The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-25 00:00:00

NEGRO EMANCIPATION.

GREAT MEETING AT BATH.

(BY EXPRESS.)
A very large and highly-respectable Meeting of the inha-
bitants of Bath took place :yesterday, in the great room of the
Guildhall, for the purpose of adopting petitions to Parliament,
praying for the immediate and unqualified emancipation of the
Negro Apprentices in the West Indies. The Meeting was
crowded in every part, and there were a large number of
ladies present, who appeared to take a deep interest in the
proceedings. Among the gentlemen on the platform we
observed S. Barrow, Esq., Mayor of Bath; W. Thomas
Blair, Esq., late Mayor; - Williams, Esq. ; Alderman A.
Gordon; Jones Kingsbury; Henry Godwin, Esq. ; Revs.
W. Jay, Richards, Martin, Cater, Jackson, Spencer, Bevan;
William Hunt, Esq. ; Richard Griffiths, Esq. ; George
Thompson ; John Smith, Esq. ; R. Perfect, Esq. ; Messrs.
Palmer, Pearson, Cox, Golledge, &c. &c.
On the motion of Admiral GORDON, seconded by Mr.
JACKSON,
WILLIAM THOMAS BLAIR, Esq., was unanimously voted to
the Chair.

The CHAIRMAN said, I cannot hesitate to obey the call of
the meeting to take the chair on this occasion, though I was
in hopes we should have been favoured with the presence of a
gentleman to-day, who, had he been here, would have been
requested to preside—l allude to Colonel Gore Langton.—
( Cheers.) He was applied to for this purpose, and though
he is prevented from attending the meeting, I am happy to say
he is most cordially with us in sentiment and purpose ; and in
the course of the proceedings I shall have the pleasure of
reading to you his reply. It is with very mingled feelings of
pain and pleasure that I meet you again on the affecting
question that brings us together to-day.—(llear, hear.)
When we consider that a Government professedly liberal,
and a House of Commons supposed to represent the opinions
of the nation, have turned a deaf car to the prayers of an
united people, and to the claims of those who are bowed down
under a cruel and unrighteous domination—when we find them
taking side with the wrong-doer and the oppressor, and
settling every difficulty at the expense of the oppressed—when
we find them avowing the un-Christian and unconstitutional
sentiment, that one man may have a right to the forced and
uncompensated labour of another man, and upholding all the
immoralities and atrocities inseparable from a state of slavery,
however modified—it is impossible not to be filled with shame,
with grief, and indignation.—(Loud cheers.) But when I
see before me such an assembly as the present, responding so
promptly to the call of humanity and justice—when I have
witnessed, as I have dune within the last few days, overflow-
ing meetings in two such important towns as Liverpool and
Birmingham, consisting of 4,000 or 5,000 persons at each,
without a dissentient voice at either—and when the whole
country is moving from the centre to the extremities, it shows
that the heart of the nation is sound, and augurs well for the
speedy and complete success of our sacred cause.-( Renewed
cheers.) True, we have sustained a temporary defeat; but
when we take into account all the circumstances of the case—
that the leading men of both the great parties in the House of
Commons were against us—that our case was not debated on
its own merits, but was artfully and unfairly met by the" G-
overnment Bill, contrary to a virtual promise made in the
House of Lords—and that the debate terminated abruptly and
unexpectedly just after the able and plausible speech of Mr.
Gladstone—when all these particulars, I say, are fairly
:neighed, we may regard the division not only as a moral tri-
umph, but as the earnest of complete success the next time
the question is brought forward ; and this it is likely
to be in less than a month from the present period.—(Hear,
and cheers.) The hope of our opponents is, that public
feeling, after being wrought to so high a pitch of enthusiasm.
must subside, that wearied with excitement, and discouraged
by defeat, we shall abandon the cause as hopeless.—( Cries of
" Never.") This was one of the arguments made use of by
Sir George Grey
to induce the House of Commons to pass
his Bill. He told them if they did so, it would stifle agita-
tion, and allay the ferment of the public mind. Sir George
Grey may have read many things, but I fear he has not read
the signs of the times, or else he heeds them not.—( Hear. )
He greatly mistakes the men who are engaged in this cause,
if he thinks that like truckling and time-serving politicians
they will advocate the cause of truth and lawful liberty to-day,
and desert it to-morrow; and be as much mistakes them if he
thinks they are men who love agitation for its own sake, and
the strife of party politics, or that they have any selfish and
ambitious aims of their own to serve. No they are amongst
the best friends of peace and order, men of high moral and
religious feeling, who arc generously giving their money and
their time to serve the cause of the oppressed, and, who, I be-
lieve, would peril their lives rather than desert the cause or
sacrifice their principles.—(Great applause.) If we abandon
the negro now, after we have contributed to raise his expecta-
tions, cur conduct will be base and cruel in the highest degree.
His patient endurance is now sustained by hope, but tell him
that his friends in England can do no more for him, that after
a fruitless struggle they have resigned him for the remaining
term of the apprenticeship to the tender mercies of his task-
master, and you plunge him at once into despair, or rouse
him into dangerous and fearful excitement.—( Hear, hear.)
No 1 let us rather plight our faith afresh to our fettered bre-
thren, and like a celebrated general of antiquity, who swore on
the altars of his country eternal hostility to her foes, so may
we in a far better cause, and with holier purposes, and with
no weapons in our hands but those of truth and reason, regis-
ter this day as in the sight of God, our solemn determination,
never to relax in our exertions till slavery in reality as well as
in name, shall cease to exist in every dependency of the Bri-
tish Crown—and in every country in the world.--(Vehement
cheering.) Surrounded as I ens by gentlemen who are
prepared to lay our whole case before you, I wish
only to make one other observation by way of meet-
ing art objection that is sometimes made to our proceed-
ings, and I fear by some whom we have been. accustomed to
rank amongst the best friends of the negro.—( Hear, hear.)
It is said that our cause is political, or that it has become so
in the hands of the present conductors. This we altogether
deny, and call for the evidence. On the part of the Society
in Bath—on the part of the Central Committee in London—
ott the part of 400 delegates lately assembled there, repre-
senting as they did the anti-slavery body throughout the em-
pire, I confidently deny the truth of the allegation.—(Hear.)
That here and there may be found an individual advocating
the cause, in or out of Parliament, for the sake of popularity,
or to serve some party purposes, is saying no more than ni•ly
be said of any cause that was ever advocated by human agency ;
but to say that this implicates the devoted and excellent men
who are the main-stay and prop of this movement, or that it
affects in any way our righteous cause itself, is about as just as
if any one should endeavour to disparage and impugn Chris-
tianity because a Judas was found amongst the Apostles, or a
Saul amongst the Prophets—( Hear, hear) ; and refusing to
co-operate with the Society on this ground is about as wise
and humane as it would be to refuse to unite in extinguishing
I fire with men whose principks and conduct we might in
many react, the At the meeting at Liverpool on
Friday last, the Rev. Mr. APNeile showed most clearly that
appealed to us, he said, on the principles of
we might co-operate with any man in this cause without there
being the slightest compromise or sacrifice of any one prin-
ciple, religious or political, on either side.—( Hear, hear,
hear.) It
our common humanity—( Hear, hear)--and claimed an
interest in the breast of every man.—( Cheers.) It is, in fact,
mthaent , the Clarksons, and
the same just and holy cause it ever was, and I believe the
eitrsfoeracrelsi,esitffreiietthidesr,
hasthe Sliarpes
descended on those who are
now labouring so industriously in the same vacation. It is
no sectarian or party question, though it claims the support
NleViolbf
of men of every party, and emphatically of those who profess
to receive the Divine injunction to love their neighbour as
themselves, and to do to others as they would be done by.—
( Great cheering.)
The Rev. Tiros. SPENCER, in moving the first resolution,
observed that it was hardly necessary for him to disclaim being
actuated in his present course by political motives. He had
approved of many of the measures of her 'Alajesty's Ministers,
of theirconduct in but he could not approve
in-
stance, which ho was willingadmit proceeded upon mis-
taken views. He believed they meant well, but that they were
biassed by those around them; that they did not know the
sentiments of the public at large ; and that they were not
sufaently
acquainted with the principles of eternal jus-
tice; and stood too much in awe of the opinions of a
few great and influential men.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
Hee should really be ashamed of himself if he did not
cordially, agree with the principles set forth in the resolution
he held in his han. It as an easy atter t blame absent
persons, and they should w m
recollect that neither the Ministers
nor the slave-owners were there to defend themselves; but as
Lord Brougham and Miss Martineau had observed, it was a
very different thing to speak of slavery in England and in
America.—( Cheers.) He had come forward not to hold
,contention with the slave-holders or with her Majesty's Mini-
sters, but with the people of the celebrated city of Bath, and
in doing so, he was only following the example set him in the
Scriptures. There they saw Moses holding contention, not
with foreign foes but with the Israelites—they saw Stephen
when dying reproving the people—and St. Paul reproving the
sorcerer in the name of the All-righteous ; and if their Lord
and Master, when on earth, did not speak against Caesar or
the Heathen, but against the Pharisees, the Lawyers, and the
Scribes, he would say in like manner to the people of Bath, they
had as much to do with the case of which they all complained
as any people he knew of. lie would remind them of the
speech of Mr. Borthwick in their town a few years ago in
defence of slavery and the slave owners, and of the liberal
subscription which had been entered into by them to purchase
a piece of plate with the Borthwick arms engraved upon it.
He (Mr. Spencer) was present when they had not only refused
to hear the defence of the Rev. Mr. Knibb, the Baptist Mi-
nister, but had ill used and ill treated him. Their esteemed
Chairman, Mr. Blair, presided on that occasion, and would
corroborate bis statement. He held in his hand a statement
of the proceedings on that occasion, in the form of a pamphlet,
by the Rev. J. Stanley, and they would be astonished to hear
that the people of Bath listened with credulity to the state-
ments of Mr. Borthwick, that the slaves in the West Indies
were well fed, with clothes fit for a nobleman—that the work
was very easy that they had an hour for breakfast,
two hours for dinner—and that the young slaves under
fourteen years of age never worked at all—that in
the negro's house there n-as generally a mahogany side-
board, a pair of silver candlesticks, a good sofa, and
six mahogany chairs—(Laughter)—that there was generally
a four post bedstead in their bed-rooms—and that the plan-
ters' wives and daughters were in the habit of instructing the
young negrocs and negresses, and
" Teaching the young idea how to shoot."
..—(Much laughter.) He remembered further Mr. Borthwick
having stated that such was the kindness of their masters, that
when the negroes gave balls, as frequently happened, their
masters and mistresses waited upon them as servants, in order