can be calculated; and I have no doubt it could be shown that England would be no loser by the achievement of so great and good a deed. the Member for Gateshead may think he honour upon this country; we shall, at would have taken a more prudent and po- least, enjoy all the honour that belongs to litic course by not making the speech which having succeeded in a great object; and, we heard this evening. I confess I did looking back through a long course of not think it likely that we should, this years-though many years form but a evening, have heard from the hon. Mem- short period in the history of a nation— ber for Gateshead a statement in the House looking back through a long course of which might have been much better made years, we shall find nothing in history to in the Committee. I do, however, hope show that any nation had accomplished a that when the matter does come there to more honourable purpose. If nations be be considered, that it will be considered responsible, as individuals are, for the chacalmly and dispassionately, and that me-racter of their actions-if they are bound thods by which a sound policy can be car- to avoid evil and pursue good-then I ried out will not prove so insufficient as should say, as a mere matter of arithmetsome hon. Members have seemed to sup-ical computation, that the profit and loss pose. If any other methods than those on which we have hitherto acted be suggested, I can assure the hon. Member that I shall receive that information with the greatest satisfaction. Still there is one result which LORD GEORGE BENTINCK: If my I hope will not ensue from the inquiries of hon. Friend calls the noble Lord the Secrethe Committee. I do hope that no Com-tary for Foreign Affairs as a witness, he mittee will recommend a course the reverse will come to a different conclusion from of that which we have been pursuing. I hope that no one will be found to say that we ought to retrace our steps. This evening we have been told that this country was the first to engage in the slave trade. That is quite true; it is also true that we have been the most guilty, both in originating and encouraging the slave trade; but let it not be forgotten that we were the first to retrace our steps, and to make atonement for that enormous crime. All the great statesmen who have ever been eminent in this country-all the political parties that have ever been intrusted with the powers of the Crown, have laboured by treaties, by measures, and by every method which human ingenuity could devise, to induce other nations to co-operate with England in the attempt to extinguish this cruel and detestable traffic. To a great extent we have persuaded France to join us in discouraging the slave trade; we have also not been unsuccessful in our attempts to induce the Government of the Netherlands to discontinue the slave trade in the Dutch colonies; I trust, too, that we have succeeded in reducing the amount of this trade carried on in the Spanish colonies; and that we have been still more successful with the Portuguese authorities. Almost the only country that remains is Brazil; there, certainly, the trade continues. Brazil is the main offender, and I fully believe that if we only persevere in the course which we have been pursuing, we shall eventually be successful. I do not hesitate to say, that the result will reflect immortal that which he has already arrived at from the statement which my hon. Friend has made to-night, because I think if my hon. Friend examines my noble Friend opposite, he may tell him that on an average of the last two years, about 20,000 slaves have been imported into the island of Cuba; and he will be obliged to tell him that whilst we have had squadrons on the coast of Africa, they have only succeeded, upon the average, in capturing from 2,800 to 3,000 slaves a year, for the last six years, and that in the year just past no less than 60,000 slaves were imported into Brazil. Now I think that when the House perceives that with an expenditure of 700,000l. a year at the least, we have only effected the capture of one slave in twenty imported from the coast of Africa, the House will come to the conclusion, and the country will come to the conclusion, that our humanity, such as it is, is very dearly bought. My noble Friend, if he were called as a witness, would admit that 60,000 slaves have been imported within the last three years. But I think if the Committee examine those witnesses connected with the slave trade between the coast of Africa and Brazil, and who are well acquainted with what is passing now in Brazil, they will have a darker picture still of the character of the slave trade. They will hear through those witnesses, not that 60,000, but a hundred thousand negroes had been exported in the course of last year from the coast of Africa to Brazil. The horrors that will be described to them are past all the noble Lord. The hon. Member for Gateshead had tried to enlist their sympathies by alluding to the mortality on the coast of Africa. Why, he might have done the same with respect to Hong-Kong, Chusan, and Antigua. He doubted the sincerity of America with respect to the suppression of the slave trade, for he found that most of the vessels engaged in the slave trade were built in the United States. Since he had been a Member of this House, now some fifteen years, he had directed himself to improve the condition of the officers and seamen whose duty called them to the coast of Africa. In former days they were cheated of their prize-money, and the Government participated in the robberies. ["Order!"] Well, then, the Government participated in the abstraction of the money from them. The Secretary of State had most handsomely supported him against the Government and the Chancel imagination. They will be told that the great want of water constitutes the greater part of the horrors on board a slaver. The slaves are considered to be well off if they get one drink a day. But if they are becalmed, as they are very apt to be in the neighbourhood of the coast of Africa, the voyage is so prolonged that the wretched slaves, crowded sometimes as many as 450 in a vessel of less than one hundred tons -the slaves being packed in shelves, as we are told, three deep, and between decks not six feet apart-get only one drink of water in three days. This is the picture that will be shown. Out of 72,000 slaves, it is supposed that not more than sixty or sixty-five thousand lived to be entered for sale. The Committee will hear in the evidence of one witness, speaking of a vessel which he had an interest in himself, that out of 140 slaves of one cargo about 10 only lived to be sold. Now I think, such being the state of the case, and hav-lor of the Exchequer of the day in doing ing heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford to-night how greatly the horrors of the slave trade have been aggravated by our interference, the House will be unanimous in agreeing with him in his recommendation; and if it should be shown, however good our intention, that the practical result is that the horrors of the slave trade are greatly aggravated, and that the interests of humanity are very much prejudiced instead of being assisted by the blockade on the coast of Africa, the country will not be contented any longer to waste an annual expenditure of between 600,000l. and 1,000,000l., and the lives of some of our bravest seamen, in order to aggravate the horrors of the slave trade. As far as the practical result goes, there is little chance of success by our interference, as by the evidence of my hon. Friend only 1,000 negroes out of 20,000 are saved; and according to other evidence, for every 1,000 slaves rescued from slavery, 35,000 were subjected to the aggravated horrors of the slave trade. I could not permit the observations of my noble Friend to pass without this comment upon it. CAPTAIN PECHELL said, that the obstacles and difficulties which had been thrown in the way of the noble Lord had been innumerable. It was only within a few years that the cruisers on the coast of Africa had been in a position to carry out the wishes of that House. When he recollected that in 1838 it was proposed to send out more cruisers, he was surprised that no one had risen on this occasion to support away with this injustice, and at last he had succeeded in recovering the payment of five per cent, which was formerly deducted from all prize-money. The squadron on the coast, in spite of the Act of 1845, and in spite of French co-operation, which crippled them in all their exertions, were performing wonders, and doing honour to themselves and to the service. LORD C. HAMILTON was surprised to hear any one who had paid attention to the subject for such a length of time as the hon. Member, attribute all the evils he had enumerated to the operation of the Act of 1845, when he did not once allude to that of 1846. The omission appeared very remarkable; but as the hon. and gallant Member had referred to the former Act in this spirit, he might be excused if he turned to the report of the Commissioners at the Havannah in 1846, wherein they stated that no vessel had arrived there from any slave port during the month previous to their despatch, and that nothing had transpired to occasion any belief that slaves had been imported. The Commissioners of Loango, in the same year, informed the Government that the slave trade there was quite destroyed. The House would observe, that these statements were made in 1846, so that the Act of 1845, which had then been in operation for a year, could not have had the effect ascribed to it by the hon. and gallant Member. How then could he, or any one, attribute to the treaty with the French, in 1845, any of those difficulties with which the emanci constant support he received from the noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty, and from the noble Lord at the head of Foreign Affairs. With both of them his relative was in constant communication, and from them had received the warmest approval. They put the kindest construction on his acts, and adopted any suggestions he made. Having no political relation with the Government, he was the more ready to avail himself of that opportunity to return his acknowledgments. With respect to the question itself, he hoped means would be found to mitigate the many evils to which the victims of the slave trade were necessarily exposed. pators of the slaves had to struggle, and which threatened to render futile all the magnificent sacrifices made by this country in the cause of freedom? The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), at the conclusion of his most manly address, with that spirit which had always animated the British statesman, declared that he would not diminish the number of our cruisers employed in the suppression of that dreadful trade. In that sentiment he thoroughly agreed with the noble Lord; but he wished that the course of previous legislation on the subject would enable him, while complimenting the officers and men on their zeal and activity, to allude with equal force to the success of the example set by this country MR. GLADSTONE said, that, as the in the emancipation of her colonies. He noble Lord had stated that the number of feared, however, that in spite of the im- slaves imported into Cuba for the last two mense sacrifices we had made, and of the years did not exceed 2,000 annually, he length of time we had devoted to legislat-wished to ask him to what period his reing on the subject, we were regarded, not ports reached; and, if it were from the as a shining light to lead other nations latest accounts he derived his informainto the track of humanity, but rather as tion? a beacon to warn them lest they should suffer the shipwreck of those colonial interests which we had ruined under the influence of of high-sounding theories. LORD HOTHAM could not but express the gratification he felt at finding that however the House might be disposed to condemn the system itself, or to hold contending opinions on the merits of our legislation, there was no hon. Gentleman who found fault with the mode in which it was carried out, or attempted to find fault with the officers and men employed on the service. He had been fearful, considering how much had been said, more particularly by one hon. Member opposite, of the idleness of Her Majesty's ships, that it might be supposed by the House that the officers and men of the ships on the west coast of Africa were liable to the same imputation; but as no one, notwithstanding this language, seemed to be of this opinion, he would not take up the time of the House by giving any explanation of the numerous and arduous duties which fell to the officers and men on that station. Indeed, no one could be well aware how arduous, difficult, and responsible they were. As regarded the task which devolved upon his relative who had the honour to fill a high trust on that station, it would be difficult to give any idea of its harassing nature to both body and mind; but he could not sit down without stating that his labour and responsibility, great as they were, had been and were mitigated by the VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, in reply. said that the accounts to which he referred were from the end of the year 1845 to the end of 1847, and that only 2,000 slaves were known to have been imported in 1846. He did not recollect the precise date of the latest accounts in 1847; but they came down to a later period of the year, and it was supposed that the same number of slaves had been imported into Cuba as in the preceding year. MR. WARD hoped the House would allow him to corroborate the statement of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Hotham) as to the sense entertained by the Government of the distinguished services of his gallant relative (Sir C. Hotham), in carrying out the responsible duty confided to his charge. In everything connected with the discipline of the squadron, which had been before his arrival in rather a lax state, he had introduced changes of the most valuable and wholesome character; and in consequence of his sanitary regulations the health of the men had been fully restored during the last two years, so that the squadron was comparatively free of those fevers which had been so fatal before we served our apprenticeship in the service of the coast. In fact there never was a squadron which had been brought to a higher state of discipline, or the health of which had suffered less from the viccissitudes of climate. The statements which had been given forth as to the fevers and ill health necessarily consequent on long service on the coast, had been extremely exaggerated; | PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Sir R. H. Inglis, from Ash and the last returns would prove that ser- MR. HUTT replied: He did not think as the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) appeared to imagine, 600,000l. or 700,000l. was a large sum for a great country like this to spend in such a noble object as the suppression of slavery; but he did think it was too great a sum to be lavished and squandered away without any return. Motion agreed to. ton-under-Line, for Increasing the Number of Bishops.By several Hon. Members, from various places, for and against the Jewish Disabilities, the Roman Catholic Charitable Trusts, and the Roman Catholic Relief Bills.-By Mr. Jackson, and Mr. W. Patten, from Stafford and Lan caster, for Repeal of Duty on Attorneys' Certificates.By Mr. Fordyce, from Aberdeen, for Inquiry respecting the Excise Laws.-By Mr. Bolling, from Bolton, for Repeal of the Window Duty.-By Mr. A. Hastie, from Glasgow, for Repeal or Alteration of the Bank Charter Act, and Banking (Scotland) Act.-By Viscount Melgund, from several Odd Fellows' Societies, for Extension of the Benefit Societies Act.-By Mr. G. Hamilton, from Exeter, for Relief of Distress (Ireland); and from several places in Ireland, for Encouragement to Schools in Connexion with the Church Education Society.-By Mr. Foley, from Stourbridge, for Sanitary Regulations.-By Mr. Hardcastle, from Essex, for Retrenchment of Naval and Military Expenditure.-By Mr. Rufford, from Worcester, for Alteration of Poor Law.-By Sir G. Clerk, from Kircudbright, for Ameliorating the Condition of Schoolmasters (Scotland). TREATY OF ADRIANOPLE - CHARGES MR. ANSTEY: Sir, I do not regret the time which has elapsed since I last brought this subject before the House, because it has afforded the House the opportunity of hearing from the mouths of Her Majesty's Ministers a financial statement which I am sure has justified all the apprehensions and confirmed all the judgments which I expressed on that occasion. The House must feel that the position of this country is dangerous indeed. We are told that it now depends no longer upon opinion abroad, but upon our own armaments, whether or not that greatest of all evils, foreign invasion, and war at home, shall be averted. Sir, I agree with much that has been said by those who object to any present increase of our military defences; and yet I do agree that those defences demand all our attention. It is not by any such increase-it is not by any vote of money, supplementary or otherwise, for the military or the naval establishments of this country that its character can be maintained effectually abroad, and its peace preserved effectually at home. Sir, it is by a wise and honest administration of affairs at home on the part of Ministers, and a vigilant control of Ministers on the part of this House, that honour is to be preserved abroad, and peace House adjourned at a quarter past to be had at home. It is because we have Twelve o'clock. lost the one, that the other is now endangered. I shall satisfy the House before I have done, that for the lamentable and deplorable state to which we are at this moment reduced, there is but one person in this realm at this moment who is primarily responsible, and that those who share with him that responsibility, share it only in the | hend in one notice so many matters and of secondary degree. On the head of the so varied a character. It is because there noble Lord the Secretary of State for Fo- is a real and necessary connexion amongst reign Affairs, in whose hands the adminis- all the passages of the policy pursued by tration of those affairs continues, I charge the noble Lord opposite-insomuch that the existence of our present defenceless to understand any one passage, it is absoand exposed condition, and those appre- lutely essential to know and comprehend hended consequences at which his noble the rest. On this point the right hon. Colleague (Lord John Russell) hinted ob- Baronet the Member for Tamworth shall scurely, rather than stated them to the be my authority. That right hon. BaroHouse. But the House has had the op- net informed the House on the 1st of portunity of hearing from the lips of the March, 1843, that because there was this noble Lord himself his opinion of the duty intimate connection between all these subof a Minister of the Crown with respect jects, he thought that the inquiry which to the course to be taken on the sudden was then moved for by Mr. Roebuck, and arming of a foreign Power. It is one of which had been previously demanded by the charges which I shall make against the right hon. Member for Inverness-shire, the noble Lord; it is one of the heads and by the hon. Member for Buckinghamupon which I pray the House to require shire, that that inquiry ought to be refused, the fullest information, with a view to that because if it were granted it would necescharge, that in the year 1835 the noble sitate an inquiry into other subjects appaLord allowed the Czar of Russia to equip rently the most remote from the matter in and maintain in the Baltic, not a squadron hand. "Where," said the right hon. merely but a fleet-and that too, a fleet Baronetnot of twenty-one ships of the line, but of twenty-eight ships of the line, and a large additional number of frigates and other vessels of smaller size; and that that fleet has been maintained for service more or less from that period down to the present time. Now, Sir, with reference to that fleet, I call the attention of the House to a very remarkable circumstance in the late debate. It is, that the noble Lord opposite, in expressing his apprehensions and his hopes with respect to the supposed danger of an invasion from abroad, was exceeding careful to designate only one Power as the one to be dreaded; that is to say, our own natural ally, France; that in doing so, he took very good care, as did his Colleagues, to avoid even the most indirect and casual allusion to the only formidable enemy, the natural enemy, of England-the Power which has ever maintained and is still maintaining a hostile attitude towards usI mean the Czar of Russia. Sir, the silence of the noble Lord with respect to Russia and to her Baltic fleet, is to my mind as significant as his plainness of speech with respect to France. Sir, I shall not trouble the House with any repetition of the preliminary statements to which I called its attention on a former occasion. [Ironical cheers.] I assure the House, and I do so with the greatest sincerity, that I shall address myself as briefly as I can to the subject-matter of this Motion. It is not my fault that I am obliged to compre "Where are the limits to such inquiries? Shall I inquire as to the policy of the Syrian war; as to the effect of our bombardment of St. Jean d'Acre; and as to the effect our conduct on that occasion had upon our relations hon. Member for Montrose says truly enough that with France? [Mr. HUME: You ought.] Yes, the if I grant one Committee, I ought to grant another. Because, observe, if on every point of questionable policy this House is to have a Commission of Inquiry, another Member will come down and say, that prejudicial to our interests, and that we must have a Committee of Inquiry on that subject. Having granted the first two Committees, I could not refuse the third; and of consequence I must hand over the Executive Government to the Committee of the House of Commons."* the arrangements under the American Treaty are Such, Sir, was the judgment of the right hon. Baronet in 1843, as to the unity and consistency of the policy pursued by the noble Lord. Now, Sir, I admit that the papers for which I am about to move do refer to the entire policy of the noble Lord; they do range over a period commencing with that unfortunate year in which the noble Lord first accepted the office which he now holds down to the present time; and, Sir, that any hon. Member of this House should be under the necessity at this time of day of asking for information on these points is a great misfortune certainly, but not chargeable upon the Member so circumstanced. I would rather say that it is chargeable upon preceding Parliaments in that they did not Hansard, Vol, lxvii. (Third Series), p. 187. |