The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition Part 1

The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839).

by Thomas Clarkson.

PREFATORY REMARKS

TO

THE PRESENT EDITION.

The invaluable services rendered by Thomas Clarkson to the great question of the Slave Trade in all its branches, have been universally acknowledged both at home and abroad, and have gained him a high place among the greatest benefactors of mankind. The History of the Abolition which this volume contains, affords some means of appreciating the extent of his sacrifices and his labours in this cause. But after these, with the unwearied exertions of William Wilberforce, had conducted its friends to their final triumph, in 1807, they did not then rest from their labours. There remained four most important objects, to which the anxious attention of all Abolitionists was now directed.

_First_,--The law had been pa.s.sed, forced upon the Planters, the Traders, and the Parliament, by the voice of the people; and there was a necessity for keeping a watchful eye over its execution.

_Secondly_,--The statute, however rigorously it might be enforced, left, of course, the whole amount of the Foreign Slave traffic untouched, and it was infinitely to be desired that means should be adopted for extending our Abolition to other nations.

_Thirdly_,--Some compensation was due to Africa, for the countless miseries which our criminal conduct had for ages inflicted upon her, and strict justice, to say nothing of common humanity and Christian charity, demanded that every means should be used for aiding in the progress of her civilization, and effacing as far as possible the dreadful marks which had been left upon her by our crimes.

_Lastly,_--Many of those whom we had transported by fraud and violence from their native country, and still more of the descendants of others who had fallen a sacrifice to our cruelties, and perished in the course of nature, slaves in a foreign land, remained to suffer the dreadful evils of West India bondage. It seemed to follow, that the earliest opportunity consistent with their own condition, should be taken to free those unhappy beings, the victims of our sordid cruelty; and all the more to be pitied, as we were all the more to be blamed, because one result of our transgression was the having placed them in so unnatural a position, that their enemies might seem to be furnished with an argument more plausible than sound, drawn from the Negro's supposed unfitness for immediate emanc.i.p.ation.

In order to promote these four great objects, a society was formed in May 1807, called the African Inst.i.tution, and although, at first, its labours were chiefly directed to the portion of the subject relating to Africa, by degrees, as the extinction of the British Slave Trade was accomplished, its care was chiefly bestowed on West India matters, which were more within the power of this country than the slave traffic, still carried on by foreign nations. But it is necessary in the first place, to recite the measures by which our own share in that enormous crime was surrendered, and the stigma partially obliterated, which it had brought upon our national character, Thomas Clarkson bore a forward and important part in all these useful and virtuous proceedings. His health was now, by rest among the Lakes of Westmoreland for several years, comparatively restored and his mind once more bent itself to the accomplishment of the grand object; of his life, we may he permitted reverently to suggest, the end of his existence.

Mr. Stephen and others, at first, deemed the certainty of the Act pa.s.sed in March 1807, being evaded under the stimulus, and the insurance against capture afforded by the enormous profits of the traffic, so clear, that they expected the law to become, almost from the time of its being enacted, a dead letter. There soon appeared the strongest reasons to concur in this opinion, the result of long and close observation in the Islands where Mr. Stephen had pa.s.sed part of his life. The slave-dealers knew the risk of penalty and forfeiture which they ran; but they also knew that if one voyage in three or four was successful, they were abundantly remunerated for all their losses; and, therefore, they were no more restrained by the Abolition Act, than by any moderate increase of the cost or the risk attending their wicked adventures. This was sure, to be the case, as long as the law only treated slavetrading as a contraband commerce, subjecting those who drove it to nothing but pecuniary penalties. But it was equally evident that the same persons who made these calculations of profit and risk, while they only could lose the s.h.i.+p or the money by a seizure, would hesitate before they encountered the hazard of being tried as for a crime. And, surely, if ever these was an act which deserved to be declared felony, and dealt with as such, it was this of slave-trading. Accordingly, in 1810, Mr.

Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, in moving an address to the crown, (which was unanimously agreed to,) for more vigorous measures against the traffic, both British and Foreign, gave notice of the Bill, which he next year carried through Parliament, and which declared the traffic to be a felony, punishable with transportation. Some years afterwards it was by another Act made capital, under the name of Piracy, but this has since been repealed. Several convictions have taken place under the former Act, (of 1811,) and there cannot be the least doubt that the law has proved effectual, and that the Slave Trade has long ceased to exist as far as the British dominions are concerned.

That foreign states continue shamefully to carry it on, is no less certain. There are yearly transported to Cuba and Brazil, above 100,000 unhappy beings, by the two weakest nations in Europe, and these two most entirely subject to the influence and even direct control of England.

The inevitable consequence is, that more misery is now inflicted on Africa by the criminals, gently called Slave-traders, of these two guilty nations, than if there were no treaties for the abolition of the traffic. The number required is always carried over, and hence, as many perish by a miserable death in escaping from the cruisers, as reach their destination. The recitals of horror which have been made to Parliament and the country on this dreadful subject, are enough to curdle the blood in the veins and heart of any one endued with the common feelings of humanity. The whole system of prevention, or rather of capture, after the crime has been committed, seems framed with a view to exasperate the evils of the infernal traffic, to scourge Africa with more intolerable torments, and to make human blood be spilt like water.

Our cruisers, are excited to an active discharge of their duty, by the benefit of sharing in the price fetched when the captured s.h.i.+p is condemned and sold; but this is a small sum, indeed, compared with the rich reward of head-money held out, being so much for every slave taken on board. It is thus made the direct interest of these cruisers, that the vessels should have their human cargoes on board, rather than be prevented from s.h.i.+pping them. True, this vile policy may prove less mischievous where no treaty exists, giving a right to seize when there are no slaves in the vessel, because here a slave s.h.i.+p is suffered to pa.s.s, how clear soever her destination might be; yet, even here, the inducement to send in boats, and seize as soon as a slave or two may be on board, is removed, and the cruiser is told, "only let all these wretched beings be torn from their country, and safely lodged in the vessel's hold, and your reward is great and sure." Then, whenever there is an outfit clause, that is a power to seize vessels fitted for the traffic, this mischievous plan tends directly to make the cruiser let the slaver make ready and put to sea, or it has no tendency or meaning at all. Accordingly, the course is for the cruiser to stand out to sea, and not allow herself to be seen in the offing--the crime is consummated--the slaves are stowed away--the pirate--captain weighs anchor--the pirate-vessel freighted with victims, and manned by criminals fares forth--the cruiser, the British cruiser, gives chace--and then begin those scenes of horror, surpa.s.sing all that the poet ever conceived, whose theme was the torments of the d.a.m.ned and the wickedness of the fiends. Casks are filled with the slave, and in these they are stowed away; or to lighten the vessel, they are flung overboard by the score; sometimes they are flung overboard in casks, that the chasing s.h.i.+p may be detained by endeavours to pick them up; the dying and the dead strew the deck; women giving birth to the fruit of the womb, amidst the corpses of their husbands and their children; and other, yet worse and nameless atrocities, fill up the terrible picture, of impotent justice and triumphant guilt. But the guilt is not all Spanish and Portuguese. The English Government can enforce its demands on the puny cabinets of Madrid and Lisbon, scarce conscious of a substantive existence, in all that concerns our petty interests: wherever justice and mercy to mankind demand our interference, there our voice sinks within us, and no sound is uttered. That any treaty without an outfit clause should be suffered to exist between powers so situated, is an outrage upon all justice, all reason, all common sense. But one thing is certain, that unless we are to go further, we have gone too far, and must in mercy to hapless Africa retrace our steps. Unless we really put the traffic down with a strong hand, and instantly, we must instantly repeal the treaties that pretended to abolish it, for these exacerbate the evil a hundred fold, and are ineffectual to any one purpose but putting money into the pockets of our men of war. The fact is as unquestionable, as it is appalling, that all our anxious endeavours to extinguish the Foreign Slave Trade, have ended in making it incomparably worse than it was before we pretended to put it down; that owing to our efforts, there are thrice the number of slaves yearly torn from Africa; and that wholly because of our efforts, two thirds of these are murdered on the high seas and in the holds of the pirate vessels.

It is said, that when these scenes were described to an indignant nation last session of Parliament, the actual effects of this bad system were denied, though its tendency could not be disputed.

It was averred that "no British seaman could be capable of neglecting his duty for the sake of increasing the gains of the station." But nothing could be more absurd than this. Can the direct and inevitable tendency of the head-money system be doubted? Are cruisers the only men over whom motives have no influence? Then why offer a reward at all?

When they want no stimulus to perform their duty, why tell them that if the s.h.i.+p is empty, they get a hundred pounds: if laden, five thousand?

They know the rules of arithmetic;--they understand the force of numbers. But, in truth, there is not an individual on all the coast of Africa who will be misled by such appeals, or suffer all this to divert them from their purpose of denouncing the system. There are persons high in rank among the best servants of the crown, who know the facts from their own observations, and who are ready to bear witness to the truth, in spite of all the attempts that have been made to silence them.

The other great object of the African Inst.i.tution regarded the West Indies. The preparation of the negroes for that freedom which was their absolute right, and could only be withheld for an hour, on the ground of their not being prepared for it, and therefore being better without it, was the first thing to be accomplished. Here the friends of the abolition, all but Mr. Stephen, suffered a great disappointment. He alone had uniformly-foretold that the hopes held out, as it seemed very reasonably, of better treatment resulting from the stoppage of the supply of hands, were fallacious. All else had supposed that interest might operate on men whom principle had failed to sway; that they whom no feelings of compa.s.sion for their fellow-creatures could move to do their duty, might be touched by a feeling of their own advantage, when interest coincided with duty. The Slave-mart is now closed, it was said; surely the stock on hand will be saved by all means, and not wasted when it can no longer be replaced. The argument was purposely rested on the low ground of regarding human beings as cattle, or even as inanimate chattels, and it was conceived that human life would be regarded of as much value as the wear and tear of beasts, of furniture, or of tools.

Hence it was expected that a better system of treatment would follow, from the law which closed the African market, and warned every planter that his stock must be spared by better treatment, and kept up by breeding, since it no longer could be, as it hitherto had been, maintained by new supplies.

Two considerations were, in these arguments, kept out of view, both of a practical nature, and both known to Mr. Stephen,--the cultivation of the Islands by agents having wholly different interests from their masters, and the gambling spirit of trading and culture which long habit had implanted in the West Indian nature. The comforts of the slave depended infinitely more upon the agent on the spot, than the owner generally resident in the mother country; and though the interest of the latter might lead to the saving of negro life, and care for negro comforts, the agent had no such motives to influence his conduct; besides, it was with the eyes of this agent that the planter must see, and he gave no credence to any accounts but his. Now the consequence of cruelty is to make men at war with its objects. No one but a most irritable person feels angry with his beast, and even the anger of such a person is of a moment's duration. But towards an inanimate chattel even the most irritable of sane men can feel nothing like rage. Why? Because in the one case there is little, in the other no conflict or resistance at all.

It is otherwise with a slave; he is human, and can disobey--can even resist. This feeling always rankles in his oppressor's bosom, and makes the tyrannical superior hate, and the more oppress his slave. The agent on the spot feels thus, and thus acts; nor can the voice of the owner at a distance be heard, even if interest, clearly proved, were to prompt another course. But the chief cause of the evil is the spirit of speculation, and it affects and rules resident owners even more than absentees. Let sugar rise in price, and all cold calculations of ultimate loss to the gang are lost in the vehement thirst of great present gain. All, or nearly all, planters are in distressed circ.u.mstances. They look to the next few years as their time; and if the sun s.h.i.+nes they must make hay. They are in the mine, toiling for a season, with every desire to escape and realize something to spend elsewhere. Therefore they make haste to be rich, and care little, should the speculation answer and much sugar bring in great gain, what becomes of the gang ten years hence. Add to all this, that any interference of the local legislatures to discourage sordid or cruel management, to clothe the slaves with rights, to prepare them for freedom by better education, to pave the way for emanc.i.p.ation by restraining the master's power, to create an intermediate State of transition from slavery to freedom by partial liberty, as by attaching them to the soil, and placing them in the preparatory state through which our ancestors in Europe pa.s.sed from bondage in gross to entire independence--all such measures were in the absolute discretion; not of the planters, but of the resident agents, one of the worst communities in the world, who had little interest in preparing for an event which they deprecated, and whose feelings of party, as well as individually, were all ranged on the oppressor's side. All this Mr. Stephen, enlightened by experience, and wise by long reflection, clearly and alone foresaw; all this vision of the future was too surely realized by the event. No improvement of treatment took place; no additional liberality in the supplies was shown; no abstinence in the exaction of labour appeared; no interference of the Colonial Legislature to check misconduct was witnessed; far less was the least disposition perceived to give any rights to the slaves, any security against oppression, any t.i.tle independent of his Master, any intermediate state or condition which might prepare him for freedom.

It is enough to say, that a measure which every man, except Mr. Stephen, had regarded as the natural, almost the necessary effect of the abolition--attaching the slaves to the soil--was not so much as propounded, far less adopted; it may be even said, was never mentioned in any one local a.s.sembly of any of our numerous colonies, during the thirty years which elapsed between the abolition and the emanc.i.p.ation!

This is unquestionable, and it is decisive.

As soon as it began to be perceived that such was likely to be the result of the abolition in regard to the emanc.i.p.ation, Mr. Stephen's authority with his coadjutors, always high, rose in proportion to the confirmations which the event had lent his predictions; and his zealous endeavours and unwearied labours for the subversion of the accursed system became both more extensive and more effectual. If, however, strict justice requires the tribute which we have paid to this eminent person's distinguished services, justice also renders it imperative on the historian of the Abolition in all its branches, to record an error into which he fell. Having originally maintained that the traffic would survive the Act of 1807, in which he was right, that Act only imposing pecuniary penalties, he persisted in the same opinion after the Act of 1811 had made slave-trading a felony; and long after it had been effectually put down in the British dominions, he continued to maintain that it was carried on nearly as much as ever, reasoning upon calculations drawn from the island returns. Hence he insisted upon a general Registry Act, as essential to prevent the continuance of an importation which had little or no real existence. The importance of such a measure was undeniable, with a view to secure the good treatment of the negroes in the islands; but the extinction of the Slave Trade had long before been effectually accomplished.

In the efforts to obtain Negro Emanc.i.p.ation, all the Abolitionists were now prepared to join. The conduct of the Colonial a.s.semblies having long shown the fallacy of those expectations which had been entertained of the good work being done in the islands as soon as the supply of new hands should be stopped by the Abolition, there remained no longer any doubt whatever, that the mother country alone could abate a nuisance hateful in the sight of G.o.d and man. Constant opportunities were therefore offered to agitate this great question, which was taken up by the enlightened, the humane, and the religious, all over the empire.

The magnitude of the subject was indeed worthy of all the interest it excited. The destiny of nearly a million of human beings--nay, the question whether they should be treated as men with rational souls, or as the beasts which perish--should enjoy the liberty to which all G.o.d's creatures are ent.i.tled, as of right, or be hara.s.sed, oppressed, tormented, and stinted, both as regarded bodily food, and spiritual instruction--whether the colonies should be peopled with tyrants and barbarians, or inhabited by civilized and improving christian communities--was one calculated to put in action all the best principles of our nature, and to move all the n.o.blest feelings of the human heart.

Thomas Clarkson, as far as his means extended, aided this great excitement. He renewed his committees of correspondence all over the country; aided by the Society of Friends, his early and steady coadjutors in this pious work, he recommenced the epistolary intercourse with the provinces, held for so many hopeless years on the Slave Trade, but now made far more promising by the victory which had been obtained, and by the unanimity with which all Abolitionists now were resolved to procure emanc.i.p.ation. He also recommenced his journeys through the different parts of the island, and visited in succession part of Scotland, almost all England, and the whole of Wales, encouraging and interesting the friends of humanity wherever he went, and forming local societies and committees for furthering the common object.

But it was, after all, in Parliament that the battle must be fought; and Mr. Buxton, of whose invaluable services in the House of Commons the cause has lately been deprived, repeatedly, with the support of Messrs.

Wilberforce, William Smith, Brougham, Lus.h.i.+ngton, and others, urged the necessity of interference upon the representatives of a people unanimous in demanding it; and he repeatedly urged it in vain. The Government always leaned towards the planter, and the most flimsy excuses were constantly given for preferring to the effectual measures propounded by the Abolitionists, the most flimsy of expedients, useless for any one purpose, save that of making pretences and gaining time.

At length came the great case of the missionary Smith's persecution, trial, and untimely death, when all the forms of judicature had been prost.i.tuted, all the rules of law broken, all the principles of justice outraged, by men a.s.suming to sit in judgment as a court of criminal jurisprudence; and though a.s.sisted by legal functionaries, exhibiting such a spectacle of daring violation of the most received and best known canons of procedure, as no civilized community ever before were called upon to endure. This subject was immediately brought before Parliament by Mr. Brougham, and his motion of censure, which might have been an impeachment of the governor and the court of Demerara, was powerfully supported by Mr. Wilberforce, the amiable, eloquent, and venerable leader of the party, Mr. Denman, Mr. Williams, and Dr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, but rejected by a majority of the Commons, whom Mr. Canning led, in a speech little worthy of his former exertions against the Slave Trade, and far from being creditable either to his judgment or to his principles. Yet this memorable debate was of singular service to the cause. The great speeches delivered were spread through all parts of the country; the nakedness of the horrid system was exposed; the corruptions as well as cruelty of slavery were laid bare; the determination of colonies to protect its worst abuses was demonstrated; necessity of the mother-country interfering with a strong hand was declared; and even the loss of the motion showed the people of England how much their own exertions were still required if they would see slavery extirpated, by proving that upon them alone the fate of the execrable system hung.

The effects of this great debate cannot be over estimated. The case of the missionary became the universal topic; The name of the martyred Smith, the general rallying cry. The superior interest excited by individual sufferings to any general misery inflicted upon ma.s.ses of the people, or any evil, however gigantic, which operates over a large s.p.a.ce, and in a course of time, has always been observed. The remark was peculiarly applicable in this instance. Although all reflecting men had, for many long years, been well aware of the evils pervading our colonial system, and though the iniquity and perverseness of West Indian judicatures had long been the topic of universal comment, yet this single case of a persecuted individual falling a victim to those gross perversions of law and justice which are familiar to the colonial people, produced an impression far more general and more deep than all that had ever been written or declaimed against system of West India slavery; and looking back on the consummation of all our hopes in 1833 and 1838, we at once revert from this auspicious era to that ever memorable occasion as having laid the solid foundation of our ultimate triumph.

In this important day, which has thus by its effects proved decisive of the Emanc.i.p.ation question, Mr. Stephen bore no part. He had long ceased to adorn and enlighten the House of Commons. His retirement was the result of honest differences of opinion respecting West India slavery with his political friends, then in the plenitude of their power. Those differences caused him to take the n.o.ble part, so rarely acted by politicians, of withdrawing from Parliament rather than lend his great support to men with whom he differed upon a question admitting no compromise; and he devoted his exertions in private life to the furtherance of the cause ever nearest his heart, the publication of his able and elaborate work on the Colonial Slave Laws was the fruit of his leisure; and had he never lent any other aid to the Emanc.i.p.ation, this would alone have placed him high among its most able and effective supporters. In all the consultations which were held before Mr.

Brougham's motion in 1824, he bore an active and useful part. In pus.h.i.+ng the advantages gained by the debate he was unwearied and successful.

Unhappily it pleased Providence that he should not receive here below the final reward of his long and valued labours; for he was called to his final repose some months before the Emanc.i.p.ation Bill pa.s.sed into a law.

There remains little to add, except that this measure, which was carried with little opposition in 1833, owed its success in Parliament to the ample bribe of twenty millions, by which the acquiescence of the West Indians was purchased. The measure had hardly come into operation, when all men perceived that the intermediate state of apprentices.h.i.+p was anything rather than a preparation for freedom, and anything rather than a mitigation of slavery. It is due to some able and distinguished friends of the negro race to state, that they all along were averse to this plan of a transition state. Lord Howick, then in the Colonial Office as Under-Secretary, went so far as to leave the department, from his dislike of this part of the measure. Mr. Buxton and others protested against it. Even its friends intimated that they wished the period of apprentices.h.i.+p to end in 1838 instead of 1840; but there was a general belief of the preparatory step being necessary,--a belief apparently founded on experience of the negro character, and indeed of the vicious tendency of all slavery, to extinguish the power of voluntary labour, as well as to make the sudden change to freedom unsafe for the peace of the community. The fact soon dispersed these opinions. Antigua in a minute emanc.i.p.ated all her slaves to the number of thirty thousand and upwards.

Not a complaint was ever heard of idleness or indolence; and, far from any breach of the peace being induced by the sudden change in the condition of the people, the Christmas of 1833 was the first, for the last twenty years, that martial law was not proclaimed, in order to preserve the public peace. Similar evidence from Jamaica and other islands, proving the industrious and peaceable habits of the apprentices, showed that there was nothing peculiar in the circ.u.mstances of Antigua.

An important occurrence is now to be recorded as having exercised a powerful influence upon the question of immediate emanc.i.p.ation. Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, a member of the Society of Friends, stricken with a sense of the injustice perpetrated against the African race, repaired to the West Indies, in order that he might examine, with his own eyes, the real state of the question between the two cla.s.ses. He was accompanied by John Scoble and Thomas Harvey; and these able, excellent, and zealous men returned in a few months with such ample evidence of the effects produced by apprentices.h.i.+p, and the fitness of the negroes for liberty, that the attention of the community was soon awakened to the subject, even more strenuously than it ever before had been; and the walls of Parliament were soon made once more to ring with the sufferings of the slave, only emanc.i.p.ated in name, and the injustice of withholding from him any longer the freedom which was his indefeasible right, as soon as he was shown capable of enjoying it beneficially for himself and safely for the rest of the community.

In these transactions, both in Jamaica, where he is one of the largest planters, and in Parliament, where he is one of the most respected members, the Marquess of Sligo bore an eminent and an honourable part.

His praise has been justly sounded by all who have supported the cause of negro freedom, and his conduct was by all admitted to be as much marked by the disinterested virtue of a good citizen and amiable man, as it was by the sagacity and ability of an enlightened statesman. Both as governor of Jamaica, as the owner of slaves whom he voluntarily liberated, and as a peer of Parliament, his patriotism, his humanity, and his talents, shone conspicuously through this severe and glorious struggle. While such was the conduct of those eminent philanthropists, some difference of opinion prevailed among the other and older leaders of the cause, chiefly grounded upon doubts whether the arrangement made by Parliament in 1833, might not be regarded as a compact with the planters which it would be unjust to violate by terminating their right to the labour of the apprentices at a period earlier than the one fixed in the Emanc.i.p.ation Act. A little consideration of the question at issue soon dispelled those doubts, and removed every obstacle to united exertion, by restoring entire unanimity of opinion. The slaves, it was triumphantly affirmed, were no party to the compact. But moreover, the whole arrangement of the apprentices.h.i.+p was intended as a benefit to them, by giving them the preparation thought to be required before they could, safely for themselves, be admitted to unrestricted freedom,--not as a benefit to the planters, whose acquiescence was purchased with the grant of twenty millions. Experience having shown that no preparation at all was required, it was preposterous to continue the restraint upon natural liberty an hour longer, as regarded the negroes,--the only party whom we had any right to consider in the question; and as for the planters there was the grossest absurdity in further regarding any interests or any claims of theirs. The arrangement of 1833, as far as regards the transition or intermediate state, had been made under an error in fact, an error propagated by the representations of the masters. That error was now at an end, and an immediate alteration of the provisions to which it had given rise was thus a matter of strict justice;--not to mention that the planters had failed to perform their part of the contract. The Colonial a.s.semblies had, except in Antigua, done nothing for the slave in return for the large sum bestowed upon the West India body. So that in any view there was an end of all pretext for the further delay of right and justice.

The ground now taken by the whole Abolitionists; therefore, both in and out of Parliament was, that the two years which remained of the indentured apprentices.h.i.+p must immediately be cut off, and freedom given to the slaves in August, 1838, instead of 1840; The peace of the West Indian community, and the real interests of the planters, were affirmed to be as much concerned in this change as the rights of the negroes themselves. Far from preparing them for becoming peaceable subjects and contented members of society at the end of their apprentices.h.i.+p, those two years of compulsory labour would, it was justly observed, be a period of heart-burning and discontent between master and servant, which must, in the mean while, be dangerous to the peace of society, and must leave, at the end of the time, a feeling of mutual ill-will and distrust. The question could no longer be kept from the cognizance of the negro people. Indeed, their most anxious expectations were already pointed towards immediate liberty, and their strongest feelings were roused to obtain it.

Of these sentiments the whole community partook; meetings were everywhere held; pet.i.tions crowded the tables of Parliament; the press poured forth innumerable tracts which were eagerly received; the pulpit lent its aid to this holy cause; and discussions upon pet.i.tions and upon incidental motions shook the walls of Parliament, while they stimulated the zeal of the people. The Government adopted an unfortunate course, which contributed greatly to weaken their hold on the confidence and affections of the country; they resisted all the motions that were made on behalf of the slaves, and appeared to regard only the interests of the master, turning a deaf ear to the arguments of right and of justice.

It was found, during the course of these debates, that a new Slave Trade had sprung up in the East Indies, with the sanction of an English Order in Council. Under pretence that hands were wanted to cultivate their estates, the Demerara planters had obtained permission to import what they termed, with a delicacy borrowed from the vocabulary of the African Slave Trade, "labourers" from Asia and from Africa east of the Cape, and to make them Indentured Apprentices for a term of years. No restrictions whatever were imposed by this unheard-of Order. No tonnage was required in proportion to the numbers s.h.i.+pped, no amount of provision, no medical a.s.sistance; no precautions were taken, or so much as thought of, to prevent kidnapping and fraud, nay, to prevent main force being used in any part of Eastern Africa, or of all Asia, in carrying on board the victims of West Indian avarice; in short, a worse Slave Trade than the African was established, and all the dominions of the East India Company, with all the African and Asiatic coasts, as yet independent, were given over to its ravages. This was repeatedly denounced by Lord Brougham in the House of Lords; and although his motion for rescinding the order was supported by Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Wharncliffe, the influence of the Government and the planters prevailed, and the House rejected it. A bill was afterwards brought in to check the enormities complained of; but no remedy at all effectual is as yet applied. The official doc.u.ments, however, proved that already men had been inveigled on board, by the agents of the Mauritius planters, in different parts of the East, and that the mortality on that comparatively short voyage exceeded even the dreadful waste of life which had characterized, and impressed with marks of horrid atrocity, the accursed Middle Pa.s.sage.

This subject, as might well be expected, once more roused the energies of Thomas Clarkson: he addressed an able and convincing letter to Lord Brougham, his old friend and coadjutor in the sacred cause; and it was printed and universally circulated. The subject still remains unsettled: and the labours of the enlightened philanthropist cannot now be directed to one more important, or more urgent.

Meanwhile, in the spring of 1838, the question of Immediate Emanc.i.p.ation was agitated throughout the country. The Government proved hostile.

Immense meetings were held at Exeter Hall, which were attended by many members of Parliament, over which Lord Brougham presided. Among others who were present and bore a distinguished part, were certain representatives of Ireland who promised their strenuous support. It is a painful duty to add, that their fellow-members from Ireland did not, on this great occasion, follow their good example; for eleven only of those, on whose votes reliance had been placed, opposed the Government, while no less than twenty-seven gave them support.

The question was rejected by the House of Lords, when brought forward by Lord Brougham; but in spite of the efforts of the Government; the defalcation of the Irish, of a still greater proportion of the Scotch representatives, two hundred and seventeen members of the House of Commons voted for Immediate Abolition, out of four hundred and eighty-nine who were present on the occasion. A second effort in the same session placed Ministers in a minority; but they immediately gave notice, they should strenuously oppose any attempt to carry into practical effect this decision of the House; and in this determination they were supported by a majority on a third division.

The word, however, had gone forth all over England, that the _Slave should be free_. It had not only pervaded Europe, it had reached America; and the West Indians at length perceived that they could no longer resist the voice of the British people, when it spoke the accents of humanity and of justice. The slaves would have met the dawn of the first of August,--the day which all the motions in Parliament and all the prayers of the pet.i.tions had fixed,--with perfect quiet, but with a resolute determination to do no work. The peace would not have been broken, but no more would a clod have been turned after that appointed sun had risen. A handful of whites surrounded by myriads of negroes,--now substantially free, and free without a blow,--must have been overwhelmed in an hour after sunrise on that day, had they resisted. The Colonial Legislatures, therefore, _now_ listened to the voice of reason, and they, one after another, emanc.i.p.ated their slaves.

The first of August saw not a bondsman, under whatever appellation, in any part of the Western Sea which owns the British rule.

The Mauritius, however, still held out, and on the Mauritius the hand of the Imperial Parliament must and will be laid, to enforce mercy and justice on those to whom mercy and justice have so long called aloud in vain. In truth, if the case for instant emanc.i.p.ation was strong everywhere, it was in no quarter half so strong as in the Mauritius; and the distribution of the grant by Parliament to this Colony was the most unjustifiable, and even incomprehensible. For, elsewhere, there existed at least a t.i.tle to the slave, over whom an unjust and unchristian law recognised the right of property. But in the Mauritius there was not, nor is there now, one negro to whom a good t.i.tle is clearly provable.

The atrocious conduct of Governors and other functionaries, in conniving at the Slave Trade of Eastern Africa, had filled that Colony with thousands of negroes, every one of whom was carried there by the commission of felony, long after Slave Trading had been declared a capital crime by the law of the land, as by the law of nature it always was. Sir George Murray, when Colonial Secretary of State, had admitted, that at least thirty thousand of the negroes in the settlement were nominally slaves, but in reality free, having been carried thither contrary to law. He understated it by twenty thousand or more: yet on all these negroes, in respect of property, were two millions and more claimed: for all these the compensation money was given and taken, which Parliament had lavishly bestowed. How then was it possible to doubt, that every slave in the Mauritius should receive his freedom, when the only ground alleged for not singling out and liberating this fifty thousand, was the inability to distinguish them from the rest? If ten men are tried for an offence, and it is clear that five are innocent, though you cannot distinguish them from their companions, what jury will hesitate in acquitting the whole, on the ordinary principle of its being better five guilty should escape than five guiltless suffer? The same is still the state of the case in that most criminal settlement, which, having far surpa.s.sed all others in the enormity of its guilt, is now the only one where no attempt has been made to evince repentance by amendment of conduct. But the Government which has the power of compelling justice will share the crime which they refuse to prevent, and the Legislature must compel the Government, if their guilty reluctance shall continue, or it will take that guilt upon itself[A].

[Footnote A: It is truly gratifying to state, that the late Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg, has, since this was written, given the most satisfactory a.s.surances of orders having been sent over for immediate emanc.i.p.ation, in case the former instructions to the Governor of Mauritius should have failed, to make the Colonists themselves adopt the measure. Lord Glenelg's conduct on this occasion is most creditable to him.]

The latest act of Thomas Clarkson's life has been one which, or rather the occasion for which, it is truly painful to contemplate; but this too must be recorded, or the present historical sketch would be incomplete.

He whose days had all been spent in acts of kindness and of justice to others, was at last forced to exert his powers, supposed, by some, and erroneously supposed, to be enfeebled by age, in obtaining redress for his own wrongs. He whose thoughts had all been devoted to the service of his fellow-creatures, was now obliged to think of himself. A life spent in works of genuine philanthropy, alike standing aloof from party, and retiring with genuine humility from the public gaze, might have well hoped to escape that detraction, which is the lot of those who a.s.sume the leading stations among their contemporaries, and mingle in the contentious scenes of worldly affairs. Or, at least, it might have been expected that his traducers would only be found among the oppressors of the New World, or the slave-traders of the Old. This felicity has not been his lot; and the evening of his days has been overcast by an a.s.sault upon his character, proceeding from the quarter of all others the most unexpected and the most strange.

The sons of his old and dear friend William Wilberforce,--whose incomparable merits he had ever been the first to acknowledge, whom he loved as a brother, and revered as the great leader of the cause to which his whole life had been devoted,--in publis.h.i.+ng a Life of their ill.u.s.trious parent, thought fit to charge Thomas Clarkson with having suppressed his services while he exaggerated his own; and not content with bringing a charge utterly groundless, (as it was instantly proved,) they deemed it worthy of their subject and of their name, to drag forth into the light of day a private correspondence of a delicate nature, with the purpose of proving that their father and others had a.s.sisted him with money, and that he had been pressing in his demands of a subscription. Two extracts of Letters of his were printed by these reverend gentlemen, upon which a statement was afterwards grounded in the _Edinburgh Review_ of their book, that the subscription was raised to remunerate him for his services in the Abolition. They further a.s.serted, that their father was in the field before him, and that it was under their father's direction that he, and the Abolition Committee of 1786, acted. In the whole history of controversy, we venture to affirm, there never was an instance of so triumphant a refutation as that by which these slanderous aspersions were instantly refuted, and their authors and their accomplices reduced to a silence as prudent as discreditable.