Trinidad has held a meeti...
The Times, 1824-07-02T00:00:00

Trinidad has held a meeting of colonists, to consider of the new regulations prescribed by Ministers for securing what is conceived to be an amended treatment of the slaves. The circulars of Lord BATHURST have been received in that island with much the same cordiality as in Jamaica, Barbadoes, and elsewhere; our countrymen, whose uR- easiness is excited by them, alleging that the restraints under which they are henceforth to be placed go at once to depreciate the property, and to endlanger the life, of every white man in the West Indies. Towards men who labour under fcars so tormenting, it would be barbarous and wicked to act or speak with asperity ; nor when they pro- ceed to argument instead of passion, would it be honest to withhold from their reasonings the full measure of authority which belongs to them. Weare aware thatsomephilanthro- pists may be found, who endeavour to remove the obstacles raised by common honesty as well as humanity to a sweeping emancipation of the Negroes, by asserting that no man could ever have acquired a lawful pro- perty in the persou of a fellow-creature; ergo, that no right could be injured, or law violated, by strippinig the whites of their plunder. If this be true, we advise the advocates ef the doctrine to ship themselves bodily ofF for tbe West Indies, and head an insurrection of the slaves. If the latter are not property, yet are treated as property, they commit no breach of law by shaking off their chains; and as for the hanging and shooting part of it., we do affirm, that they who persuade the Negroes of their being unIatw- fully subjugated, and thereby excite in them a spirit of revenge against their masters, are bound ill honour, conscience, and manhood, to share individually those perils in which they have been the means of delibe- rft1vegi ei?ioE t6e' property -of his master, then the power which appropriated him is an immoral power: it is nevertheless the power of the British Parliament, which, for the sake of 1ritish commerce, did repeatedly encourage, nay enjoin the subjects of this realm to vest their money in Negroes. 'We have never seen this part of the question so pointedly or so ably treated,as in the speech of Mr. BuRNLEY, a gentleman of Trinidad, whO tooka leading part on the occasion above alluded to. Really, al- though it may shock the vainglory of some people to have Mr. PITT and other abolition Ministers plucked of their stolen plumage, we cannot refrain from the justice, as well Ias the amusement, of showing how Mr. BURNLEY deals with the assumed magnanimity of the British Government in what concerns the slave-trade. From a review of this trade-its progress, decline, and abolition-it appears, that more than three centuries ago some European Powers engaged in it; Great Britain was not the first, but subse. quently became the most active. Horrible, and at the present day almost incredible, atrocities were perpetrated in the course of this nefarious traffic, and led, after a long series of honourable efforts on the part of Mlr. WILB ERFORC E and his friends, to a system of regulations for the relief of the slave throughout the middle passage; but with respect to the abolition of the trade, Parliament turned a deaf ear to every hint upon the subject, the Ministers themselves frankly avowing " that the trade was toe LUCRAArIvE to be "given up!" The case, however, was soon altered. Ir. 1790, St. Domingo prospered, undersold our islands, and rendered the slave-trade no longer " lucrative ;" so that in 1792 our national benevolence increased as our profits di- minished, and a resolution was passed by the House of Commons for abolishing the slave-trade in 1796. Well, was that resolution acted upon? Far from it . St. Domingo was thrown into convulsions-became extinct as a sugar- island-ceased to rivAl us in the general market-Mr. PITT and his Government hoped to monopolize tlie supply of all Europewithsugarfrom the British islands-more slaves were wanted-the trade again became " too lucrative to be given " up," and the resolution of Parliament remained a dead let- ter! A third vicissitude then took place-St. Domingo being lhors du combat, Brazil and the Havannah took their turn- undersold the British colonies in the European market- the trade once more began to fiag,-as profits wvent down, up went, humanity; and in 1807, 11 years after the pledge of Parliament had been forfeited, the trade was fitially abo- lished. So much for the disinterested and magnanimous motives of this great " sacrifice" to virtue! All these de- taiis, we confess, have amused u6; but they belong to history, and are fitted to instruct mankind. Now for the titleto slave property in Trinidad,-theisland which, as our readers knlow, is to be subjected to ex.periments for the good of all the others. The British Government became lords of the soil of Trinidad at the peace of 1801. They had the power of imposing what ternms they pleased upon the British planters-they might have stopped the slave trrdc then and there,without breach of faith or vio- lation of property. Whatdid they do? They eneouraged it: they did more-they made the purchase of slaves,and conse- quently the pursuit of the traffic, a necessary condition of the grant of the Crown lands to each subject oF the KING wvho applied for them; sad thus made the slave property a part and parcel of the property in the soil, incorporattng one with the other. As between the planter and the Go- vernment, therefore, the question is settled, whatever it may be. as betweem Government and tbe unfortunate slave. But a new point is argued by the stafesmern of Trinidad; "Why," say they, " did not you, Lord BATHURST, or "your predecessor, tell us, when we bought the slave pro- "perty, that you would force us to manage it according to these recent regulacions ? T e say, that you have no "shadow of right to impose upon us any restraints beyond "those whichi were in operation when you enjoined us to "purchase-we say, that a positive loss accrues from the "change,and that you are bound to indemnify us." Really, again, as between planter and minister, there seems some- thing plausible in this remonstrance. The fact, how-. ever, appears to us to be, that the interest of the master, even more than- of the slave, reqaires an imnprovement in the tliscipline and habits of the latter. Theo morals of the einpire, the first of all interests, de- mand a new system of educationTfor the unenlightened pr-1 ion of its hihabitants. The Orangemen of lheland might pleaaA with equal justlce-inI they do plead, ihdeed, with far more violence and effrontery than the West Indians- that becausc their ancestors were cncouraged in a career of oppression over the Irish by ages of licence, and by acts of Parliament witilout end, no change cma ever be fairly made in tne old relations between themi and their victims, on pain of violating the rights of property !