without meaning offence,) as regards America—is it not matter of the profoundest wonder, that in a country which boasts of being the freest (and, politically speaking, it is one of the freest on the face of the earth,) should be the country which seems to cling the most closely to the slavery of the negroes, a slavery which, when compared with the fetters which they (the Americans) so nobly burst asunder, in their resistance to the oppressions of the mother country, may be compared to straws laid upon the back of a camel? (Cheers.) Can this endure can such an anomaly be perpetuated-can so gross, so violent, so egregious an inconsistency continue among 13,000,000 of enlightened men? I pronounce it impossible. (Hear, hear.) I have always stood forward as the fast friend of America. I have no doubt that the advice I now give here in a spirit of candor and friendship, will be received by her in the spirit in which it is offered.

THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON.

Mr. T. F. Buxton, in bringing forward his promised motion on the subject of the slave-trade, observed, that no person who had not witnessed the atrocities of that abominable traffic, could have an adequate conception of the crimes, miseries, and cruelties to which it gave rise. He requested the attention of the house to facts which he should lay before them from parliamentary documents-facts that indicated the extent to which the slave-trade was now carried on. He held in his hand a list of importations of slaves into the Brazils. The return from the British Consuls from the 1st of January, 1829, to the 30th June, 1830, a period of one year and a half, was as follows, viz. :— Died on the passage.

Slaves.
779

Ships.

Para,

6

30

89

308

768

7,912

9,107

In three years and a half, 150,537 slaves were introduced into Brazil through the single port of Rio de Janeiro. But this did not include the whole number departed from Africa; it only extended to the number introduced alive: we know nothing of the amount of mortality that occurred among the slaves on their passage. In 1830 the slave-trade had been legally abolished, notwithstanding which, however, he was sorry to say it now proceeded with almost as much activity as ever. This he gathered from the report of the Minister of Marine to the Legislative Assembly, which was as follows:-"Rio de Janeiro, June 17, 1833.-Well known are the tricks resorted to by speculators, as sordid as they are criminal, to continue the disgraceful traffic in slaves, in spite of all the legislative provisions and

orders issued respecting it, which have been most scandalously eluded. It, therefore, appears necessary to the government to have recourse to the most efficacious means, which are, to arm a sufficient number of small vessels to form a sort of cordon sanitaire, which may prevent the access to our shores of those swarms of Africans that are continually poured forth from ships employed in so abominable a traffic.”

Of treaties.-Those which are already in existence had been most shamefully violated by foreign powers. There were four points to which it was necessary to attend in the formation of a perfect treaty for the suppression of the slave-trade. In the first place, the slavetrade ought to be declared to be piracy; 2dly, the mutual right of search ought to be established; 3dly, that right ought to extend along the whole coast of Africa, where the slave-trade existed; and 4thly, vessels being equipped for the slave-trade should be subject to capture and condemnation, though having no slaves on board. Now it so happened that in all treaties hitherto drawn up for the suppression of the slave-trade, one or other of these points had invariably been omitted. It was the most important that there should be one uniform treaty on this subject. He was happy to believe that no difficulty would be found in inducing France to concur in some effectual treaty to put a stop to the traffic in slaves, and he did hope that with regard to Spain and Portugal a better feeling began to prevail on this subject than had been entertained by former governments of those countries. But, whatever might be the disposition of Spain, England had a right to demand the effectual co-operation of that country in the suppression of the slave-trade. Nothing could be stronger than the language of the treaty concluded with Spain, and England had in fact paid £400,000 to Spain for the suppression of the slave-trade.

Before concluding, he would mention one fact, which had made a greater impression on his mind than almost any thing else. In addition to the desolation which this shameful traffic created in Africa, it was the cause of the destruction of not less than 100,000 persons, year by year, and this large number of human beings were sacrificed for the purpose of enriching miscreants, the acknowledged enemies of the human race, who, if justice had been done, would undoubtedly have died the death of murderers and pirates. (Hear, hear.)-Speech in the British House of Commons, May 12. 1835.

To the Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society:

LONDON, April 10, 1835.

Dear Sir, I cannot help, at this juncture, expressing to you the deep, heartfelt, and cordial interest I take in the progress of the great question of the abolition of slavery in your country. Peculiarly impeded as it is in many ways, I cannot feel a doubt but that the same principle, which carried it through here, will also be found irresistible in America. I mean the principle, or rather the plain, naked truth, that slavery is a crime-and that, therefore, it must be abolished. It may be gratifying to you to know that the original document by

which your first Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and signed Benja min Franklin, is in my possession.

The intelligence we receive from all quarters in our West India colonies is highly satisfactory. Mr. Hume told me a day or two ago that he had received a letter from his relation, Mr. Burnley of Trinidad -(who has been of all men the most hostile to our proceedings)— stating that his views had entirely altered-and that so far from regretting the abolition of slavery, he would not, if he could, return to the old system, and this, because the negroes in a state of freedom were so much more industrious than they had been as slaves.

Heartily praying that the abolition of slavery in America, and all over the world, may be immediate and peaceful, believe me, your faithful friend and coadjutor.

THOS. FOWELL BUXTON.

ELIZABETH HEYRICK.

An immediate emancipation is the object to be aimed at; it is more wise and rational-more politic and safe, as well as more just and humane, than gradual emancipation. The interests, moral and political, temporal and eternal, of all parties concerned, will be best promoted by immediate emancipation. The sooner the planter is obliged to abandon a system which torments him with perpetual alarms of insurrection and massacre-which keeps him in the most debasing moral bondage-subjects him to a tyranny, of all others the most injurious and destructive, that of sordid and vindictive passions; the sooner he is obliged to adopt a more humane and more lucrative policy in the cultivation of his plantations; the sooner the over-labored, crouching slave is converted into a free laborer-his compulsory, unremunerated toil, under the impulse of the cart-whip, exchanged for cheerful, well recompensed industry, his bitter sufferings for peaceful enjoyment— his deep execration of his merciless tyrants, for respectful attachment to his humane and equitable masters; the sooner the government and the people of this country purify themselves from the guilt of supporting or tolerating a system of such monstrous injustice, productive of such complicated enormities-the sooner all this mass of impolicy, crime, and suffering, is got rid of, the better.

It behoves the advocates of this great cause, then, to take the most direct, the most speedy and effectual means of accomplishing their object. If any can be devised more direct, more speedy and effectual or less exceptionable in its operation than that which has been suggested, let it be immediately adopted; but let us no longer compromise the requisitions of humanity and justice for those of an artful and sordid policy; let there be no betraying of the cause by needless delay; delay is always dangerous; on this momentous question, (humanly speaking) it will be fatal, if much longer protracted.

HARRIET MARTINEAU-BENJAMIN GODWIN.

201

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

Labor is the product of mind as much as of body; and to secure that product, we must sway the mind by the natural means-by motives. Laboring against self-interest is what nobody ought to expect of white men--much less of slaves. Of course every man, woman, and child, would rather play for nothing than work for nothing. It is the mind which gives sight to the eye, and hearing to the ear, and strength to the limbs; and the mind cannot be purchased. Where a man is allowed the possession of himself, the purchaser of his labor is benefited by the vigor of his mind through the service of his limbs: where man is made the possession of another, the possessor loses at once and for ever all that is most valuable in that for which he has paid the price of crime. He becomes the owner of that which only differs from an idiot in being less easily drilled into habits, and more capable of effectual revenge.

Cattle are fixed capital, and so are slaves: but slaves differ from cattle on the one hand, in yielding (from internal opposition) a less return for their maintenance; and from free laborers on the other hand, in not being acted upon by the inducements which stimulate production as an effort of mind as well as of body. In all three cases the labor is purchased. In free laborers and cattle, all the faculties work together, and to advantage; in the slave they are opposed; and therefore he is, so far as the amount of labor is concerned, the least valuable of the three. The negroes can invent and improve-witness their ingenuity in their dwellings, and their skill in certain of their sports; but their masters will never possess their faculties, though they have purchased their limbs. Our true policy would be to divide the work of the slave between the ox and the hired laborer; we should get more out of the sinews of the one and the soul of the other, than the produce of double the number of slaves.-Demerara.

BENJAMIN GODWIN.

We perceive by this West-Indian view of slave happiness, the benevolence of those who oppose the impartation of knowledge to the negro mind. Let not a ray of light fall on the mental vision of a slave; let him know nothing of Christianity but a few outward and lifeless forms; make him as stupid and thoughtless as a beast, with no reflection on the past, no care for the future, no sense of wrongs, no idea of right, no care for his soul, no knowledge that he has one; and in this condition give him enough to eat and drink, and allow him the indulgence of his sensual appetites, and you have the model of a perfect slave, in the very heaven of his enjoyment!

But it is further said, that it is the interest of planters to use their slaves well; and, therefore, without any reference to a sense of

justice or to the feelings of humanity, the same principle which is sufficient to induce a man to take care of his cattle must operate in favor of the slave. That this species of selfishness may, in the absence of higher motives, do something for the poor slave, we readily admit; but that it is a sufficient guarantee for his comfort and general welfare we deny, for these reasons: first, that this motive where it exists, is not so uniform and certain in its operation as to secure its object; and in the next place, that there are cases where there is no room for its operation, and where it may even act in direct opposition to the welfare of the slave.

It is a man's interest, we know, to use his cattle well, and to take care that those who work them treat them properly; but, notwithstanding this, does not the brute creation groan under the cruelties of man? How many are injured through mere wantonness! how many through thoughtlessness! and how many a noble animal has been shamefully abused in a moment of passion! Besides, the owners of cattle are not always with them, and may even never see many of them; and men who have no interest in them may have the care and the working of them. Certainly, in the opinion of our legislature, this motive was not deemed sufficient, or why was an Act of Parliament passed to prevent cruelty to animals? And for similar reasons the interest of the slave-owner in his slaves is no sufficient security against ill treatment. Thoughtlessness, wantonness, inebriety, the ebullitions of anger, or that irritation which blinds the mind even to a man's own interests, may work misery to the slave-as in the case of the young gentleman, already mentioned, who shot a slave for sport; or of Mr. and Mrs. Moss, for instance, who by a series of cruelties, destroyed a female who might long have served them.

But the interest of the master does not always run parallel with the slave's welfare. It may happen that circumstances may be such, that a degree of labor which is destructive to the slave may enrich his owner; that the gains arising from an extra effort, during a certain state of the markets, may afford an ample indemnification for the loss of a few negroes, and the injury which the rest may receive.* When the cause to be tried is, the master's gain against the slave's comfort or life, there is great danger of a verdict against the slave: at least, as far as self-interest is concerned.-Lectures on Slavery.

E. S. ABDY.

It is a benefit to expose the lie of a sect, a party, a heresy, a faction-But most of all it is a benefit to expose the lie of a whole nation, and heedless of their boasts and self-gratulations, to bring forth into

* Many slaves are annually sacrificed upon the sugar and cotton plantations in our country. It is calculated by the southern economists, that it is cheaper to use up the slaves by requiring extra exertions from them in certain seasons, than to procure additional hands only for those seasons.-AM. ED.