The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-03 00:00:00

TEXAS.

The following Memorial on the Texas question hns
been presented to Lord Palmerston, by the Committee
of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society :
To the Right Honourable Lord Palmerston, her
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, &c. &c. &c..
My Lord,—The Committee of the British and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society beg permission to express
their sentiments to your Lordship on a subject deeply
interesting to all the friends of liberty and justice, and
which they feel to be of paramount importance at the
present time, as affecting the dearest interests and future
bappin?ss of a large portion of the human race, and one
to which it is understood the attention of your Lordship
and her Majesty's Government has already been offici-
ally directed.

It is currently reported, that from the revolted pro-
vince of the Mexican empire, Texas, envoys have been
sent to this country to solicit its recognition by the
British Government as an independent State.

With such a negotiation, considered as relating to
political interests alone—although they conceive these
to be of the gravest importance as respects the interest
of British subjects, and even the integrity of the British
empire, in the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean Sea—it
would be quite out of the province of the British and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to interfere : but there is
a peculiar feature in the present case, which renders it
not only proper for them, but imperative tin them, to
express to your Lordship their sentiments on the sub-
ject, and to entreat for them a serious consit:eratiou at
the hands of the Government.

The Committee will not trouble your Lordship with
a detail of the unjust and atrocious manner in which
the Mexican province of Texas has been wrested from
the parent State by unprincipled adventurers, land-job-
bers, and slave-holders from the United States, whose
conduct deserves the most indignant rebuke, and must
attach lasting dishonour to all who may become impli-
cated in it, but to press on the consideration of your
Lordship and the Government the well-kno en fact that
the Legislature of Texas has abolished the universal
freedom which, with such admirable justice and pro-
priety had been decreed by the Mexican Government.
and have re-established slavery in its worst forms. The
Committee would also call your Lordship's attention to
the fact that the Texian laws also provide for the ex-
pulsion from its territory of all Africans, and the de-
scendants of Africans, whether in whole or in part born
free, as well as of the native Indian tribes ; an iniquity
not less cruel than it is infamous and unparalleled in the
history of any civilized people.
It will be no more than consistent, the Committee
conceive, with the noble attitude whieh Great Britain
has taken before the world on the great subject of
slavery, to refuse in the most positive terms the recogni-
tion of any nee- State in which the unrighteous system
of slavery is recognised, and measures so repugnant to
every principle of equity and religion as those referred
to are established by constitutional law ; nor can it, the
Committee would respectfully observe, be otherwise
than a matter of plain and imperative obligation, that
the British Government should avail itself of so just and
striking an opportunity of using its mighty moral influ-
ence for diffusing through other countries the same
freedom which at so much cost has been happily, and
the Committee trust permanently, established in the
dependences of our own.
The whole of the case before the Committee, how-
ever, is not yet stated. The establishment of slavery in
Texas will open an immense market for the slave-
breeders of the United States, and will inevitably en-
large to an unprecedented extent, and raise to a pitch
of unprecedented horrors a traffic so infamous and de-
plorable. Nor can it be doubted but in spite of the law
which prohibits it the slave trade with Africa, against
which the whole power of the British empire is arrayed,
will be extensively carried on, as there is too great reason
to believe it has already begun.
Under these circumstances, the Committee trust that
her Majesty's Government will regard the proposed re-
cognition of Texas with the greatest abhorrence, and
cherish an earnest hope that in their decisions conside-
rations of humanity, justice, and liberty, will be firmly
held paramount to every other.

On behalf of the Committee,
GEO. WM. ALEXANDER, Chairman.
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,
27, New Broad-street, London, September 29, 1839.