. This address is precisely that which I desire your Lordships now to present to the same gracious Sovereign. After showing how heavily the Foreign Slave Trade presses upon their interests, they take higher ground in this remarkable passage:—
"Nor can we forego the higher position, as a question of humanity; representing all classes of the island, we consider ourselves entitled to offer to your Majesty our respectful remonstrance against the continuance of this condemned traffic in human beings. As a community, composed of the descendants of
1286
Africa as well as Britain, we are anxious to advance the character of the country, and we, therefore, entreat your Majesty to exert your interest with foreign Powers to cause this trade at once to be declared piracy, as the only effectual means of putting it down, and thereby to grace the commencement of your auspicious reign."
My Lords, I will not stop to remind the lawgivers of Jamaica, why it is, that the slave traffic is a crime of so black a die. I will not remind them that if slavery were no more, the trade in slaves must cease; that if the West Indies were like England peopled with free men, and cultivated only by free hands, where no man can hold his fellow-creature in bondage, and the labourer cannot be tormented by his masters; if the cart whip having happily been destroyed, the doors of the prison-house were also flung open, and chains, and bolts, and collars were unknown, and no toil endured but by the workman's consent, nor any effort extorted by dread of punishment; the traffic which we justly call not a trade but a crime, would no longer inflict the miseries with which it now loads its victims, who instead of being conveyed to a place of torture and misery, would be carried into a land of liberty and enjoyment. Nor will I now pause to consider the wishes of some colonies, in part, I am grieved to say, granted by the Government, that the means should be afforded them of bringing over what they call labourers from other parts of the globe, to share in the sufferings of slavery, hardly mitigated under the name of apprenticeship. That you should ever join your voices with them on this matter, is a thing so out of the question, that I will not detain you with one other remark upon it. But so neither have I any occasion to go at present into the subject of the slave trade altogether, after the statements which I lately made in this place upon the pernicious effects of our head-money, the frightful extent of the negro traffic, and the horrible atrocities which mark its course still more awfully now than before. In order to support my call upon your Lordships for the measures which alone can extirpate such enormities, I need but refer you to those statements. Since I presented them here, they have been made public, indeed promulgated all over the kingdom, and they have met with no contradiction, not excited the least complaint in any quarter, except that many have said the case was understated;

1287
and that in one place, and only in one, I have been charged with exaggeration. I have read with astonishment, and I repel with scorn, the insinuation, that I had acted the part of an advocate, and that some of my statements were coloured to serve a cause. How dares any man so to accuse me? How dares any one, skulking under a fictitious name, to launch his slanderous imputations from his covert? I come forward in my own person. I make the charge in the face of day. I drag the criminal to trial. I openly call down justice on his head. I defy his attacks. I defy his defenders. I challenge investigation. How dares any concealed adversary to charge me as an advocate speaking from a brief, and misrepresenting the facts to serve a purpose? But the absurdity of this charge even outstrips its malice. I stated that the Negroes were thrown overboard in pairs during a chase to lighten the ship and enable her to escape; thrown overboard in fetters, that they might sink, and not be witnesses against the murderers. The answer is, that this man, if man he be, had been on board slave ships, and never seen such cruelties. I stated that the fetters were not locked, but riveted in the forge. The answer is, that the writer had been on board of slave vessels, and seen fetters which were locked, and not riveted. How dares any man deny a statement made upon authority referred to by name, on such a trumpery story as this? As well might he argue that a murder, sworn to by fifty or a hundred credible with, had never been committed, because some one came forward and said he had not seen it done. Did I not give the particulars? Did I not avouch my authority? Did I not name the gallant officer from whose official report, printed and published, my account was taken? Did I not give the respected name of Commodore Hayes, one of the best esteemed officers in her Majesty's service? I, indeed, understated the case in many particulars. But, my Lords, if I have not been chargeable with exaggeration—if all who took part in the former debate, whether in or out of office, agreed in acquitting me of that—so neither shall I be charged for the future with understating the atrocities of the case. What I then withheld, I will now tell—and not keeping back my authority now anymore than I did before, I appeal to my noble Friend near me (Lord Sligo) for the truth
1288
of the appalling story, himself a planter, and an owner of slaves. I ask him if he did not know a vessel brought in with a cargo of 180 or 200 wretched beings jammed into a space three feet and a hall in height. [Lord Sligo: Two and a half.] There, my Lords, I am understating again. Into that space of two feet and a half between the decks that number of miserable creatures were jammed, like inanimate lumber, certainly in a way in which no Christian man would crowd dumb animals. My noble Friend will say whether or not that vessel, whose slaves had never been released, or even washed, or in any way cleansed, since it left the African coast, presented an intolerable nuisance to all the senses—a nuisance unfit for any description. Nor is this all. I will be chargeable with understatement no more. The ophthalmia had broken out among the poor creatures thus kept in unspeakable torment; and as often as any one was seized, instead of affording him any medical or other assistance, he was instantly cast overboard, and sunk in his chains, with the view of stopping the infection. I will understate things no more. I said before that as many as 700 slaves were carried across the sea in one ship; there I stopped, for to those who know what a slave ship is, this sufficed to harrow up every feeling of the soul. But another vessel brought away, first and last, in one voyage, 980 miserable, unoffending, simple beings, and of this number, without any chase, or accident, or violence, or any acts of wholesale murder, such as those we have been contemplating, 600 perished in the voyage, through the hardships and sufferings inseparably connected with this execrable traffic. Of 2,300 or 2,400 carried away by four other ships, no less than 1,500 perished in like manner, having fallen a sacrifice to the pestilential hold. How this enormous crime of these foreign nations is to be rooted out I know full well. You must no longer treat it as a mere contraband trade—no longer call murder smuggling, or treat pirates as offenders against the revenue laws. As long as our slave traders were so dealt with they made this calculation—"If we escape three times in four, our profits are so large that the seizure and confiscation can be well afforded; nay, even if we are taken as often as we escape, the ships netting 20, 30, even as much as 50 and 60,000 l. a

1289
voyage, we can well afford to lose 1,500 l. or 2.000 l. when the adventure fails." So they ran the risk, and on a calculation of profit and loss were fully justified. But I had in 1811 the singular happiness of laying the axe to the root of this detestable system. I stopped all those calculations by making the trade felony, and punishing it as such; for well I knew that they who would run the risk of capture when all they could suffer by it was a diminution of their profits, would be slow to put their heads in the noose of the halter which their crimes so richly deserted. The measure passed through all its stages in both Houses without one dissenting voice; and I will venture to assert, that ever since, although English capital, I have too much reason to think, finds its way into the foreign slave trade, no Englishman is concerned directly with it in any part of the world. Trust me, the like course must be taken if we would put an end to the same crimes in other countries. Piracy and murder must be called by their right names, and visited with their appropriate penalties. That the Spanish and Portuguese traders now make the same calculations which I have been describing is a certain fact. I will name one—Captain Inza, of the ship Socorro, who, on being captured, had the effrontery to boast that he had made fourteen slave voyages, and that this was the first time he had been taken. Well might he resolve to run so slight a risk for such vast gains; but had the fate of a felon-pirate awaited him, not all the gains which might tempt his sordid nature would have prevailed upon him to encounter that hazard.
I formerly recounted instances of murder done by wholesale in the course of the chase of our cruisers. I might have told a more piteous tale; and I will no longer be accused of understating this part of the case either. Two vessels were pursued. One after another negroes were seen to be thrown overboard to the number of 150, of all ages—the elder and stronger ones loaded with their fetters, to prevent them from swimming or floating—the weaker were left unchained to sink or expire; and this horrible spectacle was presented to the eyes of our cruisers' men—they saw, unable to lend any help, the water covered with those hapless creatures, the men sinking in their chains—the women, and—piteous sight!—the
1290
infants and young children struggling out their little strength in the water till they, too, were swallowed up and disappeared!
I now approach a subject, not, indeed, more full of horrors, or of greater moment, but on which the attention of the people has for some time past been fixed with an almost universal anxiety, and for your decision upon which they are now looking with the most intense interest, let me add, with the liveliest hopes. I need not add that I mean the great question of the condition into which the slaves of our colonies were transferred as preparatory to their complete liberation—a subject upon which your table has been loaded with so many petitions from millions of your fellow-countrymen. It is right that I should first remind your Lordships of the anxious apprehensions which were entertained in 1833, when the Act was passed, because a comparison of those fears with the results of the measure, will form a most important ingredient of the argument which I am about to urge for the immediate liberation of the apprentices. I well remember how uneasy all were in looking forward to the 1st of August, 1834, when the state of slavery was to cease, and I myself shared in those feelings of alarm when I contemplated the possible event of the vast, but yet untried, experiment. My fears proceeded first from the character of the masters. I knew the nature of man, fond of power, jealous of any interference with its exercise, uneasy at its being questioned, offended at its being regulated and constrained, averse above all to have it wrested from his hands, especially after it has been long enjoyed, and its possession can hardly be severed from his nature. But I also am aware of another and a worser part of human nature. I know that whoso has abused power, clings to it with a yet more convulsive grasp. I dreaded the nature of man prone to hate whom he has injured—because I knew that law of human weakness which makes the oppressor hate his victim, makes him who has injured never forgive, fills the wrongdoer with vengeance against those whose right it is to vindicate those injuries on his own head. I knew that this abominable law of our evil nature was not confined to different races, contrasted hues, and strange features, but prevailed also between white man and white—for I never yet knew any one hate me, but those

1291
whom I had served, and those who had done me some grievous injustice. Why, then, should I expect other feelings to burn within the planter's bosom, and govern his conduct towards the unhappy beings who had suffered so much and so long at his hands? But on the part of the slaves I was not without some anxiety when I considered the corrupting effects of that degrading system under which they had for ages groaned, and recognised the truth of the saying in the first and the earliest of profane poets, that "the day which makes a man a slave robs him of half his value." I might well think that the West India slave offered no exception to this maxim; that the habit of compulsory labour might have incapacitated him from voluntary exertion; that over much toil might have made all work his aversion; that never having been accustomed to provide for his own wants, while all his supplies were furnished by others, he might prove unwilling or unfit to work for himself, the ordinary inducements to industry never having operated on his mind. In a word, it seemed unlikely that long disuse of freedom might have rendered him too familiar with his chains to set a right value on liberty; or that, if he panted to be free, the sudden transition from the one state to the other, the instantaneous enjoyment of the object of his desires, might prove too strong for his uncultured understanding, might overset his principles, and render him dangerous to the public peace. Hence it was, that I entertained some apprehensions of the event, and yielded reluctantly to the plan proposed of preparing the negroes for the enjoyment of perfect freedom by passing them through the intermediate state of indentured apprenticeship. Let us now see the results of their sudden though partial liberation, and how far those fears have been realised; for upon this must entirely depend the solution of the present question—Whether or not it is safe now to complete the emancipation, which, if it only be safe, we have not the shadow of right any longer to withhold.—Well, then, let us see.
The 1st of August came, the object of ser much anxiety and so many predictions—that day so joyously expected by the poor slaves, so sorely dreaded by their hard taskmasters; and surely, if ever there was a picture interesting, even fascinating to look upon—if ever there was a passage
1292
in a people s history that redounded to their eternal honour—if ever triumphant answer was given to all the scandalous calumnies for ages heaped upon an oppressed race, as if to justify the wrongs done them—that picture, and that passage, and that answer were exhibited in the uniform history of that auspicious day all over the islands of the Western sea. Instead of the horizon being lit up with the lurid fires of rebellion, kindled by a sense of natural though lawless revenge, and the just resistance to intolerable oppression—the whole of that wide-spread scene was mildly illuminated with joy, contentment, peace, and goodwill towards men. No civilised nation, no people of the most refined character, could have displayed after gaining a sudden and signal victory, more forbearance, more delicacy, in the enjoyment of their triumph, than these poor untutored slaves did upon the great consummation of all their wishes which they had just attained. Not a gesture or a look was seen to scare the eye—not a sound or a breath from the negro's lips was heard to grate on the ear of the planter. All was joy, congratulation and hope. Everywhere were to be seen groups of these harmless folks assembled to talk over their good fortunes; to communicate their mutual feelings of happiness; to speculate on their future prospects. Finding that they were now free in name, they hoped soon to taste the reality of liberty. Feeling their fetters loosened they looked forward to the day which should see them fall off, and the degrading marks which they left be effaced from their limbs. But all this was accompanied with not a whisper that could give offence to the master by reminding him of the change. This delicate, calm, tranquil joy, was alone to be marked on that day over all the chain of the Antilles.—Amusements there were none to be seen on that day—not even their simple pastimes by which they had been wont to beguile the hard hours of bondage, and which reminded that innocent people of the happy land of their forefathers, whence they had been torn by the hands of Christian and civilised men. The day was kept sacred as the festival of their liberation; for the negroes are an eminently pious race. They enjoy the advantages of much religious instruction and partake in a large measure of spiritual consolation. These blessings they derive not from the ministrations of

1293
the Established Church—not that the aid of its priests is withheld from them, but the services of others, of zealous missionaries, are found more acceptable and more effectual, because they are more suited to the capacity of the people. The meek and humble pastor, although perhaps more deficient in secular accomplishments, is far more abounding in zeal for the work of the vineyard, and being less raised above his flock, is better fitted to guide them in the path of religious duty. Not made too fine for his work by pride of science, nor kept apart by any peculiar refinement of taste, but inspired with a fervent devotion to the interests of his flock, the missionary pastor lives but for them; their companion on the week-day, as their instructor on the Sabbath; their friend and counsellor in temporal matters, as their guide in spiritual concerns. These are the causes of the influence he enjoys—this the source from whence the good he does them flows. Nor can I pass by this part of the West Indian picture without rendering the tribute of heartfelt admiration which I am proud to pay, when I contemplate the pious zeal, the indefatigable labours of these holy and disinterested men; and I know full well that if I make my appeal to my noble Friend (Lord Sligo) he will repeat the testimony he elsewhere bore to the same high merits, when he promulgated his honest opinion that "for the origin of all religious feeling among the negroes, it is among the missionaries, and not the clergy, we must look." Therefore it was, that fourteen years ago I felt all the deep anxiety to which I this night began by referring, when it was my lot to drag before the Commons of England the persecutors of one among the most useful, most devoted and most godly, of that inestimable class of men, who for his piety and his self-devotion had been hunted down by wicked men conspiring with unjust judges, and made to die the death for teaching to the poor negroes the gospel of peace. I am unspeakably proud of the part I then took; I glory mightily in reflecting that I then struck, aided and comforted by far abler men,* the first of those blows, of
* The great exertions on that memorable occasion of Lord Chief Justice Denman, Dr. Lushington, and others, are well known; and the report of the interesting debate does them justice. But no one from merely reading it
1294
which we are now aiming the last, at the chains that bind the harmless race of our colonial peasantry. The 1st of August came—and the day was kept a sacred holiday, as it will ever be kept to the end of time throughout all the West Indies. Every church was crowded from early dawn, with devout and earnest worshippers. Five or six times in the course of that memorable Friday were all those churches filled and emptied in succession by multitudes who came, not coldly to comply with a formal ceremonial, not to give mouth worship or eye worship, but to render humble and hearty thanks to God for their freedom at length bestowed. In countries where the bounty of nature provokes the passions, where the fuel of intemperance is scattered with a profuse hand, I speak the fact when I tell that not one negro was seen in a state of intoxication. Three hundred and forty thousand slaves in Jamaica were at once set free on that day, and the peaceful festivity of these simple men was disturbed only on a single estate, in one parish, by the irregular conduct of three or four persons, who were immediately kept in order, and tranquillity in one hour restored.
But the termination of slavery was to be the end of all labour; no man would Work unless compelled—much less would any one work for hire. The cart-whip was to resound no more—and no more could exertion be obtained from the indolent African. I set the fact against these predictions. I never have been in the West Indies; I was one of those whom under the name of reasoners, and theorists, and visionaries, all planters pitied for incurable ignorance of colonial affairs; one of those who were forbidden to meddle with matters of which they only could judge who had the practical knowledge of experienced men on the spot obtained. Therefore I now appeal to the fact—and I also appeal to one who has been in the West Indies, is himself a planter, and was an eye-witness of the things upon which I call for his confirmatory testimony. It is to my noble Friend (Lord Sligo) that I appeal. He knows, for he saw, that ever since slavery ceased, there has been no want of inclination to work in any part of
can form an adequate idea of Mr. Justice Williams's admirable speech, distinguished alike for closeness of argument and for the severity of Attic taste.

1295
Jamaica, and that labour for hire is now to be had without the least difficulty by all who can afford to pay wages—the apprentices cheerfully working for those who will pay them, during the hours not appropriated to their masters. My noble Friend made an inquisition as to the state of this important matter in a large part of his government; and I have his authority for stating, that, in nine estates out of ten, labourers for hire were to be had without the least difficulty. Yet this was the people of whom we were told with a confidence that set all contradiction at defiance, with an insulting pity for the ignorance of us who had no local experience, that without the lash there would be no work done, and that when it ceased to vex him, the African would sink into sleep. The prediction is found to have been ridiculously false; the negro peasantry is as industrious as our own; and wages furnish more effectual stimulus than the scourge. Oh! but, said the men of colonial experience—the true practical men—this may do for some kinds of produce. Cotton may be planted—coffee may be picked—indigo may be manufactured—all these kinds of work the negro may probably be got to do; but, at least, the cane will cease to grow—the cane-piece can no more be hoed—nor the plant be hewn down—nor the juice boiled—and sugar will utterly cease out of the land. Now let the man of experience stand forward—the practical man, the inhabitant of the colonies—I require that he now come forth with his prediction, and I meet him with the fact—let him but appear and I answer for him, we shall hear him prophesy no more. Put to silence by the fact, which even these confident men have not the courage to deny, they will at length abandon this untenable ground. Twice as much sugar by the hour were found on my noble Friend's inquiry (Lord Sligo) to be made since the apprenticeship as under the slave-system, and of a far better quality; and one planter on a vast scale has said that, with twenty free labourers he could do the work of a hundred slaves. But linger not on the islands where the gift of freedom has been but half bestowed—look to Antigua and Bermuda, where the wisdom and the virtue has been displayed, of at once giving complete emancipation. To Montserrat, the same appeal might have been made, but for the folly of the Upper House, which
1296
threw out the bill passed in the Assembly by the representatives of the planters. But in Antigua and Bermuda, where for the last three years and a half there has not even been an apprentice—where all have been at once made as free as the peasantry of this country—the produce has increased, not diminished, and increased notwithstanding the accidents of bad seasons, droughts, and fires.
But then we were told by those whose experience was reckoned worth so much more than our reasoning, that even if by some miracle industry should be found compatible with liberty, of which indeed we in our profound ignorance of human nature, had been wont to regard it as the legitimate offspring; at all events, the existence of order and tranquillity was altogether hopeless. After so long being inured to the abject state of slavery, its sudden cessation, the instant transition from bondage to freedom, must produce convulsions all over the colonies, and the reign of rebellion and anarchy must begin. Not content with reasoning, the practical men condescended to tax their luxuriant imagination for tropes to dazzle and delude whom their arguments might fail to convince. The child could not walk alone if his leading-strings were cut away—the full-grown tree could not be transplanted—the limbs cramped by the chain could not freely move—the maniac might not safely be freed from the keeper's control—and Mr. Windham used to bring the play of his own lively fancy upon the question, and say that if it was a cruel thing to throw men out of the window, he saw no great kindness in making up for the injury you had done by throwing them back again into the house. Alas! for all those prophecies—and reasonings—and theories—and figures of speech. The dawn of the 1st of August chased away the phantoms, and instead of revolt and conspiracy, ushered in order and peace. But the fanciful men of experience, the real practical visionaries of the West Indies—though baffled were not defeated. Only wait, they said, till Christmas—all who know the negro character then dread rebellion—all experience of negro habits shews that to be the true season of revolt.—We did wait till Christmas—and what happened? I will go to Antigua, because there the emancipation began suddenly without any preparatory state of apprenticeship—with no gradual transition but,

1297
the chains knocked off at once, and the slave in an instant set free. Let then the men of practical experience hear the fact. For the first time these thirty years on that day, Christmas 1834, martial law was not proclaimed in Antigua. You call for facts; here is a fact—a fact that speaks volumes. You appeal to experience—here is our experience, your own experience; and now let the man who scoffed at reasoning—who laughed us to scorn as visionaries, deriding our theories as wild fancies, our plans of liberty as frantic schemes which never could be carried into effect, whose only fruit must be wide-spreading rebellion, and which must entail the loss of all other colonies—let him come forward now; I dare him to deny one of the statements I have made. Let those who thought the phrases "Jamaica planter"—"colonial interest"—"West Indian residence"—flung into the scale of oppression, could make that of mercy and freedom kick the beam—let them now hear the fact and hold their peace; the fact that neither on the first day of emancipation, nor on the Christmas following the negro festival, was there any breach of the peace committed over all the West Indian world. Then, after these predictions had all failed—these phantasies been all dispelled—the charges against the negro race been thoroughly disproved—surely we might have looked for a submission to the test of experience itself, from the men of experience, and an acquittal of those so unjustly accused, after the case against them had been so signally defeated. No such thing. The accusers, though a second time discomfited, were not subdued; and there was heard a third appeal to a future day—an appeal which had I not read it in print, and heard of it in speeches, I could not have believed possible. Only wait, said these planters, till the anniversary of the 1st of August, and then you will witness the effects of your rash counsels! Monstrous effort of incurable prejudice—almost judicial blindness! As if they whom the event of liberation itself could not excite to commit the least disorderly act, would be hurried into rebellion by the return next year of the day on which it had happened; and having withstood all temptation to irregular conduct in the hour of triumph, would plunge into excess in celebrating its anniversary! I will not insult the understandings of your Lordships by adding that
1298
this prediction shared the fate of all the rest. And are we then now to set at nought all the lessons of real and long continued and widely-extended experience? Are we never to profit by that of which we are for ever to prate? I ask you not to take advantage of other men's experience, by making its fruits your own—to observe what they have done or have suffered, and wise by the example, to follow or to avoid. That indeed is the part of wisdom, and reflecting men pride themselves upon pursuing such a course. But I ask nothing of the kind—my desires are more humble—my demand is more moderate far. I only ask you to be guided by the results of your own experience, to make some gain by that for which you have paid so costly a price. Only do not reject the lesson which is said, in the book you all revere, to teach even the most foolish of our foolish kind; only shew yourselves as ready to benefit by experience as the fool whom it proverbially is able to teach—and all I desire is gained.
But now, my Lords, my task is accomplished, my work is done. I have proved my case, and may now call for judgment. I have demonstrated every part of the proposition which alone it is necessary that I should maintain, to prove the title of the apprentice to instant freedom from his task-masters, because I have demonstrated that the liberation of the slave has been absolutely, universally safe—attended with not even inconvenience—nay productive of ample benefits to his master. I have shewn, that the apprentice works without compulsion, and that the reward of wages are a better incentive than the punishment of the lash. I have proved, that labour for hire may anywhere be obtained as it is wanted and can be purchased—all the apprentices working extra hours for hire, and all the free negroes, wherever their emancipation has been complete, working harder by much for the masters who have wherewithal to pay them, than the slave can toil for his owner or the apprentice for his master. Whether we look to the noble minded colonies which have at once freed their slaves, or to those who still retain them in a middle and half-free condition, I have shown that the industry of the negro is undeniable, and that it is constant and productive in proportion as he is the director of its application and the master of its recompense. But I have gone a great deal further—I have demon-

1299
strated by a reference to the same experience—the same unquestioned facts—that a more quiet, peaceful, inoffensive, innocent race, is not to be found on the face of this earth than the Africans—not while dwelling in their own happy country, and enjoying freedom in a natural state, under their own palm trees, and by their native streams—but after they have been torn away from it, enslaved, and their nature perverted in your Christian land, barbarised by the policy of civilised states—their whole character disfigured, if it were possible to disfigure it—all their feelings corrupted, if you could have corrupted them. Every effort has been made to spoil the poor African—every resource of wicked ingenuity exhausted, to deprave his nature—all the incentives to misconduct placed around him by the fiend-like artifice of Christian, civilised men—and his excellent nature has triumphed over all your arts—your unnatural culture has failed to make it bear the poisonous fruit that might well have been expected from such abominable husbandry—though enslaved and tormented, degraded and debased, as far as human industry could effect its purpose of making him bloodthirsty and savage, his gentle spirit has prevailed, and preserved, in spite of all your prophecies, aye, and of all your efforts, unbroken tranquillity over the whole Charaibean chain! Have I not then proved my case? I show you that the whole grounds of the arrangement of 1833, the very pretext for withholding complete emancipation, alleged incapacity for labour, and risk of insurrection, utterly fail. I rely on your own records; I refer to that record which cannot be averred against; I plead the record of your own statute. On what ground does its preamble rest the necessity of the intermediate or apprentice state, all admitting that nothing but necessity could justify it? "Whereas it is expedient that provision should be made for promoting the industry, and securing the good conduct of the manumitted slaves." These are the avowed reasons for the measure—these its only defence. All men confessed, that were it not for the apprehension of liberated slaves not working voluntarily, and not behaving peacably—of slavery being found to have unfitted them for industry, and of a sudden transition to complete freedom being fraught with danger to the peace of society—you had no right to make them
1300
indentured apprentices, and must at once set them wholly free. But the fear prevailed, which, by the event, I have now a right to call a delusion; and the apprenticeship was reluctantly agreed to. The delusion went further. The planter succeeded in persuading us, that he would be a vast loser by the change, and we gave him twenty millions sterling money to indemnify him for the supposed loss. The fear is found to be utterly baseless—the loss is a phantom of the brain—a shape conjured up by the interested parties to frighten our weak minds—and the only reality in this mockery is the payment of that enormous sum to the crafty and fortunate magician for his incantations. The spell is dissolved—the charm is over—the unsubstantial fabric of calculating alarm, reared by the colonial body with our help, has been crushed to atoms, and its fragments scattered to the wind. And now, I ask, suppose it had been ascertained in 1833, when you made the Apprenticeship Law, that these alarms were absolutely groundless—the mere phantom of a sick brain, or contrivance of a sordid ingenuity—would a single voice have been raised in favour of the intermediate state? Would the words Indentured Apprenticeship ever have been pronounced? Would the man have been found endued with the courage to call for keeping the negro in chains one hour after he had been acknowledged entitled to his freedom?
I freely admit, that formerly, and before the event, when the measure was passed, the proof was upon us, who maintained, that the experiment of emancipation was safe. We did not pretend to deny all risk; we allowed the possibility of a loss being sustained by the planters; nay, we did more; we took for granted there would be a loss, and a loss to the amount of twenty millions, and that vast sum we cheerfully paid to indemnify them. Then we had not the facts with us; all experience was said to be the other way; and because we could only offer argument against the opinions of practical men of local knowledge, we were fain to let them take every thing their own way, and receive our money by way of securing them against the possibility of damage. But now the case is reversed; the facts are all with us; experience has pronounced in our favour, and the burthen of the proof is thrown on the planter, or whoever would maintain, contrary to the result of the trial

1301
already made, that there is any risk whatever in absolute emancipation. The case lies in a narrow compass; the sudden transition from absolute slavery to apprenticeship—from the condition of chattels to that of men—has been made without the least danger whatever, though made without the least preparation. It is for those who, in spite of this undoubted fact, maintain that the lesser step of substituting freedom for apprenticeship will be dangerous, though made after a preparation of three years, to prove their position. Therefore I am not bound to maintain the opposite proposition, by any one argument or by a single fact. Nevertheless, I do prove the negative, against those upon whom it lies to prove the affirmative; I gratuitously demonstrate, both by argument and by fact that the transition to freedom from apprenticeship may be safely made. I appeal to the history of Antigua and Bermuda, where the whole process took place at once—where both steps were taken in one—and where, notwithstanding, there was more tranquillity than had ever before been enjoyed under the death-like silence of slavery. Nay, I prove even more than the safety of the step in question; for in those colonies the transition being so made at once, it follows, a fortiori, that the making the half transition, which alone remains to be made in the rest, is doubly free from all possible risk of any kind, either as to voluntary labour or orderly demeanour.
Bat this is not all—let us look at the subject from another point. The twenty millions have been paid in advance, on the supposition of a loss being incurred. No loss, but a great gain, has accrued to the planter. Then he has received our money for nothing; it is money paid under a mistake in fact, to propagate which he himself contributed. If such a transaction had happened between private parties, I know not that the payer of the money might not have claimed it back as paid under a mistake; or if deception had been practised, that he was not equitably entitled to recover it. But without going so far, of this I am certain, that all men of honourable minds would in such circumstances have felt it hard to keep the party to his bargain. Again, view the matter from a different point, for I am desirous to have it narrowly examined on all sides. Suppose it is still maintained, that the second step we require to be
1302
taken will be attended with risk—how much is the loss likely to be? Six years apprenticeship and the emancipation were reckoned at twenty millions. No loss has as yet accrued, and four years have elapsed. Then what right have you to estimate the loss of the two years that remain at more than the whole sum? But unless it exceeds that sum, the planter, by giving up these two years, manifestly loses nothing at all; for he has his compensation, even supposing the total loss to happen in two years, for which the money was given, on the supposition of a six years diminished income. But suppose I make a present of this concession likewise, and admit that there may be a loss in the next two years as there has been a gain in the former four—have not I a right to set off that gain against any loss, and then unless twice as much shall be lost yearly in future as has been gained in past years, the planter is on the whole a gainer, even without taking the twenty millions into the account, and although there should be that double rate of loss, contrary to all probability: even without these twenty millions, he will on the whole have lost nothing. But I will not consent to leave that vast sum out of the account. It shall go in diminution of the loss, if any has been suffered. It shall be reckoned as received by the planters, and unless they lose, during the next two years, more than twenty millions over and above the gains they have made during the last four, I insist upon it that they be deemed to have suffered no loss at all, even if, contrary to all experience and all reason they lose by the change. What is the consequence of all this? That at the very least we have a right to make the planters bring their twenty millions to account, and give us credit for that sum—so that until their losses exceed it, they shall have no right whatever to complain. Take now a new view of the subject, in order that we may have left no stone unturned, no part of the whole subject unexplored—have we not at the very least a title to call upon the planters to consign the money into a third party's hands, to pay it, as it were, into court, until it shall be ascertained whether they sustain any loss at all, and, if any, to what amount? I defy all the quibblers in the world to show what right the planters can have, if they insist upon retaining our money, now given for nothing, to keep the negroes out of their

1303
liberty, that money having been paid to compensate a supposed loss, and experience having demonstrated, that instead of loss, the present change has already been to them a gain. My proposal is this, and if the planters be of good faith it must at once settle the question, at least it must bring their sincerity to the test. They say they are afraid of a loss by the apprenticeship ceasing—then let them either pay the money into court, or keep an account of their losses, and if they, at the end of the two years, after emancipating the apprentices, shall be found to have incurred any loss, let them be repaid out of the money. I agree, that they should be further compensated, should their losses exceed the twenty millions, provided they will consent to repay all the money that exceeds the losses actually sustained. This is my proposal—and I am as certain of its being fair as I am convinced it will be rejected with universal horror by the planters.
Once more I call upon your Lordships to look at Antigua and Bermuda. There is no getting over that—no answering it—no repelling the force with which our reason is assailed by the example of 30,000 negroes liberated in one night—liberated without a single instance of disturbance ensuing, and with the immediate substitution of voluntary work for hire in the stead of compulsory labour under the whip. There is no getting over that—no answering it—no repelling the force with which it assails the ordinary reason of ordinary men. But it is said, that those islands differ from Jamaica and Barbadoes, because they contain no tracts of waste or woody ground to which negroes may flee away from their masters, conceal themselves, and subsist in a Maroon state. I meet the objection as one in front, and I pledge myself to annihilate it in one minute by the clock. Why should free negroes run away and seek refuge in the woods, if slaves, or half slaves like apprentices, never think of escaping? That the slave should run away—that the apprentice should fly—is intelligible—but if they don't, why should a bettering of their condition increase their inclination to fly? They who do not flee from bondage and the lash, why should they from freedom, wages, independence, and comfort? But this is not all. If you dread their escape and marooning now, what the better will you be in 1840? Why are they to be
1304
less disposed then than now to fly from you? Is there any thing in the training of the present system to make two years more of it disarm all dislike of white severity, all inclination for the life of the Maroon? The minute is not yet out, and I think I have disposed of the objection. Surely, surely, we are here upon ground often trodden before by the advocates of human improvement, the friends of extended rights. This is the kind of topic we have so often been fated to meet on other questions of deep and exciting interest. The argument is like that against the repeal of the Penal Laws respecting Catholics—if it proves any thing, it proves far too much—if there be any substance in it, the conclusion is that we have gone too far already, and must retrace our steps—either complete the emancipation of the Catholics, or re-enact the Penal Code. The enemies of freedom, be it civil or religious—be it political or personal—are all of the same sect, and deal in the same kind of logic. If this argument drawn from the danger of negroes eloping in 1838, should we emancipate the apprentices, is worth any thing at all, it is a reason for not emancipating them in 1840, and consequently for repealing altogether the law of 1833. But I shall not live to hear any one man in any one circle of any one part of the globe, either in the eastern hemisphere or in the western, venture to breathe one whisper in favour of so monstrous a course. But I will not stop here. Lives there, my Lords, a man so ignorant of West Indian society, so blind to all that is passing in those regions, as to suppose that the continuance of the apprenticeship can either better the negro's condition, or win him over to more love for his master? I am prepared to grapple with this part also of the argument. I undertake to demonstrate that the state of the negro is in but a very few instances better, and in many beyond all comparison worse, than ever it was in the time of slavery itself.
I begin by freely admitting that an immense benefit has been conferred by the cart-whip being utterly abolished. Even if the lash were ever so harshly or unsparingly or indiscriminately applied in execution of sentences pronounced by the magistrate, still the difference between using it in obedience to judicial command, and using it as the stimulus to labour, is very great. The negro is no longer treated as

1305
a brute, because the motive to his exertions is no longer placed without himself and in the driver's hand. This is, I admit, a very considerable change for the better in his condition, and it is the only one upon which he has to congratulate himself since the Act of Emancipation was passed. In no one other respect whatever is his condition improved—in many it is very much worse. I shall run over a few of these particulars, because the view of them bears most materially upon this whole question, and I cannot better prove the absolute necessity of putting an immediate end to the state of apprenticeship than by showing what the victims of it are daily fated to endure.
First of all as to the important article of food, to secure a supply of which in sufficient abundance, the slave-regulating acts of all the islands have always been so anxiously directed—I will compare the prison allowance of Jamaica, with the apprentice allowance in Barbadoes and other colonies from which we have the returns, there being none in this particular from Jamaica itself. The allowance to prisoners is fourteen pints weekly of Indian corn, and different quantities of other grain, but comparing one will be sufficient for our purpose. In Barbadoes the allowance to apprentices is only ten pints, while in the leeward islands and Dominica it is no more than eight pints; for the Crown colonies the slave allowance before 1834 was twenty-one pints; in the same colonies the apprentice receives but ten; so that in the material article of food there is the very reverse of an improvement effected upon the negro's condition. Next as to time—it is certain that he should have half a day in the week, the Friday, to work his own provision-ground, beside Saturday to attend the market, and the Sabbath for rest and religious instruction. The Emancipation Act specifies forty-five hours as the number which he shall work weekly for his master. But these are now so distributed as to occupy the whole of Friday; and even in some cases to trench upon Saturday too. The planter also counts those hours invariably from the time when the negro having arrived at the place of work, begins his labour. But as it constantly happens that some at least of the negroes on an estate have several miles to walk from their cottages, all the time thus consumed in going and returning is wholly lost to the negro. Nay, it
1306
is lost to the master as well as the apprentice, and so long as he is not compelled to reckon it in the statutory allowance, it will continue a loss to both parties. For as no reason whatever can be assigned why the negro huts should be on the frontier of the plantation, only make the time, frequently as much at present as three or four hours a day, consumed in going and returning, count for part of the forty-five hours a week, and I'll answer for it all the negroes will be provided with cottages, near the place of their toil.
I come now to the great point of the justice administered to the people of colour. And here let me remind your Lordships how little that deserves the name of justice, which is administered wholly by one class, and that the dominant class, in a society composed of two races wholly distinct in origin and descent, whom the recollection of wrongs and sufferings have kept still more widely apart, and taught scarcely to regard each other as brethren of the same species. All judicial offices are filled by those whose feelings, passions, and interests are constantly giving them a bias towards one, and from the other, of the parties directly appearing before the judgment-seat. If to a great extent this is an unavoidable evil, surely you are bound, by every means possible, to prevent its receiving any unnecessary aggravation. Yet we do aggravate it by appointing to the place of judge natives of the colonies, and proprietors of estates. From the same privileged class are taken all who compose the juries, both in criminal and in civil cases, to assess damages for injuries done by whites to blacks—to find bills of indictment for crimes committed upon the latter class—to try those whom the Grand Jury presents—to try negroes charged with offences by their masters. Nay, all magistrates, gaolers, turnkeys—all concerned in working every part of the apparatus of jurisprudence, executive as well as administrative, are of one tribe alone. What is the consequence? It is proverbial that no bills are found for maltreatment, how gross soever, of the negroes. Six were preferred by a humane individual at one assize, and all flung out. Some were for manslaughter, others for murder. Assize after assize presents the same result. A wager was on one occasion offered, that not a single bill would be found that

1307
assize, and nobody was found to take it; prudent was the refusal proved by the result: for all the bills were ignored, without any exception. Now, your Lordships will observe, that in no one case could any evidence have been examined by those Grand Juries, except against the prisoner. In cases of murder sworn to, as plainly as the shining of the sun at noon-day tide, by witness after witness—still they said, "No Bill." Nay, they sometimes said so when only part of the witnesses for the prosecution had been heard, and refused to examine the others that were tendered.
The punishments inflicted are of monstrous severity. The law is wickedly harsh; its execution is committed to hands that exasperate that cruelty. For the vague, undefined undefinable offence of insolence, thirty-nine lashes: the same number for carrying a knife in the pocket; for cutting the shoot of a cane-plant, fifty lashes, or three months imprisonment in that most loathsome of all dungeons a West Indian gaol. There seems to have prevailed at all times among the lawgivers of the slave colonies a feeling, of which—I grieve to say, those of the mother country have partaken; that there is something in the nature of a slave—something in the disposition of the African race, something in the habits of those hapless victims of our crimes, our cruelties and frauds—which requires a peculiar harshness of treatment from their rulers, and makes what in other men's cases we call justice and mercy, cruelty to society and injustice to the law in theirs—inducing us to visit with the extremity of rigour in the African what if done by our own tribes would be slightly visited or not at all, as though there were in the negro nature something so obdurate that no punishment with which they can be punished would be too severe. Prodigious, portentous injustice! As if we had a right to blame any but ourselves for whatever there may be of harsh or cunning in our slaves—as if we were entitled to visit upon him that disposition were it obdurate, those habits were they insubordinate, those propensities were they dishonest, (all of which I deny them to be, and every day's experience justifies my denial), but were these charges as true as they are foully slanderous and absolutely false—is it for us to treat our victims harshly for failings or for faults with which our treatment of him has corrupted and perverted his
1308
nature, instead of taking to ourselves the blame—punishing ourselves at least with self-abasement, and atoning with deepest shame for having implanted vice in a pure soil? If some capricious despot were, in the career of ordinary tyranny, to tax his pampered fancy to produce something more monstrous, more unnatural than himself; were he to graft the thorn upon the vine, or place the dove among vultures to be reared—much as we might marvel at this freak of a perverted appetite, we should marvel still more if we saw tyranny exceed even its own measure of proverbial unreasonableness, and complain because the grape was not gathered from the thorn, or because the dove so trained had a thirst for blood. Yet this is the unnatural caprice—this the injustice—the gross, the foul, the outrageous, the monstrous, the incredible injustice of which we are daily and hourly guilty towards the whole of the ill-fated African race! My Lords, we fill up the measure of this injustice by executing laws wickedly conceived, in a yet more atrocious spirit of cruelty. Our whole punishments smell of blood. Let the treadmill stop, from the weary limbs and exhausted frame of the sufferers no longer having the power to press it down the requisite number of turns in a minute—the lash instantly resounds through the mansion of woe! Let the stone spread out to be broken, not crumble fast enough beneath the arms already scarred, flayed, and we and by the whip—again the scourge tears afresh the half-healed flesh! Within the last hour before I entered this House, I heard from an eye-witness of the fact as disgusting as it was appalling, that a leper among the prisoners was cut to pieces by stripes with the rest. And in passing let me here note the universal but cruel practice of placing the patients stricken with infectious diseases in hospitals, and in prisons among others, upon almost all private estates; and the no less unjust and exclusively West Indian practice of cruelly and stingily compelling the prisoners to go out daily and find their own food instead of the master supplying them in the gaol—a refinement of harshness and meanness not, I venture to assert, ever reached by the tyrant-master of the Siberian mines. But I was speaking of the public prison, and there as the leper had been scourged, so when a miserable wretch whose legs were one mass of ulcerated flesh from former

1309
inflictions, gave some offence to his taskmasters, he was on those limbs mangled anew by the merciless application of the lash. I have told you how the bills for murdering negroes were systematically thrown out by the grand juries. But you are not to imagine that bills are never found by those just men, even bills against whites. A person of this cast had, unable to bridle his indignation, roused by the hideous spectacle I have described (so disgusting, but that all other feelings are lost in pity for the victim and rage against his oppressor), repaired to the governor and informed him of what he had witnessed. Immediately the grand jury, instead of acknowledging his humane and, in a slave colony, his gallant conduct, found a bill against him, and presented him as a nuisance!
My Lords, I have had my attention directed within the last two hours to the new mass of papers laid on our table from the West Indies. The bulk I am averse to break; but a sample I have culled of its hateful contents. Eleven females were punished by severe flogging—and then put on the treadmill, where they were compelled to ply until exhausted nature could endure no more. When faint, and about to fall off, they were suspended by the arms in a manner that has been described to me by a most respectable eyewitness of similar scenes, but not so suspended as that the mechanism could revolve clear of their person; for the wheel at each turn bruised and galled their legs, till their sufferings had reached the pitch when life can no longer even glimmer in the socket of the weary frame. In the course of a few days these wretched beings languished, to use the language of our law—that law which is thus so constantly and systematically violated—and "languishing, died." Ask you if crimes like these, murderous in their legal nature as well as frightful in their aspect, passed unnoticed—if inquiry was neglected to be made respecting these deaths in a prison? No such thing! The forms of justice were on this head peremptory, even in the West Indies—and those forms, the handmaids of justice, were present, though their sacred mistress was far away, The coroner duly attended—his jury were regularly impannellud—eleven inquisitions were made in order—and eleven verdicts returned. Murder! manslaughter! misdemeanor! misconduct!
1310
No—but "Died by the visitation of God!"—Died by the visitation of God! A lie!—a perjury!—a blasphemy! The visitation of God! Yes, for it is among the most awful of those visitations by which the inscrutable purposes of his will are mysteriously accomplished, that he sometimes arms the wicked with power to oppress the guiltless; and if there be any visitation more dreadful than another—any which more tries the faith and vexes the reason of erring mortals, it is when Heaven showers down upon the earth the plague—not of scorpions, or pestilence, or famine, or war—but of unjust judges and perjured jurors—wretches who pervert the law to wreak their personal vengeance or compass their sordid ends, and forswear themselves on the gospels of God, to the end that injustice may prevail, and the innocent be destroyed!
Sed non immensum Spatiis confecimus æquor
Et jam tempus equis formantia soluere colla.
I hasten to a close. There remains little to add. It is, my Lords, with a view to prevent such enormities as I have feebly pictured before you, to correct the administration of justice, to secure the comforts of the negroes, to restrain the cruelty of the tormentors, to amend the discipline of the prisons, to arm the governors with local authority over the police; it is with these views that I have formed the first five of the resolutions now upon your table, intending they should take effect during the very short interval of a few months which must elapse before the sixth shall give complete liberty to the slave. I entirely concur in the observation of Mr. Burke, repeated and more happily expressed by Mr. Canning, that the masters of slaves are not to be trusted with making laws upon slavery; that nothing they do is ever found effectual; and that if by some miracle they ever chance to enact a wholesome regulation, it is always found to want what Mr. Burke calls "the executory principle;" it fails to execute itself. But experience has shewn that when the lawgivers of the colonies find you are firmly determined to do your duty, they anticipate you by doing theirs. Thus, when you announced the bill for amending the Emancipation Act, they outs trips you in Jamaica, and passed theirs before yours could reach them. Let then your resolutions only shew you to be in good earnest now, and I have no doubt a corresponding

1311
disposition will be evinced on the other side of the Atlantic. These improvements are, however, only to be regarded as temporary expedients—as mere palliatives of an enormous mischief, for which the only effectual remedy is that complete Emancipation which I have demonstrated by the unerring and incontrovertible evidence of facts, as well as the clearest deductions of reason, to be safe and practicable, and therefore proved to be our imperative duty at once to proclaim.
From the instant that glad sound is wafted across the ocean, what a blessed change begins; what an enchanting prospect unfolds itself! The African, placed on the same footing with other men, becomes in reality our fellow-citizen—to our feelings, as well as in his own nature our equal, our brother. No difference of origin or of colour can now prevail to keep the two castes apart. The negro, master of his own labour, only induced to lend his assistance if you make it his interest to help you, yet that aid being absolutely necessary to preserve your existence, becomes an essential portion of the community, nay, the very portion upon which the whole must lean for support. This ensures him all his rights; this makes it not only no longer possible to keep him in thraldom, but places him in a complete and intimate union with the whole mass of colonial society. Where the driver and the gaoler once bore sway, the lash resounds no more; nor does the clank of the chain any more fall upon the troubled ear; the fetter has ceased to gall the vexed limb, and the very mark disappears which for a while it had left. All races and colours run together the same glorious race of improvement. Peace unbroken, harmony uninterrupted, calm unruffled, reigns in mansion and in field—in the busy street, and the fertile valley, where nature, with the lavish hand she extends under the tropical sun, pours forth all her bounty profusely, because received in the lap of cheerful industry, not extorted by hands cramped with bonds. Delightful picture of general prosperity and social progress in all the arts of civility and refinement! But another form is near!—and I may not shut my eyes to that less auspicious vision! I do not deny that danger exists—I admit it not to be far distant from our path. I descry it, but not in the quarter to which West Indian eyes for ever turn. The planter, as usual,
1312
looks in the wrong direction. Averting his eyes from the real risk, he is ready to pay the price of his blindness, and rush upon his ruin. His interest tells him he is in jeopardy, but it is a false interest, and misleads him as to the nature of the risk he runs. They, who always dreaded Emancipation—who were alarmed at the prospect of negro indolence—who stood aghast at the vision of negro rebellion should the chains cease to rattle, or the lash to resound through the air—gathering no wisdom from the past, still persist in affrighting themselves and scaring you, with imaginary apprehensions from the transition to entire freedom out of the present intermediate state. But that intermediate state is the very source of all their real danger; and I disguise not its magnitude from myself. You have gone too far if you stop here and go no further; you are in imminent hazard if having loosened the fetters you do not strike them off—if leaving them ineffectual to restrain, you let them remain to gall, and to irritate, and to goad. Beware of that state, yet more unnatural than slavery itself—liberty bestowed by halves—the power of resistance given—the inducement to submission withheld—you have let the slave taste of the cup of freedom; while intoxicated with the draught beware how you dash the cup away from his lips. You have produced the progeny of liberty—see the prodigious hazard of swathing the limbs of the gigantic infant—you know not the might that may animate it. Have a care, I beseech you have a care, how you rouse the strength that slumbers in the sable peasant's arm! The children of ' Africa under the tropical sun of the West, with the prospect of a free Negro Republic in sight, will not suffer themselves to be tormented when they no longer can be controlled. The fire in St. Domingo is raging to windward, its sparks are borne on the breeze, and all the Charaibean sea is studded with the materials of explosion. Every tribe, every shade of the negro race will combine from the fiery Koromantin to the peaceful Eboe, and the ghastly shape of Colonial destruction meets the astonished eye—
"If shape it may be called that shape has none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance may be called that shadow seems
For each seems either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell!"
I turn away from the horrid vision that

1313
my eye may rest once more on the prospect of enduring empire, and peace founded upon freedom. I regard the freedom of the negro as accomplished and sure. Why? Because it is his right—because he has shown himself fit for it—because a pretext or a shadow of a pretext can no longer be devised for withholding that right from its possessor. I know that all men at this day take a part in the question, and they will no longer bear to be imposed upon now they are well informed. My reliance is firm and unflinching upon the great change which I have witnessed—the education of the people unfettered by party or by sect—witnessed from the beginning of its progress, I may say from the hour of its birth. Yes! It was not for a humble man like me to assist at royal births with the illustrious Prince who condescended to grace the pageant of this opening session, or the Great Captain and Statesman in whose presence I am now proud to speak. But with that illustrious Prince, and with the father of the Queen, I assisted at that other birth, more conspicuous still. With them, and with the head of the house of Russell, incomparably more illustrious in my eyes, I watched over its cradle—I marked its growth—I rejoiced in its strength—I witnessed its maturity—I have been spared to see it ascend the very height of supreme power; directing the councils of State; accelerating every great improvement; uniting itself with every good work; propping all useful institutions; extirpating abuses in all our institutions; passing the bounds of our European dominion, and in the New world, as in the Old, proclaiming that freedom is the birth-right of man—that distinction of colour gives no title to oppression—that the chains now loosened must be struck off, and even the marks they have left effaced—proclaiming this by the same eternal law of our nature which makes nations the masters of their own destiny, and which in Europe has caused every tyrant's throne to quake! But they need feel no alarm at the progress of light who defend a limited monarchy and support popular institutions—who place their chiefest pride not in ruling over slaves, be they white or be they black, not in protecting the oppressor, but in wearing a constitutional crown, in holding the sword of justice with the hand of mercy, in being the first citizen of a country whose air is too pure for slavery
1314
to breathe, and on whose shores, if the captive's foot but touch, his fetters of themselves fall off. To the resistless progress of this great principle I look with a confidence which nothing can shake; it makes all improvement certain; it makes all change safe which it produces; for none can be brought about, unless all has been prepared in a cautious and salutary spirit. So now the fulness of time is come for at length discharging our duty to the African captive. I have demonstrated to you that every thing is ordered—every previous step taken—all safe, by experience shown to be safe, for the long-desired consummation. The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking: you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faultering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years' blameless behaviour, and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant, aye or any Lord whom I now address. I demand his rights: I demand his liberty without stint. In the name of justice and of law—in the name of reason—in the name of God, who has given yon no right to work injustice—I demand that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave! I make my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England; and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for which they paid so enormous a price—that condition which all their constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled! I appeal to this House. Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world—to you I appeal for justice! Patrons of all the arts that humanise mankind—under your protection I place humanity herself! To the merciful Sovereign of a free people I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud—I ask that their cry may not have risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the throne of all justice, and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the curse hovering over the head of the unjust and the oppressor be averted from us—that your hearts may be turned to mercy—and that over all the earth His will may at length be done! The noble Lord concluded by the following motion:—
"That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, earnestly beseeching her Majesty

1315
to take immediate steps for negotiating with the Governments of Spain and Portugal, and obtaining the concurrence of the Governments of France and the United States in such negotiations, with a view to declare the trade in slaves piracy, wherever the same is carried on; and making those who carry it on liable to all the pains and consequences of piracy."
The noble and learned Lord also laid on their Lordships' Table the following resolutions:—
SLAVE TRADE.
"1. That it is the opinion of this House that the reward of persons engaged in suppressing the trade in slaves, by the payment to them of head-money, is highly inexpedient, and ought to be discontinued; and that in lieu thereof, there should be substituted a payment in proportion to the tonnage of the vessels employed, and the number of guns, and the crew on board the same.
"2. That it is expedient for the more effectual suppression of the trade in slaves, to employ a number of steam-vessels, under the command of the cruisers of her Majesty, and to issue to private individuals letters of marques, to enable them to fit out such vessels, but so as they place such vessels under the command of her Majesty's cruisers; and that the money paid by way of reward on the capture of any slave-trade vessel, as well as the proceeds of the sale of such vessel when condemned, be distributed among the crew of such private vessel, subject to the deduction of one-fourth part, which should be made payable to the officers and crew of the cruiser under whose command the private vessel may be."
SLAVERY.
"1. That it is expedient, with a view to carry into effect the intentions of the Act of 1833, that there should be such a distribution of the work and labour of the indentured apprentices as shall leave them the half of every Friday to themselves for working in their provision grounds, and the whole of every Saturday for attending the market.
"2. That it is expedient to declare all apprentices who at present are registered as non-predial, still non-predial on the 1st of August, 1838, notwithstanding any agreement between them and their masters, or any change of employment which they may have undergone, or may hereafter undergo, since the time of their registration.
"3. That all questions which may arise between apprentices and masters respecting their rights, after the 1st of August, 1838, shal be decided by the stipendiary magistrate of the district where the party complaining resides, without any appeal or other proceeding whatever.
"4. That no female apprentice shall, on any pretence, be flogged or otherwise punished by any infliction upon her person; and that, if any such punishment shall be inflicted, or if any punishment shall be inflicted which is to and to have been wrongfully inflicted by the
1316
authority of the master, such apprentice shall be immediately declared free from her apprenticeship; and that all complaints of such female apprentice, touching any punishment, shall be heard by the stipendiary magistrate of the district alone, and decided on by him without appeal.
"5. That it is expedient to vest in the governors of the several colonies the power of making such regulations respecting the gaols and respecting the police of the several colonies as they shall think fit, the same to have the force of laws until disallowed by her Majesty's Government; and that copies of the same shall be transmitted forthwith to her Majesty's Government.
"6. That it is expedient that the period of predial apprenticeship in all the colonies should cease and determine on the 1st day of August, 1838, and that until such time the foregoing regulations ought to be everywhere observed and enforced by law."
The Duke of Sutherlandfelt that he should not do justice to the numerous petitions he had presented on the subject of slavery if he neglected to avail himself of the opportunity which then presented itself of expressing his concurrence in their sentiments. Much had been done to abolish slavery, but much more still remained to be done. He was happy to think that the good example set by England continued to take effect, and that a strong desire existed on the part of other countries to follow it up. There was now every reason to hope, that the difficulties which suggested themselves at former times as to the proper opportunity for doing what should be done, would not be allowed to stand in the way any longer. Slavery was co-existent with human society; but, in no nation of the world, at no time, and among no people, had it been attended with circumstances of such barbarity as among those calling themselves Christians, in Christian countries. The admirable speech of the noble and learned Lord the other evening on the subject, could not be considered by any one acquainted with the circumstance as an exaggeration. Men, or rather monsters in human shape, for they were the vilest portion of the human kind, were found who encouraged the detestable traffic, and still called themselves Christians. These men should be made acquainted with the determination of the Legislature, and its intention to suppress their atrocities. He was greatly rejoiced that the noble and learned Lord had exerted his energies and high talents in such a cause as the present

1317
—they could not be more honorably employed, and he trusted that the result would be success.
Lord Glenelgsaid, that if his noble and learned Friend had expressed anxiety in approaching this subject, he might well be forgiven for stating the apprehension which he experienced in following the eloquent and comprehensive speech which they had heard. His noble and learned Friend had addressed them in a manner to excite the deepest feelings. No difference of opinion could exist in the House upon the propriety and humanity of the object which the noble Lord who had just spoken had in view; but whilst all were agreed in the one good object, there might be some doubts as to the best means to be adopted to attain it. His noble Friend, whose speech had done equal justice to his name and character, had truly described the slave trade to be the most iniquitous and debasing traffic which had ever been devised by man. This was an opinion in which the country had fully concurred; at least, since the period when the slave trade, as far as regarded this country, was abolished, in which abolition we sacrificed what appeared to us then to be our interests to the cause of justice and humanity. From that sacrifice, however, he believed we had experienced no hardship nor injury, but that, on the contrary, we had reaped advantage from it, not only in the more sordid sense of mercantile profit, but in the nobler and more enlarged sense of elevating the moral tone and feelings of the country. Since that period, this country had constantly directed its most earnest endeavours to the effectual suppression of this demoralising traffic; and with whatever degree of success or failure our labours might have been crowned, he could venture in his conscience, and before the world, to declare that this country had been guiltless of any participation in the slave trade. We had exerted every nerve to abolish it—we had succeeded in a great measure; we might have failed in some degree, but wherein we had succeeded we had the reward of a good conscience; and wherein we had failed we had still that trust, which always lies in a good cause, of eventual success. His noble Friend had that evening proposed an address, in the sentiments of which he had no doubt all their Lordships might cordially concur; but before he proceeded to speak of that address, he
1318
might be allowed to refer to the treaties which already existed between this country and foreign nations on the subject of the slave trade. He was well aware that after the eloquent speech which had just been delivered by his noble Friend, any such details must prove uninteresting to their Lordships, except in so far as all that concerned the honour of their country must be interesting to them. He thought it, therefore, advisable to consider exactly the position in which this country stood in respect to the other nations of Europe in this particular. He would venture to say, that at the close of the war, the one great object which this country had in view was, to unite the voice of all Europe in a compact to put down the slave trade. There might have been other objects kept in view at the Congress of Vienna, which for the moment might have seemed of more importance; but it was determined not to dissolve that Congress until the slave trade had been solemnly declared by the Representatives of all the great powers of Europe therein present, a crime accursed of God and man. This proposition was then affirmed; but although there existed, no doubt, strong prejudices on the part of many of the subjects of these powers against the abolition of the traffic, the question had progressively moved towards fulfillment; and he would now proceed to state how the nations of Europe had since acted in reference to the slave trade. At the time of the abolition of the slave trade by this country, the traffic was universal on the part of all the nations of Europe—Spain, Portugal, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and France. Let their Lordships see in what situation they now stood with regard to the slave trade. Look at Spain, which had been proverbial, for centuries, for protecting the slave trader under its flag. Spain entered into an engagement, he believed, in 1815, for the abolition of the slave trade, excepting only as related to the Spanish colonial possessions; and in 1817, she signed a convention, by which she engaged to abolish the trade entirely in 1820, A sum of 400,000 l was given to Spain in consideration of this convention; and by this convention, he believed, it was agreed to admit the right of a mixed commission, and a right of search within certain limits of the European shores of the Atlantic. Notwithstanding this convention, however, the Spanish flag still continued to be used for the protection of

1319
the slave trader; till, in 1823, a treaty was signed with Spain, by which she gave us not only the right of search, and of the mixed commission for the adjudication of captured vessels, but added two most important articles—namely, the equipment article, which empowered us to capture vessels if obviously fitted out for the slave trade, although not at the time actually laden with slaves; and the breaking-up article, by which a condemned vessel was to be broken up and its materials sold. It was further agreed, at the same time, that Spain should pass a law, declaring the slave trade to be a highly penal offence, with severe punishment attached to it. This law had not yet been enacted; but he trusted that, at no distant period, it would be. At the same time, he must say that the enactment of laws on this subject was not so great an object as the practical and effectual fulfillment of those already in force. He hoped Spain would pass the law which she had promised; but even if she did not, she had already given us the fullest means of enforcing the execution of the treaties which existed between her and this country on this subject. This object was completed by the treaty of 1836; since which time the Spanish flag had ceased to be used in the slave trade. There was another great country—France, which, even after the treaty of Vienna, continued to cover the slave trade with its flag, until it became the frequent subject of complaints in Parliament. In 1831–2, however, a convention was agreed to with France, whereby the latter power acceded to all the terms of the treaty with Spain, with one single exception; she acceded to the right of search, the equipment article, and the breaking-up article—to all the articles of the Spanish treaty, with the single exception of that of the mixed commission, which she objected to upon the principle of the French law, that no French subject should be tried except by a tribunal purely French. It was, therefore, required on the part of France that all French slave ships when seized should be transferred to some French tribunal for adjudication. Upon the same principle, also, it was found necessary that the British cruisers should be armed with an authority from the Admiralty of France to enable them to seize French slavers. With this authority our cruisers were, of course, provided; and the provision was reciprocal. With the exception of these
1320
particulars France had acceded to all the forms of the treaty he had already mentioned previously existing with Spain. Portugal also was one of the powers which, on the occasion of the congress at Vienna, pledged itself to the abolition of the slave trade, and bound itself by that treaty to determine, in concurrence with Great Britain, a fixed period at which the trade should be entirely abolished throughout the world, but, in the mean time, retained the right to pursue the trade as far as related to their transatlantic possessions. In return for this concurrence Great Britain assigned to Portugal an existing debt of 600,000 l., in addition to a sum of 300,000 l. previously given, making a total amount of 900,000 l. for this concession. Portugal, at the same time, pledged herself to enact a law condemning the slave trade under very severe penalties; that law was not passed till last year, when, besides the confiscation of the vessel employed, various other penalties were attached, according to the degree of the offence; but, as this law could only be executed by Portuguese authorities, it was in effect utterly powerless. Such was our situation with respect to Portugal, who, although she had not now one transatlantic possession, still claimed the right of continuing the slave trade under the protection of her flag. Various other states of Europe, as Naples, Sardinia, Tuscany, and others, had already acceded to the views of England on this subject; and Belgium, he hoped, would soon come forward to concur with the rest. With respect to three other great states of Europe, namely, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, they had been invited to accede to the terms of the treaty with France, and they had declared their perfect readiness to accede to a similar treaty. Such treaties had not yet been concluded, because the French treaty had one great defect, inasmuch as it restricted the right of search within too contracted limits, and a proposal had been made to France to enlarge them, and until the answer of that power upon this point was returned, which he hoped would be before long, the proposed treaties with these great powers would not be completed. But he repeated again, that the great object with this country by which she could hope to obtain the fulfillment of her humane decrees on this subject was to obtain effectual powers of execution, and to stimulate the moral sense and feeling

1321
of surrounding communities in favour of the abolition of this hateful traffic. There was a time when the bulk of the community in France were in favour of the rights of the slave trader, and no laws which could have been passed would have diminished the effect of that sympathy; but now the feeling was changed, and the sympathies of the French nation were directed to a better purpose. Though the provisions of our treaty with that country might, therefore, still be imperfect in details, it had been quite successful in point of fact. Holland, by a treaty with us in 1823, agreed to a treaty similar to that with Spain, comprising the mixed commission article and the equipment article, but, he believed, not the breaking-up article, which, however, had last year been conceded also; and the same had been also conceded by Sweden. Looking, therefore, at the treaty of Vienna, and what had since been clone in accordance with the principles there agreed to, he did not think that this country had been altogether idle, or unsuccessful in the suppression of the slave trade. With Spain, Holland, and Sweden, we had treaties complete in every particular; and with France a similar treaty, with the exception to which he had already alluded, but still all, as he imagined, were sufficient for the purpose in view; and, besides, all the other nations of Europe which he had named, with the exception of Portugal, were decidedly willing to lend their co-operation in the suppression of the slave trade. It was due not only to her Majesty's Ministers, but to previous Governments, to recollect these circumstances, and that they were arguing the question of the slave trade in a very different position to that which they were in respect to it, twenty years ago. Did he mean by this to say that they should cease their efforts? Far from it. The success which had already attended their' exertions in this good cause ought to animate them to fresh exertions, and he did not hesitate to assert, that one of the highest inducements which should urge them on to those efforts, was the improvement of the moral sense and feelings of the community at large. But how stood the case with regard to the New World? The United States had concurred in prohibiting the slave trade, but upon constitutional principles, refused to concede to our cruisers the right of search. Columbia and all the other neighbouring states had
1322
concurred in the general principle that the slave trade should be abolished, and treaties were in course of completion on the subject. Brazil, however, he regretted to state, had long resisted the abolition of this trade, though at an early period she had agreed to the same treaty as that signed by Portugal, with the articles for a mixed commission, and the right of search, and within a few years a more complete treaty had been in progress between this country and Brazil, similar to that with Spain, but it had not yet been ratified, and he feared the consent of the chambers would not be given for its ratification. Buenos Ayres had also recognised the impropriety of the slave trade, but had not conceded to us the power for its suppression. Upon a review of these details, he thought it might with confidence be said, that we had at least combined almost all the world in cordial concurrence with us in the suppression of this odious traffic. Such being the present state of the case, he would, beg to refer their Lordships to what was the state of the case in 1821, as detailed in an address to the Crown, agreed to by their Lordships in that year. The address represented to his Majesty:—
"That in the various documents relative to the slave trade which, by his Majesty's command, have been laid before the House, we find a renewed and most gratifying proof of the persevering solicitude with which his Majesty's Government has laboured to meet the wishes of this House, and of the nation at large, by effecting the entire and universal abolition of that guilty traffic. That we learn from them, however, with the deepest regret, that his Majesty's unwearied efforts to induce various powers to perform their own solemn engagements have not been more successful. That, notwithstanding the deliberate denunciation by which the slave trade was branded with infamy at the Congress of Vienna as a crime of the deepest die, and notwithstanding the solemn determination there expressed by all the great powers of Europe to put an end to so enormous an evil, nevertheless, that this trade is still carried on to an extent scarcely ever before surpassed, by the subjects, and even under the flags, of some of the very powers which were parties to those declarations. A dispatch of a more encouraging tenor, from his Majesty's Commissioner and the chief criminal judge at Sierra Leone, has indeed been very recently communicated to this House, but we have too much reason to fear that the hopes expressed in that communication are far too sanguine, and even the papers previously in our possession contain intelligence of a most painfully opposite nature. That the trade, faithful to its malig-

1323
nant character, is still productive of the same destructive effects as heretofore; nay, though in the conduct of this detested traffic every form of inhumanity might be supposed to have been already exhausted, yet of late it had been attended with unprecedented enormities. That we lament deeply our not having experienced the cordial co-operation which we might on every ground have so reasonably expected from the court of the Netherlands. We have witnessed, however, with great satisfaction, the strenuous and able exertions with which the King's Minister at that court has followed up the instructions of his Majesty's Government, in contending for the just construction of our treaties with that power. And we cannot but hope that commercial nation will feel the duty and necessity of adopting a policy more consonant at once to the principles of justice and humanity, and to the dearest obligations of good faith towards her most ancient and steady ally. That we have seen with extreme regret the slave trade carried on of late years by Spain to an extent before unparalleled; and also that the local government of the Havannah has shown an evident disposition to employ the means recently stipulated for its repression; but the time having at length arrived when Spain solemnly engaged that all Spanish slave trade should cease absolutely and for ever, that high-minded people, we cannot but feel confident, will prove faithful to their engagement, and will be induced cordially to unite with us in promoting the effectual and universal extinction of the trade by every civilised power. That we cannot contemplate the conduct of the court of Portugal, with respect to the slave trade, without the deepest concern. That court, indeed, though not calling in question the true nature and effects of the slave trade, forbore, even at Vienna, complying with the earnest request of all the other European powers, that she would name some fixed period for the termination of the trade. Even the treaty by which she engaged to abolish the slave trade to the north of the line has been little regarded; and to this day, though every form of in treaty has been exhausted by the great European powers, not the smallest hope is held out to us of the total abolition of the trade. Under these circumstances, we cannot but think that both Great Britain and the other powers assembled in Congress at Vienna, would not be faithful to their high obligations and engagements if they were any longer to rest satisfied with mere in treaties and remonstrances, which experience compels us to believe would be of no effect; and we are necessarily led to revert to the suggestion which was countenanced by the high contracting powers at the negotiation at Vienna, of excluding from commercial intercourse with their respective dominions any state which should pertinaciously refuse to abolish the slave trade, after it should have been prohibited by all other nations. We are impelled, however, reluctantly to intreat his
1324
Majesty to endeavour to induce those powers to carry the above suggestion into effect, and at least to prohibit the importation into their dominions of the produce of any colonies belonging to the Crown of Portugal, so long as she shall continue thus to set herself indirect opposition to the moral feelings and concurrent wishes of all Christian powers, and to defeat every hope of the civilization and improvement of Africa. That we contemplate with far different feelings the conduct of the United Slates of America; not only have their cruisers been actively employed, in co-operation with our own, in suppressing the slave trade on the coast of Africa, but an act has been passed by Congress which places the slave trade in the list of piracies and subjects to capital punishment all citizens of the United States who shall be found to engage in it; that in witnessing the conduct of the Legislature of the United States on this occasion, we are led to reflect with grateful exultation On our common origin, and on those common laws and institutions, whose liberal spirit has prompted our American brethren to be among the very foremost in thus stamping on a traffic in the persons of our fellow-creatures its just character and designation. And we cannot but express our earnest hopes, that not only we ourselves shall speedily follow so honourable an example, but that the day is not far distant when, by the general concurrence of all civilised nations this detestable traffic shall be pronounced to be piratical, to be an offence against all human kind, which all are entitled and bound by duty to suppress. That from the gratifying contemplation of the zeal manifested by the United States to promote the cause of humanity, we turn with feelings of the most painful disappointment to France, by some of whose subjects the slave trade has been for some time carried on to an unprecedented extent along the whole range of the western coast of Africa, and whose flag not only protects her own subjects in their criminal enterprises, but serves to protect the subjects also of other powers who engage in this commerce, but who are prevented by the vigilance of British cruisers from finding any shelter under the flags of their own countries. That we are bound by every consideration of duty and feeling to take an especial interest in the fate of those countries, now possessed by France on the African continent, which were restored to her dominion by Great Britain. And we cannot reflect without the deepest pain, that whereas, while tinder our protection, they not only enjoyed a temporary respite from their miseries, but were beginning to enjoy the security and comfort arising from the exercise of a peaceful industry, and of a legitimate commerce; the renewal of the slave trade, which almost immediately followed their cession to France, has utterly blasted these delightful prospects, and has again consigned those unhappy countries to rapine and anarchy to barrenness and desolation."

1325
It appeared from this, that in 1821 this House addressed his Majesty to complain that Spain, Portugal, France, and Holland had failed of fulfilling the engagements which they had made at the congress of Vienna to co-operate with this country in the suppression of the slave trade. Of these four powers three were no longer liable to the stigma of bad faith, but, on the contrary, had cordially co-operated in this laudable object. Portugal yet remained a defaulter in her engagements; it might be a question whether it might not be proper to press upon that power the fulfillment of her engagements. They might certainly move an address to the Crown praying that an attempt should be made to induce France and the United States to co-operate with a view to inducing Portugal to fulfill her engagements. But what success could he expect from such a proceeding? He feared that such an appeal to France and the United States could not prove successful. Again with respect to Spain. The object of the resolutions proposed by the noble Lord was to induce France to join in inducing Spain and Portugal to condemn to capital punishment all who engaged in this traffic; but might it not naturally be apprehended that France, who in her treaty with this country would not allow her subjects to be punished for that which she admitted to be a crime by any other tribunals than her own, might feel some jealousy of interfering on this subject with another state. What would be the result of this appeal of his noble and learned Friend, and what would France say in answer to it? She might ask Spain to establish a law similar to the law of France in that country, and she might require that Spanish slave traders should be brought to Spain to be tried by such a law. This could be the only practical result of the address moved by his noble and learned Friend. But Spain had already engaged to pass such a law, and Portugal had actually passed such a law; and, therefore, all that France could do would be simply to ask Spain to establish such a law as Spain had already promised to establish, and such a law as Portugal had already passed. They could not ask France or the United States to call upon Spain and Portugal to pass a law which they themselves refused to accede to, and which, therefore, they could not press upon equally independent nations. He
1326
must say, then, that he thought the address moved by his noble and learned Friend would lead to no practical result. It was important, however, that the feeling of that House should be recognised on this great subject. It was of importance that they should show that they had the virtue to be moved on this great subject; and that they should show that they knew what was meant by the faith of treaties, and of justice, and humanity. He, therefore, was not willing to let the opportunity escape without recording the sentiments of the House of Lords of Great Britain: and he would propose to their Lordships, instead of the address moved by his noble and learned Friend, and to which with great respect to his noble and learned Friend, he had stated his objections, he would propose, in place of that address, that their Lordships would be pleased to accept an address which he would venture to offer, and which embodied as he hoped and believed the feelings and expectations of their Lordships. The address he would propose was as follows:—That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, to assure her Majesty that this House continues to feel the deepest and most intense anxiety for the entire abolition throughout the world of the nefarious traffic in slaves; to state that this House has seen with great satisfaction that an additional treaty has been concluded between this country and Spain, well calculated to put an end to the slave trade under the Spanish flag; but that this House is deeply concerned that no such additional treaty has yet been agreed to by Portugal, as the flag of Portugal is now extensively used to cover and protect this iniquitous traffic; that this House, adverting to the obligation contracted towards this country by Portugal finally and generally to abolish its slave trade, and recollecting moreover the ample pecuniary compensation made by this country as a consideration for that engagement, is of opinion that the Government of Portugal is bound in good faith to consent without further delay to such additional stipulations as may be found necessary for the complete fulfilment of its said engagement. This was the address which he proposed to move. He begged now to advert to the resolutions of his noble and learned Friend. The first resolution was as follows:—
"That it is the opinion of this House that

1327
the reward of persons engaged in suppressing the trade in slaves, by the payment to them of head-money, is highly inexpedient, and ought to be discontinued; and that in lieu thereof there should be substituted a payment in proportion to the tonnage of vessels employed, and the number of guns and of the crew on board the same."
On a former occasion he mentioned that he was entirely consonant with the opinion of her Majesty's Government that a bounty should be granted in proportion to the amount of the tonnage of the captured slaver. But what was the state of the case at present? When a slaver was taken with slaves on board, the captors received 51. per head, and also certain compensation upon the breaking up of the captured vessel. When a slaver was taken without slaves on board, then the captors received some compensation on the breaking up of the vessel and also upon the cargo found in her at the time of her capture. The total amount, however, was inferior where there were no slaves on board than where there were slaves. The noble and learned Lord proposed that the practice of head-money should be altogether discontinued; and in lieu of this he submitted that a certain sum should be given according to the tonnage of the vessel captured; and the argument which the noble and learned Lord adduced in support of the proposition was, that the captors were not so ready to capture vessels without slaves as when they had slaves on board. His noble and learned Friend, of course, used this argument with reference to general principles, and not to particular instances. He did not imagine that his noble and learned Friend for a moment intended to cast any reflections on the brave and gallant officers who commanded our cruisers. He took it for granted, that his noble and, learned Friend, looking at this question in the ordinary mode of ordinary men, was of opinion that head-money ought to be discontinued. He must take the liberty of differing from the noble and learned Lord in his view of this part of his proposition. There was at present a certain sum annexed to the tonnage of the captured vessels, and it had been some time under the consideration of her Majesty's Government, and his noble Friend near him had, if he was not mistaken, a Bill at that moment in progress for the purpose of increasing the amount given to the
1328
captors of a vessel without slaves on board. That this sum ought to be increased he was ready to concede. But he very much doubted the propriety, either on the score of policy or humanity, of the entirely taking away head-money. He would take that opportunity of stating that he never had observed, or knew it observed, that on the subject of the slave-trade his noble and learned Friend had been guilty of the least exaggeration. On the contrary, on the evening when his noble and learned Friend first alluded to this subject, he had stated, that his noble and learned Friend's statement was not exaggerated. It was, indeed, hardly possible for the mind of man to conceive the horrors of some of those slave vessels. It was hardly possible to conceive the revolting nature of the duties imposed on those officers who were compelled, in the prosecution of the philanthropic views of the country, to board one of those vessels. It was a duty from which the common feelings of unrefined nature shrunk, and how much more so the honourable and high-minded men who were employed in putting down this most nefarious traffic. If there was any one thing that absolutely repelled the exertions of humanity, that from its iniquitous, detestable, and disgusting character, repelled common and ordinary motives of humanity, it was the exhibition which one of these slavers presented at the time when captured by a cruiser. There was no doubt but that the negroes were treated with humanity by her Majesty's vessels, but they could not be instantly relieved. The captors were compelled to enter the vessel loaded with its unfortunate victims, they were compelled to witness scenes at which the heart shuddered, and they were compelled to carry the vessel into port, exposed themselves to all the horrors of pestilence. Let their Lordships not, therefore, take away any inducements, even the commonest and the lowest, which could incite men to undergo these hazards. In order to avoid one extreme, let them not rush into another, and in their anxiety to prevent a possible abuse on the one hand, let them not involve themselves in a course of proceeding which would be injurious to the feelings of humanity and justice. For these reasons he certainly could not agree to the proposition of his noble and learned Friend to discontinue head-money altogether. The next resolu-

1329
tion of his noble and learned Friend was as follows:—
"That it is expedient, for the more effectual suppression of the trade in slaves, to employ a number of steam-vessels under the command of the cruisers of her Majesty, and to issue to private individuals letters of marquee, to enable them to fit out such vessels, but so as they place such vessels under the command of her Majesty's cruisers; and that the money paid by way of reward on the capture of any slave-trade vessel, as well as the proceeds of the sale of such vessel when condemned, be distributed among the crew of such private vessel, subject to a deduction of one-fourth part, which should be made payable to the officers and crew of the cruiser under whose command the private vessel may be."
Whether any measures of that nature could be adopted was a subject which deserved the attention of his noble Friend (Lord Minto) at the head of the Admiralty, and one 'which no doubt would engage his noble Friend's attention; but he (Lord Glenelg) begged to repeat an observation which he had before made, that the real difficulty in this case did not arise so much from the want of vessels, as from the want of the right of search, and the want of jurisdiction on every part of the coast. That was the real source of our inability to suppress the trade, and the difficulty was caused by Portugal refusing to concede the right of search. As to granting to private individuals letters of marque, it was a proposition which might and indeed must be attended with serious difficulty. He had no doubt that many of those who would fit out vessels would engage most zealously in the cause; but, arguing from the principles of our common nature, was it unlikely that there would be others of them, masters of those small vessels thus swarming on the coast, who would be liable to the suspicion of in some degree giving way to the temptations that surrounded them.
Lord Brougham: They would be under the command of her Majesty's cruisers.
Lord Glenelg: Yes, but could the cruisers continually have their eyes on those small vessels? It might happen that in some, if not in many, instances the temptations towards putting down the slave-trade might give way to the temptations of keeping it up. He for one had not such a degree of confidence as his noble and learned Friend in the masters of small vessels with letters of marque, and he was afraid that the proposition of
1330
the noble and learned Lord would have the effect rather of aggravating than of removing the evil. But more than this, it was impossible to accede to the proposition of his noble and learned Friend, and at the same time adhere to the treaties which had been contracted with the powers to which he had alluded. It was expressly stipulated in them that the vessels employed in putting down the slave trade should be of the royal navy. If anything could shake the faith of other nations in these treaties, and throw doubt and suspicion upon the object which the country had in view, as well as difficulty in the attainment of that object, he thought it would be by acceding to and acting on the proposition of his noble and learned Friend. And, moreover, if the country did act upon the noble and learned Lord's suggestion, what was to prevent other countries from following the example? If they conceded this privilege to their own people, what was to prevent Spain, France, and Portugal from granting letters of marque also? and he would ask whether this would advance the great object they had in view? But more than this, one of the stipulations of the treaties to which he had alluded was, that the nation to which the cruiser belonged should be answerable for any wrong which the cruiser should commit, and should indemnify the injured parties. What, then, would be the consequence of giving these small vessels letters of marque? Perpetual questions regarding national interests would arise out of the conduct of the masters of these vessels—questions which would involve national discussions, and of which they could not possibly anticipate the consequences. He must, hope, therefore, that this resolution of his noble and learned Friend would not meet with the approbation of their Lordships. He regretted to be obliged to trespass at such length on their Lordships' attention. The object which the Government had in view coincided with that of his noble and learned Friend; but with respect to the address, and two first resolutions of his noble and learned Friend, he had stated the reasons why it was impossible for him to accede to them. Having done this, he would now proceed to a most important and interesting subject; namely, the subject of apprenticeship in the West Indies. He did not know that it was necessary on this subject

1331
to trespass upon the attention of the House at any length: but the resolutions his noble and learned Friend had placed on the table of the House, obliged him to state generally what were the views of her Majesty's Government respecting them, and also what were his views respecting the subject to which they related. He certainly agreed with his noble and learned Friend, that it was not true that the slate of apprenticeship was worse than the previous state of slavery. He agreed with his noble and learned Friend that the apprentices had on the whole been gainers by the change that had taken place in their situation. He believed that that change had been much more advantageous than his noble and learned Friend seemed to suppose, and that although there had been abuses and difficulties, and although evils had arisen of a serious nature, still he thought that the negro population of the West Indies had much benefited by the change that had taken place in their condition. This, he believed, was in general the case with all the slaves. It had been frequently observed by those who had visited the colonies since the Abolition Act came into force, that there had been a decided improvement in the manners and appearance of the negroes; and even in Jamaica, which was most obnoxious to the observations of his noble and learned Friend, the reports that had been laid on the table of the House, and observations of visitors, proved that a great change for the better had taken place in the condition of the negro. He had, perhaps, more op port unities than many of their Lordships of inquiring on the subject: he had received reports from all parties and of all descriptions, and he was satisfied that there had been a great improvement in the character and demeanour of the negro population. But did he deny that any grievances were inflicted on the negro population? Did he say that his noble and learned Friend had in any instance exaggerated his representations? No such thing. He was deeply grieved to admit that evils of a very serious nature did still prevail, and he regretted to say, that those evils were still more deeply felt in Jamaica. It was no pleasing task to make this declaration. It was with the deepest pain he did so; and in the situation which he had the honour to hold, he should feel that he ought to avoid, if possible, making a declaration which his duty com-
1332
pelled him to make. The complaints respecting the state of the other colonies were not so numerous or considerable as those respecting Jamaica. He must allow, with respect to the latter colony, that many evils existed which might be made the grounds for claiming the abolition of the apprenticeship system. He was aware that the negro race had shown great patience, docility, and forbearance in the state of transition in which they had been placed; he was aware that they had displayed much calmness, mingled with gratitude to the Supreme Being and to this country; he admitted also, that the negro was willing to work for wages, although this point was disputed; but, in his opinion, all these did not furnish a sufficient reason for abolishing apprenticeship. What were the reasons for its establishment? They acknowledged the right of the slave to freedom, but they continued him in a state of apprenticeship, partly with reference to the interest of the apprentice, and partly with reference to the interest of the planter; for the interest of the apprentice, because he was not prepared for sudden freedom, and the interest of the planter required it in order that he might not suddenly be left deprived of all assistance in the cultivation of his estates. It was hoped and believed that the interval would be assiduously employed in allaying and reconciling former animosities, and in originating feelings of mutual kindness. These reasons still continue. It should also be recollected that for a period of six years the planter was assured, on the faith of Parliament, of the labour of the negroes on his estate. So long, therefore, as they secured to the apprentices that protection which was due to them, so long had they no right to call upon the planter to release his apprentices. But independently of these considerations, he believed that the sudden emancipation of the negroes would be far from being of that advantage to the parties themselves which those who demanded it looked for. He believed that the very agitation of the subject would produce excitement, irritation, and disturbance throughout every district. It would lead to vain expectations on the one side, and it would keep up a spirit of animosity and antipathy on the other, and, in fine, it would revive all the elements of discord between the two parties. Such an experiment

1333
as that proposed by his noble and learned Friend would in his opinion, be dangerous to the peace of the country; it would be dangerous to the proprietors of colonial property, and it would be dangerous to the very people whose interest his noble and learned Friend was desirous to protect. He would ask, was it true that the situation of the apprentices was in any way inferior to that of the slave? Many circumstances might be stated to prove the contrary, but he would not trespass with any long details; he must, however, allude to some of them. One of the great purposes of the Abolition Act, was to appoint magistrates especially to protect the slaves. Magistrates had been appointed, but how had they been received, and how had they executed their duties? In many instances they had performed their duties, but, in Jamaica, especially, the magistrates had been most improperly interfered with. A system of gradual annoyance had been practised, not of a nature to be openly and publicly noticed, but still quite sufficient to defeat the purpose for which they were appointed. Every advantage had been taken of technical distinctions of the law to interfere with the course of the magistracy. It was a fact, that though it had been intended that these magistrates should have free access to every part of an estate where an apprentice could be oppressed, they had been carefully debarred from that liberty. Various devices had been resorted to in order to baffle their exertions to discharge their duty, and the administration of justice had been thwarted and impeded in every possible way. It was true also, that in many cases, apprentices had been condemned to workhouses or houses of correction, placed under local laws for apprentice offences, or offences affecting the interest of his employers. For every inconsiderable offence of this kind, the apprentice was committed to a workhouse; he was removed from the protection of British law, and from that moment the admission of special magistrates was carefully prevented. He would mot enter into more sad scenes to which his noble Friend had alluded, as occurring in these workhouses—scenes on which it was impossible for the mind to dwell without horror. He had felt it, his duty, however, to take particular notice of a pamphlet published last summed by James Williams, apprentice, Jamaica, which he thought it likely might
1334
have met the eye of many of their Lord ships. He had sent particular directions to the Governor to set on foot a thorough investigation of his case, and he regretted to say, that too much foundation existed for the statements made in that pamphlet, the truth of which he could hardly have believed. The reports of the Commissioners who had conducted the inquiry, would be laid on the table shortly, when their Lordships would have an opportunity of judging for themselves. Many facts had been elicited regarding these workhouses in the course of the examination before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which proved that the most horrid cruelties were perpetrated in them, and presented a most disgusting picture of West Indian punishment. He had, accordingly thought it necessary to send out Captain Pringle last autumn, to inspect those workhouses, in order to ascertain the means best adapted to improve them, and to effect a thorough reform in the system. That gentleman had been frequently before employed on missions of this description, and his report would be presented in April, when Government would be ready to give effect to the suggestions contained in it. Many allowances and indulgencies enjoyed by the slaves under the old system, had, he was sorry to say, been refused to the apprentices by the planters. It was usual formerly to allow a mother to attend any of her children when dangerously ill, and not to require her to make up the time so employed. Mothers who had six children and aged persons were not formerly expected to work in the fields. He regretted to have to slate that these customs had been discontinued; and now a mother was refused permission to see any of her children, even though in a dying slate, and old age was exposed to the same hardship as the confirmed strength of manhood. He did not mean to include in the censure which such conduct deserved, the high-minded and respectable part of the West Indian proprietors, some of whom adorned their Lordships' House, who he knew were distinguished for parental kindness to the population of their estates, and who disdained such mean and contemptible attempts to disturb the working of the apprenticeship system. There were, however, many who were swayed by these antipathies of former times, who could not vanquish the feelings which formerly guided them,

1335
when in the possession of absolute power, and the House of Assembly at Jamaica had proved that it was too open to such influences. It was a common practice formerly, to allow the food of the apprentices to be brought to them in the field where they were at work, and persons supplied them with water during the hours of labour. These indulgences were, however, in many cases, completely abrogated; and the apprentices had to spend the hour which was allowed them for their meals in procuring and cooking their food. There was another hardship alluded to by his noble Friend very much affecting the condition of these unfortunate persons—the distribution of their hours of labour. In Jamaica, very great discontent had been produced, by forcing the eight hours' system on the negroes. The nine hours' system had allowed them half a holyday on Friday and Saturday, but the eight hours' system left them only the refuse of the day for raising their own provisions. Another subject of complaint was, that the final manumission of the apprentices was delayed by the high price set on their freedom. The classification of the apprentices was another grievance of great magnitude. The apprentices were divided by the Abolition Act into non-prædial, and prædial, the first division of whom were to be set free on the 1st of August 1838, the other on the 1st of August, 1840. It was thus a matter of considerable importance that the negroes should be correctly classified. In most of the colonies, laws had been passed regulating the manner in which they were to be arranged. These laws varied much in their enactments, and in some colonies the negroes had not been consulted on the subject. In Jamaica no classification law had been passed till last year, and then it was of such a nature that the Government of this country had been obliged to disallow it. He could not doubt that another bill, making provision for effecting those arrangements would be introduced—he hoped in time to perfect the classification before the arrival of the time for the manumission of the non-prædial apprentices, which was fast approaching. Such were the grievances of which the apprentices complained, and the question naturally arose whether a fair opportunity had been afforded to the local assembly to redress them. He had, all along, been convinced that the true course was, to obtain from
1336
the local government the correction of those grievances. In order to the attainment of one great end proposed by the Emancipation Act, the conciliation of the negroes, it was of paramount importance that the conduct of the local governments, and particularly the local assemblies, towards them, should be marked by kindness and forbearance. This was a principle to which he thought they would assent on its first enunciation, and it would recommend itself the more deeply to their conviction the more they considered the consequences that might ensue from disregarding it. Efforts had been made to induce the local assembly to correct these grievances, and a noble Friend beside him, (the Marquess of Sligo, we believe) had exerted himself much for the same purpose; but those efforts had been rejected. He had to observe that one mode adopted of annoying the magistrates was by prosecutions and actions at law against them. If a magistrate were considered to act in a manner contrary to the interests of a particular planter, he was instantly threatened with a prosecution, and thus by proceedings of this nature men were deterred from the rigid and exact performance of their duty. Where magistrates had been so treated, and were condemned with costs, the country had indemnified such magistrates. Thus these magistrates were not permitted to suffer any pecuniary loss. But what indemnity was this to such gentlemen for all the care, the trouble, the anxiety, and, it might be even added, the partial loss of character thus entailed upon them? They were held up as objects of odium to men of their own character and creed; the courts of justice were closed against them, and the proprietors were triumphant. In this latter sense, at least they could not be indemnified. Now, the Assemblies had been called upon to redress these grievances. Another mode of annoyance adopted was, that where there was a very zealous magistrate he was summoned to the House of Assembly, and called upon to give evidence before a Committee. Upon his arrival the Committee was not found sitting; he was thus then detained from his duties; several weeks passed away; the Committee never sat. This, then, was another mode of exposing a magistrate to vexation and contempt. His noble Friend (the Marquess of Sligo) had appealed to the House of Assembly upon this and

1337
many other grievances. Sir Lionel Smith had sent a message to the House of Assembly recommending to them the consideration of many such grievances. The message was sent on the 2nd of November; it was referred to a Committee. The House sat until December, and then it adjourned at an unusual time, until February, and not a single topic recommended to its notice had been taken into consideration. Whatever pain he felt in alluding to these circumstances, he begged to say, that the Government was prepared to take measures to correct evils which were so glaring; and however reluctant he might have been to appeal to Parliament, or to recommend its interference with the local assemblies, yet he never disguised from any person, that cases might arise in which the Government would be bound to appeal to the Parliament of England from the local assemblies. Two years ago he had been obliged to introduce a Bill, which ought to have been passed by the local assemblies. In the few observations that he had there made he had stated, that the subject of slavery in all its parts, and that apprenticeships were reserved as sacred for the cognizance of Parliament. He had stated, that he relied on the local assemblies to carry the Act into effect; but that Parliament would never permit the Act to be defeated by the local assemblies. The Act that he then introduced was, he believed, passed without any opposition. He had then repeatedly stated, that it was the intention of the Government to appeal finally to Parliament. This, too, he had stated to parties who had addressed him, and recommended the immediate abolition of apprenticeship, and who in addressing him had referred to the grievances to which he had alluded. He had stated to them, that though the Government would not recommend the immediate abolition, yet that it would have no hesitation, if it were necessary for it, to appeal to Parliament to redress the grievances of the apprenticeship population. Now, it was necessary for him to say, that though they had nothing to hope for from the local assemblies of the colonies, yet he trusted, that they had everything to hope for from Parliament. He intended to introduce a measure to meet the evils to which he had referred. With respect to the workhouse system, he had stated, that Captain Pringle had been sent out for the purpose
1338
of reporting what measures were required, and what alterations ought to be made. Before they passed a law upon that measure it would be necessary for them to have the Report before them; but supposing they had a law regulating the workhouse system, yet it was his opinion that it ought not to be mixed up with the Act relating only to apprentices; for a law relating to workhouses must be a permanent measure, and therefore not connected with that which must be of a temporary nature. He should propose a measure which was intended to redress the grievances of apprentices; but with respect to the workhouse system, though the law regulating it was intended to be permanent, yet the apprentices would, between this and the intermediate time of their emancipation, have the advantage of the protection of inspectors, and the means secured to them for the redress of any wrong done to them. He should propose, that all the places in which apprentices were employed, all places which were intended for the purpose of concealment, should be laid open—that the workhouses, the houses of correction, "the hot-houses," as they were called, should be laid open—the Act should give to the magistrates the right to inspect all such places. It was further intended to be proposed, that the Governor should be authorised to declare by proclamation the arrangement of the hours for the employment of the apprentices, and in such manner as he should think proper. With respect to the allowances and the indulgences that were permitted in a state of slavery, but denied to them as apprentices, the Governor was to enforce the concession of these indulgences. Then, with respect to the manumission, he thought it might be proper to enable them to introduce into Jamaica the same system which they had in the Crown colonies with respect to the tribunals before whom the manumission was to be judged. There was further this evil to be provided against, which had been inflicted upon the slave apprentices, and their protectors the stipendiary magistrates. It was intended to provide, that the Governor should have, when prosecutions were commenced against the magistrates, the power and the discretion, exercised with the advice of those whom he should feel it to be his duty to consult, where he saw such legal measures were taken against magistrates for the purpose

1339
of inflicting upon them anxiety, injury, and delay, that in such cases he should have the power of arresting the progress of such prosecutions, In those cases where magistrates had been subject to a heavy penalty, it had been left to the discretion of the Governor to see whether there was a case in which the Government ought to indemnify the person proceeded against; the advice of counsel was taken to know whether it was a case in which the Government ought to repay the expenses. The Governor could act in the same manner when legal prosecutions were instituted. This proposition, he thought, would be a very great improvement for the purpose of removing that which was used as an instrument of terror towards the magistrates. He thought, too, that some measure ought to be adopted to provide that, previously to the day on which non-predial apprentices were to be emancipated, that measures should be taken to secure that all such apprentices should have the full opportunity of knowing what was the real state of the case, to make them cognizant of their rights, so that they might be able to plead their own cause. Care, too, should be taken to have an impartial revision of the classification lists. This should be looked to especially with respect to Jamaica. If the classification were proper, then the task to be performed would be a satisfactory one; but, if it were not, then the Governor ought to have the power of adopting the classification applied in the crown colonies, and this, too, without the necessity of referring home. By giving a power to the special magistrates of obtaining admission into all the dens and secret places where apprentices were to be found, a valuable check would be afforded for preventing the practice of cruelty. Further than this, it should be provided, that, when the Governor was satisfied, upon good authority, that the apprentice had been suffering injury, which was the result of cruelty, passion, and injustice, then the Governor, of his own authority, and at his own discretion, could free that person immediately. This, he was sure, would be considered by their Lordships a measure that would have a very material effect. It would at once put an end to that fatal and horrible practice, the flogging of females in those places for penalties incurred on the failure of apprenticeship duties, and which failings had so
1340
frequently been made the false pretext of vengeance to gratify evil passions, because the person punished was not a slave. The penalty he proposed for cruelty would, he was sure, be dreaded by fraud and tyranny, and it would, he was sure, be found as a shield to throw over the slave. With respect to the circumstances connected with the state of slavery and of apprenticeship, there was nothing more revolting to his mind, nothing had produced a greater impression upon the people of this country, than the application of the lash. It was a system degrading in every respect; it was a system so horrible, that if they abolished slavery, and yet left the power of continuing the lash for apprenticeship offences in a single case, they still left such the actual victims of slavery. The act of abolition forbade females being lashed for apprenticeship offences. That provision, he regretted to tell their Lord ships, had been set at defiance; it had been scorned and contemned by the injustice and the revenge of the former masters of those unhappy slaves. The ingenuity of man had been exercised for the purpose of inflicting tortures upon his fellow creatures. And who did their Lord ships suppose had been selected for the purpose of inflicting cruelty in the houses of correction? Why the class of men selected were the very class that ought not to be chosen—they were convicts for life—men dead to all sense of honour or feeling, and of humanity; these were the men who did not refuse to apply the lash to females, who entered into a vile combination with their employers to glut the evil passions of both. They who indulged the aspirations of vengeance were men lost to all thoughts of happiness, of hope, and of respect for themselves. In spite of the law, females had the lash applied to them for apprenticeship offences. This was a stain upon the Legislature. He admitted it: and hence, he said, they might trace the fatal course of a bad system; for even when they abandoned the same system, yet they were not able to abandon the dreadful consequences which resulted from it. When an evil system was once adopted dishonour and disgrace attended upon it. It was left by them as a fatal warning to other nations; for it apprised them that the bad which was done in the moment of triumph and success would live after it, and that its evil consequences would remain. It was vain to expect, that, in a

1341
short time, the mischief would pass away, or that, when they had abolished the evil, its consequences could instantly be abolished. The passions and the desperate resentments which had arisen in the progress of the system, would compel them still to adhere to desperate resources. Thus it was, that the punishment of the lash had not been at once abolished. They were compelled to use the whip with apprentices, because the whip had been the badge of slavery itself. He believed their Lordships would agree with him in thinking, that the time was now coming when the punishment might be safely abolished. In many parts of the West Indies—in the Bahamas, for instance—there had been scarcely any flogging for some months; there was literally none, except two instances which had recently happened. In all the West India islands, in Guiana, the punishment was scarcely known amongst the numerous planters. Then he thought that they ought to take a fixed period in which the punishment of all flogging for apprenticeship offences should be extinguished. Therefore it was, that he intended to propose a measure by which it should be provided that, after a given period, no crime—that is, no apprenticeship crime—should be subjected to the punishment of the lash. These were the general provisions of the measure he intended to introduce. He might enlarge upon them at greater length; but that was not the place, nor, perhaps, the exact occasion, for urging them. He trusted, however, the period had at last arrived in which the local assemblies would feel that they ought to assist the authority of Parliament. The noble Lord concluded by declaring, that he should give his vote against the resolutions proposed by the noble and learned Lord.
The Duke of Wellingtonsaid, he had paid the greatest attention to the statement made by the noble and learned Lord, as well upon the former as upon the present night, with respect to this subject. He did not come exactly to the same conclusion as that at which the noble and learned Lord had arrived, nor did he concur with the objects which the noble and learned Lord had in view. He had, too, paid the greatest attention to the statement of the noble Baron, and he agreed entirely with the noble Baron in the statement that from the period that the abolition of the slave trade had been deter-
1342
mined upon the utmost efforts had been made by all the Governments of this country, and most particularly from the year 1814, to carry that abolition into effect. He had himself been employed at the different congresses from 1815, and at all of them he had co-operated with his noble Friend Lord Castlereagh in carrying into execution what was the desire of this country. He agreed with the noble Baron in what he had stated with respect to all the details; but unfortunately it happened that they had the strongest prejudices to contend against, both with respect to obtaining the measures they required, and the interests of the countries under the government of their allies. But until the years 1819, 1820, and 1821, no great progress had been made in the negotiation of treaties to carry the abolition of the slave trade into effect. At the same time, at the Congress at Vienna, he could state that all the great powers of Europe who were concerned in the transactions of the time expressed their horrors at this particular trade, and their desire to co-operate with this country in putting an end to it. He must likewise agree with the noble and learned Lord opposite in the statement which he had made in respect to the horrors of that trade: he meant that statement which the noble and learned Lord had made with respect to the casting individuals into the sea, having irons and chains upon them. He knew that he had been authorised to state, and he did state, and he did prove to the Congress that he attended, namely, that those unfortunate persons were confined in casks, with irons on them, and that those casks had been thrown into the sea, and were seen floating past the vessels in pursuit of the slavers. He believed that he had proved to the satisfaction of those whom he at the time addressed that not a less number than from 60,000 to 80,000 had been exported for the purposes of slavery from Africa every year. This, he thought, he had proved clearly; and he had proved it to Congress on the part of Great Britain. Under these circumstances, then, he should be happy to concur in any measure which would tend to put an end entirely to this traffic. He had no such faith in the measure proposed by the noble and learned Lord, as he did not think that it was calculated to produce this effect. The proposition of the noble and learned Lord was, for that House to present an address to her Ma-

1343
jesty, in order that her Majesty might procure the concurrence of the United States, of France, and of Spain, to have this trade declared piracy. It was really necessary that when that House appeared before her Majesty, to propose to her Majesty the adoption of means to attain a particular object, that that object should be accurately defined, and that there should be no doubt whatever with respect to the meaning of that House, and what it was the intention of that House that her Majesty should express as her desire to foreign powers. He begged to know what was the meaning of piracy as attached to the slave trade in this country? What was the meaning which this House and the country was to attach to the term "piracy," or what was the punishment to be inflicted upon subjects of this country in foreign countries? What was the punishment for piracy in France, in Spain, in Portugal, and in the United States? What was the punishment to be supposed by foreign countries that there was to be inflicted upon their subjects who were brought home as guilty of the crime of piracy? It would be necessary for this House, before they addressed her Majesty, or called upon her Majesty to propose to other powers to concur with her, to declare what was the punishment to be inflicted for the crime of piracy. The noble and learned Lord did not state what were to be the punishments for the crime of piracy. The punishment was now transportation for life, and the crime was formerly punished by sentence of death. He should like to know what was the punishment for piracy in France, and what it was in the United States, and what in Spain, and what in Portugal, and did their legislation agree with that of this country in the last year or in the present year. Upon all these points the House should hare a clear understanding, and they must be under the necessity of explaining clearly what it was they desired, when they approached her Majesty on the subject, and when they recommended to her Majesty to enter into negotiations with foreign powers. Then, with respect to the first resolution proposed by the noble and learned Lord, with regard to the rewards to be given for the capture of slavers, for the capture of vessels engaged in the slave trade—this was a question on which he should think the House of Lords ought not to originate any opinion whatever. It was a question
1344
which belonged to the executive government—it was a question to be settled by her Majesty with the Lords of the Admiralty. It was a question with regard to the disposal of money, and it was one on which it was desirable that the House of Lords should not originate a resolution. Then, in respect to the proposition of the noble and learned Lord, that they ought to issue letters of marque, he thought that it was a part of the question which had been completely answered by the noble Baron. According to their treaties with all foreign powers, and more particularly as respected their treaty with France, it was impossible for them to authorize any such vessels to be employed in this service. Each of these vessels should carry not only the orders of the commander of the vessel to which it was attached, and an order from her Majesty's Admiralty, but also an order from the French Admiralty, before it could move in the least from under the guns of the vessel to which it was attached. He did not know how the noble and learned Lord could answer this objection. But it seemed that they could not at all issue letters of marque under the operation of the treaties into which they had entered for the purpose of putting an end to the slave trade. Under these circumstances, then, he did not think that the House could recommend to her Majesty the adoption of the proposition of the noble and learned Lord. He confessed, that it was with the greatest pain he had heard the speeches made by the noble and learned Lord, and the noble Baron opposite. He had been in hopes that the colonial assemblies, and most particularly the assembly of Jamaica, would have proceeded frankly to carry into execution all the measures necessary in order to deal fairly with the apprentices and with this country, which had advanced so large a sum for the purpose of compensating those who might be injured by the act of emancipation. He confessed, however, that he was happy to have heard the noble Baron state, that it was his intention to propose to Parliament measures which should enable the Government to see that the arrangements which had been made were strictly carried into execution, and that their Lordships would, therefore, not be under the necessity of passing the resolutions which the noble and learned Lord had proposed with a view to attain

1345
the same objects. He should have been very unwilling to have had to vote for the resolutions of the noble and learned Lord, instead of having to vote for the bill which he understood would be proposed by Government, having the same object in view. It appeared to him, that it did not become their Lordships to pledge themselves by resolutions having legislative enactments in view, instead of voting for a measure regularly, in which those enactments were proposed and immediately brought before them. He agreed with what had been stated by the noble Baron opposite in respect to the Slave Abolition Act. He conceived that Parliament interfered for the benefit not only of the slaves who were ultimately to be made free, and in the mean time to be apprenticed for a certain number of years, but likewise for the benefit of the planters and landholders in the West Indies; and he did not conceive that, because the colonial assemblies in the West Indies had not done all they ought to have done in order to carry that measure into execution, or that because, in some respects, the measure had not produced all the benefit which their Lord ships expected from it, therefore they should, at once, say they would not carry it into execution at all after the month of August, 1838, but that all persons then apprenticed should be free. He did not think that that would be a fair mode of proceeding, and such a course he could not consent to pursue; nor could he consent to carry, by resolutions, those regulations which it was necessary to make, and which the noble Baron intended to bring forward regularly for the consideration of the House in the shape of a bill. Under these circumstances, he should feel it incumbent on him to vote against the resolutions proposed by the noble and learned Lord, at the same time, expressing his willingness to take the same subject into consideration in the form in which it was proposed to be brought before the House by the noble Baron.
The Marquess of Sligoobserved, that after the able, historical, and eloquent speech of his noble and learned Friend, it would be most tedious to their Lordships were he to detain them, by any address, beyond expressing his thanks to his noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Department, for the measure which he had promised to bring forward upon the subject. He was confident that no person
1346
who was acquainted with the state of the West-India colonies, and, at the same time, untainted by colonial prejudices, would deny, that the time was now come when it was important to effect a final arrangement of this question. After what had fallen from his noble Friend (Lord Glenelg) he hoped that his noble and learned Friend would be induced to give up the idea of dividing the House, in order that there might be unanimity on this subject on the part of the British Parliament, and that the colonists might feel that one opinion only prevailed amongst them.
Lord Broughamsaid, that as he perceived the debate had now come to a close, he should avail himself of the few minutes which it was the usual course in this as well as in the other House of Parliament to extend to the propose of any measure, whatever might be the ultimate decision of their Lordships upon the propositions before them, for the purpose of making one or two observations upon the statements by which his opinions had been attempted to be impugned, and by which his propositions had been opposed. He would pass over a great portion of the statement of his noble Friend (Lord Glenelg) upon the subject of the abolition of the slave trade, because the whole history of which he had treated of the means which had been employed by this country to prevail on foreign powers to abandon that execrable traffic had this prominent and striking feature in it, that though they showed what indeed no one ever denied—for the man must be deprived of his memory to have forgotten it, and of his reason to have expected otherwise—that though France had joined with us, and Spain had given her tardy and reluctant accession, and Holland had assented to become a party to abolish that detested traffic, yet, as long as there remained Portugal opposed to us, it signified not if France had joined ten times over, Spain as often, and Holland ten times over too; for that the great wrong-doer, the great criminal, the most atrocious sinner of all—Portugal—had refused to join; nay, even if a much feebler, if there were a feebler government than that of Portugal—according to the logic and the principles of the foreign policy of his noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Department, and also, as it seemed, of another noble Friend of his in another place, who

1347
was at the head of the Foreign Department, and who had given his adherence to that policy—according to their joint principle, even the accession of all the world besides—if a less power than Portugal—if Tuscany, Genoa, or that great commercial country Austria, and all those other slave-trading countries of Europe were to refuse—even that accession would be absolutely nugatory, null, and of no effect. What signified it to him, when these criminals were steering abroad as notorious as the sun, polluting land and sea with their crimes, laying waste Africa with their robberies and murders—what signified it to him to be told, that England had at length wearied out by constant appeals—those other nations who were induced to join the treaty of 1821, and that of the four states that were formerly criminal, three had ceased to be criminal now? Why, if that fourth state continued to be criminal, and if from 60,000 to 80,000 miserable negroes (as their Lordships had been informed) were carried yearly over to America—in other words, if 60,000 or 80,000 victims of this horrible felony were yearly torn from Africa and sold as slaves, what did it avail in argument to say, that France and Spain and Holland had abandoned that traffic? "But," said his noble Friend (Lord Glenelg), "Portugal is so weak that there is no getting her to give up the slave trade." If she had been as strong as France, what, then, would have been the argument? "Oh," it would have been said, "Portugal is so strong that there is no venturing to provoke her by daring to call upon her to give up the slave trade." So that, be she weak or be she strong, there was no help; she must be allowed with impunity to pollute the land with her crimes, and the sea with her piracies. But with the same logic his noble friend had argued, that if he required Portugal to give up the slave trade, and if she should give it up, there would be other states still opposed to its abolition; and his noble Friend had cited Austria—disinterested Austria, with all her colonies, with all her slave plantations, with all her vessels engaged on the African coast, as well as in other places—but which no black slave ever heard of before! Then there was Prussia, then the Hans Towns, then Sicily, and then Tuscany. Yes, his noble Friend had actually quoted Tuscany as a part of that confederacy which existed for the upholding of the
1348
slave trade. Why, he might have gone to the Grecian seas and have enumerated the Greek pirates—he might have referred to Algiers and to Tunis; and if the Bey of Tunis, or any other state which had a flag at all, were only reluctant to give up the slave trade, that one flag might set France, Spain, Austria, England, Holland, Portugal, Genoa, ay, and even Tuscany at defiance. Though France, and Spain, and Portugal had yielded to your entreaties, yet if one state, however powerless, refused, the slave trade should ride triumphant over the world; because, according to his noble Friend's argument, one flag was as good as one score. Was that the way, he would ask their Lordships, in which they treated Algiers? No! They summoned Algiers to give up piracy, though her outrages were not one-half so numerous, her crimes not one-hundredth part so black or so offensive to all the feelings of human nature; yet they summoned her. Algiers had pilfered and pillaged the ships of other nations—crimes which with us were not one-twentieth part so criminal as those committed by Portugal, and yet we sent a squadron and bombarded Algiers; and the consequence was, that piracy ceased. He had been told by his noble Friend, that there was no chance of the French government agreeing to this proceeding with respect to making the slave trade piracy, because, said his noble Friend, the French government refused to allow its subjects, if taken in the act of committing piracy, to be tried before any tribunal except its own. But because a declaratory law had been obtained from the other powers on this subject, did it follow that there might not most easily be inserted a clause providing that the French, or even the whole of the foreigners, should be tried, when captured, before the courts of their own country? He admitted that this would not be so satisfactory a manner of doing it as that of having the persons captured tried at the Sessions of the Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. But, adverting again to the argument of his noble Friend, he would ask were they to listen to this logic for the first time, that a country need only to be weak in order to be released from the obligation of its own treaties? We paid Portugal 600,000 l. by way of loan; and as we converted the 15,000,000 l. to the West India planters into a gift, so we afterwards converted the 600,000 l. into a gift. But, not

1349
Satisfied with that, as we swelled the 15,000,000 l. up to 20,000,000 l. by way of gift to the planters, so we made up the 600,000 l.to 900,000 l. to Portugal also as a gift. But the parallel did not end here. We gave the 20,000,000 l. to the planters for nothing: for it turned out that instead of sustaining a loss by the Emancipation Act, they gained by it. In like manner, we gave Portugal 900,000 l. to compensate them for the loss of the slave trade; but, instead of losing it, their trade had greatly increased; and did he now ask, that Portugal should refund the 900,000 l.? that, he conceived, would surpass the efforts of all the financial statesmen in the distinguished anarchy that now reigned upon the Tagus—perhaps in courtesy he ought to have said monarchy, but he entertained too great a respect for a monarchical Government to use that expression in reference to Portugal at the present moment;—no, he did not ask them to refund the money; all he asked was, that they should be urged to perform the contract which had cost us nearly a million sterling. Let them be told in very significant language that they were bound to perform the conditions upon which that money was given to them; and if they were not disposed to perform them, they must, be they weak, or be they strong, abide by the consequences of their conduct. Let that language once be used. Let the British minister but speak intelligible language, and he would answer for it, that he should not have again to complain of the weak power of Portugal, setting, while objecting to fulfill their own treaty, the might of England's power at defiance. He was told that Spain also did not faithfully adhere to the terms of the treaty. The Spaniards had other things to be answerable for besides not carrying treaties into effect. Was it, or was it not the fact that the governor of Monte Video received a large sum of money, as a bribe, for allowing 2,000 of what he called colonists, that was, African negroes, and in chains, and whom, therefore, he (Lord Brougham) called slaves, to enter the port of Monte Video? That had been publicly mentioned, it had been printed in all the journals of northern Europe, and had never once been denied. He firmly believed the statement, and he took it for granted that a representation had been made to the government of Spain, whether weak or strong. [A noble Lord:
1350
Monte Video no longer belongs to Spain.] Exactly so. He desired, however, and wished to know whether any representation had been made against that faithless breach of a treaty; because it was, on the very face of it, one of the most disgusting artifices that he had ever yet heard used to defeat a solemn obligation. Then, as to the manner in which our own money had been bestowed; when he saw a sum of money so applied he owned he was astonished that a single voice had not been raised, as his noble Friend had raised his voice, and the noble Duke, he was sorry to hear, had followed his noble Friend, in favour of what were called the claims of the planters. His noble Friend, the Marquess of Sligo, had reminded him that before quitting the subject, he ought to say a word respecting piracy. The noble Duke had asked, what, by the law of nations, constituted piracy, and what was its punishment? He could only say, that according to the law of nations, common slave-trading was always considered piracy. If on the way from Fernando Po, for instance, to any point on the coast, be it three, or be it thirty miles distant from the shore, a boat were found with one slave only on board, and that slave were taken by and carried on board another vessel, exactly, according to the very self-same process by which that slave was captured, you can treat that as an act of piracy by the law of nations; and anybody taking the slaver who had done that act, were he a Portuguese, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, or an Englishman, might take him home and proceed against him as a pirate. If this were done beyond three miles of the shore, it would, according to the strict letter of the law, be piracy; but if it happened within that distance of the shore, it would only be reckoned a common man-stealing, and if the violence were accompanied with loss of life, a common murder, and no longer piracy. Well, then, how was piracy to be dealt with? He never could see the use of introducing the slave-trade into the act for abolishing capital punishments for certain offences which in no one feature resembled slave-trading. The rule established by that act was, that offences should cease to be capital only if unattended with violence and blood. Now slave-trading was from its very nature attended by violence and blood; and he never was of opinion that the capital pu-

1351
nishment by that enactment, should have been taken away from slave-trading, and he had no objection whatever to see the capital nature of that offence restored. If it were proposed to declare slave-trading a piratical offence, he should have no hesitation whatever in so far amending the law of this country, and in restoring it to the rank which it ought always to have maintained, by making piracy, by the municipal law, a capital offence, as well as by the law of nations. With respect to the arguments of his noble Friend, relating to head money, anything more inconclusive, more inconsistent with itself, more utterly unintelligible, he (Lord Brougham) had never heard advanced. His noble Friend had said, that he had no objection to increase the tonnage money, but he was not willing to give up the head money; and that it was necessary to give an inducement to the captains employed in capturing slave vessels with their cargoes. Why? Because said his noble Friend, it was so very disagreeable a duty; it was so disgusting to be on board of a slave vessel, with a cargo of slaves. If there were two vessels, his noble Friend implied, one laden with slaves, and the other not, the captains and crew would immediately spy the one that was empty, and run onboard, leaving the other to escape, unless some additional inducement were held out to them, and, therefore, it was necessary to give head money. And yet these were the men—the captain and the crew—whom he (Lord Brougham) was taunted with having suspected of allowing anything like a sordid feeling to interfere with the discharge of their public and professional duties! The noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty boasted that on behalf of the profession at the head of which he was placed. Now, by the by, he (Lord Brougham) knew many a gallant Admiral who would have blushed to have heard the noble Earl state that he was at the head of their profession.
The Earl of Minto: My words were, "the profession at the head of which I had the honour to preside."
Lord Brougham: No doubt the noble Earl meant to say that, but what, he really did say was—["Order."] Nay, I appeal to any noble Lord whether the noble Earl did not say—
The Earl of Minto: I am perfectly willing to admit that it is possible I may have
1352
used one word for another. I am not accustomed to address your Lordships, and have less command of words than the noble and learned Lord; it therefore is possible I may have used the word attributed to me.
Lord Brougham: Be it as it might, it was so understood; and he (Lord Brougham) made an observation on it in his reply, and no contradiction was given. But the main charge against him (Lord Brougham) on that occasion was—how could he suppose anything so monstrous, so unworthy of the honour of the naval service, as to suppose head money made officers anxious to take vessels with slaves on board, rather than vessels that were empty? To which his (Lord Brougham's) answer was, the gross inconsistency of offering head money at all. If the head money was not intended to offer any inducement and excitement to activity on the part of those honourable and gallant persons, then it was utterly useless and completely unintelligible; but if head money was intended to be useful by exciting the zeal of the coast guard, then it could only do so at the precise moment at which alone it was applicable, namely, when they saw that a vessel had slaves on board, and just in proportion as it was effectual to excite their zeal and activity it tended to make them prefer ships laden with slaves to ships unladen. But it now turned out that that money to those who took prize money was nothing: and these men were to be scared from the discharge of their duty, and to be entirely paralysed by the fear of having their senses offended by the atmosphere of a slave ship, and of having their feelings outraged by the sights of suffering and of cruelty that took place on board a vessel laden with slaves. He thought that no man who took a calm and serious view of this most important question, could entertain a shadow of doubt that the utter cessation of head money was absolutely and indispensably necessary. It gave him great pleasure that upon this subject he had the high authority of a noble Lord formerly at the head of the Government, with whom he (Lord Brougham) had acted, who was once at the head of the Foreign Department when first negotiations were opened with foreign powers on this subject, who brought in a bill for the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and who presided over the Admiralty during a

1353
splendid period of the late war—he meant Earl Grey—and who felt a great interest in this question, and just as much interest in the honour and character of the navy as his noble successor who now filled his chair, and whose opinion it was, that it was utterly impossible that head money could be any longer allowed. With respect to the amendment of his noble Friend his (Lord Brougham's) objection to it was, that it was not so effectual nor so precise as the resolutions he had himself proposed. The amendment contained a great deal of congratulation, and passed sentence of acquittal and approval on the Spanish government for the treaty into which it had entered, and by which it had made piracy criminal, whereas that treaty, as he understood, had not yet been completed.
Lord Glenelgsaid, that the treaty with Spain engaged that country to pass a law making piracy criminal; but the law had not yet been made.
Lord Broughamdurst say that it never would. He had reason to believe, that upon this subject a governor in one of the chief Spanish slave-trading settlements had been known to say, that if he had intimation that it was really the wish of his government to put down the slave-trade, he would put it down in eight and forty hours, Their Lordships were aware of what was passing in one of the Spanish colonies, Havannah; that in Havannah the newspapers had been prevented from notifying the sailing of slave vessels to the coast of Africa, for fear they should be intercepted by the English cruisers. Unless very different steps were taken than had already been adopted, it was clear that the slave trade must go on. He then wished to say one word regarding the system of slavery in our West-Indian colonies. He was exceedingly glad that her Majesty's Government had determined to bring in a Bill to legislate on this subject, and not to leave it in the power of the colonial assemblies. From the statement which had been made by the noble Lord, he understood that the Bill would comprise the several matters contained in the first five of the resolutions which he had moved; but there were one or two others which he had not inserted in his resolution, but which he trusted to see embodied in the Bill. If he had obtained their Lordships' consent to the five resolutions, he would have certainly moved those additional ones, which he still hoped to see carried
1354
into effect. Some better regulations with respect to the administrations of justice were absolutely essential and indispensable. It was also a matter of great importance to give more powers to the governor. He was well aware of the difficulty of trusting too much to the governor; much would depend upon the prejudices of the individual, and much on the relation in which he stood with the local assembly. To one governor they might safely intrust one set of powers—to another governor they might give another class—whilst to a third a much more scanty authority and far greater circumspection in the grant were necessary. If, indeed, they could multiply the noble Lord so much as to give him as a governor to each of our West-India Islands [laughter]—noble Lords might laugh, but the possibility would be no cause of laughter in those islands—the noble Lord's presence would be hailed as one of the greatest blessings which could be showered down upon the colonies. The manly feelings of the noble Lord, his resolution to perform his duty, his inflexible determination not to be led away from his purpose, his withdrawal from all local prejudices, and his intention to set himself above all the prejudices of the planters, although himself a planter, would lead him to place far greater confidence in a good result than he thought it possible to effect under the provisions of the measure which was to be introduced. He owned that his confidence of success now was very scanty, but far be it from him to say that no good would be done. He thought it extremely necessary, however, to give additional powers to the inspectors, and to free them from actions in certain cases, for the difficulties which attended the working of the system at present were almost insurmountable. They might see the evil which would happen if the stipendiary magistrates were liable, for in the cases of Mr. Bourne and Captain Old grave, a penalty of 500 l. was levied on one and 890 l. on the other; or they might be indicted for a common nuisance, like Mr. Baines, for only doing his duty. He would have proposed to have vested in the governor the power of staying many like actions. These and many other arrangements might be made by the Bill; but sorry was he to say of the Bill (what indeed applied as well to his own five resolutions), that these and all other alterations could only be regarded in the light of palliatives

1355
and temporary expedients; but that the system itself could only work for a few months—that the machinery must necessarily stop when the works were in so great disorder—that whilst a planter bore a planter's nature, whilst a slave existed in the colonies, and whilst there was any distinction between the inhabitants of different colours, the attempt to render this redress of permanent utility was utterly and hopelessly unavailing. The only stop which could be put to the evil of which he—of which all—complained, was at once to follow the example already set by some of the colonies—to abolish the entire system of apprenticeship, and to declare that all the slaves should be free from the 1st of August, 1838. He was told, that this was unfair to the planter; that the planter was the particular object of their care. The planter was undoubtedly the object of his own care in the first instance, and for himself he had sufficiently provided; but he was also to be the object of their Lordships' care, and that he had been to a greater extent than was justifiable. He had seen the returns for which he had moved on a former night of the appropriation of the sums voted, and he must say that some of the planters had received more than the value of the fee simple of their estates; and if not of the whole value of the estates themselves, yet he was sure that it amounted to a great part of the value of the negroes upon them. Seven thousand pounds had been granted to one person, 8,000 l. to another; repeatedly 20,000 l. bad been paid in hard money; 83,000 l. had been received by one proprietor in respect of one single property; 83,000 l. had been awarded to one person out of the money granted by the people of this country. Another person, as he understood, had received 120,000 l.; and he (Lord Brougham) humbly ventured to suspect that this was more than the proprietor would have lost if he had never during the two years received from his slaves one hour's work on his estates. So far, also, had the value of those estates increased during this time, that those which could now be sold, for eighteen or nineteen years' purchase, could not have been sold for fourteen years' purchase before the grant. One planter had got the 120,000 l.; yet, as if this portion was not enough to satisfy him, not content with having gained so enormously by the change, he had, as he (Lord Brougham)
1356
believed, obtained an order in council, and this led him (Lord Brougham) to give notice that he should bring the subject under the consideration of that House—to enable him and others in the colony of Dutch (now British) Guiana, where the land was most fertile, where the ravages made by disease, were most fatal, and where the work and the climate were, most prejudicial to negro life, to increase the number of his slaves. They had already obtained leave, not to establish a slave trade, but to establish that which would become a slave trade between Asia and Guiana—to import blacks to any amount, without any security against kidnapping, without any restrictions as to the amount of water to be kept, and the quantity of provisions to be furnished—and not with a voyage of two months from the coast of Africa, but after a voyage from Africa to America of six or seven months. Well did the Government know the truth of what had been stated by the noble Duke, that it was not the slave or the system of apprenticeship that was cared for, but that the planter was to be the object of their solicitude. He (Lord Brougham) saw but one course by which they could put down the lawless practices which now obtained. It was admitted that emancipation was perfectly safe,, and it was their duty to accomplish it if they could; it was not denied that the apprentices would apply themselves quietly to work; it was not affected to be believed that there was any danger to be apprehended. The only difficulty which they had feared from emancipation was, that there might be some degree of disquiet produced in the sudden transition from a state of slavery to a state of freedom; and on this ground, and this ground alone, was the transitive state supported and defended. But this ground had been removed, the pretence had been withdrawn, the affectation had ceased to hold, nobody believed that the apprenticeship system was necessary to preserve peace; still it was defended, and on what ground was its defence now put? It was placed on the, if possible, still more untenable ground, that they ought to be influenced by a regard for the interests of the planter, as if the interests of the planter had not been sufficiently attended to—as if the money which had been awarded showed no care—as if there were no fear for the interests of the negro, whilst his master was glutted with gold; whilst one received 83,000 l.

1357
and another 120,000 l.; and whilst, not satisfied with this, he wished to eke out his enormous gain by the paltry savings which he might make out of the wages of the slave subsequent to August 1834. If ever in any case there were a departure from all principle—if ever there were a crying and outrageous mockery of justice—if ever there were legislation on false pretences—if ever there were a refusal of justice to an injured party—this was that mockery, this was that injustice. He did not intend to take the sense of the House on the five first resolutions which he had proposed; but he should give an opportunity to those who really wished to benefit the planter of recording their votes upon the sixth resolution, and he should also take a division on the question of head money. Unless he did not do this he was morally convinced that he would neither discharge his duty, nor satisfy the just expectations of the public.
Their Lordships adopted the Address moved by Lord Glenelg without a division; but they divided on the 6th resolution proposed by Lord Brougham.
Contents 7; Not-contents 31: Majority 24.
The Earl of Mintosaid, that he had received many letters from naval officers complaining of the observations which had been made the other night, which implied that they were fond of blood-money. He had that day called for a return which, when made out, would show the number of slaves captured since the promulgation of the Spanish treaty; and which would show that every endeavour had been made which could be, to take the slaves before the cargo was taken on board. The noble Lord had said, that he had, in all the cases referred to by him, alluded to the authority of a distinguished officer, a Commodore who was in command on the coast; but in his time the equipment article was not in force.
Lord Brougham: I did not refer to Commodore Hayes.
The Earl of Minto: There had been no Commodore in command on the African coast since the promulgation of the Spanish treaty.
Lord Brougham: I did not refer to any other Commodore.
The Earl of Minto: If the noble Lord knew of any cases he ought, in justice to the naval profession, to state them, and put the officers concerned on their defence.
1358
He would only state one fact: that the, return which he held in his hand showed that since the promulgation of the treaty thirty slavers had been taken, part of which were loaded and part unloaded. Of the thirty vessels so taken, nineteen were taken under the equipment article,, and eleven had been captured when loaded with slaves. He thought there was sufficient evidence, therefore, that the naval officers did not wait to run after the loaded vessels for the purpose of getting the head money. He could not consent to allow the members of that body to be under the reproach of acting only from pecuniary motives; they acted from higher motives, from a strict sense of duty. They had the head-money only as a just reward fat their exertions, and he was sure that either with or without these inducements they would discharge their duty with the same zeal. He would appeal to the noble Duke opposite whether, to insure on the part of a soldier the due performance of his duty, he would say, "If you accomplish such an object it will put so much money into your pocket;" he was sure that the noble Duke would consider that the soldier would act only well when be acted from the far higher motive, the sense of public duty.
Lord Broughamwas surprised that, till after the resolution on head-money had been put, the noble Earl had not made his statement, for it bore so strongly in favour of his proposition to do away entirely with the head-money. If he agreed to the statement that the calculation was correct, and that the proportion of vessels having slaves on board to empty ones, was as nineteen to eleven, and if it turned out that the officer did not care one farthing for head-money—that they acted entirely from the higher motive, the sense of duty, the payment of head-money was then admitted to be useless, and he regretted it had not been abolished. The noble Lord had spoken much of the zeal of the naval officers for the service; and this reminded him of a saying of Lord Thurlow—"Far be it from me to utter anything against an officer in the public employ, either civil or military, for it will lay me open to hear his panegyric." No sooner did he (Lord Brougham) say that money was not without charms, that the love of prize-money was kindred to the heart, than forth came the noble Lord with a splendid panegyric on the exemplary character of the officers, and declared

1359
that they were actuated only by noble feelings, that money had no power and no influence, and that nothing moved them but a sense of public duty; and the man who thought otherwise was designated as degrading and ignorant, and stupid, and had no knowledge of naval affairs and naval duties. The noble Earl had appealed to the noble Duke upon this point, and had subjected him to severe trial in keeping his countenance, but this he had accomplished by treating the noble Earl as he would an enemy, though he had no doubt that the noble Duke had more difficulty in doing so in the face of the noble Earl than he would in the face of a French marshal. Had the noble Duke never heard of prize-money in the army, or that the soldier was ever actuated by any other motive than a sense of public duty? The noble Earl had said, that prize-money was no inducement to the naval officer—that he did not care one straw about it—then why did not the noble Earl give it up? That question was easier put than answered. If head-money were of no value, if it had no influence on the sailor, why not give it up?—why call upon the country to pay it? It was paid, however, because the country believed that it did give some inducement, that it did work its way, and that it had some effect. He did not understand the metaphysical distinction which had been made: he did not comprehend the metaphysics of the quarter-deck, which declared that in proclaiming beforehand that for such a service so much would be given, they were merely offering a reward, and not supplying a motive. It was both a reward and a motive when they announced the reward beforehand, and it must have some operation.
The Earl of Mintosaid, that the original charge against the officers was a neglect of duty.
The Duke of Wellingtonsaid, that the soldier and sailor would do his duty without the offer of a prize; but the Government and the Crown had introduced a system of rewards for meritorious services or arduous duties. He earnestly recommended the noble Lord to keep the decision in his own hands and that of the Crown, and to decide on the matter after a careful consideration of all the circumstances of the case.
Lord Broughamremarked, that the reward was not in the hands of the noble
1360
Earl or of the Crown. By the 4th section of the Act of Parliament, 51. was awarded as head-money, and they must repeal that Act before the system could be changed.
Lord Ellenboroughsaid, that as it appeared from the returns that eleven vessels were seized with slaves and nineteen without, it would be better even for the officers that the arrangement proposed by the noble and learned Lord should be adopted, and that in a part of the service where the danger was the greatest, a system of allowance, by way of tonnage, should be adopted.
The Earl of Mintosaid, that the subject was under the consideration of the Government, and it was in contemplation to introduce in such cases a tonnage reward. A Bill to that effect was then before the heads of the Treasury.
The five remaining resolutions of the noble and learned Lord were negatived.