on the massacre, which would otherwise take place, of the Slaves which
had been brought down to the coast for sale. This slaughter, however,
even granting it to be well founded, ought, in all fairness, to be
charged to the account of the Slave Trade, which had created the demand
for these wretched victims. At any rate it would only happen once; for
the Slave hunters would cease to catch and bring down for sale this
species of game, when it was known there could no longer be any demand
for it. But in truth, as the supposition is utterly contrary to common
sense, so it is abundantly contradicted by experience; [Sidenote: The
assertion positively contradicted by opponents partisans.] for it
clearly appears from Mr. Parke, as well as from the testimony of other
witnesses, that Slaves, when brought down to the coast for sale, are set
to work for their own maintenance, or for their master’s emolument,
either when there is no demand for them, or when the price offered for
them is deemed inadequate to their value. It further appears that, even
at this time, “It sometimes happens, when no ships are on the coast,
that a humane and considerate master incorporates his purchased Slaves
among his domestics; and their offspring, at least, if not the parents,
become entitled to all the privileges of the native class.”[13]
[Sidenote: Middle passage.]
On the middle passage but little shall be said; but we must not pass
from Africa to the West Indies, without some few observations.
When the public attention was first called to this branch of the
subject, it was alleged, and with considerable plausibility, that
self-interest alone would be a sufficient security against abuses; for
not only was the owner of the Slave ship interested in having the Slaves
brought to the port of sale in the best possible condition; but the
master, officers, and surgeons of the ships had all a similar interest,
their profits being made to depend, in a considerable degree, on the
average value of the cargo. To this argument from self-interest, it must
be confessed, that more weight was justly due in this part of the case,
than in any other; because the interest was nearer, and more direct, and
was not counteracted by any interest of an opposite nature; yet even
here it was proved but too decisively, that, as in other cases, nature
was too hard for reason, the passions too powerful for interest. The
habit of viewing, and treating these wretched beings as mere articles of
merchandize, had so blinded the judgment, and hardened the heart, as to
produce a course of treatment highly injurious to the interest of the
owners and officers of Slave ships, and at the same time abounding in
almost every circumstance that could aggravate the miseries of the
Slaves. When the condition therefore and treatment of the Negroes on
shipboard were first laid open, the indignation of the House of Commons
was excited so strongly, that though the Session of Parliament had
nearly closed, a Bill was immediately brought in and passed, with a view
to mitigate their sufferings, during even the short period for which, it
was then conceived, the existence of the Slave Trade could be tolerated.
Human ingenuity had almost been exhausted in contriving expedients for
crowding the greatest possible number of bodies into a given space; and
when the smallpox, the flux, or any other epidemic, broke out among
them, the scene was horrible beyond description. Even where there was no
such peculiar aggravation, the sufferings of the poor wretches were such
as exhausted all powers of description. Accordingly, the average
mortality on board the Slave ships was very considerable. Often, during
a voyage of a few weeks, so many perished, that if in any country the
same rate of mortality should prevail, the whole population would be
swept away in a single year. The survivors also were landed in such a
diseased state, that four and a half per cent. of the whole number
imported were estimated to die in the short interval between the arrival
of the ship and the sale of the cargo, probably not more than a
fortnight; and, after the Slaves had passed into the hands of the
planters, the numbers which perished from the effects of the voyage were
allowed to be very considerable[14].
A Bill for mitigating these evils was proposed by that justly respected
member of the House of Commons, Sir William Dolben, and, after great
opposition, was passed into a law. That law has since been from time to
time renewed and amended, prescribing certain conditions and
regulations, with a view to the health and comfort of the Slaves. For
want of some effectual means of enforcing this law, many of its
provisions have not, it is supposed, been carried into strict execution.
Still its primary object has been attained, and the evils, arising from
crowding great numbers into too small a space, have been considerably
mitigated. Much good has likewise been done by turning the attention of
the Slave dealers to the subject, and by convincing them that parsimony
is not always œconomy.
But many of the sufferings of these wretched beings are of a sort, for
which no legislative regulations can provide a remedy. Several of them,
indeed, arise necessarily out of their peculiar circumstances, as
connected with their condition on shipboard. It is necessary to the
safety of the vessel, to secure the men by chains and fetters. It is
necessary to confine them below during the night, and, in very stormy
weather, during the day also. Often it happens that, even with the
numbers still allowed to be taken, especially when some of those
epidemic diseases prevail, which, though less frequent than formerly,
will yet occasionally happen; and when men of different countries and
languages, or of opposite tempers, are linked together; such scenes of
misery take place as are too nauseous for description.[15] Still, in
rough weather, their limbs must often be excoriated by lying on the
boards; still they will often be wounded by the fetters:[16] still food
and exercise will be deemed necessary to present the animal in good
condition at the place of sale: still some of them will loath their
food, and be averse to exercise, from the joint effect perhaps of
sea-sickness and mental uneasiness; and still while in this state they
will probably be charged with sulkiness; and eating, and dancing in
their fetters will be enforced by stripes: still the high netting will
be necessary, that standing precaution of an African ship against acts
of suicide: but, more than all, still must the diseases of the mind
remain entire, nay, they may perhaps increase in force, from the
attention being less called off by the urgency of bodily suffering; the
anguish of husbands torn from their wives, wives from their husbands,
and parents from their children; the pangs arising from the
consideration, that they are separated for ever from their country,
their friends, their relatives, and connections, remain the same. In
short, they have the same painful recollection of the past, and the same
dreadful forebodings of the future; while they are still among
strangers, whose appearance, language, and manners are new to them, and
every surrounding object is such as must naturally inspire terror. In
short, till we can legislate for the mind; till by an Act of Parliament
we can regulate the affections of the heart, or, rather, till we can
extinguish the feelings of nature; till we can completely unman and
brutalize these wretched beings, in order to qualify them for being
treated like brutes; the sufferings of the Slaves, during the middle
passage, must still remain extreme. The stings of a wounded conscience
man cannot inflict; but nearly all which man can do to make his fellow
creatures miserable, without defeating his purpose by putting a speedy
end to their existence, will still be here effected; and it will still
continue true, that never can so much misery be found condensed into so
small a space, as in a Slave ship during the middle passage.
But this part of the subject should not be quitted without the mention
of one circumstance, which justly leads to a very important inference as
to other parts of the case. When Parliament entered into the
investigation of the situation and treatment of the Slaves, during the
middle passage; notwithstanding the decisive proofs, adduced, and
fatally confirmed by the dreadful mortality, of the miseries which the
Slaves endured on shipboard, the Slave Traders themselves gave a
directly opposite account; maintained that the Slaves were even
luxuriously accommodated, and, above all, that they had abundant room,
even when there was not near space sufficient for them to lie on their
backs.[17] They added likewise, that at that very period the trade hung
by a thread, and that the proposed limitation as to numbers, if carried
into a law, would infallibly and utterly ruin it. The agent for the West
Indies joined in their opposition, and predicted the mischief which
would follow. The limitation was adopted; and scarcely had a year
elapsed, before we heard from the West Indies, from the Assembly of
Jamaica itself, of the benefits which the measure was likely to produce,
on account of the gross abuses which had before notoriously prevailed,
fatal alike to the health of the Slaves and the interest of the
planters. Many years have now elapsed, and it is at length universally
acknowledged, that the measure has eminently contributed to the interest
of every one of the parties concerned.[18] May we not infer, that
probably, in other parts of this question, the parties do not always
judge very accurately with respect to their real interests; and that the
prospect of immediate advantage may cause them to be insensible to a
greater but more distant benefit.
[Sidenote: Grand allegation of West Indians, that the stock of Slaves
cannot be kept up without importations.]
But against all, which justice and humanity could bring forward against
the Slave Trade, it was still to be urged, that the continuance of it
was necessary to the existence of our West Indian colonies. To put the
argument in more specific form, it was objected, that the stock of
Slaves then actually in the West Indies could not be maintained by
natural generation, without being recruited from time to time by
importations from Africa, and therefore, that the abolition of the Slave
Trade would produce the sure, though gradual, ruin of our colonies, with
all those effects on the wealth and strength of the mother country which
must follow from the loss of so valuable a member of the empire.
To the examination of this objection, let me intreat your most serious
attention; for on it, in fact, the whole argument turns, so far as
policy is in question. For my own part I hesitate not to say, that, let
the apparent temptation of profit be what it may, it never can be the
real interest of any nation to be unjust and inhuman; to suppose the
contrary, would be almost to arraign the wisdom and goodness of the
Almighty, as it would undoubtedly be, to admit a principle directly at
war with his revealed will. Nor can I forbear taking occasion to
congratulate my country, that in the discussions on this subject, the
greatest of her statesmen, both dead and living, even those who have
differed almost on every other question, have declared their concurrent
assent to that grand and aweful truth, _that the principles of justice
are immutable in their nature, and universal in their application; the
duty at once, and the interest, of nations, no less than of
individuals_.
Fully impressed with the force of these sentiments, I could not believe
that the prosperity of the West Indies must necessarily be built on a
foundation of injustice and cruelty; neither could I understand why, in
the West Indies alone, the Negroes could not even keep up their numbers.
The contrary supposition is in truth refuted, not only by its being a
contradiction of the great Law of Nature, but by its being contrary to
the universal experience of all other countries. [Sidenote: Presumptive
arguments to the contrary, furnished by experience.] For elsewhere, even
under the most unfavourable circumstances, not merely the human species,
but specifically the Negro race, had been found to increase; indeed
Negroes were said to be by nature peculiarly prolific. The climate of
the West Indies is similar to that of Africa. [Sidenote: In Africa] Why
then should the same race of beings gradually diminish in the former
country, which in the latter have so increased and multiplied, as for
two centuries to bear the continual drain of their population to the
opposite side of the Atlantic. On examining whether in fact the negro
race has kept up its numbers in other foreign countries, we find that it
has increased, and sometimes rapidly, even where the influence of the
climate might be justly supposed to be highly unfavourable.
[Sidenote: In the United States of America, Negro Slaves increase.]
The climate of the United States of America is far from being well
suited to the negro constitution, which, we are assured, is so little
patient of cold, as even in the West Indies to suffer from it[19]. The
cold in America is often very severe in the winter, even in the southern
states; and the peculiar nature of the employment of great numbers of
the Slaves who work on the rice plantations, must operate very
unfavourably on their health; yet the Negro Slaves are universally
acknowledged to have so rapidly increased in that country, that,
according to the last census of the American population, without taking
into the account any importations, the Negroes had increased so much in
the ten years last preceding the augmentation, that, advancing at the
same rate, their numbers would be doubled in about twenty-four years.
[Sidenote: Slaves increase, in Bencoolen.]
Again, in Bencoolen, which has been accounted one of the most unhealthy
climates on earth, the Negro Slaves had increased[20].
But, lest the decrease in our Islands should be supposed to arise out of
some peculiarity of the West Indian climate, [Sidenote: Slaves increase,
in the West Indies themselves.] even in the West Indies themselves
undoubted instances of negro increase can be adduced. The crew of a
Slave ship had been wrecked on the unsettled island of St. Vincents,
about the beginning of the 18th century. They had every difficulty to
contend with, were wholly unprovided with necessaries, and were obliged
to maintain a constant war with the native Charaibs; yet they had soon
multiplied exceedingly.
[Sidenote: The Maroons increase.]
Even in the island of Jamaica itself, the Maroons, the descendants of
the Negro Slaves, who, when the island was originally captured, made
their escape into the mountains, and ever afterwards lived the life of
savages; the Maroons, who were acknowledged by the West Indians
themselves to be, under peculiar circumstances, so unfavourable to the
maintenance of their numbers, that their decrease would furnish no fair
argument for the general impossibility of keeping up the stock, were
found by actual enumeration to have nearly doubled their numbers in the
period between 1749 and 1782.
[Sidenote: The Domestic Negroes increase.]
[Sidenote: The Free Blacks and Mulattoes increase.]
In the same island of Jamaica, the domestic Slaves were said by Long to
increase rapidly. The free Blacks and the Mulattoes, it was allowed by
Mr. Long, increased. Several particular instances were adduced of gangs
of Slaves having been kept up, and even having increased, without
importations; and one of the most eminent of the medical men in Jamaica,
who had under his care no less than 4,000 Negroes, stated, that there
was a very considerable increase of Negroes on the properties of that
island, particularly in the parish in which he resided, one of the
largest in Jamaica. All these instances certainly afforded a strong
presumptive proof, that the stock of Slaves in the islands might be kept
up, and might even increase without continual importations.
But the conclusion resulting from so much and such diversified
experience was established also by positive and decisive proof. The
assertion, that the stock of Slaves actually in the islands could not be
maintained without continual importations, received an unanswerable
refutation, especially from Mr. Pitt, whose superior powers of
reasoning, as well as of eloquence, were never more powerfully displayed
than in the debate of that memorable night when this subject was under
discussion, and whose positions were clearly deduced from the very
documents and accounts which had been supplied by the islands
themselves.
[Sidenote: Importance of the question, concerning the keeping up of the
stock of Slaves without Importations.]
Here, undoubtedly, lies the main stress of the case, so far as policy is
concerned. On the determination of this question must obviously rest all
the assertions which have been so industriously circulated, and all the
apprehensions which have so generally prevailed, that the immediate
abolition would prove ruinous to our West Indian Colonies. Even in 1792,
much less in the present day, scarcely any man will deny, that if the
stock of Slaves can be kept up, the abolition will, in various ways, be
highly beneficial to the islands.
[Sidenote: Proof that Slave Trade not needed for maintaining the present
stock of Slaves.]
It was proved then, first, That the abuses and the obstructions to the
natural increase, which too generally prevail, were sufficient to
account for a rapidly decreasing population, and even to lead us to
expect it.
Secondly, That the decrease, which really was considerable a century
ago, had been gradually diminishing; till at length there was good
reason to believe it had entirely ceased, and that the population fully
maintains itself.
Thirdly, That, therefore, if the great and numerous abuses which now
prevail should be materially mitigated, we might confidently anticipate
a great and rapid increase in future.
These three propositions being made out, it follows of course, that the
only substantial objection to the abolition, on the grounds of policy,
is completely done away. [Sidenote: Proof of existing abuses
unfavourable to increase.] To the proof, therefore, of these
propositions respectively, let me beg your most serious attention. And
now, in establishing the first of them, it becomes my duty to point out
the various abuses of the colonial system, so far as they have any
natural tendency to keep down the population below its proper level. I
am well aware that I am here about to tread on very tender ground. I
know that it is imputed to the Abolitionists, that they have endeavoured
to excite an unjust clamour against the Colonists by tales of cruelty,
which, if not utterly false, or, at least, grossly exaggerated, were,
however, individual and rare instances. They have been represented as
the rule, it is said, not as the exception, and as fixing a general
stigma on all colonial proprietors.
That on a subject naturally calculated to call forth powerfully the
feelings of every humane mind, zeal may have carried some of our
advocates too far, and made them not sufficiently discriminate between
particular cases of ill-treatment, and the general system of management,
I will not deny. Yet I might, perhaps, retort the accusation, and
object, in my turn, that our opponents have not in general acknowledged
even the particular cases of cruelty, and joined with us in reprobating
them; but that the facts themselves have been denied, as if it were
really the common cause of the Colonists, in which all were to stand or
fall together.
Yet, surely, any one who considers how great, even in men of rank and
education, have ever been the abuses of absolute power; who recollects,
besides, that in the West Indies, Slaves of inferior value are of very
low price, and consequently, that any man who possesses a horse in this
country might possess a Slave in that, would be sure that individual
instances of cruelty must frequently occur. Let any one who should be
inclined to pause on this position, consider how that noble animal, the
horse, is too often treated in the face of day, in the very streets of
the capital of this civilized country. But for myself I can truly
declare, that I cannot be justly charged with having insisted on
particular cases of West Indian cruelty. On the contrary, I have
uniformly abstained from whatever could provoke or irritate the
Colonists, as far as was possibly consistent with justice to the cause.
I have sometimes even doubted whether the cause may not have suffered
from my abstinence.
But, in justice to my own character, let me declare, that I have
observed this line of conduct, not merely from interested motives, that
our opponents might not be heated into still stronger opposition, but
from feelings of a more generous nature. I have borne in mind, that the
present generation of West Indian proprietors are not the first settlers
of the colonies, or the first maintainers of the Slave Trade; excepting,
however, the formers of the new settlements, which, alas! have been made
to a prodigious extent within the last sixteen years. The older
proprietors inherited their estates as we in Britain inherited ours; and
must we not expect them to be naturally tinctured with the prejudices
arising out of their circumstances and situations, since it is almost as
difficult to be exempted from the operation of these in the moral world,
as for natural productions not to possess the peculiar qualities and
flavour of their climate and soil.
But, speaking generally, for the absentees I feel above all other
proprietors; many of them born and educated in the mother country, and
therefore possessing all the principles, sympathies, and feelings which
belong to our state of society. They are most of them ignorant of the
real state of things in the colonies; they naturally give credit to the
accounts which they receive from their agents and correspondents. They
often, I doubt not, in some cases I know, they send over orders to their
managers to treat their Slaves with the utmost humanity and liberality.
There are among them, men who consider the Slaves whom they inherit, as
a family of unfortunate men, with whose protection and comfort
Providence has charged them, and whose well-being they are therefore
bound, by the highest obligations, to promote.
Far therefore be it from me to throw out a general reproach against the
whole West Indian body. In this case indeed, as in others of a similar
nature, the more the general mass is liable to any taint, the more to be
found exempt from it, is honourable. Surely those proprietors whose own
consciences acquit them of all inhumanity, nay more, whose general
conduct bears testimony to their kind and liberal feelings towards these
unfortunate dependants, ought rather to aid our endeavours to reform the
existing abuses, than to strive, by interposing their character, to
shield them from the view, and, by so doing, to promote their
continuance.
Let the West Indians of more enlarged and generous minds join me rather
in examining into the vices of the existing system, more especially into
those which have hitherto obstructed the increase of the Negro
population. But to lay before you the various proofs which could be
adduced of those abuses, would require a volume, and that not a small
one. Want of time, therefore, will compel me to take a very cursory view
of this very important part of my subject. I must content myself with
specifying the chief abuses, referring generally for the proofs of them,
to authentic, but too often voluminous documents.
It might alone however be sufficient, to establish the positions for
which I shall contend, to refer you to a recent and most valuable
publication, the work of a professional planter. The author was from the
first an active and able opponent of the Abolitionists. But being a man
of truth and candour, he has at once furnished a strong argument in
support of their cause, and an invaluable service to his brethren, the
planters, by not only stating the prevalent vices of the existing
system, but by relating the remedies of them, which he himself applied,
and the reforms by which, however inadequate, he acquired, in a few
years, a large fortune, while at the end of that time, he had the
satisfaction to see the number of his Slaves rapidly and greatly
increased.