The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-06-23 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 23, 1843.

Man is, by his nature, perverse and obstinate; but
your peculiarly philanthropic specimen of the genus
homo is obstinate above all other created beings. To
effect the object of his pursuit is not sufficient for him.
He must effect it by his own peculiar method ; and he
will persist in that method, with unexampled pertina-
city, long after experience has demonstrated its in-
ability to ensure the end in view.
There is perhaps no body of men who have more
strongly illustrated the truth of the above position than
a certain dissenting section of the Anti-Slavery Society.
These men set about the emancipation of the negro
population in our West Indian colonies ; pursued their
object with a zeal unquestionable, but with motives, with
a passion, and with instruments, far from being so pure
and holy as those which should have been brought to
bear upon such a cause. The planting body stood be-
tween them and the realisation of their first proposition,
which was one of undeniable spoliation, and forthwith all
the powers of calumny and misrepresentation, written
and oral, were directed against them. They were de-
nounced from platforms—they were assailed through
the columns of a partizan press—as something little
better than fiends in the shape of humanity. They
were held up to popular execration as brutalised mon-
sters—human ogres—whose most familiar plaything
was the cart-whip, and whose sweetest music was the
shrieks of tortured men, women, and infants ! The
entire white population of our British West Indies—a
few agitating Mawworins of the Schobell tribe ex-
cepted—were men steeped in iniquity and blood,
whilst the negro race were patterns of suffering virtue
—miracles of grace and beauty—worthy to be doated
upon by lovesick damsels, and held up to the admira-
tion of elderly spinsters and dowagers.

Well, we have secured--all that British justice and
philanthropy ought to have asked for—the emancipa-
tion of the negro population of these colonies, accom-
panied by just and equitable remuneration of those
whose capital was embarked in their ownership. Not
a human being draws the breath of slavery in the Bri-
tish dominions ! Our tropical products are now being
raised exclusively by free labour; but the difficulty,
which all reasoning men contemplated as the result of
emancipation, is becoming daily more and. more ob-
vious. We cannot, with our existing coloured popu-
lation in the West Indies, supply adequately the mar-
kets of Great Britain, whilst from those of the rest of
the world we are entirely excluded. Another consi-
deration, too, presses itself upon the really humane.
We have extinguished the comparatively mild system
of. slavery in the British colonies ; but we have added
tenfold to the horrors of slavery, and the horrors of
the slave trade, as existing amongst the people of other
lands. To meet this difficulty we have doubled our
preventive force in the African seas. We have nego-
tiated treaties with the native chiefs of the African
coast. We have attempted African colonisation; but
in all these misdirected efforts we have failed—signally
failed ! And, as the alterative course to be tried, it is
asked by practical men, as the only means of securing
the objects which British philanthropy has in view, to
establish a system of emigration of free labourers from
the African coast to the colonies of Great Britain, and
to enable the West Indian planter to put down slavery
by cheapening, by means of free labour, the products of
the tropics, the high price of which furnishes the in-
centives to the cruelties which we deplore.
• The futility of our past efforts, and the advantage of
adopting the course suggested by the advocates of free
immigration, under the supervision of government, are
so forcibly put in an address of Mr. Macgregor Laird
to the Anti• Slavery Convention, now sitting in London,
that we make no apology for transferring it to our
columns. Mr. Laird, in rising to propose a series of
resolutions upon the subject, of immigration,
" Regretted be could not congratulate the meeting upon
the progress of the cause of the African race since the Anti-
Slavery Convention held three years since. If they looked
to the western hemisphere, or the condition of the slaves of
Brazil, Cuba, and the southern states of America, he would
ask them did they witness any alleviation in the condition of
the negro ? Did they see any improvement even on the
coast of Africa ? (Ilear, hear.) The system of treaty-making
for the suppression of slavery had most signally failed. (Hear,
bear.) When treaty-making was commenced by this coun-
try, it began with bribery. In 1811 a treaty was made with
Portugal, and this country had given to it a bribe of £600,000
to give up nominally the slave trade, except for the supply
of her own colonies. In 1817 another treaty was made with
the same power; the mixed commission courts were estab-
lished, and so matters remained, the sea swarming with
Portuguese slavers until the year 1839, when the law was
taken into our own hands, and an act was passed which
authorised our cruisers to treat Portuguese slave traders
cailtured by them as British subjects. That was repealed
last year, and we got another treaty or piece of parchment,
and the result of all the bribing and treating was, that in
1810, 48 Portuguese slavers were condemned at Sierra Leone.
(Cheers.) The speaker then referred to Spain and the vari-
ous treaties which had been entered into with that and other
countries to put down slavery, the whole of which bad been
inoperative. He was not going to propose a general war to
put down slavery, although he believed it would be the holiest
cause which had ever induced a war. (Hear, hear.) These
slave-trade treaties which had been so much talked about
were only attempted to be justified by the alleged good they
effected amongst the African race. He denied that they
effected any good, or could he justified under any circum-
stances. (Cheers.) The chief object of these treaties was,
that in pursuing trade we should have nothing to do with
slave traders ; but this was done in a way which inflicted far
deeper cruelties on the unfortunate uegroes than when slavery
was in the height of its glory. (Shame.) Slavery was car-
ried out with iucreased rigour under another name, and the
slave trade would be carried on as long as there was a demand
for slaves, even if every ship in the British navy were manned
against it. (Hear.) It would continue to be carried on, for
the profit on it was so immensely great. The only way to
remedy the evil was to take measures for underselling the
slave trader. (Hear, hear.) This was easily to be done, if
the government were sincere in carrying out the abolition of
slavery. (Hear.) It was true there had been a commission
established on the coast of Africa, at an expense of £229,000
per annum to this country ; and for what? To increase the

cruelties of slavery there. (Shame.) The feelings of this
I country were such, that they would pay £20,000,000 again to
effectually abolish the slave trade—if millions would do it;
but it would do no such thing. (Hear.) His plan was, that
' there should be a bridge between Africa and the West Indies,
toll free. Ile was convinced, that if a market for free labour
were opened, it would soon put an end to slave labour. He
knew that it was the principle of the convention to oppose
every proposition that was not morally religious and pacific;
but would any one say that was not the case when he de-
manded that we should open our colonies for the reception of
the poor creatures who ran away from the bondage of th'ir
Cask-masters, and wherever the British flag was hoisted o