The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-30 00:00:00

a` trieniug Wiz

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1846.

The earthly career of THOMAS CLARKSON closed
on Saturday last. We ought not to repine at the loss,
and yet it is difficult to avoid yielding to the natural
sentiments of sorrow that seem spontaneously to
follow the historical and social reflections to which
the intelligence of his death inevitably gives rise.
Philosophy would teach us that gratitude, and not
regret, should reign predominant in our minds, in
that PROVIDENCE permitted the late apostle of hu-
manity to attain unto the lengthened age of
eighty-six, and that he was suffered to dwell
among us for nearly forty years after he had
spread a halo around his name which may
well be envied by the greatest potentates of the
world. We should be grateful to think, that in
THOMAS CLARKSON we had an instance of the inten-
sity with which the noblest aspirations may animate
and absorb our frail nature, such, that no difficulties,
however apparently insuperable, cannot be overcome,
where dauntless courage, indomitable zeal, and purity
of soul are found in felicitous combination ; and yet,
bowing to the rectitude of these philosophical dictates,
we are unable to repress an instinctive grief, that one
of philanthrophy's brightest ornaments is reckoned
among the dead. Regard being had to the con-
tracted span of human existence, CLARKSON may be
likened to a brilliant star that has shot across the
firmament, and attracted admiration from every
quarter of the globe ; and, though the meteor itself
is now lost to our view, a vast train of light
still mellows the sphere of its glorious path. We
could well have wished that the ruthless hand of time
had spared the venerable subject of our lament till
he should have witnessed, by surviving a few more
years, that the effects of establishing free trade in
sugar, which has just been sanctioned by Parliament,
were at variance with the honourable and benevolent
fears which CLARKSON entertained and emphatically
embodied in the lengthened petition he recently laid
before the Legislature. It was perhaps but too
natural, that at his advanced period of life, he should
have been tenaciously apprehensive, from the specious
arguments put forward, that his glorious handiwork
of human emancipation might be defaced, by opening
our ports to sugar the produce of slave as well as of
free labour, and we should therefore have rejoiced
had he not sunk into the grave till he had
gained a conviction of the fallacy of his con-
clusions. In a short time we shall perceive
that the notion of a prejudicial impulse having
been imparted to slave labour by the late
Sugar Duties Act, is utterly groundless. It
seems to be almost an impugnment of the good-
ness of the CREATOR to allege that competition be-
tween free and slave labour will end in the annihila-
tion of the former—to hold, that the lashed and
manacled victim of the avaricious and unfeeling
tyrant of the soil, will, in the end, surpass, in pro-
ductive powers, the unshackled and well-conditioned
labourer of the sons of regeneration. With the
spread of civilisation will the concomitant arts be
invariably found in her train ; and, through the
introduction into other climes of the vast im-
provements in machinery, by which manual labour
is so successfully, and, in so large a measure, super-
seded in this country, it will be seen, that freedom,
whenever established, will bear away the palm from
slavery. But, though it has been decreed that
CLARKSON should not live to become sensible of the
truth of this proposition, yet by few men, if ever by
any one, could there have been enjoyed a more sub-
lime retrospect than that which his own life must have
afforded to himself. After passieg through college Veit},
much distinction, he penned a Latin essay upon a ques-
tion propounded by the Vice-Chancellor of the Uni-
versity, of whether men should make slaves of others
;igainst their will ? The success of this essay is noto-
rious. It was owing to this singular circumstance
that his mind became awakened to the frightful
horrors perpetrated in the middle passage, and that
he resolved to devote his entire life towards arousing
England to use her majestic influence with other
countries to put down the atrocious slave trade.
this resolution was taken about the year 1785.
By the enthusiasm with which he followed
up, the noble mission he had undertaken,
and the unclouded intellect of which he
was the fortunate possessor, he gained over at different
times, as fellow-labourers in the Fame vineyard, such
men as WILBERFORCE, PITT, and other illustrious
statesmen. He spared no exertion, and he encoun-
tered every danger to forward the great
scheme of his ambition. He braved the
dangers of the French revolution—he pleaded
for millions of miserable beings before the
Autocrat of the RIISSIAS, and not in vain. Anti-
slavery associations every where started up at his
bidding. He inoculated the minds of nations, and
our own in particular, with the genius of his philan-
r.hrophy. His single mind originated the pulsation
that beat at length from one end of the country to
the other, till, in 1807, and by a favourable
conjuncture of public affairs, his great ob-
ject was accomplished, and the Imperial Legislature
enacted that the slave trade should no longer be
tolerated. In 1833 another measure—the natural
fruit of the first—was carried, and the enormous
sum of 20,000,0001. was paid, by which slavery was
abolished for ever in our West Indian possessions. To
review such mighty deeds, such unequalled civil
triumphs ; and to feel that, under the blessing of
PROVIDENCE, he had been constituted the chief in-
strument for bringing them to a happy issue, must
indeed have been a retrospect delightful beyond all
description. No higher eminence could be reached
by man, no goodlier prospect enjoyed by mortal
vision. All peace to his ashes !

We on Monday directed the public attention to the
recent food riots at Youghal and Kilkenny. The
first we considered in a great degree owing to the
negligence and apathy of the local authorities in not
taking earlier steps for the relief of the destitution
that unhappily prevailed in the vicinity, in not
having paid sufficient attention to the represen-
tations put forward at the peaceable meeting
that had been held. Nearly a week before the
disturbance we pointed out the formidable results
that might be occasioned by any exhibition of
fear and timidity. In suffering the people to suppose
that clamour and violence would be successful
in obtaining that which would not be accorded
from motives of charity and philanthrophy, every
consideration that could influence the human mind
urged that there should no longer be any delay or
postponement of the necessary employment, that im •
mediate steps should be taken in every district
throughout the kingdom in setting to work the starv-
ing multitude, and in ascertaining that there was a
sufficiency of food at reasonable prices, easily ac-
cessible.

Already the ill effects of this procrastination, and
of the superior efficacy of violent demonstrations in
procuring for the people the wished-for relief, is pain-
fully apparent. Our Irish intelligence communicates
accounts of outrages and disturbances of a most seri-
ous character. Cloyne, Fermoy, Castlemartyr,
Dilworth, have all been the scenes of similar exhibi-
tions ; the flour and provision shops have been rifled,
the bakers have, generally speaking, made a merit of
necessity, and quietly surrendered the bread in their
possession, in order to avoid the damage and loss that
would probably take place in its forcible seizure.
The pastors and religious instructors of the people, men
whose influence is unbounded, and whose exhortations
are generally listened to with respect and implicit
obedience, have in vain interposed, their advice
has been disregarded, and in some instances they have
been personally insulted. Resident magistrates and
landlords, whose unwearied exertions and active be-
nevolence should have made them in the hi?hest de-
gree popular, have had their reeidencee velted by