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rous than those employed in manu feelings of the urban masses. From factures; but on every occasion on the accounts now presented to Parliawhich it was possible to show a pre- ment, and given in the last number of ference, they have evinced their predi. the Colonial Magazine, it appears that lection for the urban masses in pre- the produce of the West India islands ference to the rural interests. They has fallen off, since the emancipation have left the Corn-Laws an open ques- question was agitated, considerably tion; and every body knows what above A THIRD ; and as the year 1838 open questions mean— -it is leaving the was the one in which the idleness condoor open to let the spoiler come in. sequent on total emancipation first The agricultural interest of the em- commenced, and sugar. canes require pire, therefore, have good cause for two years to come to maturity, it may the decided hostility which they have with confidence be anticipated, that evinced to our present rulers; for next year the defalcation will be at they first forced upon them-by push- least a half. As this is a matter of the ing the nation, as they now themselves very highest importance, and in which admit, to the very verge of insanity, the authentic evidence of the effects of a constitution which did not give them Negro emancipation has for the first a half of the weight in the legislature time become apparent, we make no to which they were entitled by their apology for their insertion in this numbers, nor a fourth of what was place. due to them by their annual addition

Deliveries of Sugar and Rum from to general wealth ; and they are now

the West Indies into the British taking advantage of the power thus

Islands :unjustly conferred upon their oppo

Sugar. nents, to leave their dearest interests in jeopardy, and expose them to the

1829, 271,700 61,700 imminent hazard of having a vast le

1830, 259,500 58,300 gislative change thrust upon them,

266,600 71,800 which avowedly will throw a third of

1834, Emancipation passed. the lands of the kingdom out of cul

1835, 230,350 48,700 tivation, and reduce half the land

1836, 225,850 44,750 holders to a state of bankruptcy.

1837, 204,150 41,100 Nor can the British landholders, in

1838, 228,300 42,900 the imminent hazard to which they are

1839, 179,800 43,400 now exposed, lay the flattering unction to their souls, that on occasion of Thus it distinctly appears the division on the Corn-Laws they and rum, the staple produce of the had an overwhelming majority in their West Indies, has fallen off just a third favour, and that it is impossible to sup

since the Emancipation Bill passed; pose that any government could be so and as it is only next year that the utterly reckless and insane as to lay great effect of the idleness consequent their suicidal hands on the first and on the total emancipation of 1838 will greatest interest of the empire. They appear,

it may with confidence be ex. have only to look at the West Indies, pected that then the defalcation will and there they will behold what may be a half. Now, the average value of be done, even against a once-over- West India produce before the emanwhelming majority in Parliament, by cipation was £22,000,000 yearly; conthe persevering efforts of a single party, sequently a loss of above £7,000,000 acting on the generous though deluded a-year has already been inflicted by

Hhds.

Rum. Puncheons.

1831,

that sugar

Agricultural families in 1831, Great Britain,
Ireland,

961,134 884,339

Total agricultural,
Manufacturing families, Great Britain, in 1831,
Ireland,

1,845,473 1,434,873 252,672

Total manufacturing, 1,687,545

--Porter's Progress of the Nation, I. 57, 59, * Colonial Magazine, No. II. 278, 279.

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the Liberal Ministry on the West India maining, source of their property, proprietors, which next year will be the wood trade to Britain, is openly £11,000,000 annually. Thus the whole threatened with destruction by the compensation they received, which was equalization of the duty on Baltic and not at the time halfthe value ofthe negro Canadian timber. To show the people property they lost, was not equal to of that colony how much they have two years' loss inflicted on them by the that great change at heart, and to difference between free and compul- prepare them, it must be supposed, in sory Negro labour. This memorable some degree, for its speedy announce. example of successful spoliation should ment, they have made Mr Poulett always be in the view of the British Thompson Governor-General of the landholders in estimating the way in North American provinces; a gentlewhich a great agricultural interest man long connected, it is well known, may be effectually destroyed by the with the Baltic trade, and who has uni. efforts of the urban masses, urged on formly advocated with as much energy by political agitation in the dominant the equalization of the duties on foisland of Great Britain ; and unques- reign and Canadian timber as the totionably, if the Corn-Law abolition is tal withdrawing of the Corn-Law carried, at least a third will be cut off protection from the British farmer. from the produce of British agricul. Thus, in addition to having had two ture, or above eighty millions a-year fearful insurrections breaking forth in from the income of the British empire. their once peaceable and happy terri.

Has Canada any reason to repose tory, and seeing their frontier every more confidence in the present Minis- where threatened and ravaged by try than the West India proprietors, American sympathizers, the inhabiwho have been the victims of this tants of the British province in North unparalleled spoliation ? Truly, when America find themselves suddenly the statistical documents come in to deprived of the prolific and enriching establish the consequences of their ac- stream of British emigration, stripped tions in that unhappy colony, it may of a third of their timber trade to the with confidence be expected, that West Indies, and threatened with a losses fully as great as those already total loss of the grand artery of their sustained by the West India interest, prosperity-the export of their timber will be proved to have resulted from on the favourable duties adequate to the mischievous effects of Wnig ma- compensate the remoteness of their nagement and government on the situation to the British empire. banks of the St Lawrence. In the All these dreadful evils the Cana. mean time, two great sources of Ca- dians charge, and rightly charge, to nadian prosperity have been almost the account of the present Ministry dried up by the Liberal Government. of Great Britain. It was they who, by It appears from the official accounts first exciting when in opposition the of emigration published, that the num- senseless and premature cry for Negro ber of British subjects who landed at freedom, rendered the public mind Quebec and Montreal in the year absolutely insane on the subject ; and 1837, preceding the insurrection, was afterwards, as Ministers, in 1834, car28,340; and in the following year ried through the awful measure of gen. 21001 Thus the stream—the prolific eral emancipation of men utterly unfit golden stream-of emigration, which for freedom; and again, in 1838, forced was flowing with so rich a current to on the West India proprietors the the shores of North America, has immediate termination of the appren. been almost entirely turned aside by ticeship, even a year before the that fatal insurrection; and as it has short period allowed by the contract now been diverted to New Zealand of 1834 for its termination. and Australia, it is all but certain they whơ, by promoting sedition, pathat the loss thus incurred has been tronizing agitation, dallying with trearendered irreparable. The diminu- son, and evincing imbecility in comtion of a third in the produce of the mand, for years before the insurrection West Indies has, to a proportional broke out, rendered rebellion inevitable extent, reduced, of course, the lumber in the North American provinces ; trade coastwise to those islands, which and it was they who, by reducing the hitherto has been a staple branch of military force in North America, when Canadian industry; while the re- they knew or should have known that

It was

general resistance was organizing in Wilberforce began his enlightened efthe lower province, to three thousand forts to stop that infernal traffic, and five hundred men, both provoked four times the amount of those who rebellion, paralysed resistance, and were annually torn from their homes brought the existence of our empire when Brissot and les Amis des Noirs, in North America to depend on the in 1789, originally commenced the accidental mildness of the season, agitation at Paris, which led to the which, contrary to all former experi. frightful atrocities of the St Domingo ence, enabled reinforcements to reach revolt.* This awful multiplication of the capital from the coast in the depth captives, this heart-rending increase of winter. It is the liberal Ministry who of suffering, is evidently owing to that have deprived them, by their monstrous monstrous innovation, which, blasting legislation in the West Indies, of nearly the stationary negro race in the Bria half of their lumber trade; it is the pa.

tish West India Islands with indo. nic which the rebellion which their dis- lence and impotence, has left the gap regard of all rational principles of go

thus made in the tropical produc. vernment in the North American pro- tions of the globe, to be filled up by vinces necessarily produced, which has foreign slave-states, and the foreign turned aside, probably for ever, the ferslave-trade. The hundred thousand tilizing stream of British emigration : hogsheads of sugar, and thirty thouand it is their culpable and blind subser. sand puncheons of rum, by which the vience to the urban masses, and the cry produce of the British West India Isfor cheap wood at home, which now lands has been diminished by Negro threatens them with the loss of the only emancipation, has given so prodigious remaining source of their prosperity, an impetus to foreign slave sugar, and the timber trade with Great Britain. the foreign slave trade, that it has Truly, it is not surprising that the Bri. more than doubled in amount within tish race in Canada have need of all these few years; and as the sugar ia their hereditary loyalty to withstand our islands still further deelines, and, such rude shocks to their feelings and as has occurred in St Domingo, becomes their interests; and that that noble extinct, it will ultimately come to mocolony, an empire in the cradle, with nopolize the whole sugar market of its six hundred thousand tons of ship- the globe. Thus, this fatal change ping, and boundless ultimate blessings · has at once destroyed our own colo. to Britain, hangs by a thread from the nies, where the Negroes were compaBritish crown.

ratively happy, enormously augmenThe Negro race of Africa, unhappily, ted the foreign slave-states, where are not represented in the British Par. they are utterly wretched, and doubled liament, save by the members for the the horrors of the mid passage, and populous towns, who to their sorrow the slave-trade throughout the globe! have cursed them by their pernici. This effect was distinctly foreseen-it ous patronage, and raised all the was foretold again and again, during delusive cry in their favour. But the emancipation mania, in the pages if they had such representatives, of this miscellany ; but the Ministry and could give vent to their feel- were deaf to all argument--they yield. ings, curses, loud, deep, and uni- ed to their masters, who cannot err, versal would be uttered by them, the urban masses--and these have been against the men whose weak com- the results of their obedience. pliance with popular delusion has Have the East India merchants any brought on them the hideous and un- better reason than those of the West heard-of calamities which now afflict Indies to feel confidence in the wisdom their race. By the admission of Mr and energy of the Whig AdministraClarkson, the humane advocate of tion? We will allow the holders of East the abolition of the Slave-Trade, the India Company stock, the East India Negro captives who now annually Directors, and the free traders at Bom. cross the Atlantic, amount to the stu. Þay to answer the question. Never, perpendous number of Two HUNI RED haps, did our Indian empire go through THOUSAND, or double the number so perilous a crisis, as on occasion of the which were transported across when late expedition to Affghanistan--with

* Clarkson on the Slave-Trade, 1839, p. 27;

a secret hostile league uniting almost some points find its merchantmen unall the independent Indian princes in protected by men of war. Most true: their rear, Russian intrigue organizing but did it never occur to his lordship the hostility of the Birmans and the that there is such a thing as NATIONAL Nepaulese on their frontier, and thirty CHARACTER, which never leaves the thousand men, projected a thousand members of a great country, and miles from their magazines and their throws its ægis round the unarmed resources into the heart of Asia, in person of the humblest of its citizens ? their front. The fearful perils of that There was a time when, in Mr crisis, when a single check, one false Canning's words, “ the meanest Engstep was ruin, are clearly to be lishman could not walk the streets of ascribed to the timorous policy which Paris without being considered as the has on all previous occasions suc- compatriot of Wellington-as a memcumbed to Russian influence in the ber of that community which had East ; which brought their armies to humbled France and rescued EuConstantinople and their fleets to Na- rope.” Whither are those days fled ? varino ; which abandoned Persia to What has become of that halo of their arms and the Euxine to their glory? The greatest Englishman ambition; which destroyed the British cannot now walk the streets of Canton naval force at Bombay, and nearly without being reviled and insulted, halved the military force of Hindostan, imprisoned, and his goods confiscated. until their emissaries, encouraged by These are the doings of the Liberal long impunity, had crossed the Hima. Administration of the successors of laya barrier, and gave us no means of Canning and Wellington-of the men maintaining our empire in the East, who sought power only to abuse, and but by the enormous cost, and not yet retain it only to degrade it; and thus tcrminated perils, of the Affghanistan far has mob-ascendency paralysed and expedition.

prostrated the once-awful power of But what shall we say to the confi- England. And so utterly unprepared dence which the British mercantile were our improvident rulers for any interest in the East can have in this disaster of the kind, that they had no Government ? Was there ever such force whatever in the Chinese seas à disgrace heard of — ever such a capable of asserting the honour of our proof of national degradation evin- flag, or protecting the vast mercantile ced, as the late confiscation of Bri- interests there at stake. The Chinese, tish property in China ? We do like all Asiatics, were provoked to not now wish to enter into the insolence by the proof afforded of our opium question. What we rest upon imbecility; a serious contest is now is the decisive proof, which the con. entailed upon the empire, destructive duct of the Chinese on this occa- alike to the revenue at home and the sion affords, of how completely the commercial interests of the East, which English character, once so renown- a vigorous demonstration of an adeeil, has sunk in the eastern world. quate force at the outset would at once The Chinese—the most pacific and have prevented ; and now, more than unwarlike race on the globe-have ten months after the rupture has comventured to imprison the representa- menced, and the disgrace been incurtive of Great Britain, and confiscate red, we have not yet been able to fit four millions' worth of British proper- out a single ship of the line or frigate at ty! What would the shades of Hawke Portsmouth or Plymouth, to avenge and Rodney, of Blake and Nelson, say in those distant seas the outraged hoto such an indignity ? The Chinese, nour of the British flag! with impunity, brave the British But, in truth, the evil lies much lion ; they imprison our merchants, deeper than is generally imagined, and lay in irons our naval officers, shut out the Liberal party are more closely our merchantmen from their harbours, wound up with this disgrace and disand actually besiege our frigates with aster in the Chinese empire than the flotillas of junks! Truly this is the ass public has yet been made aware of. giving the last kick to the dying lion. The smuggling of opium is the pre

Lord Melbourne says it is impos- tence, not the cause of the rupture. The sible to have fleets every where, and Celestial rulers care much too little for that a nation possessing a commerce the drugging or debasement of the in80 widely spread as England, must at habitants of a small corner of their

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immense dominions, to hazard for it a bours to restore the credit of the Briconsiderable portion of their revenue, tish flag in the Eastern seas. and a large branch of industry, if po- But this proved inability of Portslitical considerations of a higher kind mouth and Plymouth, after three did not interfere to rouse them to this months' hard labour, night and day, to unwonted act of vigour. It is the get out even a single ship of the line opening of the trade which is the real and couple of frigates for the Eastern cause of the disaster: it is the jealousy warfare, suggests materials for further of the Celestial authorities at the in- and still more important considerations. creasing frequency of our commercial Thirty years ago, England, without intercourse with their subjects which raising the blockade of a single harhas prompted them to such a rupture. bour from the North Cape to Gibral. Every one practically acquainted with tar, fitted out in six weeks thirty-nine the jealous and irritable character of sail of the line and forty frigates for the Chinese, and the extraordinary the Walcheren expedition. We are vigilance and precautions by which always told in Parliament, by the supalone the Company's servants were porters of Ministers, that the navy never able to keep on good terms with them, was in so good a condition as at this predicted when the trade was opened moment; that it is equal to an enthat it would be ruined ; and that the counter with any enemies who might incessant efforts of private traders to threaten British naval supremacy; and insinuate their goods into the empire, that, if any of the “pasteboard fleet" contrary to the general policy of the of Nicholas were to near the British Government, would speedily induce a shores, dozens of ships of the line rupture which would prove fatal to would issue forth to renew the terrors the whole commercial intercourse. of “ Nelson and the North" against This is, accordingly, exactly what has these Baltic pirates. True, we have happened, and it is the jealousy of the only seventy-eight ships of the line in

; Chinese at the footing which our pri- all in the British navy; true, this is just vate traders were getting along their one-half of what we had in 1792, coast towns, coupled with the defence when the British empire, with half its less condition of these insulated traders, present population, and a third of its without the Company's shield around present wealth, had not half its prethem, which is the real motive for sent colonial empire to defend ; true, their determination to rid themselves there are only seventeen ships of the of our presence. Herein, then, lies line in commission to counterbalance the gross neglect, the culpable impré- Russia's forty-five: but what then? voyance of the Liberal Government: we could equip a fleet at a week's nothat they first urged on, in defiance of tice, and would do so at once if the the opinion of all persons practically “pasteboard fleet" approached our conversant with the subject, by the shores. Well, the time of trial has clamour which they raised in the great come, and that in the way and from towns against the East India Com- the power of all others most favourpany's monopoly of the China trade, able for displaying to advantage the the throwing down the whole barriers admirable state of preparation of the which had hitherto kept matters quiet British navy. We are assailed, not in the Celestial empire, and deprived by the “pasteboard fleet” of Nichothe commercial interest there of the las, but the gossamer flotilla of Can. name and the protection, so redoubt- ton; not by the most powerful state able in the East, of the East India on earth, but the most despicable; not Company; next exposed the insulated by the lion, but the ass. Even the ass, British free traders, naked and defence- however, is more than a match for the less, without any naval force whatever lion, when debilitated by ten years of to protect them, to the insults and ca- Liberal regimen. After three months' price of a jealous and arbitrary Asia- incessant labour, night and day, Suntic Government; and, in the end, were day and Saturday, in the British dockfound so utterly unprepared for a con. yards—after unheard-of activity at test, which their combined rashness in Portsmouth and Plymouth ever since innovation and negligence in precau- the disgraceful news arrived, one sail tion had rendered unavoidable, that of the line and two frigates have not yet to this hour not a single frigate has been fitted out from the whole of Great been able to sail from the British har- ‘Britain ; our merchant vessels, with

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