The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-05-17 00:00:00

THE LI VER,PI

labour compelled from the slaves had .on the population. In
that Island the quantity of sugar exported during the three
period& was, respectively, 652,336 cwts., 662,655 cwts., and.
809,120 cwts, of sugar while in the first 72,722 slaves were re-
quired to 'produce 652,'336 cwts. (Hear.) He had now shown
that. increased production was accompanied by decreased popu-
lation : that the decrease of population. fell heaviest on those
classes where the severest labour was exacted; and he had now
to show the mode in which this. labour was exacted by the
increased' severity ; the recorded punishments in Demarara
were 17,359, the number of slaves being 60,599. In 1830
the number of slaves had decreased to 59,547, while the num-
ber of lashes inflicted in that year was no less than 194,744.
In 1831 the population had still further decreased, 58,404,
but the lashes amounted to 199,507. (Hear, hear, hear.)
Now, let the house bear in mind that this was the official record
of punishment, not including the punishment inflicted by judi-
cial authority, or on reference to magistrates, because there ex-
isted no return of this latter sort, but inflicted in one of the
crown. colonies, under the improved system, and under the
check of the record. (Hear, hear.) It was a return given by
the masters of the slaves themselves, of the extent of despotic
and irresponsible punishment inflicted by their own authority,
amounting in one to almost 200,000 lashes. (Hear, hear.)
Without desiring to impute any cruelty to the planters, he
called on the house-to consider what must be the amount of un-
recorded punishment in colonies where the same protection was
not afforded the slave as in this comparatively free colony of
Demerara, and what the extent of unredressed injustice, and of '
bitter oppression; and he was sure that the house would not re-
fuse to interfere and to interpose its supreme authority between
the oppression of the slaves and what Mr. Canning called
" the abstract love of the cart whip." (Hear, hear.) They
were told that it-would be impossible, under any other system,
to render the slaves industrious; thus, all their legislation pro-
ceeded on a mistaken notion; that they knew not the condition
of the colonies, and that they were absolutely ignorant of what
those gentlemen pleased to call the " negro character." He
conscientiously believed that any man who chose to take the
pains of informing himself on the subject might form a better
and clearer idea, because a snore unprejudiced one, of the
" negro character" than those men who had passed their lives
in the West Indies. (Hear, hear.) The latter individuals
made this palpable mistake; they attributed to the character of
the negro those faults which necessarily resulted from the moral
degradation of slavery. (Cheers.) He believed that it might
.be proved, that the negro, under proper inducements, would be
;found neither less inchned to be• industrious or to accumulate
roperty than those whose lot it was to wear a fstirer skin.
(Hear, hear.) But they were told, with an air of triumph, to
!look atthe manumitted negro; and they were asked to point
out, if they could, twenty instances of manumitted slaves.en-
gaged in field labour. In reply to this objection, he would ask
another question ; and he called upon these' objectors to pro-
duce him twenty instances of field labourers who had been ma-
numitted. (Hear, hear.) The fact was, that the manumitted
slaves mostly belonged to one class, and. that not the class of
field labourers. Within a period of ten years, commencing in
1817, there had been 14,163 slaves manumitted, and hardly au
instance could be produced of a field negro among the number.
(Hear, hear.) Two-thirds, if not three-fourths, were females,
a fact which spoke for itself; for it was not difficult to under-
stand to what class of females they belonged, and what induce-
ment the planters had to liberate them as well as their children. !
(Hear, hear.) If it could be proved that manumissions oc-
curred only among domestic slaves, mechanics, and tradesmen, ,
it was not extraordinary that no case could be discovered of their'
applying themselves immediately on their manumission to„the
snore degrading and fatiguing occupation of field labour.
(Hear.) -The facts of the case, then, destroyed Um-inference
which was sought to be drawn from it. (Hear, hear.) If an
instance was shown of a manumitted field slave who would
not work, he would then admit that a prima facie case was
made out by those who asserted the incapacity of the negro for
freedom.;. but if this argument was good for anything—if it was
to be considered conclusive, it was an argument against the abo-
lition of slavery within any definite period; not merely within
the next ten years, but within the next hundred years. (Cheers.)
Assuming that religious instruction was inconsistent with the
continuance of slavery, would that house shut out the light of
gospel truth, and stifle education on purpose that at all hazards
and at all risks the system of slavery might be preserved?—
(Cheers.) He believed that from the state of most of the colo-
nies belonging to other countries they might draw a lesson of
deep censure to themselves. In the Catholic colonies the
greatest attention had been paid by the priesthood to the re-
ligious instruction and education of the slaves. In some of
these colonies it was a regulation that no man should be at
liberty to keep a slave unless he could prove that he had taken
pains to instruct him in the principles of the Catholic religion.
Had any such system prevailed in the English colonies?—
(Hear, hear.) He had no wish to touch on any point of an
irritating nature, nor to refer further to the obstacles which had
been put in the way of the spread of religious instruction in the
colonies, but this he would say, that that house would ill discharge
its duty if it did not put forth its authoritative declaration, that
throughout all the possessions of His Majesty the benefit of re-
ligious instruction, and the free choice of religious worship,
should be left undisputed to all classes of the King's subjects.
Since the plan of government had been before the country, he
had had an opportunity of conversing with the Vice-President
of the republic of Venezuela, who had been protector of slaves
in the Caraceas, oil the subject; and he learned from that gen-
tleman that in 1821, Bolivar having determined on adopting a
general system of emancipation, a council was formed of
_persons,
of high station, to purchase, according to a tariff of,value, the
freedom of slaves out of funds raised from a tax on the property
of persons dying. intestate. They first of all liberated those who
had borne arms in the cause of their country, next the aged and
decrepit, and afterwards they preferred such as were remarkable
for industrious and moral habits. In 1821 there were 100,000.
slaves in Venezuela, and at the present moment there were only
25,000. The effect of the manumition, he was told, had been
most happy. The freed slaves were industrious, and felt no
degradation in associating with those who had not yet gained
spenty every .ayd He was also informed that sugar cane, which
their liberty ; while on the part of those therawas no jealousy, be-
cause they felt that their hour of freedom was approaching surely,
though perhaps slowly. The freed slaves showed no reluctance
to engage in agricultural employment; and the consequence
was, that the agriculture of the country was increasing in pros-
before was not cultivated, was now produced in great abundance;
and that rum was exported to the neighbouring islands, and to
the British possessions of Trinidad, and sold in the Trinidad
market under the name of the best damaica'rum. (Cheers.)—
Having stated what he conceived to be the circumstances
under which the question was now placed—he would now
proceed to lay before the conunittee the means by which, in
his opinion, the great transition from slavery to freedom might
be effected with the most certainty and the least danger.—
He held that, in a plan of this kind, embracing objects so im-
portant and so various, there was an absolute impossibility that
any government could devise a measure which in all its parts
should be unexceptionable—which should not be liable to many
great and grave objections, and which should slot be capable of
receiving imtn3.- amendments from the advocates of the different
interests which would be affected by it. He thought that by
submitting it to their calm and dispassionate consideration, and.
by endeavouring to reconcile the conflicting interests and claims
to which it was likely to give rise, they would be enabled to ac-
complish the hallowed object of extinguishing slavery in every
country which owed allegiance to the British crown. 'The hon.
member-for Weymouth, in the Year 1823, had made a proposal
to this effect—tgat, after a period to be limited by law, the child-
ren of all slaves born in the British plantations should be declared
free. That was the extent to which the proposal of the hon. mem-
ber for Weymouth then went. He stated that that was all he
wanted—that he asked for nothing else—that it would be the
consummation, the full consummation, of all his wishes. He
had even gone so far as to declare that that proposal, if carried,
would secure the speedy extinction of slavery. The memorable
expression which the member for Weymouth-had then employed
was this:—" I call upon you, not to go back, but to abstain from
going forward—l call upon you, not to retrace your steps, but
not to advance them—l call upon you, to make no further slaves;
and I demand that every cluld, hereafter born of slave parents
in any part of the British dominions, should be entitled, front
the hour of its birth, to all the rights and privileges of a free-
man." Now, to the entire and full extent of what the hon. mem-
ber for Weymouth,. in the year 1823, declared to be the consum-
mation of his wishes, his Majesty's government were now pre.
pared to go (hear, hear) ;_ but under certain limitations, which
they had devised to avoid, . the danger which was no less dis.
tinctly than eloquently pointed out by Mr. Canning, in the
speech which he delivered on this question in the year 1822.--
Mr. Canning argued—" What! will you consent to place the
future generation in a situation so much more enviable than that
in which you place the present generation ? Will you consent
to elevate the child by the degradation of the parent? Will
you, as it were, invert the feelings which ought to subsist be.
tween the parent and the child, by saying that the child shall
be entitled to its freedom from the hour of its birth, but that
the parent shall be condemned to the hour of his death
to a state of hopeless, irremediable, irretrievable slavery ?
The house, on that occasion, felt the force of the argument
which Mr. Canning addressed to it, and left both parent and
child in the same degraded and degrading state of slavery.
He (Mr. Stanley) trusted that the house would also feel the
force of the argument now, that it would feel that it was not
safe to stand still, either for the present or for the future gene,