The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-25 00:00:00

THIS DAY, THURSDAY, JULY 25.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

On entering the gallery at a quarter past twelve, we found
about forty Members present.
Mr. F. BUXTON, upon the reading of the order of the day
for the House to go into Committee on the Slavery Abolition
Bill, stated that it was his intention to move several amend-
ments on the apprenticeship clause, unless he ascertained that
it was the intention of the Government to modify that clause to
some extent; and as, if the answer he received was affirma-
tory of that intention, it might save the time of the House by
preventing the necessity of his moving the amendments, he
begged the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Secretary for the Co-
lonies, to inform the House if the Government was prepared to
reduce the term of apprenticeship.
Mr. STANLEY would be better able to answer the Hon.
Gentleman when he heard his opinion as to the duration he
should recommend.

Mr. F. BUXTON would wish it to be limited to one year.—
:Cries of " Oh, oh," and " Hear.")
Mr. STANLEY was understood to dissent entirely.
On the question that the Speaker do leave the chair,

Mr.RUTHVEN protested against the Bin in its present shape.
Himself, and all the people of Ireland favourable to the eman.
cipation of the slaves, were dissatisfied with the contingency
of twelve years' apprenticeship. In this, and in many other
particulars, the Bill differed trom the understanding cometo 4
between the delegates and the Governtnent in April. He
hoped the Hon. Member for Weymouth would persevere in his
intention to to move the limitation of apprenticeships to one
year. The Hon. Member also objected to the paying of a
sum of money which would entail a burden of four millions
per annum on the country.
Dr. LUSHINGTON said he had given notice of a motion,
upon which he felt assured that he should carry with him the
judgment of the House, and which it was necessary for him
to propose, before the House went into Committee. It was,
" That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Slavery
Abolition Bill, to insert in the said Bill a clause for the im.
mediate emancipation, without restriction, of all slaves who
may at any time, previous to the passing of this Bill, have been
brought, with the consent of their possessors, or may at any time
after the passing of this Bill, with like consent, be brought
into any part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland. He was the more urged to propose this resolution
by a case which had occurred relative to the delivery of a
female slave in this country, and the subsequent enthralment
of the child, as a slave, on arrival in the West Indies. It
was Lord Stowell who had decided the legality of such a pro-
cedure; but although sanctioned by his high legal authority,
he (Dr. L.) could not admit the legality of the doctrine.
In the last judgment which had been declared on this subject,
and which was also pronounced by Lord Stowell, he (Dr. L.)
was engaged as King's Counsel, and the case was given up in
consequence of some flaw in the proceedings. Although, as the
law stood, Lord Stowell had so decided, yet the iniquity of the
case was not the less.—(Hear, hear, hear.) And so his Lord-
ship felt, for he recommended that the colonial legis.

latures should apply to Parliament to pass some enact-
ment by which such outrages against humanity would
be prevented in future. But no attention had been paid by the
colonial Legislatures to that humane, and, from such high legal
authority, impressive recommendation, although it was made

.. _
as long since as November, 1827. He now held in his hand
that which would prove that the very,contrary effect to that
intended had been produced upon these Legislatures.
It was a copy of the Grenada Free Press, (as we un-

derstood) the 28th day of May, in the present year ; which
detailed, as if from authority, a case in which the best feel-
ings of humanity had been grossly outraged, and the victim
of violence incarcerated in a gaol. The person who was so
suffering was called John Laws, and he had emancipated
himself in the year 1810, in a manner as by the laws of God—
setting those of man out of the question—he was justly en-
titled to do. It was by the exercise of an everlasting right,
from which no statute could deprive him. The man had ren-

dered himself free by coming over to this country in the year
mentioned. Eight years that person served his Majesty in the
Navy—he then settled in this country. He had an English
wife and two children alive, and resident in England. At the

expiration of 22 years, impelled by that natural desire im-

planted in us by Providence for the best of purposes, he re-
turned to Grenada, to visit his aged parents. Those cir-

cumstances were detailed to the Judge before whom the case
was tried, but he had no discretion by the colonial law,
and he was obliged to remand the man to prison to undergo
such punishment as was provided by the Colonial Acts, uri)ess'
indeed all the circumstances of his case should induce the
owner to pardon him. He called on the House by every prin-
ciple of humanity no longer to allow transactions like that to
desecrate any place acknowledging the dominion of the
British crown.—(Laud cheers.) There was another
case even more painful than the one he had just re-
lated. A gentleman of property in the West Indies
had two female natural children, born of one of his slaves,
and he sent them to England, where they received an excel.
lent education, after which they returned back to their native
island, by which time, owing to circumstances, the estate on
which they were born changed hands, and unfortunately
they were subject-to the laws of the island; consequently
those two young women, who had been liberally educated,
in England were again consigned to slavery, and they were
immediately put to work as common field slaves.—(Hear,
hear.) He regretted to say that so far from their being a
solitary instance of the kind, he knew of several—(Hear,
hear)—but it was unnecessary for him to multiply them.
He would relate another circumstance in which the
wife was in England and the husband in Antigua ; she was
afraid to go to her husband, from the fear of being put into
slavery again as her husband had been. He (Dr.Lushington),
when the owner was in England, offered to pay the price of the
slave, in order that the wife might return to her husband, but
the owner refused it, and thereby effected the separation of the
husband and wife.—(Hear, hear, hear) Those acts were viola..
tions of humanity and of the best feelings of our nature, and he
prayed the House to afford a remedy for such evils. It was
his purpose to suggest, that it be an instruction to the Commit..
tee, that all slaves who had once by the consent of their
owners come to England, or who might hereafter come to Eng_
land, by which they obtained their freedom, should never be
compelled to return to a state of slavery.—(Cheers.) The jus-
tice of that proposition was evident—(Cheers)—because if the
slave-owner once temporarily broke the chain of bondage, he
had no right again to enforce it. The Hon. and Learned
Member concluded by moving his resolution.

Mr. STANLEY had intended to guard against the recur-
rence of such cases as his Honourable aand Learned
Friend had related, by some provision in the Bill, but he had
not intended to go Ka far as the proposed resolution stated.
However, seeing the unanimous feeling of the House, he
would offer no opposition to the motion.—(Cheers.)
An HON, HEMBEZ (name unknown) agreed in the motion,
but hoped the Hon. and Learned Gentleman would not in
future indulge in such severe strictures.
' '

Mr. BERNAL also acceded to the motion, and related,
by way of counterpoise to the statements of the Hon. and
Learned Member (Dr. Lushington), the case of a slave belong-
ing to the late Mr. Beckford : the slave was taken ill, and
sent to this country to be cured at Mr. Beckford's expense;
on return to Jamaica, upon expressing a wish to carry on his
own business (a mason) as a freeman Mr. Beckford gene-
rously liberated him.
After some observations from Mr. WARRE, the resolution
was put and carried. _ _ .

Dr. LUSHINGTON felt quite satisfied with the statement
of his Right Hon. Friend. He hSd intended also to move an
instruction to the Committee, that no compensation be allowed?
to the possessors of slaves in the Mauritius, until the pos.
sessors prove a legal title to the slaves prior to the capture of
that island in 1810, but as the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr.
Stanley) had made some concession on this subject, he
thought it proper to leave the case in that Right Hon. Gentle-
man's hands.

Mr. STANLEY said the instructions referred to were
founded on the peculiar circumstances in which the Island of
Mauritius was placed. There were many slaves illegally de-
tained in the Mauritius, but as there was no register of slaves
before 1815, it would be almost impossible (and quite so in
many cases) to prove a legal title between 1810 and
1815, on account of the many changes of ownership.
But admitting the Hon. and Learned Gentleman's principle,
he (Mr. Stanley) would move as an instruction to the Com-
mittee, " That from the sums to be appropriated as compen-
sation to proprietors of any colony, be deducted such sums as
shall correspond with the estimated value of persons in
slavery, if any, who may be registered or holden in
slavery contrary to law, and that for the purpose
of ascertaining in what cases such deduction shall be made, an
inquiry shall be made by the Commissioners appointed under
the Act, according to such rules of legal presumption and of
evidence, as shall be established according to any law now in
force, or which shall be in force, in any of the Colonies in which
such questions shall arise."
The resolution was put and carried.
On the question that the Speaker do leave the chair,
Mr. HALCOMB said he felt great disappointment at find-
ing that the period of apprenticeship was to be twelve years,
after the positive assurance of the Right Honourable Gentle-
man, that that period should be the maximum, and giving
reason to hope that it would not be above two or three years.
The Speaker then left the chair, and the House resolved
itself into a Committee on the Bill.
Mr. STANLEY then rose and said he hoped the Com-
mittee would excuse him for adverting to the position in
which, after the discussion last night, the Government
stood.—(Hear, hear.) It was impossible to look to the opinion
then expressed, not to perceive that there was a strong
feeling not he believed against the principle of apprenticeship
as an intermediate state of probation between slavery and per-
fect freedom but to the period which Government had adopted
for that purpose.—(Hear.) Undoubtedly it was perfectly