INFRINGEMENT OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY.
Loss of property may be brought upon the Proprietor of a West India
estate in two ways:
First, By introducing a new tone of feeling among the Negroes, and
converting good servants into bad.
Secondly, By abstracting such a number of efficient hands from
an estate, that the remainder are incompetent to carry on its
cultivation in an effective manner, or to render its fixed capital
productive.
_Section 1._
THE CONVERSION OF GOOD SERVANTS INTO BAD.
If we imagine an estate, with a given number of negroes, to produce
three hundred hogsheads of sugar a year, few will be inclined to
doubt the disposition of the proprietor to increase its production,
if practicable, to three hundred and fifty or four hundred. What
are the means, then, to effect this object, without increasing the
number of labourers? The proprietor finds himself possessed of a
number of people, the development of whose full capability for labour
depends upon their treatment. If they are prompted to work with
willingness and satisfaction, skill in the various branches of work
to be performed speedily displays itself. If thus some of the slaves
can be converted from ordinary labourers into good tradesmen, and if
those in the field can be taught to use their utmost dexterity in
field-cultivation, a much more profitable division of labour than
hitherto will be accomplished. Through this improvement there is less
expense in superintendence, there is more work procured from the
steady government of the negroes without rigorous coercion, and the
cultivation is extended generally, from a better and more skilful
distribution of the various employments on the estate.
To accomplish this condition of things, the proprietor is induced to
grant to the slaves every reasonable indulgence and benefit. He uses
a discriminating power, bestowing reward upon the well-deserving, and
withholding it from the vicious; and thus holds up a double example
to the rest.
On the other hand, the slaves, finding that the master deals out his
favour with strict impartiality, are cheered under their labour by
the assurance that their exertions will be appreciated, and emulate
each other in assiduity and good conduct.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that it is the first interest
of the master to have the minds of his people easy and contented;
and that whatever tends to destroy their tranquillity occasions to
him inevitable loss of property. He will not then be able to avail
himself of that skill and willingness to work above described, and
instead of having his three hundred hogsheads increased to four,
which he might otherwise have expected from the greater diffusion of
intelligence among the rising generation, he will have his produce
diminished to two hundred, and rendered still less and less, as
discontent spreads and becomes more deeply rooted among his people.
It is one of the worst features of compulsory manumission, that it
must inspire this discontent. Is it surprising, therefore, that it
should excite such strenuous opposition? The colonists know well,
that there is not an instance in our colonies of free negroes
working steadily in the field for hire; and that if their people
be compulsorily freed, the cultivation of their estates must be
superseded. There will no longer be a motive for the master, as
at present, to bestow benefits upon the slave; on the contrary,
every indulgence granted would only tend to swell that sum which is
ultimately to be employed to the master’s injury. The negroes will
learn, that benefits must cease to flow to them from their masters:
hence the interests of the two, instead of being reciprocal as
hitherto, become directly opposed to each other.
It is beyond any effort or precaution of the master, when he can
procure no other labourers, to retrieve the injury he thus sustains.
His property is placed at the mercy of his own servants. In the
practical operation of the measure, his best and most serviceable
people will become the first discontented. They will, as a natural
result, be directly induced to suppress their skill, zeal, and
willingness to work, or in other ways depreciate their personal value.
When slaves have the power to enforce their freedom from their
owners by such a process as that of appraisement, those who are of
bad character are comparatively rewarded, while those who are really
meritorious are punished.
Thus, on the same estate, a disorderly and unprofitable slave may be
readily parted with by his master for fifty pounds, whilst another,
a steady, intelligent, and assiduous slave, might, for these good
qualities, be worth three hundred. Yet, disproportionate as are the
characters and consequent value of the two, the desire for freedom
will operate with both; but how strikingly unequal are the terms
upon which they are to obtain the same reward. To the one who is
profligate and undeserving the obstacle is trivial. On the contrary,
the meritorious slave, applying to his master to know the amount of
his ransom, finds it magnified above that of his fellow sixfold.
He cannot fail to be struck with the largeness of the amount, and
the time requisite to raise it. Such an obvious departure from the
principles of common equity, as this, must engender discontent, and
prompt the meritorious individual to seek for the cause of this
difference in value. He will conceive it gross injustice, that a
bad character, who has always disregarded his master’s interests,
should quickly get his freedom, whilst he himself, who has constantly
studied those interests, must wait for it through a course of years
lengthened in exact proportion to the value of his services.
When the measure fairly begins to work, the grievance is greatly
aggravated.
It is intended, that a proportion of the capital sunk in the lands
and buildings of each estate shall be added to the value of each
slave.
Earl Bathurst, in his despatch to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, of the 25th
February, 1826, says:—
“If, in the process of time, it should be unfortunately found, that
the slaves thus manumitted altogether abandon their owners, and
refuse to work as free persons, the owner not having the means, by
reason of the Abolition Act, to supply the loss of his slaves, and
not being able to engage any free labourer for his sugar-plantations,
the price which must then be assigned to the loss of each slave must
have a direct reference to that state in which the plantation will be
placed by the progressive reduction of the means of cultivating it.”
Under this plan it will be the _deserving_ slaves who will have to
pay for the lands and buildings.
The higher the personal value of the slave, the greater is his
_relative_ utility to the plantation, and the greater must be the
recompense awarded to the proprietor for superseded cultivation. The
relative utility of a negro of bad character may thus be estimated
at not more than ten pounds, while that of a trustworthy individual
may rise so high as one hundred and fifty. In both these cases, the
respective sums have to be added to the slave’s personal value,
before his master can be said to have received an equivalent for his
liberation. If the personal value of a slave of bad character be
estimated at 50_l._, the compensation of 10_l._ for his _relative_
utility to the plantation being added, will make a sum of 60_l._
only, as the price of his manumission. If the personal value of the
skilful and zealous slave be estimated at 300_l._, the equivalent of
150_l._ for his _relative_ utility to the plantation being added,
will require as much as 450_l._ to be raised for the purchase of his
manumission.
Here the impediment is increased from six to eight fold.
But there is yet further injustice. Not only are different
descriptions of cultivation carried on in the colonies, but the same
species of cultivation may greatly vary on estates contiguous to
each other, from difference of soil, or other local circumstances.
Accordingly as those circumstances are more or less favourable, in
a corresponding proportion will be the value of the slave, and the
appraisers will be called upon to adjust this value, thus varying in
different districts of the same colony.
Suppose the fixed capital sunk on a coffee or cotton plantation to
be 5,000_l._, and that sunk on an adjoining sugar-plantation to
be 25,000_l._, while each possesses the same number of negroes.
One of these from each plantation, of precisely similar capability
and character, demands his freedom. The first finds there is to be
an addition of but 10_l._ to his price; not from inferiority of
character or skill, but from the accidental circumstance of his
living on a plantation where the amount of fixed capital is small.
The man from the latter, the sugar-estate, finds it, as before
stated, so high as 150_l._, making the difficulty of obtaining
freedom perhaps double, as compared with his companion and equal. The
same argument would apply even to two estates, which both produced
sugar, provided the buildings and machinery on the one were better
and more complete than that of the other, or the land more productive.
Thus, the more extensively that machinery has been introduced
to facilitate and lighten labour, the more will it be to the
prejudice of the slaves. When the supply of labourers is short, to
introduce the most advanced and highest description of machinery is
all-important and desirable, and the main step to advance a colony
to prosperity. But in the new measure proposed, this is checked at
once, because no proprietor would think of an outlay, when it could
be withdrawn in no other way than by pittances wrung from his best
slaves, in their eagerness for freedom.
In contemplating these several facts, can there be a moment’s
hesitation in regard to the discontent created? Let us imagine a
serviceable man on a sugar-plantation applying for his freedom. He
has formed in his own mind an estimate of what he ought to pay, and
he betakes himself to the appraiser, with the money in his hand. To
his astonishment he is asked a sum far beyond his means of payment;
he cannot comprehend the cause; and no alternative remains to him
but to go back and brood over his disappointment. When he finds his
long-cherished hopes utterly frustrated; when, too, he perceives a
worthless fellow, distinguished only for idleness and debauchery,
now sporting and enjoying himself at liberty all day long, perhaps
laughing at the deserving individual who remains in servitude; when
he sees his acquaintance on some neighbouring plantation attain his
freedom, merely from his chancing to live on an estate where less
machinery was used, will he, in common reason, return to his duty a
contented man? Is he not goaded on to renounce his better qualities,
when he is thus made to feel, that they are insuperable impediments
to the attainment of his natural wishes? He discovers that discontent
is his surest remedy; that he has only to display the sullenness
which he actually feels; that, in one word, he has but to become a
bad subject, in order to obtain liberty the more speedily.
Can then the sturdiest champions of compulsory manumission attempt
to maintain, that if this man was worth a dollar a day before this
occurrence, he will be worth as much still; and if the return from
his labour be reduced one-half or two-thirds, will any man contend
that a direct violation of property has not been inflicted?
We have confined our attention, hitherto, to the most deserving
slaves, because their welfare should be chiefly consulted in every
new measure. But with the gang at large the injurious tendency is
scarcely less striking. Besides a systematic practice of repressing
dexterity and usefulness, the slave may even resort to bodily
disablement, in order that his price may be lowered to his means.
Such practices are known to exist at present, where there is no
higher temptation than that of idling in the sick-house; and there
could therefore be little expectation, that the practice would not
increase under so much more powerful an inducement. It is vain to
argue, that there are reasons, such as the fear of correction from
his master or the magistrate, of sufficient weight to deter him
from this course—the object for which he strives is perpetually in
his view, and will inspire him to brave in its pursuit any present
punishment, well knowing that the owner’s patience must at length be
exhausted.
With the negroes generally, there is also a direct encouragement
to theft, since, under the peculiar circumstances of West India
cultivation, the master’s property is, necessarily, much exposed,
and liable to be stolen by his slaves. Even at present, the
quantity stolen annually is ascertained to be very great. Crime
usually increases in proportion to temptation; and, under the
proposed enactment, the slave must become habituated to fraudulent
propensities, and all his ingenuity stimulated to the commission of
secret theft. Thus is caused loss of property, both directly and
indirectly: directly, by the sum taken from the proprietor in the
property stolen; indirectly, by obstructing the steady government of
the plantation, and occasioning unavoidable loss of labour in the
services of the slave.
These are vital evils; and can any attempt be made to correct them,
particularly the most important one relating to self-depreciation?
Lord Bathurst, in his despatch of the 25th February, 1826,
acknowledges, that great mischief would ensue, if manumission were
obtained by other means than those of individual and habitual
industry; and, in alluding to the possibility of a slave’s
purchase-money being improperly obtained, his Lordship observes—
“For the sake of the community, indeed, such indiscriminate
manumissions ought to be prevented; for, undoubtedly, if the
purchase-money were obtained from any fund which may be formed for
the liberation of slaves, there would be no test of previous habits
of industry, of which there is presumptive evidence where the money
is procured by the honest earnings of the slave. To supply this
defect it may be provided, that in such cases a certificate of good
conduct for five years should be required of the Protector of slaves,
before the manumission should be completed.”
It is not difficult to perceive, that this idea of a certificate is
perfectly nugatory. Who is to give it? The Protector, it seems. How
is it possible for the Protector to judge of the private character
of the thousands under his charge? Mr. President Wray, sitting in
the Court of Policy, in Demerara, admitted, “that in a population of
more than 70,000 negroes, the protector could not be supposed to be
acquainted with individual characters.” To the proposed amendment,
that the existence of habits of industry and good conduct should be
shown before the same tribunal which inquired into the manner in
which the property was obtained, it was urged, that no such tribunal
would have better information than the protector himself; and any
certificate of good behaviour coming from incompetent judges, must
prove altogether futile as regards protection to the proprietor.
If the framers of the measure had interrogated managers or overseers
as to the length of time and the close attention it requires to
understand the character of the negroes, even of a moderately-sized
gang, they would have little thought of expecting a single public
officer to remedy the difficulty.
But if the protectors were multiplied from one to a thousand, and
did nothing else but watch over the individual character of the
slaves, the remedy must be fallacious. On the broad principle of
the measure itself, no system of appraisement, no reference to
previous character, can meet the artifices which a slave may employ
to depreciate his value; because many of such artifices, depending
on the suppression of skill or zeal, being of a negative character,
defy detection; and, even were they detected, detriment to the
proprietor’s interests must ensue, since a willing has been changed
into a discontented labourer.
Upon the rising generation, too, of the negroes, the operation of the
same baneful policy of self-deterioration must increase. The whole
of the youthful class, whose faculties are just dawning, will be
taught to suppress everything like acuteness, and to stifle every
indication of future habits of industry.
Compulsory manumission, therefore, contains the worst principle of
evil, a principle of growth. Each succeeding year will make more
evident to the negroes the means with which they have been invested
for self-depreciation; and each additional instance of its successful
adoption by their fellows encourage numbers to resort to the same
pernicious artifices.
How miserable, then, is the expedient of _partially_ questioning
certain individuals in the colonies, who, thus interrogated, may
pronounce that in the _present_ condition of the slaves the measure
would be inoperative, while the same persons, if questioned with a
view to the _future_ effects of the measure after ten or fifteen
years of its adoption, would predict a widely different result!
The writer of the “Remarks” seems unwilling to contemplate the
future, and condemns prospective arguments as speculative and merely
matter of opinion. But if the negro prefer a state of idleness to one
of constrained exertion, it follows that he must earnestly desire to
obtain his freedom. If he have repugnance to labour, he will seek
his freedom by those means which are easiest. If he possess common
reason, he must perceive that the easiest of all methods lies in
self-depreciation.
Would it not, then, be contrary to all principles of equity or sound
legislation, to subject what is thus a self-evident proposition to
the test of experiment, since, ere the result of that experiment
could be ascertained, irreparable injury must have been produced?
* * * * *
In reality, a part only of the subject has been treated of in Lord
Bathurst’s despatch, and in the “Remarks,” inasmuch as they regard
only those negroes who may be freed under the operation of the
measure, and overlook those who, from inability to procure their
freedom, still remain on the plantation.
But it has been shown, that greater deterioration of property
may occur from an improper feeling excited among the negroes who
remain, than from the more direct loss of labour occasioned by the
abstraction of those who become free.
_Section 2._
LOSS ARISING, IF A NUMBER OF EFFECTIVE
HANDS BE TAKEN FROM THE PLANTATION.
The capital sunk in land, buildings and machinery is known to be very
extensive in West India plantations.
We have now to inquire whether, under the mode proposed, the
proprietor will receive fair indemnification for this capital, from
the slaves who may obtain their freedom. It is conceived that, in
every point of view, loss is occasioned; and that while the plan of
increasing the price of the slave according to his relative utility
to the estate is calculated to engender the greatest discontent
generally, it at the same time affords inadequate compensation to the
proprietor, in regard to those who may purchase their manumission.
Lord Bathurst and the writer of the “Remarks” consider the means of
fair compensation for the fixed capital to be secured, as appears in
the following extract from his Lordship’s despatch:—
“If by these regulations an adequate compensation be not secured
to the owner, it must either be because the persons who are
authorised to decide upon the amount are not likely to be fit or fair
arbitrators, or because there are restrictions which will prevent
the arbitrators from the free exercise of their judgment. Now it
must be admitted nothing can be fairer than the proposed selection
of arbitrators in the Trinidad Order: viz., that in the event of
the owner and the slave not agreeing on the price of the slave’s
manumission, the owner should appoint one, the protector of slaves
another, and that an umpire should be appointed by the chief judge.
It is clear that an arbitration on such principle would protect the
interests of the owner, and if there were any objection it would be
that the bias was in his favour. As to restrictions or limitations,
there are none to obstruct the free exercise of their judgment.”
To this it may, in the first place, be replied, that the principle of
appraisement in its practical operation supposes the price of slaves
to continue to be regulated in the West India colonies by competition
in the market, like commodities in commerce.
Before we go further, then, let us examine how West India property
stands at present.
The following are the Gazette average prices of sugar for the last
seven years: viz.,
1820 35_s._ 0_d._
1821 31 0
1822 29 4½
1823 34 6
1824 30 11½
1825 38 7¼
1826 35 6½
It might be presumed, that the amount of capital which an individual
would be willing to vest in the purchase of a property would be
proportioned to its net returns. But it can be proved, that in 1819,
65,000_l._ sterling was offered for a sugar-estate in Jamaica, and
refused, as below its estimated value. About that period it was
considered, that the increasing consumption of sugar, while the means
of production were limited, presented a very favourable prospect for
the West India planter. Accordingly, in the year 1820, 70,000_l._
sterling was offered for the abovementioned estate, and also refused
for the same reason. But when the proceedings in this country in
1823 and 1824 began to operate, a mighty change took place. It can
be shown that distrust gradually arose, and as the proceedings
became more and more critical, in the same proportion and as quickly
did the value of property progressively decline. The demands of
alarmed creditors from all quarters fell on the planters; they
became embarrassed; and the very same property for which, in 1820,
70,000_l._ sterling had been refused, when again put up for sale in
1826, found no real bidding higher than 32,000_l._ currency, being
less than 23,000_l._ sterling.
Strong as this instance appears to be, others equally forcible could
be adduced, of the ruinous deterioration of West India property from
the like cause; and they exemplify the nature of those boons which
the writer of the “Remarks” affirms to have been accorded to the
colonists, and “for which they should feel grateful.”
If a decline in the value of the capital has ensued, whilst the price
of the produce has remained nearly the same, it is proof positive
that the depreciation of West India property is not attributable
to circumstances purely mercantile, but that it is owing to the
proceedings of the British legislature.
It is essential to keep this circumstance in mind, and to examine
the mode of appraisement prospectively, when the principle of supply
and demand no longer exists, as regards the objects to be appraised.
It is apparent, that to allow of a properly-constituted market-price,
there must be purchasers; but if the principle of compulsory
manumission be admitted, after what has been just stated relative to
the deterioration in the value of property already produced, will
any purchaser of slaves be found? Under the manifold evils detailed
in the preceding section, no capitalist henceforward would think of
making investments upon West India securities, and all transfer of
property would be at an end.
The appraisers are employed to fix a price between conflicting
representations of master and slave. But can a criterion for
equitable adjustment be formed? The slave himself is the only
purchaser who appears in the market, and in this condition of
things any mode of appraisement must be unjust and injurious to the
capitalist which assumes that colonial cultivation will continue
unchanged, in the event of the proposed measure being carried into
effect; and which does not take into the account the aversion which
every capitalist will then feel to making a precarious investment
dependent upon the uncertain services of the slaves.
This is founded upon the most simple principle. If a decrease in the
value of capital have already occurred beyond what is attributable
to circumstances purely mercantile, and is solely occasioned by the
threatened measures of Government, it is a fair inference that a
further decrease would ensue if such threatened measures were put
into execution; and the effects of that opinion prevailing throughout
the colonies, must render the chance of fully withdrawing the fixed
capital more and more precarious, as the evils of the measure became
more widely developed.
Let us suppose a sugar-plantation, with two hundred negroes, worth
40,000_l._; one-half sunk in lands and buildings, the other half the
value of the slaves. Accordingly as the negroes progressively free
themselves, the 20,000_l._ sunk in lands and buildings has to be
apportioned among them, and added to the price of their manumission.
Now it must be recollected, that _the whole_ of the two hundred
negroes are requisite to carry on profitable cultivation. The land
and buildings cannot be disposed of, or circumscribed to suit a more
limited business, as would be the case with premises in this country
when a manufacturer reduced the number of his workmen.
After a number of men, then, are freed, the proprietor is left with
a great concern upon his hands without people to carry it on. To
be fully remunerated for the property sunk in that concern, the
people remaining would have to pay, as he gradually becomes more
and more short of hands, a prodigious sum for their freedom. Is it
possible, from what has been stated, that he could receive full
indemnification? Let it be recollected, that it will soon be, not a
quota, but the _entire_ of the fixed capital, which the efficient
negroes, applying for freedom, will have to pay to indemnify their
masters,—and in actual practice can this be done?
The writer of the “Remarks” illustrates the case by comparing a
sugar-estate to a mill with a number of buckets! The reader, it is
presumed, will be tempted to smile at the idea of considering the
negroes as mere passive machines, devoid of those feelings, passions,
and intelligence, which it is their master’s chief solicitude to call
into existence.
But, to pass over the narrow and partial view of the subject here
displayed, even were we to indulge the writer in his singular mode of
illustration, it fails to establish his object. He says, if twenty
buckets are attached to a wheel, and four be removed, the proprietor
will be entitled to be remunerated for whatever loss of work this
removal occasioned; and if the work turned off were diminished,
from incompetency of power in the wheel, not only in the proportion
of twenty to sixteen, being one-fifth, but in the proportion of
two-fifths, then would the proprietor be entitled to receive, as
equitable compensation, two-fifths of the value in place of one.
Now it is important to reflect, that if four buckets be taken away
from the wheel, its motion may not only be diminished in a greater
ratio than two-fifths, but it may be _stopped altogether_.
This is the proper application of such an illustration to the
circumstances of a sugar-estate. If forty efficient negroes be
removed out of two hundred, being the same proportion as in the
assumed case of the buckets, will any person, acquainted with the
colonies, maintain that cultivation could continue? An estate which
had produced two hundred hogsheads of sugar would not merely be
reduced two-fifths of that amount, that is to say, to one hundred and
twenty hogsheads, but it would be altogether abandoned, because its
returns would not cover its expenses.
The author of the bucket-illustration must be sensible of its
fallacy, if he reflect that at some one point, the wheel, from its
diminution of buckets, must stop.
The question is, as regards the cultivation of sugar, will this point
soon be reached? Little is required to be said on this head, if the
proprietors are prepared to establish the fact, that even at present
they can scarcely spare one man.
Lord Bathurst acknowledges, indeed, the ultimate improbability
that the slaves could of themselves indemnify their master for the
entire capital he has sunk; and his Lordship says, when the price of
manumission rises from 100 to 500_l._, then it will be time for the
nation to come forward. A most consolatory prospect! And what are the
proprietors to do _before the nation does come forward_? When the
discussion is beginning, and before the public are disposed to put
their hands into their pockets, the proprietors buildings, machinery,
roads, dams, are going into dilapidation, and he is a ruined man.
When we prove injury in the principle, it is scarcely necessary to
descend to discuss the practice. Many colonists view with alarm
the great power given to the Protector, and other officers of
government. But let us pass over details. It is only necessary to
reflect upon what the appraiser has to do, to perceive that the
mode of working must be as bad as the design, and that the whole
process must be vague and mere guess-work. Even admitting the very
doubtful proposition, that impartial arbitrators could be selected,
numerous peculiarities may exist to obstruct the formation of a sound
judgment in regard to the value of a part of the planter’s stock, in
consequence of the manner in which the whole is rendered profitable.
It is to repeat the opinion of every intelligent person recently
returned from the colonies, to declare, that it is perfectly
impossible for any appraiser, no matter how intelligent, experienced,
or impartial, correctly to estimate the value of a slave, in order to
award compensation in the manner described by Lord Bathurst.
_Section 3._
PLANTATIONS BURDENED WITH EXPENSES, WHILE
THE GROSS RETURNS ARE DIMINISHED.
Having shown, in the preceding section, that the fixed capital of
an estate cannot be removed, we have now to show that the necessary
expenses of carrying on its cultivation cannot be diminished.
Each proprietor is by law obliged to maintain the aged, the infirm,
and the helpless, upon his estate. This duty he performs with
the utmost cheerfulness. He can hold out to his able negroes no
stronger incentive to good conduct than the assurance verified in
their parents, that they will pass the evening of life in rest and
contentment, with every little want provided for. The spectacle
itself is one of the most agreeable which can strike the eye of the
stranger; it is peculiarly grateful to the feelings of the negro; and
most forcibly illustrates the happy state of things when benefits are
made to How from the master alone. Compulsory manumission severs the
link which makes this obligation mutual, for it gives to the master
all the expense, and deprives him of the benefit.
On most West India plantations not more than one-third part of each
gang can be considered as efficient for field-cultivation, there
being included the old and infirm, the infant and the helpless, all
of whom are unserviceable, but whom the proprietor is bound by every
consideration to support.
The young and able, those in the prime of life, and under the
strongest influence of the passions, to whom all the allurements of
idleness present themselves in full force, would lose no time in
availing themselves of any opportunity to go at large.
On the contrary, the old slaves on a plantation, in whom the ardent
passions have subsided, knowing that they must soon come to be exempt
from work, and entitled to that maintenance gratuitously from their
master, which in a state of freedom they would have to earn for
themselves, would make no attempt to procure their own liberation,
but would devote their earnings, and any accumulation of money they
may have already made, to the ransom of their children.
This double operation, therefore, of the young and efficient freeing
themselves, or being freed by their aged connexions; and the
superannuated and infirm remaining to be supported by the proprietor,
would leave the burdens of a plantation undiminished, while its
ability to bear them was nearly annihilated.
With regard to the other portion, from whom no labour is obtained,
namely, the infants, the proprietor is induced at present to treat
them with the utmost care, were it only for their future value. But
the prospect of obtaining their future services might soon be changed.
Slavery, considered as an hereditary condition, is perpetuated on
the side of the mother only; if means were taken to purchase all the
female children, no calculation regarding relative value could be
made, and the property of each proprietor must become extinct with
the lives of his present negroes.
Now it is fair to apprehend, that the means of obtaining manumission
might be improperly employed, for the purpose of exterminating
slavery, regardless of all injury to the capitalist. Whether those
means would be supplied from a fund raised in this country by
speculative theorists hostile to the colonies, or, whether the
slaves themselves would be, by such persons, instigated to purchase
the female children, the result would be equally injurious to the
proprietor.
_Section 4._
CONTRARY TO THE LAW OF MORTGAGE.
Few persons require to be told, that the proportion of property
under mortgage in the West Indies is considerable. It is singular,
that, in the various discussions to which the Colonial Question has
given rise, so little attention has been directed to the interests
thus involved. Independently of the mortgagees themselves, it is the
direct advantage of the planters to have every facility open for the
raising of loans to meet temporary difficulties.
The act of Parliament, the 13 Geo. III. c. 14, invites loans from
aliens, on the security of leasehold or freehold estates, in His
Majesty’s West Indian Colonies. The 14 Geo. III. c. 79 legalizes
the taking of interest by British subjects, for sums advanced on
mortgage, and securities of any lands, tenements, hereditaments,
slaves, and other things, at the rate allowed by the law of the
colony where the mortgaged property lies. And the 3 Geo. IV. c. 47,
further regulates the rate of interest, and extends its provisions to
persons advancing capital in this country.
On the faith of these enactments, large investments on mortgage have
been made. Slaves are recognised in them, as property in fee-simple,
absolute, which has been confirmed by decisions in our courts, both
of law and equity. Consequently, all mortgagees rest their security
not on Colonial enactments, but on British Acts of Parliament; and
the law relating to mortgaged property in the colonies must be
analogous to the law relating to mortgaged property in England.
By the law of England, when woods or messuages are included in a
mortgage, none of those woods or messuages can be sold or alienated,
either collectively or in part, by the mortgagor, or by any other
known authority, even though the proceeds of such sale should be
appropriated to the benefit of the mortgagee, without the express
consent and concurrence of the latter; the law giving to him the sole
privilege of determining as to whatever may affect his security.
By the same law of England, when slaves are expressly specified in
a mortgage on West India property, neither the proprietor, nor any
other known authority, can legally sell such slaves, even though the
proceeds be applied in liquidation of the mortgage, unless it be with
the previous consent of the mortgagee.
Yet it does not appear, that Earl Bathurst has explicitly provided
for the claims of the mortgagee, who has lent his money in the
firm reliance that the law has guaranteed, both to himself and to
the mortgagor, the full effects of the stipulation of the mortgage
contract.
But if the slaves, being in law real property, on which the mortgagee
holds a lien, be permitted at their will to separate themselves from
the plantation, it must weaken the security of the mortgagee, by
removing the instruments through which the fixed capital was rendered
productive, and by the employment of which for the benefit of the
mortgagor, there was a reasonable confidence that the mortgage might
ultimately be redeemed.
And in regard to the purchase-money paid by the slave to his owner,
as the price of his liberation, if the amount go at once into the
hands of the mortgagee, it is an injustice to the debtor, because he
had a right to expect a rate of profit from his cultivation, much
higher than the mere interest paid for his loan; and it is illegal,
because it is beyond the terms of his contract with the mortgagee.
If, again, the money be deposited in some public chest, it is
illegal and unjust to both parties: unjust, because the removal of
an efficient hand entered not into the calculations of the owner of
the plantation, and by the decrease of its produce from subtracted
labour, he finds his debt not diminishing but growing larger, while
the mortgagee runs the risk of losing his money;—illegal, because the
stipulation forms no part of the mortgage contract.
When we show that illegality is added to injustice, we may close the
case on the part of the proprietor.
Let us sum up the objections.
If not one man is freed, compulsory manumission changes his
good slaves into bad ones. If any are freed, he gets inadequate
remuneration for their loss. It unjustly makes the burdens on his
estates perpetual; and in case of mortgages, is contrary to the
statute-law of the realm.
Is compulsory manumission then compatible with a fair and equitable
consideration of the rights of private property? Will any member of
the legislature be willing to confirm an act of the executive, which
is expressly contrary to the Resolution to which Parliament became
pledged in 1823?