XXXI. 1833. CHAP. advantage, in one respect, to the natives of Hindostan, as it proved that they were purchasing articles of comfort cheaper than they could raise them at home; but it was a very great evil in another, for these articles were furnished by foreign, not native, industry. The increase of British exports, in this view, is the measure, not of the benefit, but of the evil they have experienced from British conquest; for every bale of cotton goods brought in from Manchester has extinguished one heretofore raised on the banks of the Ganges. Not a whisper, however, was heard on this subject either in Parliament or the country; and the English people, charmed with having opened what seemed a boundless market for their manufactures in the realms of Asia, never bestowed a thought on the check which the extension of their trade must inevitably give to the native industry of these countries;-a markworthy instance of the chief danger which besets representative institutions, and of the inherent weakness which affects those States where the powers of legislation are vested in one section of the community which is fully represented, and they are there used for its own separate advantage, without any regard to the interests of the unrepresented portions of the State. 75. India Ques Important as these questions, which occupied the attenThe West tion of the first reformed Parliament in the very commencetion. ment of its career, undoubtedly were, they yet yielded in magnitude and difficulty to another which now forced itself upon its attention. The WEST INDIA QUESTION had now assumed a form, and acquired an importance, which could no longer be overlooked; and it was the more difficult to deal with, that it was not only likely to be attended with the most momentous effects, social and political, both at home and in the colonies, but was of a kind which in the highest degree roused the passions in both parts of the empire. It was hard to say whether the sable Africans, who panted for what to them seemed the inestimable gift of freedom, identified in their minds with immediate XXXI. 1833. cessation from toil, or the sincere British, who longed for CHAP. the effacing the stain of slavery from our institutions, were most excited on the subject, or longed most passionately for its immediate and unqualified concession. Yet was the subject on all sides beset with difficulties; and so numerous and appalling had they become, that it was difficult to determine whether most peril would be incurred by granting or withholding it, or whether the African race would be most blessed or cursed by gaining or losing the promised boon. 76. the early groes in the dies. It is historically known and matter of common notoriety, how the negro race had come to be settled in such Sketch of great numbers in the West India Islands, and the adjoin- settlement ing southern states of the American Union. Negro slaves of the nehad, for a period of above two hundred years, been im- West Inported from the coasts of Africa, and conveyed across the Atlantic to the British colonies in the New World; and so efficacious had their labour proved in clearing the American jungles, and bringing into civilisation the rich soil which had accumulated during several thousand years from the vegetable and animal remains of the primeval forests, that the importation of negroes had come to be attended with a very great profit, and the slave trade had become an important branch of British commerce. It had been authorised and regulated by several royal proclamations and acts of Parliament, which not only permitted and encouraged the cultivation of the newlyopened plantations by means of slaves, but the two most important commercial cities of western Britain, Liverpool and Glasgow, had mainly risen to wealth and greatness from the profits of this traffic. So great had it become, that nearly 800,000 Africans were, at the close of the war, settled in the British West India Islands, and above 2,500,000 in the adjoining island of Cuba and the American continent. How revolting soever it may appear to our feelings that so considerable a portion of the human race should XXXI. 77. gave rise to the vast translation of the negro race. CHAP. have been in this manner torn up from their native seats, and subjected to forced labour in a distant hemisphere, 1833. nothing is more certain than that it was a step unavoidNecessity able in the progress of improvement, and one which, if rightly regulated, afforded the best prospect of effecting the ultimate civilisation of the negro race. A very simple reason induced the transportation of the Africans in such numbers to the shores of Southern America and the West Indies; it was absolute necessity. The native Americans were too feeble in constitution, and too inconsiderable in numbers, to effect the clearing of the primeval forests of Virginia and Jamaica; and such as could be seized, were fast wearing away under the frightful labour and atrocious severities of the Spanish mines. Experience had even then shown, what time has since abundantly proved, that the European race is incapable of undergoing labour in the field under the rays of a tropical sun, and that, in whatever number they might be sent out, they would perish as fast under the "deathbestrodden gales" of the West India Islands. negro race in Africa alone presented numbers adequate to the magnitude of the undertaking, and constitutions equal to the severity of its toil. Unlike the European, the negro thrives and prospers under the burning rays of a tropical sun, and can without danger undergo continuous labour in the field under its influence; and strange to say, the oldest inhabitants of the globe, known to authentic history, have been found among the slaves of the West Indies.* The Like all other great movements of the human race, brought about by the irresistible laws of nature acting by physical necessities or moral influence, this vast transportation of mankind, however violent in its origin, or painful in its completion, was calculated to produce, and will ultimately confer, great benefits upon the species. It promised to * One well-known instance is that of an old negro slave in Jamaica, who died at the age of one hundred and eighty years. XXXI. effect what all the changes of time, and all the efforts of CHAP. philanthropy from the beginning of the world, had failed in accomplishing-the ultimate civilisation of the African race. 1833. 78. results which ference of The same cause of resistless force which has Beneficial rendered impossible the cultivation of tropical regions by this transEuropean hands, has been equally fatal to all attempts at mankind civilising the tropics by European intellect. The climate will ultimately of the interior of Africa forbids the entrance of either. effect. Not less destructive than the burning deserts of the Sahara to invading armies, the heat of Central Africa, the poisonous jungles of the Niger and the Congo, were utterly ruinous to European constitutions. The simple Africans, in their primeval forests, like their neighbours the elephant and the rhinoceros, were shielded alike from the invasions and the commerce, the curses and blessings of civilisation, by the impenetrable veil which nature had drawn around their habitations. A vast expanse, covering nearly a third of the habitable globe, peopled probably by many millions of mankind, has remained from the earliest times secluded from the rest of the world, unknown, save by a few adventurous travellers, to all ages, and foreign alike to the arts and the arms, the progress and the improvements, of the rest of the specie. trade African to But this extraordinary and anomalous position of so 79. large a portion of mankind was not destined to be of The slave eternal endurance. A remedy for it was found at length brought the in the vice and selfishness alike of the savage and civil- civilisation. ised regions of the world. Nature had implanted a barrier between the interior of Africa and the rest of the species, impenetrable to civilised, but not to savage man ; it could not be traversed by the European, but it was easy of passage to the negro. The swamps of the Niger were fatal to every attempt to ascend the stream with the arts or the arms of the sons of Japhet; but multitudes of the family of Ham descended its waters in thatched canoes, attracted by their gold. The slavetrade did that which neither the power of conquest, nor XXXI. 1833. CHAP. the intercourse of commerce, nor the spread of knowledge could effect; they could not bring civilisation to the negro, but it brought the negro to civilisation. From one hundred to two hundred thousand Africans were, during half a century, torn from their native seats by savage violence, sold by savage cupidity, and transported by Christian avarice through the horrors of the mid-passage to the shores of the New World; but amidst the unutterable miseries of that scene of woe, a great, and in the end beneficial, operation of nature was effected. For the first time in the history of mankind, the Africans were brought into contact with the habits and arts of civilised life; they were made to see its superiority, to desire its enjoyments, sometimes to submit to its labour. They have been now established in such numbers in America and the West Indies as to defy either eradication or removal; they have been permanently located in situations where they are open to all the influences which elsewhere have led to progress and the improvement of the species; and if the negro race is ever to be reclaimed or brought within the pale of civilisation in its native seats, it will be from the reflexion of a light which was first struck amidst the slavery of the West Indies. 80. effect of the fixing of negroes on estates. Towards the attainment, however, of these beneficial Beneficial ends, and the working out of the designs of Providence in this vast forced emigration, one thing was absolutely particular necessary, and that was, that the negroes should become stationary and fixed labourers on the soil. The transition from a movable to a durable residence is the most important in the gradual relaxation of the bonds of slavery. The condition of the serf is half-way to, and often superior in comfort to, that of the free labourer. This transition was early made in the West Indies, and immense were the benefits with which it had been attended. The pangs of separation from kindred and home were over; the horrors of the middle passage were past; they had become permanently located on fixed estates; they |