ment, Lord Howick, who had resigned office from his inability to countenance this provision, and his reluctance to introduce confusion into the government by his opposition, otherwise than as an independent member of the House. This apprenticeship arrangement was one. great difficulty, and the loan was another. The planters and their advocates considered the amount a mere pittance, and yet were sure they could never repay it. With a good grace, the loan of fifteen millions was converted into a gift of twenty millions; and the term of apprenticeship was reduced. Mr. Buxton was so well supported in his opposition, that government had no choice but to yield. The field-slaves were to have been apprenticed for twelve years, and the house-slaves for seven: their terms were now reduced to seven and five. As to the money part of the affair, there were many who saw and declared that, in strict principle, there could be no claim for compensation for deprivation of that which, from its very nature, never could have been property; and such opposed any payment at all to the planters, as they would have refused to purchase a slave who could be freed without. But the greater number, seeing how long the law had recognised human beings as property, and on how bare a legal basis all right to property rests, were willing to avoid subtle controversy, and to close the dispute rather with generous concession than with rigidity; and the gift of twenty millions was voted with an alacrity which must ever be considered a remarkable and honourable sign of the times. The generous acquiescence of the people under this prodigious increase of their burdens has caused the moralists of other nations to declare that the British act of emancipation stands alone for moral grandeur in the history of the world; while those of other nations who do not happen to be moralists, see in it only an inexplicable hypocrisy, or obscure process of self-interest. On the 30th of August 1833, the Emancipation Act passed the Lords. The name, and much of the substance of slavery was to expire on the 1st of August 1834. The young children were then to be free; and the government fondly hoped, against the warnings of those who understood the second nature which overgrows the first in the holders of irresponsible power, that the parents would, from the same hour, be morally and civilly freebound only in the salutary obligations to virtuous labour. However that might be, the day was within view when all should be wholly free. To her great honour—and not the less because the act proved to be one of true policy— Antigua surrendered the right of apprenticeship, and set her slaves wholly free on the appointed day. Elsewhere, the arrangement worked so ill-the oppression of the negroes was so gross, and to them in their transition state so intolerable-the perplexities were so many, and so difficult to deal with-that government was soon convinced that 'gradualism' was as impracticable under the name of freedom, as of slavery: in three years, the term of apprenticeship was shortened; and presently afterwards the arrangement was relinquished altogether. The The season of emancipation was dreaded by some of the slaveholders, who had spent all their lives in fear of negro risings. To others it appeared that the danger of revolt was when the negroes were suffering under tyranny, and not when they were relieved from it. On both shores of the Atlantic, however, expectation stood on tiptoe to watch the moment which should give freedom to 800,000 of the enslaved race. The Carolina planter looked well to his negro quarter, to see that his 'hands' were not abroad after dark. Garrison and his band sat waiting for tidings with more faith in the negro temper than anybody else, but still with some anxiety for the cause. British parliament looked benevolently forth, in the consciousness of having done an act which should stand alone in the history of the world. The British peasant thought affectionately of the black brethren whom he, as a freeman and a tax-payer, had helped to release from bondage. And when the tidings came-1 -the narrative of how the great day had passed over-there was such joy as is seldom excited by one event among opposite interests. Garrison and his band were as much relieved as the Carolina planter; and the English peasant was as proud and pleased as the British parliament. The 1st of August fell on a Friday; and there was to be holiday from the Thursday night till Monday. The missionaries did their duty well; and they completely succeeded in impressing the people with a sense of the solemnity of the occasion. The arrival of that midnight in the island of Antigua, where the negroes where to be wholly free at once, was an event which cannot be read of without a throbbing of the heart. It was to the negroes their passover-night. They were all collected in their chapels-the Wesleyans keeping watch-night in the chapels throughout the island. The pastors recommended to the people to receive the blessing in silence and on their knees. At the first stroke of midnight from the great cathedral-bell, all fell on their knees, and nothing was heard but the slow tolling bell, and some struggling sobs in the intervals. The silence lasted for a few moments after the final stroke, when a peal of awful thunder rattled through the sky, and the flash of lightning seemed to put out the lamps in the chapels. Then the kneeling crowd sprang to their feet, and gave voice to their passionate emotions such voice as might be expected from this excitable people. Some tossed up their free arms, and groaned away at once the heart's burden of a life. Families and neighbours opened their arms to each other. Some prayed aloud, after the lead of their pastors, that they might be free indeed; and a voice was heard in thanksgiving for a real Sabbath now, when the wicked should cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest, and the voice of the oppressor should be no more heard, and the servant should be free from his master. In some of the chapels the noble spectacle was seen of the masters attending with their negroes, and, when the clock had struck, shaking hands with them, and wishing them joy. The rest of the holiday was spent partly in mirth, as was right, and much of it in listening to the addresses of the missionaries, who urged upon them with much force, and in the utmost detail, the duties of sobriety and diligence, and harmony with their employers. On the Monday morning, they went to work—that work which they were proud of now, as it was for wages. Fair as was this promise, and well as the conduct of the negroes has justified the highest expectations of their most sanguine friends, no reasonable persons were so sanguine ་ as to suppose that all parties would be satisfied-that an act of parliament could neutralise all the evil results of an iniquity that was centuries old-that the striking of that cathedral clock was to silence all discontents for the future as well as the past. From the nature of things it could not be so. The planter could not at the striking of that clock, put off his habits of command, and his lifelong associations of inferiority with the negro race. He could not, in a moment or a year, become an economist, a practical man, carrying on his business with the close attention and care and thrifty skill held necessary in the employers of free labour elsewhere. And the negroes would certainly work in a very different way, and to a very different amount henceforth. The husband and father might, and no doubt would, accomplish much more actual work between year's end and year's end; but some of it would be for himself-on ground of his own; and the women would be almost universally withdrawn from field-labour and they would keep their children under their own care at home. As the possession of land was, in the eyes of negroes, the symbol of all earthly power and privilege, it was certain that their great ambition would be to buy land; and thus, again, more labour would be withdrawn from the existing estates. And these estates were in that bad state of tillage which always co-exists with slavelabour; and the conditions were thus unfavourable to a change of system. The probability seemed to many to be that there would be a decline in the production of sugar, and distress among the planters, not remediable by any kind or degree of aid from England, ending probably in a transfer of the estates from the representatives of the old system to those of the new. A tone of fretful triumph would have to be borne with for a time from the enemies of emancipation; and, perhaps, a temporary deficiency of sugar entailing further sacrifice on the English working-classes who had so cheerfully undertaken their share of the twenty millions of compensation; and, in some future time, every white might have sold his plantation to a black or mulatto capitalist. There would be much evil in all this, if it should happen; but after so long and grievous a sin, some retributive penalty must be expected; and there were bright points both in the near and distant prospects. The negress was now under the protection of a husband, and had a home in which to labour and rest. Christianity could now be preached, without dread and without omission. While regretting any decline in the outward fortunes of the planters, no considerate person could for a moment put those outward fortunes into the scale against the moral and material interests of the vast majority of residents in the West Indies; and as for the supply of sugar, there is a broad belt surrounding the world-here studded with South American ranchos, there feathered with African palms, and beyond, watered by the rivers of India, and strewn with the islands of the eastern archipelago where sugar enough may be grown for the needs of the whole race. The centuries bring with them their own resources. Ours brought a rich one in the insight and impulse to extinguish a mighty sin. Necessity and justice were seen and heard to demand it; the thing was done; and necessity and justice may always be trusted to vindicate themselves. CHAPTER IX. Irish Church-Prosecution of O'Connell-Irish outrage-Royal Notice of Tithes-First and Second Acts of 1832-Act of 1833-Tardy Truth about Tithes-Proposed Act of 1834-Bill lost-Irish Ecclesiastical Commission-Irish Census-reductions-Appropriation Doctrine-Delays-Appropriation refused-Irish Church Temporalities Bill passes -Official changes-Mr. Ward's Critical Motion--King's Declaration-Commission of Inquiry-Coercion Bill-Negotiation with Mr. O'Connell-Mr. Littleton's Explanation-Resignation of Lord Althorp-Of Lord Grey-Lord Grey's Farewell-His Political Character. THUS far the Whig ministry had wrought and prospered well. They had undertaken their great works with a clear view of what ought to be done, and a determination to do it; or, if they at any time fell short in either of these requisites, the sympathy or opposition of the liberal party soon brought them up again. Among many defi |