The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-22 00:00:00

MORNING EDITION-

BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTI-
SLAVERY CONVENTION.-SATURDAY.

James G. BIRNEY, Esq., in the Chair.
The minutes of the last meeting having been read and
coofir:ocd, the adjourned discus,.ion upon Mr. Turnbull's
rider to the second resolution was resumed.
JOIIN STURGE, Esq. thought the Convention could not
possibly agree to the rider. If they did they would first
of all have declared certain principles in the resolutions,
and then deprecate giving sanction to these principles.
At the close of the rider the 235. 6d. per cwt. which the
pecple of Europe were paying for sugar was brought into
comparison with the 475. per cwt. which the people of
England were paying. Nothing eould have a more bane-
ful tendency than that with retest:nee to the important
question before the meeting. If the markets of England
n ere to be opened to slave-grown sugar he contemplated
the consequences with horror.--( Hear, hear.) If there
only two men of high authority on all colonial questions,
they were the la'e James Stephenson and the late Zachary
Macaulay.—( Hear, hear.) They had both bzen in the
NVLst Indi,s, and had both devoted a long :ife to the study
of colonial questions, and they were of opinion that slave
cultivation, by the importation of slaves, invariably involved
tho.e engaged in it in ruin.—(Cheers.) The moral laws
of Ged had branded slavery as the most atrocious system
the world ever saw. He begged to quote one extract
from a pamphlet he held in his hand, entitled .‘ A short
Review of the Slave Trade and Elavery, pith considera-
tions on the benefit which would arise from cultivation of
tropical productions by free labour." It wasas follows :
The late able and eminent Colonial agent, Mr. Marryat,
in a speech in Parliament, observes :—'• There are few
states in the West Indies that have not during the lest
twenty years (i e., from 1793 to 1813). been sold or
...iven up to creditors." The Tote Statistical Returns from
le West [tidies furnish a remarkable confirmation to these

eta s. -It appears by these Returns that the distress of
n planter in general seems parallel with the fertility of
n soil he cultivetes, and with the consequent high appre-
ration of his slaves. If we take the four colonies of De-
ncrara, Berbice, Trinidad, and Honduras, where the ave-
rage value of slaves is the highest, and the soil most fer.
tile, we shall find the proportion of slaves taken and sold
in execution, in five years, to be as high as one in twenty-
eig la of the slave population; whereas, in the other eight
colonies for m which e c have returns of the sales in execu-
tion, St. Vincent's, Tortola, Bahamas, Nevis, St. Chris-
topher's, Barbadoes, Dominica, and Grenada, and in which
the prices are low, the proportion of slaves so sold is only
ore in sixty ; and, leaving out St. Vincent's and Tortola,
which scem to involve some doubt, it is only one in eighty.
lie begged to make one remark in conclusion, which was,
that he could not avoid expressing his indignation and re-
gret that the son of the late Zachary Macaulay, the pre-
sent Secretary-at-War, should be the advocate of Hill
transpc raition.—( Cheers.)
Mr. TURNBULL replied. All lie wanted was, that they
should be guarded in their expressions. It was true that
a portion of the high price, 47a. per cwt., arose from the
monepoly— ( S veral voices, " A great part")—but another
portion arose from the fact that free labour was net yet in
full operation, and until it was, he maintained that the
principles of the resolutions could not be relied on.
The CHAIRMAN then put the question, but there we_e
only two hands held up in favour of Mr. Turnbull's rider,
an; it was therefore negatived.
Mr. WARDELI. PHILLIPS wished to make a few observa-
tions upon two of the resolutions, which related to the East
Indies—the Gth and 7th. It appeared to him the meeting
could not discuss a more important topic in regard to sla-
ve:), in general, than the success of the efforts now mak-
ing in this country to encourage free cotton in India, and
to fill the markets of Great Britain with that article. He
thought the most beneficial effects would follow such a
scheme. Every arm ought to be stretched out, and the
whole phalanx of veteran abolitionists ought to rally round
that last hope of putting an end to slavery in the world.
In regird to America, it was matter of history that the
main prop of the slave system was cotton. When the
revolution in America ceased, slave property fell very
much in value. It was of very little consequence. The
introduction of cotton had not then taken place for
agricultural purposes. Slav_ry was inefficient, and the
value of property was low. At that time, 1787, the
States payed the celebrated Ordinance drawn up by
Thomas Jefferson, that there should he no slavery in
the new States to be carved out of that vast empire. In
the course of a few years cotton was introduced ; it
became successful; the price of slaves rose, and the
Northern States were not willing to concede any possible
advantage they might derive from the circumstance of the
new territories being added to their dominions. In the
northern States, Virginia, Delaware, and what was called
the slave-breeding States, after the year 1820, and down
to the sitting of the Virginia Convention, the slaves again
fell in value, cotton not being an article much cultivated
in these States. Things got to such a state that the
master was anxious to run away from his slave, and not
the slave from his master.—( A laugh.) At that time
there was an attempt made to put an end to slavery in
Virginia, because slaves were not a good article in the
market; hut now, the cotton-planting states were as firm
as any other in assetting the divine importance and the
excelleece of slave institutiens.—( Hear, hear, and laugh-
ter.) When the price of cotton was high in the Liverpool
market, then it was said slavery was sanctioned by the
Scii?tures ; but when the price was low, then the ears of
the southern planters were open to argument.—( Laughter.)
Some abolitionists in this country complained that they
very seldom saw papers from the Union, and that they did
net know the state of the anti-slavery enterprise. Let
them step to Liverpool, and see the price of cotton, and
they would then know how fierce the opposition was which
the friends of the slave had to meet. It had been asserted
by an intelligent writer, that the attachment of the State to
slavery had been all along in proportion to the price of
cotton in the market. The legitimate inference fom
these facts was, that if they could put into the market an
article that would drive American cotton out, they would
uproot the firmest foundations of the slave system in Ame-
rica.—(Mr. O'Connell here entered the room and was re-
ceived with cordial cheers.) Another point he wished to
press on the attention of the meeting was in regard to the
connnection between the Northern and Southern States.
The whole South was intimately bound by and connected
with the South, and it was not till they severed the South
from that dependence that they would be able to address
the North and be heard with effect. It was his conviction
that the success of the enterprise in regard to the East India
Sceiety, had hound up with it the death-warrant of slavery,
and that the death-warrant of that system would be signed
is Liverpool.--( Cheers.) The Hon. Gentleman, after
passing a very high encomium on Mr. George Thompson,
concluded by saying he trusted the day was not far distant
when the slave would be free, and when that philantho-
pist would hear in the shout of emancipated millions, that
gratitude which every American abolitionist was now la-
bowing to express.—(Cheers.)
M. Josren SANS said this subject appeared to him
to be the most important that could possibly engage the at-
tention of the Assembly. Ile believed there were upwards
of three millions of slaves in America, and he would sug-
gest a tangible mode of utterly destroying that dominion
of slavery in America. In British India there were
large tracts of land capable of producing excellent cotton
in abundance, and furnishing an ample supply for the wants
of this great commercial empire. In bringing those tracts
into cultivation they would produce a double benefi', for a
large number of their fellow-subjects in British India
were at present greatly distressed for want of employment,
end thus they might be enabled to obtain a comfort-
able subsistence for themselveeand their families, anti at
the same time supply the markets at Manchester and Li-
v rpool with cotton of a good quality.—( Hear, hear.)
IL! most earnestly hoped they would not separate without
conieg to some resolution on this most important subject.
Mr. HOWARD HINTON begged; to read an extract from
the speech of Mr. Wm B Gladstone hi Parliament on the
30th of March, 1838. He said, "If the facts were tho-
roughly investigated, it could be shown that the British
manufacturers were actually the most effectual encou-
ragers, not only of slavery, but of the slave-trade it-
self. By what means was the slave-trade with the Brazis
curled on? By British manufactures, directly imported
from this country. The British manufacturer sent his
cotton goods to the Brazils; these were immediately
shipped off from the Brazil; to the coast of Africa,
and v. ere there exchanged for human ware, which the
Brazilian trader brought back —( Hear, hear.) You
(said the Hen. G ntleman) who are so sick with appren-
ticeship in the West Indies—you, who cannot wait for
twenty-four months, when the apprentices will be free
—are you aware what responsibilily lies upon every one
of you at this moment, with reference to the cultiva-
tion of cotton in America? There are three millions
of slaves in America. America does not talk of aboli-
tion, nor of the amelioration of slavery. It is a do-
mestic institution which appears destined to descend to the
posterity of that free people ; and who arc responsible for
this enormous growth of what appears to be eternal
slavery .? Is it not the demand that creates the supply ?
and
is it not the consumption of cotton from whence that
demand arises ? You consume 318 000 0001o' s. of cotton
wh eh proceed from slave labour' annually,i and only
45,000,0001b5. which proceed from free labour ; and that
too while you have the means in India,a very little ex-
per..tc, of obtaining all you require at
froin free labour."
They would be fools indeed if they did not take a lesson
from that speech.—( Hear, hear.)
The Rev. Mr. Coevtee, of Boston, begged to read an
. extract from a South Carolina paper on subjectthe of'
th 3 " Cotton Circular" of some of the planter politicians of
11:r2 south and west. The plan proposed by the circular
cff.ct a combination between the banking interests of
the south and the great commercial cities and the cotton
planter, whereby the former shall advance to the latter, to
nearly the value of his cotton, so as to enable him to hold:
it until the market is favourable, the writer strongly eh_
jeets to, as based upon the assumption that the cotton
planters as a class are debtors. He admits that such is
the fact to a great extent in regard to the planters of the
south-west, but maintains that there is also a large class
in the south who are not in debt, and stand in no need of
bank advances to enable them to anticipate their annual
income of cotton. He inquires somewhat significantly
whether a combination to keep up the price of cotton
would not almost necessarily produce combinations to keep
it dozen, and suggests whether it might not make it the
interest of consumers in France and Great Britain to en-
ep
ur
of age and foster the production cotton out of the
United States, and beyond the reach of such combinations
of banks and bankers as are contemplated in the • Cotten
Circular.'
" The concluding portion of the article is worthy of
attention, as h may furnish the friends of emancipation
with some hints as to the great obstacle now in the way of
their object.
s, The southern planter, if he confines himself to plant-
ing, without speculation, asks no aid from banks—.his cot.
tonn
t;),citgbe his passport through the commercial world.
stang.44 heaven be is enabled to raise the noblest
wee at -74'A ti for the comfort of the human
fa "ty - to make a new era in modern
..1 roe ‘ utr..%f
.1 '
se it have spirit and virtue
00,
„aft the banking and speculative
iva
kraf theylity.... yho o idea that the slave-holding
aace ahtld .114!)1, rty or independence for five
cotton. s that which gives us our
en ,out' enterPr.qn o r intelligence ! and commands
'tik
r r,