Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1847-08-20
AFRICAN SLAVERY--ENGLISH ADO
TJ1TON

ENGLISH ADO
go LI1ION. Il
Tn an article headed 8 Enlightened English
Slavery the Richmond Re-
publican INDUCES in some structures pointedly
appropriate and becomingly severe, on the Of
6cious intermeddling of the more fanatical of
the English public, ycleped abolitlonlsis, with
our domestic institutions. TO prove that those
institutions which they so bitterly denounce,
are the work of their own nation, forced upon
the South in defiance of its circumstances,
the Republican makes the following quotation
from an article in late number of the Lon |
don Christian Remembrance. on African sla- |
very
The Remembrance dates the slave trade al |
most as far back as the first settlement of the |
West Indies, when Bartholomew Las Casas,
a Dominican, who had spent greater part of
his life as missionary among the Indians in
ST. Domingo, struck with pity at the suffer
ings inflicted by the whites on the Indians,
formed the idea of transporting from the Por-
tuguese settlements large numbers of Africans,
whose greater powers of endurance rendered
them capable OF toll which the feeble Indians
could not sustain. tits not supposed that Las
Casas contemplated the piratical seizure of the
Africans, "but imagined that their transporta-
ton "a few had been carried over by the Por-
1uguese as early as 1909 was with their own
consent" When the proposition was made
to Cardinal Xmenes, the Regent of Spain at
the time, he absolutely rejected it. The Re.
membrancer proceeds:
But the experiment, once begun to be
made, was found to succeed SO we'll for the
purposes of the settlers, that regular piratical
trade was soon established. And now began
A. IS ID in he d.
we had colony of our own, and long with
out any views for our own settlements after
we had made them, we undertook the carrying
trade in slaves for the Spanish colonies. The
first importation of slaves by English ships
was in the reign of Elizabeth, in 1862, by a
Capt Hawkins, who was afterwards knighted
by her. The trade was encouraged by statute
and proclamation, through the successive
reigns of Charles |, II, and James II. The &C
QUESTION of Jamaica, under Cromwell, who
introduced the practice of selling his political
captives, English and Scotch, but chiefly Irish
Royalists, as slaves to the plantations, gave it
fresh stimulus. BUTT was William III who
outdd them ALL With Lord Somers for his
Minister, he declared the slave trade to be
highly beneficial to the nation;' and that this
was not meant as merely beneficial to the ma
ton through the medium of the colonial pros
perity, is demonstrated by the Assiento treaty,
in 1918, with which the Colonies had nothing
| to do, and in which Great Britain binds herself
to supply 200 slaves, at the rate Of 1890
per annum, to the Spanish colonies. From
that time till within few years of the present
time, our history is full of the various meas
ures and grants which passed for the encour-
agement and protection of the trade. In 1850,
South Carolina, then British colony, passed
an act to prohibit further Importation Great
Britain rejected this act with Indignation, and
declared that the slave trade was beneficial
and necessary to the mother country. The
colonial assembly of Jamaica made more than
one attempt, towards the close of the last GEN.
fury, to prohibit it, but the British government
resisted the restriction. Bristol and Liverpool,
the foundation of the prosperity of both of
which towns may be said to have been laid in
the slave trade, petitioned in favor of it, The
matter was referred to the Board of Trade, and
the Earl Of Dartsmouth, then President of the
Board, Tin 1874 answered by the following
declaration-t We cannot allow the colonies
TO check or discourage, in any degree, traffic
so beneficial to the nation -
Here we find England, the pioneer in the
Infamous slave trade, actuated by the most
mercenary motives, stealing slaves to supply
other nations. and forcing them at last upon
her own colonies, against their most earnest
remonstrances. After establishing these facts,
the Remembrance goes on to declare that
England can lay no claim " to a national cha
racter for humanity" from the triumph ofabo-
lition principles in that country 1t rejects
Dr.. Channing's complimentto England for con-
tracing new debt to give freedom to Afri-
cans, as the "hghly scented incense to flatte-
ry." 1t says benevolence "costs but little
when it can be paid by bill drawn on pos
terity," that the sum appropriated did not
compensate the planter for the losses OF one
season, and was, after all, but return of a
trifing portion Of that wealth which for years
had been drawn into the exchequer at the ex-
pense of the planters themselves. 1t attributes
much of the abolition sentiment OF England
''to fashion, to imitation, and to the catching
nature of popular cry.'
On the other hand, the first efficient meas
| ure for the suppression OF the slave trade, wa.
introduced by the United States, and it is sur
missed that one secret of our recent difficultie.
, with Brazil, is the determined energy witt
f which our Minister, and that Minister Vir
gilman, has made war upon this abominabl
: traffic.