92 JOHN COURTENAY-CHARLES JAMES. FOX. motive to do it. He was a mere passive instrument in the hands of others, to be used at their discretion. Though living, he was dead as to all voluntary agency. Though moving amidst the creation with an erect form, and with the shape and semblance of a human being, he was a nullity as a man. He said the slave-trade was directly contrary to the principles of humanity and justice, and that the state of slavery which followed it, however mitigated, was a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist. JOHN COURTENAY. The trade, it had been said, was conducted upon the principles of humanity. Yes: we rescued the Africans from what we were pleased to call their wretched situation in their own country, and then we took credit for our humanity; because, after having killed one half of them in the seasoning, we substituted what we were pleased to call a better treatment than that which they would have experienced at home. It had been said by Mr. Stanley, that the pulpit had been used as an instrument of attack on the slave-trade. He was happy to learn it had been so well employed; and he hoped the bishops would rise up in the house of lords, with the virtuous indignation which became them, to abolish a traffic so contrary to humanity, justice, and religion. CHARLES JAMES FOX. Some had considered this question as a question of political, whereas it was a question of personal freedom. Political freedom was undoubtedly a great blessing; but, when it came to be compared with personal, it sunk to nothing. To confound the two served therefore to render all arguments on either perplexing and unintelligible. Personal freedom was the first right of every human being. It was a right, of which he who deprived a fellow creature was absolutely criminal in so depriving him, and which he who withheld was no less criminal in withholding. He would say that if the house, knowing what the trade was by the evidence, did not by their vote mark to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so savage, so enormous, so repugnant to all laws, human and divine, they would consign their characters to eternal infamy. But what was our motive in the case before us? To continue a erade which was a wholesale sacrifice of a whole order and race of our fellow creatures; which carried them away by force from their native country, in order to subject them to the mere will and caprice, the tyranny and oppression, of other human beings, for their whole natural lives, them and their posterity for ever!! O most monstrous wickedness! O unparalleled barbarity! ear. Let them remember that humanity did not consist in a squeamish It did not consist in shrinking and starting at such tales as these; but in a diposition of the heart to remedy the evils they unfolded. Humanity belonged rather to the mind than to the nerves. But, if so, it should prompt men to charitable exertion. PHILIP FRANCIS-MR. HUDDLESTONE. 93 Let them make the case their own. This was the Christian rule of judging; and, having mentioned Christianity, he was sorry to find that any should suppose that it had given countenance to such a system of oppression. So far was this from being the case, that he thought it one of the most splendid triumphs of this religion, that it had caused slavery to be so generally abolished on its appearance in the world. It had done this by teaching us, among other beautiful precepts, that, in the sight of their Maker, all mankind were equal. He knew, however, that what he had been ascribing to Christianity had been imputed by others to the advances which philosophy had made. Each of the two parties took the merit to itself. The philosopher gave it to philosophy, and the divine to religion. He should not then dispute with either of them; but as both coveted the praise, why should they not emulate each other by promoting this improvement in the condition of the human race? PHILIP FRANCIS. Having himself an interest in the West Indies, he thought that what he should submit to the house would have the double effect of evidence and argument; and he stated most unequivocally his opinion, that the abolition of the slave-trade would tend materially to the benefit of the West Indies. Many had affirmed that the slave-trade was politic and expedient; but it was worthy of remark, that no man had ventured to deny that it was criminal. Criminal, however, he declared it to be in the highest degree; and he believed it was equally impolitic. Both its inexpediency and injustice had been established by the honorable mover. He instanced an overseer, who, having thrown a negro into a copper of boiling cane-juice for a trifling offence, was punished merely by the loss of his place, and by being obliged to pay the value of his slave. He stated another instance of a girl of fourteen, who was dreadfully whipped for coming too late to her work. She fell down motionless after it; and was then dragged along the ground, by the legs, to an hospital; where she died. This was a notorious fact. It was published in the Jamaica Gazette: and it has even happened since the question of the abolition had been started. The only argument used against such cruelties was the master's interest in the slave. But he urged the common cruelty to horses, in which the drivers had an equal interest with the drivers of men in the colonies, as a proof that this was no security. He had never heard an instance of a master being punished for the murder of his slave. MR. HUDDLESTONE. He said that a curse attended this trade even in the mode of defending it. By a certain fatality, none but the vilest arguments were brought forward, which corrupted the very persons, who used them. Every one of these were built on the narrow ground of interest; of pecuniary profit; of sordid gain; in opposition to every higher consideration; to every motive that had reference to humanity, justice, and religion; or to that great principle, which comprehended them all. Place only 94 SAMUEL WHITBREAD-THOMAS ERSKINE. before the most determined advocate of this odious traffic, the exact image of himself in the garb and harness of a slave, dragged and whipped about like a beast; place this image also before him, and paint it as that of one without a ray of hope to cheer him; and you would extort from him the reluctant confession, that he would not endure for an hour the misery, to which he condemned his fellowman for life. SAMUEL WHITBREAD. No eloquence could persuade him, that the Africans were torn from their country and their dearest connexions, merely that they might lead a happier life; or that they could be placed under the uncontrolled dominion of others without suffering. Arbitrary power would spoil the hearts of the best. Hence would arise tyranny on the one side, and a sense of injury on the other. Hence the passions would be let loose, and a state of perpetual enmity would follow. He needed only to go to the accounts of those who defended the system of slavery, to show that it was cruel. He was forcibly struck last year by an expression of an honorable member, an advocate for the trade, who, when he came to speak of the slaves, on selling off the stock of a plantation, said, that they fetched less than the common price, because they were damaged! Damaged! What! were they goods and chattels? What an idea was this to hold out to our fellow creatures! THOMAS ERSKINE. The Lord Chancellor (Erskine) said, "From information which he could not dispute, he was warranted in saying, that on this continent [Africa] husbands were fraudulently and forcibly severed from their wives, and parents from their children; and that all the ties of blood and affection were torn up by the roots. He had himself seen the unhappy natives put together in heaps in the hold of a ship, where, with every possible attention to them, their situation must have been intolerable. He had also heard proved in courts of justice, facts still more dreadful than those which he had seen. One of these he would just mention. The slaves on board a certain ship rose in a mass to liberate themselves; and having far advanced in the pursuit of their object, it became necessary to repel them by force. Some of them yielded; some of them were killed in the scuffle; but many of them actually jumped into the sea and were drowned; thus preferring death to the misery of their situation; while others hung to the ship, repenting of their rashness, and bewailing with frightful noises their horrid fate. Thus the whole vessel exhibited but one hideous scene of wretchedness. They, who were subdued, and secured in chains, were seized with the flux, which carried many of them off. These things were proved in a trial before a British jury, which had to consider, whether this was a loss, which fell within the policy of insurance, the slaves being regarded as if they had been only a cargo of dead matter. He could mention other instances, but they were much too shocking to be described. Surely their lordships could never consider such a traffic to be consistent with humanity or justice." GRENVILLE-SHAKSPEARE-JOHNSON. GEORGE GRENVILLE. 95 "This Lord Grenville then read a resolution of the Commons. resolution, he said, stated first, that the slave-trade was contrary to humanity, justice, and sound policy. That it was contrary to humanity was obvious; for humanity might be said to be sympathy for the distress of others, or a desire to accomplish benevolent ends by good means. But did not the slave-trade convey ideas the very reverse of the definition? It deprived men of all those comforts, in which it pleased the Creator to make the happiness of his creature to consist, of the blessings of society, of the charities of the dear relationships of husband, wife, father, son, and kindred; of the due discharge of the relative duties of these, and of that freedom, which in its pure and natural sense, was one of the greatest gifts of God to man. "It was impossible to read the evidence, as it related to this trade, without acknowledging the inhumanity of it and our own disgrace. "In a state of nature, man had a right to the fruit of his own labour absolutely to himself; and one of the main purposes, for which he entered into society, was, that he might be better protected in the possession of his rights. In both cases, therefore, it was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labor during the whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labor. Hence the slave-trade and the colonial slavery were a violation of the very principle, upon which all law for the protection of property was founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade to an individual, it was derived from dishonor and dishonesty. He forced from the unhappy victim of it that, which the latter did not wish to give him; and he gave to the same victim that, which he in vain attempted to show, was an equivalent to the thing he took, it being a thing for which there was no equivalent, and which, if he had not obtained by force, he would not have possessed at all. The injustice complained of was not confined to the bare circumstance of robbing them of the right to their own labor. It was conspicuous throughout the system." WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them :-shall I say to you, SAMUEL JOHNSON. *This argument, considered as used to the particular persons, seems conclusive. I see not how Venetians or Englishmen, while they practice the purchase and sale of slaves, can much enforce or demand the law of doing to others as we would they should do to us. 96 MILTON-POPE-ADDISON BURNS—SMOLLETT, JOHN MILTON. O execrable son, so to aspire He made not lord; such title to Himself In all things that have beauty, there is nothing to man more comely than liberty. |