The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-18 00:00:00

At

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BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTI-
SLAVERY SOCIETY.

The following are full reports of the speeches made by Mr.
O'Connell and Mr. Bright, which we were obliged to omit
yesterday for want of room :
Mr. D. O'Coss.asm, M.P., who looked remarkably well,
was received upon advancing with the most vociferous cheer-
ing, which lasted for some time, 'spoke as follows :—The reso-
lution which is intrusted to me to move is in these words :
" That this meeting, in common with a great mass of their
countrymen,. have read with feelings of indignation and
horror the sentence of death pronounced by Judge O'Neale,
of South Carolina, on John L. Brown, for aiding and abetting
a slave woman to escape from the intolerable yoke of bond-
age, by which sentence, and the terms in which it was pro-
nounced, not only were the sacred principles of justice vio-
lated, and the forms of law prostituted to the most atrocious
purposes, but the Divine system .of Christianity itself grossly
outraged and dishonoured."
Nobody who has heard of that trial and sentence but must
concur in every word of this resolution, and that being so, I
really have very little to say to it. At one time I anticipated
that I should have to address you at considerable length, and
upon a most unpleasant topic—a topic which has created
something like division amongst ourselves. Fortunately,
however, that division is healed ; the appeal is made to the
proper tribunal, and all I have to say is this, that I beg I
may not have my opinions upon tins subject judged of by
the fervid eloquence of my friend George 'Thompson.—
(Loud cheers.) I rejoice •in being allowed to raise my voice
in an assembly of the old and tried friends of human liberty
amongst the enemies ofslavery in every country and in every
clime, amongst the advocates of morality and Christianity,
which can never be perfect or valuable in any country till
there is neither master nor slave.—(Cheers.) I rejoice to
stand amongst you, and, whatever may be my own lot, I
shall have the gratification to recollect that I have joined in
one more effort to strike the fetter from the slave.—(Cheers.)
I don't know whether you understand what our cause of.
quarrel was a while ago. It seemed to me once or twice that
it was something in the situation of my svoethy countryman,
Sir Lucius O'Trigger, who, having sent a challenge to a
man, and, being asked the cause of it, said, " It's a mighty
pretty quarrel as it is : explanation 'll spoil it."—(Cheers
and laughter.) For my part. lam bound to say that lam a
free trader, perfectly attached to the principles and the
practice of free trade.—(Cheers.) I am convinced that it is
injustice to prevent men from buying their food in the
cheapest market, and that it is a crime to make the rich
richer at the expense of increasing the poverty of the poor.
I am a free trader in corn especially, though I stand here the
representative of 750,000 of an agricultural population—of a
population that have no means of paying their rents or sup-
porting their families but by the produce of the land—who
sanction me, and join with me, in asserting, for the labour-
ing classes of England, the privilege of having their food as
cheap as they can possibly get it.—(Hear, hear.) If I, on an
anti-slavery question, differ with those who agree with me
on the principles of free trade, they, I think will do me the
justice to say that I may be mistaken, but that I am not
designedly wrong. The question between us, to be disposed
of by the Committee, when I shall not have an opportunity
of appearing, is this—"whether slave-grown sugar ought to be
more taxed on coming into this country than free-grown sugar
—whether the produce of free labour ought not to have .the
preference in our market over the produce of slave labour ?"
—that is all. I confess lam for giving a preference to the
produce of free labour.—(Hear, hear.) Ido not think there
is anything opposed to free trade in that. If less is to be
paid for slave-grown sugar, recollect the mode in which it
has been produced. Remember that no wages have been
given for its production, no gratuity to the men who fainted
even under the labour. It was not half-a-crown or a shilling
a day, but the lashes of the whip if they did not work
heartily.—(Cheers.) 1 cannot bring that to my notions of
free trade. We had at one time a slave trade in England,
openly carried on by the sanction of the law. There is not
here one human being who would be for a free trade in slaves ;
and I see no distinction between being for free trade in
slaves and for free trade in an article which would augment
slavery.—(Cheers.) As to your fifty per cent. cheaper, why
I think honesty is still the best policy. There was a man
transported a year ago, named Money Moses, who was in the
habit of receiving all the stolen plate he could get, paying the
thieves a very small sum for it. That man would give you
50/. worth of plate for twenty-five sovereigns, and the conse-
quence would be, that you'd have a free trade in plate.—
(Cheers.) Free trade's a good thing, but honesty's better ;
and the country which gave that sublime example, without
one murmur, from one end of the land to the other, from
Land's End to the north of Scotland, from Cape Clear to the
Giant's Causeway, freely contributed 20,000,0001. to the cause
of humanity, cheaply purchasing the liberty of 800,000
human beings.—(Cheers.) I have heard of the difference
between Royalty and Republicanism ; but Royalty has
beaten' Republicanism in the race altogether, and has at
least the advantage of having totally abolished the horrible
crime of slavery. Wherever the English flag waves, or our
Queen's power extends, slavery is at an end, and man is
on an equality with his fellow-creatures.—(Cheers.) No;
I cannot bring myself at all to do anything that shall have
the least appearance of augmenting slavery. It is, indeed,
Said, that if you don't buy slave-grown sugar, others will ;
that they will have it in the markets of other parts of
Europe. It is said, too, "If you adopt this principle, why
not apply it to cotton and tobacco ?" I think I have a very
good answer to that—" Because it is not in our power to do
it."—(Cheers.) If I could possibly prevent a single pound's
weight of slave-grown cotton, or a single ounce of slave-
grown tobacco from entering
.this country, I would sacrifice
my existence, and gladly perish on the scaffold, to prevent
such a foul crime being enacted—(Cheers)—but if I cannot
do that, is it any reason why I should not prevent what I
can ? We cannot cure one evil by committing another.
Crime should be diminished as much as possible ; unlike
wealth, it does not become more valuable by accumulation.
I therefore stand up amongst my brother free traders to state
that I cannot consent to increase the number of slaves by en-
couraging slave-grown produce.—(Cheers.) I came here, as
you may perceive, tolerably well prepared to defend my
opinions ; and if I should be able to attend the Committee
I should defend myself there. lam sure I have not said a
word disrespectful to my able friend ; but Ido hope this
Society will never be a pro-slavery society, either in England
or anywhere else, and though other markets should be open
to slave grown sugar, that England never will.—(Cheers.)
I will ask any man, is not England the best market in the
world for any commodity ?—(Cheers.) It has the two
great ingredients—plenty of money and certitude or pay-
ment.—(Cheers.) In some other countries the payment is
not quite so certain.—(Cheers and great laughter.) Pardon
me for having detained you so long. I was brought up in
abhorrence of every adjunct to slavery—of everything that
could assist—of everything that could increase slavery. I
have Spent a long life in struggling against tyranny. and op-
pression of every kind, and 1 shall not be a participator in
anything that can augment the misery to the alleviation of
which I have devoted all the energies of my life.—(Loud
cheers.) But I come to the resolution before me, and I must
say that 1 heard with great.pleasure the Americas gentleman
who spoke with so much moderation and good sense while
condemning slavery in his own country. Was there ever a
thing equal to this trial of John L. Brown ? He was charged
with attempting to aid a woman in escaping from bondage ;
he was tried, and was convicted. I wonder what kind of a
jury he had.—(Cheers and great laughter.) Judgment was
pronounced against him—alas! by an Irish judge—not an
American, but an Irish judge. Are there no strange ones
nearer home ?—(Cheers.) Humanity and morality were so
trampled on, Christianity made such a mockery of by this
prosecution, that I wish I had language to pour forth the
torrent of my contempt upon a country and its institutions
where such a horrible crime as that can be perpetrated under
form of law.—(Cheers.) Tried for his life! For what? For
an act of humanity; for that for which he should have been
rewarded—for a virtue—for a noble, a manly virtue ; for a
feeling of compassion for a wretched female.— (Cheers.)
Then he read the manner in which the judge pronounced the
sentence. He defied his God; he; used the holy scriptures to
aggravate the bitterness of the sentence of death. He intro-
duced the name of the ever-adorable Redeemer, the only me-
diator between God and man, as if he would make a sin of a
compassionate and humane act. Oh ! pardon me, Sir, I can-
not continue—
" Just Heaven ! What must be thy look,
When such a wretch before thee stands,
Unblushing I—with thy sacred book,
Turning its leaves with blood-stained hands, .
And wresting from its text sublime
His law of hate, and blood, and crime."
—(Greatjcheering.) Something should be done to mark the
disgust with which England views such conduct. For my
own part, I would no more speak to a New Orleans man than
I would to a pickpocket or a felon thief. They don't deserve
to be placed upon the same footing with civilised men. Eng-
land should say to them, " Stay at home : come net among
us : don't pollute us with your presence ; for we will hold no
commune with you."—(Cheers.) We have no other mode of
controlling a nation but by the' expression of public opinion—
Republicans are naturally proud ; let us meet their pride,
and show them that they shall have in return nothing—but
our scorn, our contempt, our hate, and our reprobation.—
(Cheers.) Pour out your indignation on them. Let them
know that they are out of the pale of society—that they
'shall be excommunicated from intercourse with Christian
men, whilst 'they have their statute-book stained by so bloody
a law as this. The blood in their statute-book shall blush in
their countenances, and they shall be marked as men of blood
throughout the civilised globe—(Cheers)—the wretch that
pronounced the sentence—that Judge O'Neale, oh ! I abhor
him for his name. Let his 0 be blotted out any rate-
-(Cheers and laughter)—and then nail the rap to the counter
as soon as you please.—(Cheers.) Our public press is too
calm : we have had, to be sure, some important remarks on
the subject, some good sentences of reprobation; but they
haven't repeited them often enough ; they haven't marked
with sufficient strength their sense of the iniquity, of the abo-
mination, of the scoundrelism of it.—(Cheers.) Representing
large masses of my countrymen, I denounce the miscreant who
'derives his pedigree at least, if not his birth, from my country
in the presence of this great meeting assembled in the cease of
humanity. Sacred Heaven ! where else NUM rush a meeting
as this be got together, net for any personal or private object,
but at the impulse of generous hearts, with the single desire
of making the cause of humanity triumphant throughout
the world ?—(Cheers.) Oh! it is a glorious meeting, fto
'delightful it. is to take a part in it. Pa I Pellnet yet pass
from O'Neal() and his sientenee, It has been said that Brown
has nut been executed, and It has been boasted in the Arne-
-rican papers that he has been pardoned. That is not so. The
sentence has been commuted—to what? To a flogging by
the common hangman at the gallows' foot,-,.(01004.14 and
cries of " Shame I") Why, that is worse. than death, lie
might have perished, as many men have perished, innocently,
but that is treatment you would not subjectyour dog to—no,
nor your enemy's dog; it was a canine punishment, and
worse than the wolves that prowl the forests were the' non-
sters that inflicted it.—(Cheers.) It is not to bs
such conduct as this, and I thankCyl tilot"
will be wafteci 211 110.‘461.1p,'„41,11,d'pr0•A• idlssotiri
tAç'Wkiiiit4444lo NYUQ od Kates and the miscreant