The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THll‘ PUBLIC JOURNAL:N.

A Sunday print, in the customary discharge of the foul
task allotted to it, has made a false and slanderotte accusa-
tion against this journal. We copy the article to which we
allude from yesterday's Observer :—" It is with eetrentc reluc-
tance that we allude to the private circumstances of any
individual, however illustrious or however humble, even
though it bo, as in this instance, for the purposes of correct-
ing misrepresentation. A morning etatitemporary has
lately made it a point to place in the most unfevourablc
light that estimable lady, the mother of our young and
lovely Queen, and on Thursday last actually gave a list of
certain tradesmen whom the Duchess of Kent, whilst resid-
ing in Kensington Palace, emplcyed, and whose bills she
has since discharged. For our own cart, we should
never interpose between her Royal H:ghncss anti her
tradesmen, if the article in the Tory organ of Thurs-
day did not lay particular emphasis upon the feet cf
the cheques given to the tradesmen being signed by
I Lord Viscount Duncannon, First Commissioner
Woods and Forests.' The intention in thus add'
the official designation of that Noblemen was
ej
dently to suggest the inference that his Lordship le
signed the cheques in his official capacity, and that the Go-
vernment, by some of those sleights of hand so familiar to
the Tories, had placed public money at his disposal for that
purpose. Now we do undertake to say, that never was
there assumption more false ; for, u ithout presuming to
have the honour of communication either with her Royal
Highness or with the nobleman in question, we feel we can
confidently declare that not one farthing of public money
has ever been so designed ; the thing could never have
been dreamt of. We can well conjecture, however, that
the Duchess of Kent, upon breaking up her establishment
at Kensington, may have been desirous that the demands
of her tradesmen should undergo the supervision of some
nobleman or gentleman in whose intelligence and habits of
business she reposed confidence. It happens that her Royal
Highness, with a just appreciation of his character,
confided that task to Viscount Duncannon, and as-
suredly the circumstance of his Lordship being a
Cabinet Minister should not disqualify him from under-
taking it. Then, again, these Tories will have it that
the Duchess of Kent had some lurking distrust of Lord
Duncannon himself, and that, in consequence, no cheque
would be paid unless it also bore the signature of Mr.
James Parkinson, the Duchess's solicitor ! Why, Mr.
Parkinson, as we hear, is the solicitor, not of the Duchess
of Kent, but of Lord Duncannon. It requires no violent
conjecture to arrive at the conclusion, that in his anxiety
to ensure an accurate estimate of the accounts, his Lord-
ship may have called upon his own solicitor for his aid in
the inquiry." Now, it is not true that we have made it a
point to place the Duchess of Kent in " a most unfavour-
able light." If bad advisers and stubborn facts have
conspired for such a purpose, and have succeeded in
it, the blame is none of ours ; and we regret the con-
sequence with more sincerity than those who have
turned both into topics of silly calumny against
us. But the clumsy attempt at varnishing over trans-
actions which, when rightly understood, are not of a nature
to be admired, however much they may be deplored, ought
not, for the sake of fair dealing, to be passed over entirely
without notice. It is conjectured, that the " Duchess of
Kent, upon breaking up her establishment at Kensington,
may have been desirous that the demands of her tradesmen
should undergo the supervision of some nobleman or gen-
tleman in whose intelligence and habits of business she re-
posed confidence." There is no objection at all to this. If
the Duchess of Kent had debts to be paid—a fact which un-
happily hasfor years been notorious, and debts moreover not
of her royal husband's, but contracted in her own name since
his decease—nobody will assert that she could have resorted
to a shrewder, more competent, or more upright man of
business to superintend the management of such a
proceeding than the Noble Viscount at the head
of the office of Woods and Forests. But what
a mauvaise plaisanteric it is to talk of the payment
of her Royal Highness's debts as a mere natural
effect of the desire of her Royal Highness to discharge them,
and what a piece of sheer effrontery it is to " declare that not
one farthing of public money was ever destined to such a
purpose" (ae the payment of the above debts) l Why, out
of what fund have those debts been paid, we should like to
know ? Was it out of the regular income allotted years
ago to the use of the Royal Duchess ? Notoriously nut so.
It is notorious that the additional 8,0001. per annum granted
lately as an increase to the previous income of the Duchess
of Kent, which previous income amounted to no less than
22,000/. per annum—it is, we say, notorious, and was so
when the grant was proposed to Parliament, that the said
8,0001. a-year was to furnish the materials out of which (by
sale of annuity or otherwise) those debts would be, and
could alone be, liquidated. By computation whispered
about, the debts exceeded eighty thousand pounds ; and
as for the conjectured inclination of her Royal High-
ness to place the discharge of them under the ma-
nagement of Lord Duncannon, we, too, may be allowed
our conjecture, that the arrangement under which that
especial duty was' confided to the Noble Viscount was ono
which may have been quite independent of the will of the
Royal Duchess. All things considered, and all past occur-
rences borne in mind, we can very well imagine that they
who took the responsibility of brining a demand for more
money before Parliament should have felt themselves bound,
both in prudence and honour, to see that the real (though
unacknowledged) purpose to which the augmentation was
granted should be bona fide and honestly fulfilled, and that
neither the national generosity should be wasted, nor the
anxious and conscientious earnestness of the Royal indivi-
dual to satisfy her creditors be deceived or disappointed.
We, in common with many others, do not refrain from cen-
suring the course of action through which those debts were
incurred, but we do very truly rejoice that by the payment
of them a crying scandal has (albeit from the purse of the
people of England) been at length got rid of.—Times.
Prudence, if not a virtue, is at least one of its strongest
adjuncts, and we would advise the Tories, more especially
our Contemporary of the Times, to pay more attention to
its dictates than it did on Saturday last, when it adduced
a vote of the Common Council of the City of London as
a proof that the Ballot had become unpopular, and that
the Common Council had become Conservative. It is a
common adage that people ought not to " halloo before
they are out of the wood"—and the Times had better
have refrained from its trumpet-tongued bo ist of re-
action in point of liberalism in the Common Council of the
City of London, until it had ascertained the real facts ol
the case. What were these facts ? Why, that in the
Common Council assembled for the discussion of the pro-,
priety of adopting the Ballot, there was only one-third o
the Common Council present-66 absent, who, according
to the best information that we can glean, ate decide ,
supporters of the B illot, and many others doubtful,
but decided anti Tories. It is not worth while to analyse
the list either for or against, in proof that there is a re-
action in the City of London against the Ballot. The
proof to the contrary is before us, not only in the represene
tation of the City by Mr. Alderman Wood, Mr. Crawford,'
Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Grote, all determined supporters of
the Ballot, but in the failure of Mr. Palmer to obtain a
majority of Anti-ballot men in his election. If the repre-
sentation he rotten, the constituency does not certainly
partake of the same complexion. It is wholly for the
Ballot or for any other measure calculated to insure an
honest representation of the sentiments of the people ; an&
we do not envy the position of those Common Council-
men who were either absent upon the occasion in question,
or who voted against the Ballot. We append the names
of the absentees, that their Constituents may know the
confidence which they ought to repose in them :—Kelly, T.,
Key, Sir .T., Lainson, J., Wood, Sir M., Alderman, Dep.,
Amos, W., Baylis, S., Benton, S. P., Bennett, J. S., Ben-
nett. S., Blanket, Dep., Bond, C., Brass, W., Browne
B. E., Carr, J. R., Christie, W., Corser, R., Culvetwell, J.;
Curtis, J., Cuthbert, E., Downes, Dep., Drinkald, J., Ed-
wards, G. W., Evans, Jcr., Penning, E., French, J. M.,
Gibbs, D., Heppel, G. H., Hickson, E., Hook, J.,
Humphreys, W. C., Hunter, W., Jaques, Dep., Jones, S.,
Joyce, E. J., Kipling, W., Lainson, H., Lamb, G., Law-
rence, J., Lott, T., 'Marsden, T., Morrison, SV., Mottram,
E., Norris, J. T., Parker,J, Pewtress, T., Filcher, W. H.,
Price, U., Pritchard, H., Prior, J. C., Pritchard, G., Ram.
sham, Dep., Redhead, L., Richardson, W., Ridley, S.,
Robinson, J., Smith, H., Smith, W. U., Sutton, J.
Tagg, T., Tyars, Dep., Wilson, E., Woollatt, S. S.—
/horning Advertiser,
The conduct of Mr. Blackstone towards Mr. Poulter
savours in some degree of that of the old sea captain, who
inflicted one dozen of lashes upon a sailor for insubordina-
tion, and another dozen for crying out, declaring that no
man in his ship should dare to cry out for anything short of
the loss of his head. Mr. Poulter has been turned out of
his seat, and he is not to be permitted to complain of those
who, he contends, have unjustly and improperly deprived
him of it. The proverb says, " Let those laugh that win ;"
and surely it is not stretching the point too far to let those
cry that lose. This is the last and least consolation of a
sufferer. First, Mr. Poulter pays a heavy sum in order to
get into Parliament, and then he is called upon to pay a
still heavier sum for getting out of Parliament ; and it seems
a little hard upon him to sift with too much industry
the expressions he employs ?n speaking of those who
have been the instruments of his exclusion. We say no-
thing in justification of those expressions : they may have
been too strong, and they certainly seem too pungent for
the Tory Members of the Shaftesbury Committee ; all we
m
urge is, that taking them to be as objectionable as Ir.
Blackstone or any other Tory contends they are, much
allowance is to be made for the circumstances under which
ritlf. they were employed. Bating the particular terms used by
~,. Mr. Poulter, the charge he makes is only in substance
(4...1/4,i•,e what has been said over and over again in the face of the
on ',/ • House during the present Session, and said without even
41.,:::-.. ,
,-,.AihttAt tifi personal ;Action, Be it remembered. too,
ft*.',14.4!1- ./-:-- --,.:-/-,;/, .3
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that the Members who have treeused Fleetlen (2erecirnittes
of neglect, disregard; ei k/inlation—Vve care not which
theik- oathS, haVe, in general, been mere lookerg
oft-e-by-etenders, not in any way ilitefegted in
the decisions of the bottiefe hose partial conduct
they have arraigneth Mr. O'Connell, indeed; wag re-
pt ; but, to use a vulgar plihase tie fterse the I 4 use
quite as good as it beoUght i he reprimanded the House
with more seVelity than it reprimanded him ; and though
he talght have used an unseemly or an indiscreet word, no
Member ti....kerl a denial of Cee material part of his charge.
Well, then, Mr. Poulter has inserted in his address sundry
unseemly and indiscreet words in relation to the Shaftes-
bury case. We will admit it without reservation ; hut
who is he, and in what relation does he stand to the Com-
mittee? Is he a looker-en, a Ly-stander, a mere stranger
not interested in the proceeding or its result ? Certainly
not : he is one of the parties engaged in the contest : he is
the defeated party, and surely something more may be f tidy
permitted to him then to those who were not like him suf-
fering under heavy loss and bitter disappointment. It is,
therefer.,, evident, unless the House intend to mete out a
much severer measure of justice to Mr. Poulter than to
Mr. O'Connell, that it can visit him at the utmost with a
reprimand. The 'Tories, from the mere dread of public
opinion, will not attempt to wreak upon Mr. Poulter the
vengeance which they did not dare to inflict upon Mr.
O'Connell. Of the particular facts and circumstances of
the case we still forbear to speak, because we wait for the
detail of the evidence adduced before the Committee, and
upon which, we are bound to presume, it founded its deter-
mination. It was not, however, disputed on Friday, that
the Committee had turned short round upon itself, and that
without scruple it had reversed its own decision. It was
agreed by all parties that the case of Mullins should settle
the fate of thirty-one other votes, and one day the Com-
mittee directly contradicted its resolution of the day
preceding, and though it had decided that the vote of
Mullins was good, it struok the whole number (Mullins
alone excepted) from the poll of Mr. Poulter. We
have another reason for thinking that nothing se-
rious will come of the breach of privilege this day to
be brought under the notice of the House of Com-
mons. Of course, the step somewhat eagerly taken by
Mr. Blackstone does not arise out of any soreness in the
Committee ; he is only anxious that justice should be done,
and that the purity of the body of which he was the Chair-
man should be vindicated, whatever opinion may be enter-
tained of their understandings. He can have no angry
feelings against Mr. Poulter, who, in fact, has only done
under his own name what the Tory Journals have been
doing under no name, almost from the first day that an
Election Committee assembled. There is nothing, as
it strikes us, very peculiar in Mr. Poulter's case, but the
fact that he has used somewhat stronger language
and has received stronger provocation than any per-
son who has yet arraigned the verdicts of Elec-
tion Committees. If, then, he is to be brought to
the bar and severely punished where is the House to stop?
It cannot stop with Mr. Poulter, who openly avows him-
self and is ready to take the consequences of his avowal.
It must go farther ; for if men who do not hesitate to put
their names to such attacks are to be visited with Newgate
or the Tower, what course should be pursued against
sneaking anonymous slanderers, or against those who wel-
come and publish their libels upon Committees for ven-
turing to decide in opposition to the hopes and wishes of
these penners of paragraphs ? This consideration is likely
to " give pause" to those who might be willing to proceed
to extremities, not, of course, including the members of the
Shaftesbury Committee, who are to be viewed in the light
of parties to the proceeding, and who, if they were to vote
at all, must be in favour of the mildest possible punish-
ment.—Morning Chronicle.
We regret to learn that the Dorchester labourers, in-
stead of being reimbursed for whatever loss they have sus-
tained, and restored to the places from which they had been
torn away, arc to be dragged about the country, and after-
wards exhibited at a public dinner in London, as political
martyrs. As we have always looked upon these men's
case as a peculiarly hard one, and as a striking specimen
of the blessings which the lower orders derive from Whig
rule, wa are not likely to change our mind, or to desert
them, now that their prosecutors have owned themselves in
error, and have, however slowly and reluctantly, done them
the justice we have on their behalf contended for. Nor
should we regret any manifestation of feeling on their bes
half were it intended or likely to turn out for their benefit.
But we are too well acquainted with the tricks and designs
of the getters-up of this affair, both in town and country,
not to know that nothing is further from their
intentions than to benefit the Dorchester labour-
ers upon the occasion, who are only meant to be
the stalking-horse and step-ladder to a noisy
display of radical froth, in which there will be, as usual a
world of" sound and fury, signifying nothing." Such a dis-
, play then can only tend to injure these men in the eyes of
'the reflecting part of the community, and in the end en-
tirely unfit the men themselves from ever resuming that
station in society to which it was every honest man's wish
to see them restored. We do not flatter ourselves that our
remonstrance against this injudicious, not to say wicked
proceeding, will have any effect with the callous dema-
gogues who are making a tool of these poor men's misfor-
tunes : but if the Dorchester labourers have any friends
who have the power and the inclination to serve them, that
friendship cannot be more worthily bestowed than in dis-
suading them from allowing themselves from becoming the
dupes of persons who, having used them as far as suits their
own purpose, will just as readily and as certainly throw them
aside and desert them as soon as that purpose has been an-
Awered.—Morning Herald.
It is the misfortune of shallow and timid minds not
only to be frightened by the violence of adversaries, but to
be awed into a kind of preposterous admiration by the
confident swagger of friends. This appears very palpably
in the case of poor Lord John Russell, who is evidently of
opinion that audacity covers a multitude of sins. The
anonymous writers who express in measured and cautious
terms their indignation at the apparent " party bias" of
certain election Committees are very abominable people in
his estimation, because they are anonymous ; but Mr.
Poulter, who puts his name to exceedingly gross accusa-
tions against a Committee which has decided unfavourably
for him, thereby becomes much dearer to Lord John, and
even more respectable in his sight, for he openly subscribes
himself the author of the unmeasured abuse which he has
published. What a very sensible, rensonsble person
we have as Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
ment, and leader of the House of Commons !
It has, we know, been matter of dispute whe-
ther the important business of animadversion by the press
upon public affairs and public men would not be conducted
for the better if every writer put his name to his remarks,'
but we believe the good sense of the public has decidedi
this question in the negative. Indeed, except a few literary
coxcombs, and two or three people whose rough strength.
of mind was accompanied by a gross passion for notoriety,
there have been found no advocates of the publicity of
authorship in the cases referred to. But, whatever the
right decision of the question may be, there is no doubt as
to the rule now subsisting by general consent, and it may be
said that they who express their opinions upon public affairs
habitually through the press are anonymous by the necessity
of the case. It is quite absurd, therefore, to impute any
comparative demerit to them, because they do not acquaint
the public with their names and additions. If they did, the
public would account it an impertinence, and resent it ac-
cordingly. But Lord John Russell, who will not venture t
say that Mr. Poulter's strictures on an Election Commit.
tee, in whose decision he was an interested party, are less.
violent or more justifiable than those anonymous remark
which exceedingly shock his gentle and generous soul
nevertheless loves and respects Mr. Poultcr more than h
did before. And why ? Simply because Mr. Poulter's
atrocity is net anonymous. No doubt in all cases where
an avowal of responsibility is not in itself an impropriet
the party who makes an accusation openly does better tha
he who makes it anonymously. But if the accusation b
in itself a gross wrong the audacity- of avowing it does not
take away the wrong. If Lord John Russell had said that
Mr. Poulter, as the avowed author of gross abuse against,
an Eection Committee, was less atrocious and less de-
testable in his eyes than they who more decently, but yet
anonymously, indulged in similar attacks, he would
have merely talked unquestionable common-place. But
when he said that Mr. Poulter, as the avowed author
of gross abusiveness, became, by reason of that avowal,
more worthy of his friendship and a more respectable marl,
he talked downright nonsense, such as a child would de-
serve to be whipped for. We cannot wonder that Lord
John Russell should greatly admire audacity, since his pa-
tron O'Connell thrives upon it so amazingly ; but a man
may admire a thing without testifying his admiration after
the manner of a simpleton. If Lord John were nothing
hut the Duke of Bedford's son, author of some pre-emi-
nently dull and unreadable books, and Member of Parlia-
ment for Stroud, he might talk nonsense till his voice gave
way beneath the great exertion, without our troubling our-
selves about him or it ; but when we remember the place
which, by the strange trick of fortune, he happens to fill,
we cannot but remonstrate with hint upon the exhibition of
such idiocy. As Secretary of State for the Home De-
partment, Lord John has something to do with the cri-
minal jurisdiction of the country. Now,' what would he
think of any Coroner who should address the members of
an inquest after this fashion—" Gentlemen, my friend Mr.
Wiggins, who has come before you and acknowledged that
he killed the man about whose death we have been inquir-
ing, is deserving of much praise. There are some villains
who do these things, and won't acknowledge them ; and I
have often an infinite deal of trouble, and after all can only
desire a verdict to be given against some person or persons
unknown. But Wiggins
i has acted a more manly part :
my friendship for him is increased, and I think him a more
respectable mAtt, becawa he comes here, and boldly tells

vuit that- h, deliberatbly acid tatised the death bf
the. deceased: Gentlettich, ynit will find n ierdiet abbofdz
ingl.y ?" Such an harangue as this would be in gtiod sense
and proper feeling exactly upon a level itith Lord John
Rutselt's panegyric On his friend the abusive and manly

We rejoice to find that the horrid system of kidnapping
whi,:h the West India dealers in human blood are resorting
to, is in a train of exposure, and we confidently anticipate
that results wiL flaw fearn the inqUiry, Which mu F have eo
iinnwerial hearing upon the social condition of our own
induLtrious community. The attention which has of late
been dircebed to the proere s of the apprenticeship system
in our Colonial dependencies, and which happily is becoming
more intense every hour, has brought to light a deep-laid
scheme of social wrong, which, for depravity and fraud—
seeking individual aggrandisement at the expense of unsus-
pecting innoceace, and to the unspeakable prejudice of ris-
irs' fre_doni—has no (x tipple in any state of things, how-
et- vicious, or amongst any class of persons, however, cor-
rupt or heartless. So long as it answered their purpose,
the advocates and admirers of Colonial slay, ry insisted, that
the victims of their oppression were only in human form,
and that their mental capacities were inferior to the
keener instincts of animal nature ; that they had no just
notions of social duties, nor of the ordinary motives of self-
interest ; and that to confer upon them freedom would be,
in effect, to drive them back to the loathsome scenes of
barbarism, in which the demands of subsistence would
scarcely overcome their death-like indolence. For a time,
this foul falsehood prevailed, and many of our purest phi-
lanthropists were led to believe, that a long intermediate
state of preparation would be indispensable, to prepare the
negro for that perfect freedom, of which, in common with
the whole race of man, he was the undisputed heir. It
was this iniquitous misrepresentation, which paved the way
for that state of aggravated slavery, into which the black
population of our West Indian Colonies has been thrown,
and for the extinction of which an effort is now making,
which, for nobleness of purpose and intensity of pursuit, will
go far to atone for an error of deep-working wrong and mis-
chief, As all involuntary restraint is incompatible with free-
d ,m, so every spark of humanity is extinct in the bosom
of him who traffics in human flesh, whatever may be
its modifications ; and yet we are accustomed to speak of
the properties of our great West India interests, and of
wholesale mortgagees of human bones and human blood,
as men of like feelings to ourselves, at the same time that
we justly shudder at the idea of coming in contact with a
person who has bought or received stolen goods. Their
Parliamentary champions well knew it was indispensable
that they should be thus thought and spoken of, or their
audacious claims to compensation would have been treated
by an insulted people, as a convicted receiver of stolen
goods is treated in a Court of criminal justice, when he
impudently requests the Judge to direct the restoration
of property of which he had been furtively possessed.
The history of the world supplies no instance of
successful knavery actinr, upon sublimated sensibili-
ties, like that practised* by the mortgagees and
traffickers in human beings ; and which wrung from
the industry of an overworked and cruelly taxed people,
the enormous payment of twenty millions of sterling money,
as the redemplon-price of eight hundred thousand fellow-
men, part of the vast family of outraged earth and insulted
heaven. The pieces of money were paid, ostentatiously,
indeed, by those who earned a cheap title to humanity at
the expense of others, and without repining, by those who
could ill spare them. And if the object thus bought with
a prise, had been promptly and fairly obtained, we should
have been as little disposed to grudge the money as to envy
its possessors. But it is time to enquire whether there has
been a prompt delivery as well as prompt payment. No
language can more appropriately-define the nature and ob-
jects of the contract, than that used by Mr. Stanley, in his
memorable speech, when introducing to the House of Com-
mons, as principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, his
this
aofpfru aaAnsci_tte,
at
nl theleovet powerevery slave,
3 l
oaai vl
oehLi sceols on
privilegesnit
ielnepg aCOts to
passing
which he shall be freed from the atrocious system of
irresponsible corporal punishment—in which he shall have the
full enjoyment of his domestic ties—in which he shall not be
compelled to see those that are nearest and dearest to him in-
sulted by punishment, or liable to degradation—in which his
eiidence shall not be disputable in a court of justice—in which
his right to property of every description shall be as undis-
puted as any other class of the King's subjects—in which he
shall enjoy every right and every privilege of a freeman, sub-
ject to this restriction, and this restriction only, that he shall
for a certain time remain under contract to labour industriously
in the service of his present owner, but his then employer."
Such wee the lurid picture drawn by an ardent, but inex-
perienced statesman ; and no wonder that the benevolence
of a Buxton, the wisdom of a Wilberforce, and the com-
placency of a Clarkson, yielded admiring homage at the
spirit-stirring shrine. Myriads leaped for joy as they threw
away their millions, while the bloody hand of him who
loved no music but the yell of struggling misery gasping
for life, and imploring death, beneath the excruciating tor-
ture of the untiring lash, was atsetched out to seize the
prize extorted by force from outraged feelings. And what
is the cruel sequel ? The whole turns out to be a series of
cruel insults and murderous mockery. The human beings
whom the people of England paid to redeem, are hurled
into an abyss of present and prospective suffering, far sur-
passing the condition in which they were anterior to the
passing of the Slave Abolition Act. It is only to the
future that we can now direct the indignant gaze of man-
kind. For the two-fold purpose of extracting
the greatest
quantity of labour during the period of apprenticeship, and
to destroy its value at its expiration, these compensated
dealers in human blood have devised a plan for making the
lives of the slaves, for so they are to all intents and pur-
poses, far more wretched, by greater bodily exertions, from
severer toil extending over a greater number of hours, and
rendering that toil less supportable by a diminished quantity
of food, and by the importation of another race of beings
from a remote region of the earth, expressly and avowedly
to destroy the value of the labour market. Had a council
of demons been held in the court of Lucifer, a more fraudu-
lent, bloody, and infernal plot could not have been hatched,
to destroy the spirit of the Emancipation Act, and to cast
hopeless despair upon the objects for whose redemption
this natios has made such splendid sacrifices. It is this—
and it ought not to be concealed—that our humane Govern-
m.nt, with its pious head at the Colonial Office, have given
to the scheme their unqualified sanction. It appears, from
copies of papers recently laid upon the table of the Lords,
that for some time past the planters in the Mauritius
have been quietly kidnapping a number of ignorant, but,
as they are described by the mercantile thieves, " quiet,
docile, orderly, and able bodied" (mark the synonymous
ord, you able. bodied labourers of England) Asiatic,
called Hill Coolies, from near Bengal, who are described
as being able to endure much labour, while they consume
little and cheap food. The overture, for the countenance
of the Queen's Government to this scheme of rapine and
fraud, appears to have been first made by the father of Mr.
Gladstone, M.P. fcr Newark, who distinguished himself
the other night by his defence of the West India planters.
By the published correspondence, we find that the slave
owners set forth their deep apprehension of the risks to
which to which their properties will be exposed when the
expiration of the apprenticeship takes place ; and that un-
less a system of regular continuous labour is then adopted,
the cultivation of the sugar cane cannot be carried on to a
productive result. They apprehend that the women,
who now work in the field will cease to do so, and that the
men are very likely to form combinations for the purpose
of restricting the ordinary periods of labour, as well as to
compel the planters to pay them wages at rates much
above their means or ability to comply with ; and that
being without the means of competition, they would be
forced to submit to dictation, however ruinous ; while the
labourers would be in a great measure exempt from
cir-
cumstances, the
thNaNt-eitstis Indiaonly by m oanseuyp
pploywoefr
pressure, as vegetable food is abundant. Under these
friseeilmabpereusrseerds
bwiteinhgtohbetbacinlieedf, that they can carry forward the cultivation
of their lands on a moderate scale, independent of the
emancipated apprentices. And to impress upon Lord
Glenelg's humane mind the vast advantages which
would arise to the planters by knocking down the value
of labour, Mr. Gladstone proceeds, with savage de-
light, to recount the little cost at which these " able-
bodied" Hill Coolies may be maintained. " Their common
food," he remarks, " is rice : the allowance for each male
two pounds, for each female one pound and a half per day ;
the cost per head being i).d." And to crown this cold, cal-
culating scheme of fraud and murder, the parties proceed,
with countenances grinning with savage joy, to speak of
the progressive success which hag attended their efforts.
The following letter from Messrs. Gillanders and Arbuth-
not, to John Gladstone, Esq., of Liverpool, will open the
secret .

vv
V
" Calcutta, 6th Jane, 1836.
Dear Sir,--We beg to acknowledge your letter of the
4th January, referring to your desire to procure natives from
this part of the world to work upon your estates in the West
Indies, and in soma degree render you independent of the
negro population at the termination of the present system
Within the last two years upwards of two
thousand natives have been sent from this to the Mauritius,
by several parties here, under contracts of engagements
for five years. The contracts, we believe, are all of a
similar nature, and we enclose a copy of one, under
which we have sent 700 or 800 men to the Mauri-
tius ; and we are not aware that any greater difficulty would
present itself in sending men to the West Indies, the native:
being perfectly ignorant of the place they agree to go to, or the
length cf the voyage they are u
undertaking. The tribe that is
found to suit best in the Mauritius is from the hills to the north
of Calcutta, and the men of which are all well limbed and ac-
tive, without prejudice of any kind, and have hardly any ideas
beyond those of supplying the wants of nature; arising, it
would appear, however, more from want of opportunity than