The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-16 00:00:00

NEGRO EMANCIPATION.

GREAT MEETING AT BRISTOL.
(BY EXPRESS.)

A very respectable and crowded meeting of the Inhabitants of Bristol
and its neighbourhood took place yestc relay at tine 9iii!dhall, for the pur-
pose of considering the propriety of petitioning Parliarn:nt for the im-
mediate extinction of the negro apprenticeship system in iL'e British
Colonies. The meeting was convened by a requisition addressed to the
Right Worshipful the Mayor of the city, and signed by fifteen members
of the Town Council, and a number of the merchants and other influ-
ential inhabitants without distinction of sect or party. At one o'clock,
the hour appointed for commencing the proceedings, the Hall was
crowded in every part, and among the auditors were a large number of
ladies. Shortly afterwards the Mayor, John Kerle Haberfleld, Esq.,
entered the Hall, and was greeted with loud and general cheering.
Among the gentlemen around the chair were Richard Ash, Esq., Joseph
Reynolds, Esq., J. E. Lunen, Esq., W. Harwood, Esq., Nehemiah
Moore, Esq., and Rev. Messrs. Bunting, J. Crisp, W. Lucy, W. Roper, S.
Waring. Esq., W. Poole, Esq., J. Wood, Esq., E. Thomas, Esq., J. H.
Saunders, Esq., Joseph Eaton, Esq., J. Addinton, Esq., W. Saunders,
Esq., &c Ste.
On taking the Chair the MAYOR said—Fellow-citizens, I feel much
pleasure in acceding to the requisition which I have read, arid which
has been so numerously and so respectably signed. I should have
thought it not only disrespectful to the requisitionists, but a gross
breach of my duty as Chief Magistrate of this city, if I had not freely
and instantly assented to their request. I feel highly honoured on
taking the Chair this day on such an occasson. I may well distrust my
ability to fill the honourable situation to which you have called me in a
manner answerable to your wishes, and the very interesting and im.
portant occasion that has called us together.—(Cheers.) I am, I con-
fess, " little versed in the set phrase of speech," and the cause in which
we are now engaged needs no common eloquence to describe it in all its
varied details, and with a force and energy of expression which cannot
fail to draw your attention, and solicit your approval.—(Hear, hear.)
To give liberty to the captive—to emancipate from an ignominious and
degrading bondage a class of beings who have just claims to our sym-
pathy and benevolence—these are indeed subjects of serious considera-
tion to every intelligent mind, and of more than wonted interest to every
feeling heart.—(Much applause.) They will, I am sure, be placed
before you in the most favourable and in the most attractive
perm—(Cheers)—and by artists (if I may be allowed the term)
every way qualified to depict them, with equal truth and fidelity of
colouring.—(Cheers.) It only remains for me to unite with you in the
hope that this day's meetiv may, under the Divine blessing, and with
the aid of similar associations, be productive of a happy issue, and ul-
timately lead to the adoption of measures that will be found accordant
with the principles of justice, humanity, and religion.—(Loud cheers.)
To the master-hand of Parliament is left every great work—every work
of delicacy and hazard. I shall be much mistaken if the people of Eng-
land will long leave the question doubtful. They are a just people—a
loyal people—a proud people—and a grateful people. They will not with-
hold their confidence from the men who labour to procure them justice
—from the men who adorn England, by presenting her to the world as
the champion of humanity.—(Cheers.) No laws can be trusted which
are made to regulate slavery, because none of those laws ever did or
ever could carry along with them the executory principle—that is to say,
Fitch a principle as would enable them to execute themselves.—(Hear,
hear.) Nothing could be more obvious, for it was plain that all mea-
sures of this description must be executed by the whites with respect to
the blacks—must be executed by a superior, predominant against and
over, and to the subjugation of an inferior and servile class, and these
Iwo classes, thus separated from each other by the relation of master and
apprentice, were all unhappily separated by contrast of colour, diversity of
habits, and difference of race; so that to think of procuring an effectual and
an Unman tialjustiee, by trusting the happiness, the comforts, and the rights
of the one class exclusively in the hands of the other class, was about
as hopeless a dream as was ever indulged in. It comes to this,—the
remedy must be in the words of a celebrated orator, " Free the blacks,
emancipate the apprentices, abolish the intermediate or qualified state
of slavery which was yet permitted to remain, and then the executing
principle would be procured, for the negro would then have the staff in
his own hands—would then be able to work out his own safety—would
then be able to free himself from his master, to 1111 an independent
station, and play an independent part.—(Cheers.) As soon as that was
effected— as soon as the negro became his own master—as soon as that
happy change was effected, every thing would fall into its right place,
and there would no longer remain a greater difficulty in having the
laws well executed, or in securing the rights, the comforts, and the
enjoyments of the inferior classes in the West Indies, than there was on
the part of the peasantry of this country in procuring protection against
the upper classes, sf which all mixed societies must be partially com-
posed.—(Loud cheers.) I heartily hope the kind-hearted British
people, and the Bristelians especially, will succeed in effecting all the
objects they have inn view. I shall now feel pleasure in listening
to any observations from those friends who always take an active and
prominent part in acts of benevolence, and goodness, and charity.—
( Much cheering.)
Mennen]) Assn, Esq , in moving the introductory resolution, observed
that the inhabitants of Bristol having from a remote period taken a pro-
minent part in upholding the abominable system of slavery, it was pe-
culiarly incumbent on them to endeavour, to the utmost of their power,
to wipe away the stain, and to undo the evils which had been inflicted.
It appeared from ancient records that when slavery existed in Great
Britain, Bristol was the emporium for the sale of human beings from all
parts of England ; and that in the public markets rows of young persons
of both sexes were tied together for sale. Long after slavery had been
abandoned in England it was introduced into her colonies, and Bris-
tolians took the lead in the horrid traffic in the African race. At length
the British slave trade, slier long and mighty struggles, received its
deathblow. It was deeply to be lamented that when the Bill for the
Abolition of Slavery passed, a fatal error was committed by the enormous
sum of twenty millions having been agreed to be paid as a compensation
to the planters before any amount of loss had been ascertained, anti with-
out any security having been given for the performance of the contract,
whilst the arrangement for carrying the measure into effect were left to
the Colonial Legislature. The British public hoped the iniquitous sys-
tem of slavery in the colonies was at an end, but it was soon found to be
virtually continued under another name ; and the condition of the
negro was in some respects worse than before. It should be recollected
that inn proportion as the period for emancipation advanced, the planters
had a greater interest in increasing the labour of their apprentices,
without regard to what might become of them at the expiration of the
term; and, if the system were to continue, there was reason to fear that
many of these unhappy beings, instead of being prepared for the enjoy-
ment of freedom, would only be prepared for an early grave. Let not
the Colonial Legislature and the planters rely too confidently on the
peaceable and submissive conduct of the apprenticed slaves, but consi-
der what might be the effect of persevering in the system after the Ist
of August next—when the apprentices who were registered prmtlials,
and who constituted the vast majority, would entrust their condition
with that of their more fortunate brethren—when a numerous class who
looked forward to the enjoyments of freedom, would aid themselves dis-
appointed in consequence of fraudulent registration—when the appren.
tices on the estates of the Marquis of Sligo, and others, would be set
free—and when It was known then inn Antigua and the Bermudas free-
dom was enjoyed by the negroes without their having endured tine evils
attendant on the preposterous system of apprenticeship. As he should
be followed by gentlemen who were well qualified to enlighten the
Meeting, he would only call on them to make one more vigorous effort
in behalf of their oppressed fellow-subjects; and if their Legislators
were not deaf to reason, blind to policy, and callous to every feeling of
humanity, they might yet be induced to undo tine heavy burthen—to let
the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.—Cheers.)
The Rev. Mr. Bueristes then came forward He said he recollected
hearing an anecdote of an Irish candidate for parliamentary honours,
addressing his constituency on the first occasions in the following man-
ner :—" Gentlemen—Nothing appears to me so difficult in the concep.
lion of a speech as to know how to begin it properly and gracefully ,
and I have therefore come to the resolution that my speech shall have no
beginning at all."—(Laughter.) And having merle that extraordinary
beginning he proceeded forthwith to business.—(Hear.) He (Mr. B.)
should not attempt so impracticable a part as that of making a speech
without a beginning; but he should endeavour at once to address him-
self to the purposes for which they were assembled. He begged of them
to believe that nothing would have induced him to make a journey of
240 miles, and absent himself twenty days from duties of importance, if
he had not hoped in the absence of some disinterested friends, to have
been enabled to submit a few facts anti arguments for their consideration
that had not previously occurrent to the respectable assemblage he saw
before him in support of tine great cause of negro emancipa-
tion. He was not an orator, and had not the power of making
a compact and perspicuous statement of facts ; but if he succeeded
through their indulgence in getting his meaning into the minds
of his auditors, he would feel himself amply compensated fur any em-
barrassment or pain which his present position might inflict won him.
He considered it to be of considerable importance, and indispensably
necessary now, when the policy of their opponents was to distract atten-
tion to points of minor consideration--he conceived it of great import-
ance that they should recur to and rally round their first principles.—
(Hear, hear.) Because, if they impressed upon the minds of all men,
as the motion which he had the honour to second assumed, that slavery
was essentially an umnitigable evil, they had but to ask themselves
from year to year, and from day to day—had they got rid of the evil?
had they discharged their responsibility ?—were they free from the pres-
sure of that of which their consciences had so long complained?—and
if they found that it was not so, then they had precisely the same re-
sponsibility imposed upon there as when they had first embarked in the
emancipation enterprize.— (Hear and cheers.) He should not, while
recurring to the principles of their truly hallowed union, attempt to bring
forward any arguments against the principle and circuistanees ofnegro
slavery, because they were in every man's mouth and in every
good man's heart —(Hear, and cheers.) He:was a man—he loved
liberty, and therefore he hated, with all the hatred of which his nature
was capable, human slavery in every form, and negro slavery in all the

widely extended sharacters of barbarity, cruelty, and licentiousness
which it assumed.—(Cheers.) So instinctive was the love of liberty,
that he had been sometimes led to conclude that those who abetted
slavery were not men, but an inferior order of beings--perhaps, they
were monkeys—(A laugh)—but he appealed to that meeting, solemnly
and deliberately, whether the taint of an inferior and degraded nature
was not more justly applicable to those who were so palpably devoid of
the natural instincts of humanity than those, who, although their skin

was black, did not exhibit the paleness of guilt, the purple hue of intem-
perance, or thejaundice of dissoluteness and disease?—(Hear, hear.) But
as an unworthy minister and professor of religion, he felt that it was
from religion he drew the strongest and most direct arguments against
the system.—(Cheers) It was in the lustre of religion that he saw
its greatest evil, and that it appeared a direct interference, not only
with the rights of man, but also with those of Almighty God,
and the fruitful source of all crime and wickedness.—(Hear.) "God
has made man of one blood, and all the nations of men free to dwell
upon the face of the earth." That was a direct reproach to the paltry
and selfish distinctions of clime and colour, and the atrocious system of
confining men as slaves to ono spot of earth when God had given it as
the birthright of all men.—( Hoar, and cheers.) Perhaps he might here,
without impropriety, refer to the great enterprise of evangelizing the
colonies, now so popular, and in which, he was aware the people of
Bristol had always taken so prominent a part.—(Hear.) He thought
that enterprizee bound them the more firmly to support the great
cause of negro emancipation. Nothing could be snore contradictory in
principle than labouring to introduce Christianity into the Colonies, and
at the same time abetting the system of negro bondage. What had
they done in the first :instance ? Under the pretext of colonization
they had actually depopulated hundreds of thousands of acres, and after
having exterminated the last aboriginal tenant of the soil, they passed
over to another coast, under the pretext of commerce, and stole from
thence myriads of human beings that they might compulsorily
cultivate the soil for their own peculiar benefit, and then seek to justify
or sanctify, or somethingify the theft by introducing a system of Chris-
tianity.—(Hear, hear.) The thing was preposterous, it was idiotic;
their Christian establishments, their missionary schemes for education
had done great good, but that could never justify them as a Christian
nation i❑ doing evil.—(Cheers.) To :christianize the slave while they
connived at rapine and wrong might be likened to " doing good by
stealth," and well might they " blush to find it fame." The very ex-
istence of Christianity in many colonies, and the eagerness of many of
the planters to introduce it, had long seemed to him to amount to a
complete concession of the grounds of right, honour, and necessity,
upon which the system of slavery attempted to support itself —(Hear,
hear.) Upon what plan could slavery be vindicated? Upon what
ground could they defend the iniquitous system which placed a yoke
round the neck of their fellow men, whom, by education and moral
instruction they had made Christians, and had rendered susceptible of
the restraints of morality, and entitled to the blessings of religion ?
Had not every man an inalienable right to civil liberty ? and was
not the negro a man ? Let them ask those missionaries and those So-
cieties, one of which had recently held its anniversary in that town—
ask them if that man was not capable of being made a Christian, and if
he had not a right to all those domestic priliileges and comforts—to those'
legal securities—to that personal freedom which was the true right of
very man ; and were not his claims to freedom equally strong, when