one the health and to the morals of his majesty's subjects: now, supposing that the philanthropic spirit were to be extended to them, and their further extension at least forbidden; supposing we were to say, "We pretend not to interfere with what exists already; keep the labourers you have got, we will not emancipate them, they are not fit for emancipation, they are corrupted and disordered, and incapable of the regular duties of life; but not more ruddy-cheeked boy or blooming girl shall you seduce from their ignorant and deluded parents, and immure in your putrid haunts of vice and disease: tell us not of your ventilators and your artificial gases; the thing is contrary to first principles, and it must be discontinued:"-Now, can we believe that he who had just built, at a considerable expense, one of these factories, and had partially, or not at all, supplied it with labourers, would not in this case call aloud for compensation? and could that compensation be justly denied to him? And yet, sir, the silk and cotton factor has not greater legislative authority to plead than has the West-India planter for his establishment; nor is the supposed case which I have put of the former harder than the real one of the latter, after this bill passes; and, independently of the general case, there are individual cases of peculiar hardship, those of minors, of lessors, and of proprietors of estates under trust, whose estates, immediately after this bill passes, will either be considerably depreciated, or of no value at all. There are some, sir, who will admit the truth of many of the considerations I have urged: they will admit that we are about to make a sacrifice that is to cost us much, and to profit others little or nothing. "But," say they, "there is connected with the slave-trade much abuse and much inhumanity, and, at all events, we will wash our hands of any share in it; we will have nothing to do with that which is either the offspring or the parent of vice." Gentlemen should consider, sir, how far they would follow this principle, and whither it would lead them: it would certainly go the length of suppressing the li censing of alehouses, and the continuance of lotteries: can the mischiefs with which these are con nected in society be doubted? If, sir, I were inclined to attempt the feelings of gentlemen in this house with a pathetic story, I could show them, and at no great distance from the metropolis, an indus trious mother with 6 or 8 children, their countenances pale, their limbs emaciated, and their bodies swoln with famine, picking up a scanty and insufficient subsistence by the only labour which such feeble hands can execute, while the father of this family, he who ought to support them, is taking what is called a plunge at the neighbouring ale house, spending the fruits of one week's labour, and mortgaging that of another; and this after having carried away the leathernbag from the cottage roof, which contained the pence and sixpences, the hard savings of the year (saved to pay the rent at Lady-day), and having sunk the whole of it with one of those itinerant propagators of ruin, who now invade the privacy of your remotest vil lages with a cart stuck with lottery bills. This, sir, is not a fictitious nor an uncommon case, and yet our philanthropists over do do not make it the theme of declamation or the object of reform. This is too near and too obvious for them; their aim is more distant; their scope is larger; the spirit of modern reform does not act, sir, like the rational principle of self-love so beautifully described by the poet, which first puts the centre in motion, and then extends itself in progressive circles of beneficence to the extremities; the spirit of modern reform attacks at once the connecting chain of the system, and, if the whole do not fall to pieces at its touch, it works inwards till it shakes the centre. I must, for the reasons I have given, vote against the second reading of the bill. Mr. Wilberforce, in a speech distinguished for splendour of eloquence and force of argument, res plied to the several objections urged against the measure. To those who sought for all the evils to be found in the darkest recesses of this country, in the remotest quarter of Europe, or in the page of history, he observed that they sought them, not for the purpose of removing them; no, but with a view to bring them down to the house of commons, to lay them to their bosoms, and to let them and the slave trade pair off together. We, say the advocates for this abominable traffic, will allow all the evils that we have recited to re main undisturbed, if you will give us but the slave-trade. The honourable gentleman pronounced an elegant eulogium upon the display of character and talent which the house had that night witnessed on the side of humanity and justice, and particularly on the part of the younger members; whose lofty and liberal sentiments, recommended and enforced by the elevation of 1807. their rank and the purity of their conduct must tend to produce the happiest effects upon all classes of the community. Such an indication of mind and feeling must afford gratification to any reflecting man, and diffuse the most salutary lessons throughout the country; must show to the peo ple that their legislature, and especially the higher order of their youth, were forward to assert the rights of the weak against the strong, to vindicate the cause of the oppressed; and that where a prac tice was found to prevail inconsist ent with humanity and justice, no consideration of profit could reconcile them to its continuance. 283 Lord Percy, and others, supported the motion; after which, the question was called for, when there appeared for the abolition Against it Majority 16 267 The bill went through its various stages, and was triumphantly passed with some amendments on the 16th of March. These amendments were adopted by the lord's on the 22d; when lord Grenville rose, and congratulated the house on having performed one of the most glorious acts that had ever been done by any assembly of any nation in the world. On the 25th of March it received his majesty's sanction, and was complete. When the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade had passed so many of its stages as to insure success, a young nobleman of distinguished rank was desirous of carrying the principle still further, and not only to abolish the trade, but slavery itself. He felt that a scheme ought to be devised to K render render the lives of the enslaved Africans more comfortable and more respectable; and to set at liberty their children. For this purpose, on the 17th of March, ford Percy rose, in pursuance of the notice he had given, to move for leave to bring in a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in his majesty's colonies in the West Indies. His lordship expatiated very feelingly on the wanton cruelties exercised on the unhappy negroes in the plantations, as deve loped in the late discussions. The object of his bill was to prevent the repetition of horrors, at the very idea of which every man in that house must shudder. If it had been established, as he trusted it had been established, that the slave-trade was contrary to the principles of justice, humamity, and sound policy, and that therefore it ought to be abolished; it necessarily followed, that slavery itself was contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy, and ought also to be abolished. It was, however, by no means his intention to propose an immediate abolition; what he had in view was, that the children of slaves born after a certain time to be fixed by the legislature, should be free; and thus a gradual and ultimately a total extinction of this barbarous usage would take place. On the question being put, Lord H. Petty said, although it was impossible for him not to respect the motives and participate in the feelings of his noble friend, yet he deprecated any discussion of this subject at the present moment. The abolition of the slave-trade, and emancipation of the slaves, were two distinct questions; and it had always been maintained by the leading characters in that Το house, that, in considering the one, the other ought to be excluded from their contemplation. emancipate the negroes, would not be to add to their happiness, even if the legislature had a right to interfere with the property of the colonies. All that could be done by this country with safety and effect had been done. He put it, therefore, most respectfully, but most strongly, to his noble friend, either to withdraw the motion for a bill to abolish slavery, or to concur in the previous question, which he felt it to be his duty to move. Sir C. Poole deprecated the dis cussion as most dangerous, but was glad the motion had been made, as it would open the eyes of all who were connected with, or interested in, the West Indian islands. Mr. Wilberforce made the distinction between the abolition of the trade, and the emancipation of the slaves. As to the latter, he and his friends not only abstained from proposing it, but were ready to reject such a proposition when made by others. He, and those who acted with him, were satisfied with having gained an object which was safely attainable; they had always declared, what he now repeated, that the sole point which they had in view was the abolition of the slave-trade, and not the emanci pation of the slaves. The enemies of the abolition had always confounded these two objects: the friends of the abolition had always distinguished them. Mr. Herbert said, if a hope re mained that the colonies might be saved,it must be shown that the house would not for a moment admit the proposal for emancipation. Mr. Sheridan, after the anxious expectation which he had the pre cussion. foot, but he would say, that of the man who expressed pleasure at the hope of seeing so large a portion of the human race freed from the shackles of tyranny it ought rather to be said, that he had displayed the pennon of an angel than the cloven foot of a dæmon. It was true, no immediate connec◄ tion existed between the abolition of the slave-trade and the abolition of slavery, but the same feelings must be roused by the consideration of both questions; and he who detested the one practice must also detest the other. He did not like to hear the term property applied to the subjects of a free country. Could man become the property of man? A colony emanating from the free constitution of England must carry with it the principles of that constitution, and could no more shake off its wellknown allegiance to the constitu tion than it could shake off its allegiance to the sovereign. He trusted that the planters might be induced to lead the way on the subject of emancipation; but he cautioned the house against being too sanguine on this subject. Were the planters themselves always resident on the islands, he should have greater hopes; but it was not probable that because cargoes of human misery were no longer to be landed on their shores, that because their eyes were to be no longer glutted with the sight of human suffering, or their ears pierced with the cries of human distraction, in any further importation of negroes, that the slavedrivers would soon forget their fixed habits of brutality, and learn to treat the unhappy wretches in their charge with clemency and compassion. Slavery would not wear itself out, it would become eding night expressed, that the bill then passed was but the preamble of the ultimate measure of emancipation, thought that he should be guilty of the grossest inconsistency in giving a silent vote on the present question. With these sentiments he need scarcely say, that the noble earl had his thanks for having directed the attention of the house to this important subject, even at that early period. The noble earl's statement had been misrepresented. He had never proposed to enfranchise the living negroes: his measure, as he understood him, was to commence with infants born after a period, which would remain a matter of future parliamentary disThe planters were entitled to fair dealing on this subject. If the house meant to say, that by abolishing the slave-trade they had done all that duty demanded, and that they would leave the emancipation of the slaves to the hazard of fortuitous circumstances, let them be explicit, and say so; but if there lurked in any man's mind a secret desire to proceed in that business, a secret conviction that more ought to be done than had been done, it was unmanly, it was dishonourable, not to speak out. For one, he would boldly declare that he had further views; he hoped, that the young nobleman who had done his feelings so much credit, by the proposition which he had that evening made, would stand to his ground. If he persevered in the pursuit of his object with the same zeal as his right honourable friend opposite had done, he had no doubt that he would meet with the same success. An honourable baronet had talked of a cloven foot; he pleaded guilty to the cloven K 2 more more rigid, unless the legislature became more vigilant, and remind ed the planters of the new duty that had fallen upon them, of rearing the young slaves in such a manner that they might be worthy of freedom. Adverting to a quotation from Gibbon, he contended, that the slavery of the West Indies was unlike any other slavery; it was peculiarly unlike the slavery of antient days, when the slaves frequently attained to the highest dignities; Æsop, Terence, and Seneca were slaves. Was there a possibility that any of the unfortunate negroes now in the West Indies should emulate such men? It might be dangerous to give freedom to the slaves in a mass; but that it was not dangerous to give it to them in detail, was sufficiently proved by a little pamphlet that had been put into his hands the preceding night, in which it was stated, that a Mr. David Barclay, to his eternal honour be it spoken, who had himself beena slave-owner in Jamaica, who, regretting that he had been so, on a bequest of slaves being made to him, emanci pated them, and caused them to be conveyed to Pennsylvania, where they were properly instructed, and where their subsequent exem plary conduct was the general theme of admiration. With this fact before him, should he be told that he must give up all hope of abolishing slavery? No, he would never give it up. He would exclaim with the poet, "I would not have a slave to till my ground, To fan me when I sleep, and tremble when I wake, for all that human sinews bought And sold, have ever earn'd." After some explanation from Mr. Wilberforce, and a conversation between Mr. P. Moore and others, the house was counted; and there being only 35 members in it, the speaker immediately adjourned, and there the subject rests. CHAPTER V. Lord Howick's Notice of the Mutiny Bill-Grant to Maynooth College discussed-Debate on Lord Howick's Bill for Relief to the Catholics and other Dissenters-The Subject resumed, and deferred-Debate on Mr. Bankes's Motion on reversionary Sinecures-Debate in the House of Lords on Lord Hawkesbury's Motion for an Adjournment—Debate in the Commons on the same Subject. FEBRU EBRUARY 20th. In the house of commons, after some of the ordinary business had been transacted, Lord Howick moved the reading of the order for the second reading of the mutiny bill on Tuesday, with a view to move the postponement of this order to a future day. The propriety of this postponement in the absence of his right honourable friend (Mr. Windham) would, |