The Sun.
London, England, 1849-07-28 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS, July 27.

(C )ntinued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.)
SLAVE TRADE (PERSIAN GULF) BILL.
On the motion that this Bill be read a third time,
Mr. ANSTEY opposed the second reading of this
Bill. The Bill would certainly militate against our
existing treaty with the powers in that quarter,
as in the opinion of Ate Noble Lord this treaty was only
valuable inasmuch as it was calculated to secure the
obbdience of the Arabian chiefs against whom it was
directed to the Shah of Persia. It would appear by this
that these chiefs were not independent, but that they
were in some way or other under the surveillance of the
Government of Persia. If such was really the case, he
feared that the effect of this Bill would be to increase
the difficulties in our intercourse with those chiefs, which
at present was unsettled, and had not many years ago
proved both disagreeable and expensive. He was
not anxious to excite a vexata questio, but he
could not help remembering that the officers of
the navy, able as they had always proved
themselves, were still only men, and he was the
more induced to remember the fact, because he could
not forget another, which was that there were innu-
merable complaints of the merchant service that these
slave-trade treaties continually interfered with their
commercial proceedings. After citing several instances,
which, from their technicality would be unintelligible in
a report, the Hon. and Learned Gentleman said, that
seeing the perfect inutility of the system which had been
adopted on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the
slave trade, he deprecated above all things the carrying
of that system to the eastern seas. They had
trade there which it was their indispensable
duty not only to protect but to encourage,
and feeling this he conceived it to be his duty to move
that this Bill be read a third time this day six months.
Sir EDWARD COLEBROOKE also deprecated this
attempt to carry into the eastern seas a system which
had so lamentably failed on the coast of Africa. It was
likely to involve ns in most unpleasant altercations in
that quarter of the world. Then, if it was to be adopted,
who was to pay the expense. He surely would not
throw it upon the East India Company, who were quite
incompetent to bear it; but expense there must be, and
somebody must pay, and this, if not the other, was a
matter which well deserved consideration.
Colonel THOMPSON said that he, if any one, could
throw light upon the subject, for he it was who
had ne-
gotiated the treaty with the Arab chiefs, in which the
slave trade was declared to be piracy. This was no new
matter, for it had been known and considered as long
since as the year 1820. Then, with regard to the cases
of conscience, which the Hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr.
Anstey) had made out, he assured him that he might
make himself perfectly easy, for these Arab chiefs, of
whom he was so much afraid, were not slave dealers at all.
In negotiating with these chiefs he had hinted to them
with the greatest delicacy that it was the wish of the
English Government that the slave-trade in the Gulf
should be declared piracy. A ghastly laugh ran round
the circle of diplomatists, and they all exclaimed, " Ca-
pital! capital!" and he soon discovered that they who
never had been slave-traders considered it a capital joke
that the favourite pursuit of an old ally of ours, of whom
they were extremely jealous, should thus bs declared
piracy. He had the treaty in his pocket, and could
produce it to the House if it were necessary. He should supLpoorrdt the Bill.
R BTt,OowNtithses thatldoaurle.ls wthhoes
esympathyrelief
of f this
country, with regard
con-
templated in this Bill
of their being principally
Christians. With
AbyssZtaille called for by the fact
treatiest had been
regard to the chiefs with whom
concluded, it had been doubted whether wereou inde-
pendent or not. There was not the slightesetyd
tradeit Eastern
it. It was absurd to say that the feelings of
potentates were in favour of the slave
they had the Shah of Persia, the Itnauna of Muscat,
and other Arabian chiefs joining in a treaty to put