The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-22 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

ABORIGINES' PROTECTION

SOCIETY.

The second annual meeting of this most valuable and
interesting Society took place yesterday, at Exeter-hall.
The lower room was filled with a highly respectable
audience, a large proportion of whom were ladies.
Upon the platform were the following gentlemen :
T. F. Buten, EA., (in the chair) ; C. Lushington, Esq.,
M.P. ; Thos. Campbell, Esq. ; Sir Augustus D'Este ;.Sir
Culling E. Smith ; Sir Charles Grey, M.P. ; Lieut.-Col.
Nichol ; Mons. D'Abbadie, and a native of Abyssinia ;
J. T. Bigge, Esq. ; E. N. Buxton, Esq.; Geo. Thomp-
son, Esq.; Luke Howard, Esq, ; W. S. Fry, Esq.;
Dr. Hodgkin ; Colonel Lach Szyrma ; Rev. John Bur-
net, Rev. J. J. Freeman, W. Lockhart, Esq., Canton,
and Rev. W. H. Modharst, Batavia. At twelve o'clock
The CHAIRMAN rose and said, I have been called
upon, somewhat unexpectedly, to fill the station I am
now appointed to occupy. I, indeed, wrote to my
worthy friend, the Secretary, requesting that I
might be excused from taking the chair upon
this occasion ; and I conceived that this was
arranged—but on my arrival in town, I was
told that it had been settled, and could not
be altered, that I must take the hair. lam perfectly
satisfied so to do, now or at any other time, in this or
any other place, before this or any other assembly ; to
confess my hearty allegiance to the principles which
have convened: us together—(Cheers)—my hearty
desire, that others may know of those principles, because
lam sure that the more they are known he more
numerons and zealous will be their supporters.—( Hear,
hear.) However, I feel no kind of despondency at
there not being a larger audience on the present occa-
sion, confident as I am, that the day will come when
this great subject, affecting the interests—the lives of
such multitudes of our fellow-men, will be more fully
recognized by the public.—(Cheers.) I feel that I owe
some apology to the Society, and to the Committee
particularly, who have had such heavy labours, and
such responsible duties, to perform during the past
year,—who had a right to expect my cordial co-opera-
tion, which I very much regret they have not received
to the extent to which they were entitled. And I have
another apology to make to this meeting, which
I do sincerely—that from circumstances, I am unable
\
to furnish this meeting with facts, and detailed intelli-
gence which ought to have been brought forward. My
excuse in both cases is precisely the same—that my time
has been occupied, and my heart wrapped up in another
great subject, which must, above all other subjects, en-
gross the attention and the affections of all who touch
upon it, I mean that great subject, the chief scourge of
mankind, the main reproach to the name of Christianity,
the Slave Trade. Owing to this it was that lam not
so prepared as I ought to have been, and that I have
not done so much as I ought to have done, for the
cause we are now to advocate. We hold, I take it,
that the native inhabitants of any country, however bar-
barous they may be, however wild, however untutored
their minds, however dark and cruel their character, belong
to the great family of man, and are entitled to ail the rights
of human nature, that is the great principle of our society.
and which it is easy enough to admit, but which, I
am sorry to say, has not been thoroughly acted upon
by even our own country—nay, I am constrained to
add, has been very sliehtly acted upon by this coun-
try.—( Hear, hear.) For with all the virtues which we
possess as a people—and while they remain at home, I
admit they do possess great virtues—yet too often, when
they visit savage nations, they act no better than the
most ruthless banditti. Can it be true ? I protest
there is nothing in this country—now that we have re-
nounced the slave trade, and abolished slavery—there is
nothing which throws so great a stigma upon this
country, as the fact that our brethren, the ignorant
natives of the countries under our dominion, are melting
awe), before us.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Oh! but then
we are told sometimes, " It is the order of Providence,
it will be so always." I think, however, that the order
of Providence should be sought for in the Bible—
( Hear, hear, hear)—and where will any passage be
found, establishing the doctrine that because we are
Christians, we have a right to oppress and persecute
those who are too feeble and weak to defend them-
selves 2—(Great cheering.) Is it true,—can it
be true,—that we, blessed with a multitude of
blessings under Divine Providence,—that we who
are so peculiarly favoured as a nation, that we,
1 standing. on these accounts so pre-eminent in the world
in power, in wealth, in civilization, in commerce, and,
1 above all things, in religious privileges—that we, among
! these peer, ignorant creatures, on whom we could con-
fer the most inestimable blessings,—that we should only
circulate among them the vices, the crimes—the brandy,
the gunpowder, and such destructive elements ?
( Hear, hear.) And what what is worse, that when we
send out Missionaries abroad to teach the heathen, the
great obstacles to the spread of Christianity should
iarise from civilized and " Christian" men, men who
i bear the name of Christians at least.--( Hear, Lear.)
I ask whether any missionary—for instance in the South
I Seas--,:has found that his greatest impediment was the
1 barbarism of the people ?—No. Their stupid and cruel
superstitions ?—No. The degradation of their under-
standings ?—No. The great impediment to the spread
of Christianity, I will be bound to s ay, has been the
hard heartedness of white-skinned savages.—(Hear.)
It is a most sad and painful subject this. I have
often conjectured in my own mind what is the impres-
sion which the European must make upon the simple
minds of these natives. What must they think of us—
with the loudest professions ever upon our tongue—
who tell them that we are superior to them in every
respect—that W 3 are chiefly, superior to them on ac-
count of our religion—wilier we seize their property,
and insult their families, and exercise every species of
barbarity upon them ; what is the impression which we
must make upon their minds ?—(Hear.) It is curious
that to this question I have found most painful an-
swers recently. In the course of my African studies, I
met with the Journal of a gentleman who went to
Africa some 110 years ago, when there was an Afri-
can Cotapany, supported by the patronage of the
Crown, for the encouragement of the slave trade ; this
gentleman, in the course of his Journal, re-
lates that he had had communications with a va-
riety of peasens, native Chiefs, and inhabitants,
and that they said to him that their chief curse had been
the visit of Europeans—that we always brought war
and the slave: trade with us ; but that this .was not
surprising because they observed that wherever
Christianity goes, there were the musket .and the
sword,—in short, that their greatest affiction was,
their ever having seen the faces of the white, men.—
(Hear, hear, hear.) Oh, shame upon us, possessing
as we do, the richest blessings of Divine provi denee—
that we should lead the poor natives of the coun tries we
visit, to despise, to hate, and to blaspheme the holy
name of Christ, and thus prevent them from receiving
the blessings of an improved, moral condition here, and
of eternal life hereafter !—(Hear, hear.) Still i:.:t gives
me great satisfaction to know, that of the few rax).ssion-
aries who have beets scattered over the we•rld—
I wish the numbers were ten thousand times
larger : I have been long a stedfast friend to the
missionary cause.—l am happy to know that
wherever there is a missionary—I am not now speak-
ing of any particular class : Church of England--Bap-
tist, Moravian, Methodist, or London Missionar3T—but
wherever there is a Missionary, there is a firm fri,trid to
the oppressed and persecuted.—(Cheers.) It was so in
the West Indies, when the Missionaries cheerfully be-
came martyrs to the cause ; and lam persuaded that
the deg will come, however distant, when these salutary
effects will be more extended. The Chairman (Mi F.
Buxton) then proceeded to remark, that very recently
a curious illustration of this came to his knowledge.
There were a few good people in this country ab out
twenty years ago, who determined to make an effort , to
instruct and civilize the Africans en the borders of the
Gambia. They established a school there, and a fair m,
but the missionary they sent died, and the whole at
length was abandoned. He was afraid the individu sits
who made that effort conceived it was ,an
entire failure. In some papers he had recent ly
inspected, of a gentleman resident in that countr y
for 20 years, be found a notice of the Society..
One passage was as follows :—" The natives of the
neighbourhood must have observed with some degree of
attention the mode adopted by these settlers in their
agricultural pursuits. Indeed it must be observed that
many of them assisted in the works of the farm, and at
this date they conduct matters in a more neat and
satisfactory manner than in other parts of the country."
Then came the explanation :—" The old chief of the
district, with his sons, lose no opportunity in making
the most particular inquiries after their friends, the
Quakers, and to express their regret that such good
pooplo should not have remained among them, as their
kindness will ever live in the memory of the inhabi-
tants. He and his sons are worthy good people, and
'much attached to the English." ,It was extremely gra-
tifying to him that these simple people should, after the
lapse of so many years have remembered those efforts
that were perhaps forgotten by the very persons who
made them. The time had come when these good
people must renew their efforts.—(Hear, hear.) It
gave him great satisfaction to find that this Society was
formed. It was true they had not a large assembly
that day, but that was an additional inducement not to
relax in their efforts to benefit that good cause. In for-
mer years the same grievances existed, but they
Wore neves; investigated. This Society would
brand the oppressor, and would sound in the
Ws of our Legislators, that these people whom we
robbed without scruple—whose land without ceremony
we took possession of—whose children we seized—
whom we
pronounced rebels if they presumed to de-
fend their own
land persons from our own violence, or their
from our
people were rapacity ; but still that these poor
in the sight of Eternal Justice equal with
were the children of the same father, and
ourselves,
st !it
me i re
isooeusta l.s. likeola
our own had been ransomed by the
ble price. He hoped the smallness of
fe: o
the meeting would not discourage
e them, but that there
would be
an
effectual
determination among them that,
wheter supported
tes. by
the cause should
never want advoca—(cher mersr,
The SECRETARY then proceeded to read the Re-
port,
which was very voluminous.
We have riot space
for more than a few extracts, but we recommend its