Earl Fitzwilliam said, that if ever there was a time when we should revert to the sure practice of wisdom and moderation, it was the present. The principle of confiscation was the principle acted upon by the revolutionary tyrants of France. If plunder of property was looked forward to by domestic traitors, we should be cautious of setting the example. They could not be more gratified than by having the doctrine of confiscation acknowledged and established; from thence they would endeavour to draw a justification of their own views. Seeing it in this light, he could not assent to the present bill. Besides, he conceived it incapable of remedying the evil it was expected to cure. If the duke of Orleans was not to be deterred by such considerations, what weight could they be expected to have with sons of little comparative interest? The House divided: Contents, 8; Notcontents, 4. Protest against the Forfeiture for High Treason Bill.] The following Protest was entered on the Journals: "Dissentient, Slave Trade Limiting Bill.] July 5. On the order of the day for going into a committee on the Bill" to prohibit the trading for Slaves on the Coast of Africa, within certain Limits," The Duke of Clarence said: - My lords; When contemplating the vast importance of the present question, I feel concerned and perplexed that it should fall to my lot to open a discussion of such magnitude. The noble secretary of state has frequently thrown out the idea, that the delay originated with those peers who had taken a decided part against the bill. If professional knowledge and local exper-perience have extended the examination at the bar to a length that may, in the opinion of some noble lords, have been much more than what was satisfactory, I, for one, plead guilty. It was my wish, by the most minute research, to produce such a body of evidence as would convince your lordships of the rectitude and policy of those with whom I have the happiness to act. To persons so well acquainted with the history of this country as your lordships, it would be great presumption on my part to engage your attention, by a detailed account of the African trade carried on by the European nations; suffice it to say, that in 1442, the Portuguese began it. In 1471, the Portuguese built the first forts on the Gold Coast, and had 37 vessels in the trade. In 1502, the Spaniards commenced the same trade; and in 1517, Charles V allowed the Portuguese to furnish Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, with 4,000 slaves annually. That able navigator, Hawkins, in 1562, first sailed to Sierra Leone; and at that time the African trade was considered of such importance in this country, that queen Elizabeth, the ensuing year, sent Hawkins to trade there. He gives an account of their barbarity, and states, that the people were at that time mere slaves. He also mentions, that he found the French trading in that quarter of the world; so that even so early as the latter part of the sixteenth century, the different nations of Europe that had possessions in the West Indies, considered the slave trade as absolutely necessary for the existence of these colonies. It is said that queen Elizabeth gave the first charter, and I believe 1. "Because this statute, which it is by this bill proposed to make perpetual, appears to us to be unjust and impolitic, and contrary to the mild spirit of the laws of England-unjust, because it reduces to poverty and ruin children for the crimes of their ancestors; impolitic, because, instead of healing the divisions and animosity occasioned by civil war, it tends to make them continue. It appears to us to be contrary to the express declaration of Magna Charta, which says, that no person shall be disinherited or deprived of his franchises unless he be heard in his defence; for in, this case we disinherit persons who cannot be heard, and who have committed no crime. 2. "Because it does not appear that any urgent necessity calls for the immediate adoption of this law at this late period of the session, when it cannot receive the due consideration which a question of this sort deserves, and when the attendance is so thin in this House. 3. Because we have the satisfaction of thinking it is not necessary for the preservation of his majesty, whose throne cannot be more secure by severe penal statutes: we therefore will not agree to destroy the hope which sir William Blackstone exultingly says our posterity may entertain, that corruption of blood peace. Queen Anne, in her speech of June 6th, 1712, says, "the apprehension that Spain and the West Indies might be united to France, was the chief inducement to begin this war; and the effectual preventing of such a union was the principle I laid down at the commencement of this treaty. The division of the island of St. Christopher between us and the French, having been the cause of great inconveniency and damage to my subjects, I have demanded to have an absolute cession made to us of that whole island; and France agrees to this demand. But the part which we have borne in prosecuting this war entitling us to some distinction in the terms of peace, I have insisted and obtained, that the assiento or contract for furnishing the Spanish West Indies with negroes, shall be made with us for the term of thirty years, in the same manner as it has been enjoyed by the French for these ten years past." the fact. In 1618, James 1st granted a charter to sir Robert Rich and others. In 1631, Charles 1st granted another; but the troubles opened the trade till 1660. The dreadful events of the civil war, during the latter part of the reign of the unfortunate Charles, and the capture of the island of Jamaica, during the protectorate of Cromwell, are historical facts well known to your lordships. But even these calamities did not annihilate the trade. Upon the capture of Jamaica, Cromwell promised to send a supply of Africans; and highly requisite indeed it was, for the British settlers would not undertake to cultivate the lands in Jamaica, unless encouraged and protected by this promise of the usurper. To confirm the settlers in their opinion of that necessity, those of Barbadoes had, by fatal experience, ascertained the impossibility of carrying on labour in tropical climates by whites. In 1662, Charles 2nd granted a new charter to the African Company; his brother, the duke of York, was at the head of it. In 1665, the company's factors settled at Jamaica. In 1672, another African company was formed, the king himself, the duke of York, prince Rupert, with others, appeared as the patrons, and many of high rank, amongst whom was the celebrated Mr. Locke. In 1688, the revolution put an end to the company, because all monopolies were contrary to its spirit and principles. In 1698, the first assiento contract was entered into with the Spaniards, and encouraged by king William. In the same year the famous act was passed, " for the protection of that trade, and for the advantage of England, and the preservation of its colonies." This act is considered by the West Indians as their birth-right. Now, my lords, who were the men that passed this famous act? They were those illustrious characters, who secured to this country the happiness of the constitution under which we now live. During the latter part of king William, and the whole of the reign of queen Anne, the parliament from 1707 to 1713, are records to support the trade. Your lordships may recollect the war of succession, carried on in the reign of queen Anne, and that the treaty of Utrecht was the consequence of that war. The commissioners appointed by her majesty for the peace, were the earl of Strafford and the bishop of Winchester. In their instructions, the assiento contract was one of the articles of After these pertinent quotations, I need scarcely farther impress on the minds of ny auditors the vast importance of the West India settlements. The treaty to supply the Spaniards with 4,800 negroes annually, lasted till 1750. Upon the peace of 1763, the assiento contract was not renewed; and Mr. Burke wrote in the strongest manner against the impolicy of the peace of 1763, because this country not only neglected to supply the Spaniards, but even the French, with negroes; and in 1765, upon the change of administration, he in his first free-port act, and which has continued to be adopted by the government down to the present moment. It may, be thought singular, that in the latter part of Mr. Burke's life, he should have voted for an abolition of the slave trade; but in his character, like that of many other great men, there are several shades irreconcileable with the prominent features. I perfectly well remember, that when I thought it my duty as a member of parliament to take a decided part in this important business, I had occasion to mention to the right hon. gentleman his change of sentiments. He acknowledged that my observation was just, as referring to his former conduct; and emphatically concluded-"my own words must rise up in judgment against me." I recur to this great and enlightened authority for the rectitude of my position; and if in the vale of life he chose to deviate from his previous principles, sanctioned by years and fortified by experience, I have yet to learn the cause of his conversion. But we shall, my lords, take a more minute survey. At the very moment in which I address your lordships, the state of the African trade is thus: 183 vessels, measuring 49,065 tons, navigated by 6,276 seamen. Having given this account of the African trade, and brought it down to the present moment, I beg leave to call your attention to the Sierra Leone company, who are the petitioners in favour of this bill. Mr. Stevens has informed us, that the object of the company was not so much that of commerce, as a total and complete abolition. While I bestow encomiums on the power of the honesty of his avowal, I implore your particular attention, to the interest of the West-India merchants and planters, who adventure in colonial commerce, on the solemn pledge and honour of the British government. From what I have submitted to your lordships, it is evident that the traffic in slaves is congenial with the manners, laws, and customs of Africa. No wonder, therefore, that the chiefs, princes, and the different native powers of that country, should set their faces against the new settlers at Sierra Leone. Mr. Dawes and Mr. Macaulay, the only two evidences produced at the bar in favour of the bill, are men of the most accommodating memories. Mr. Dawes, does not recollect what both these gentlemen chose to call the Nova Scotia blacks. These blacks were slaves in the American colonies, and promised their freedom by royal proclamation, upon condition of serving the whole war with the army. On the peace of 1783, these negroes were carried to the remaining part of the British settlements in North America, where the government of this country, with great liberality, gave them tools and utensils for the erection of houses and the cultivation of their lands; in addition to these cherishing acts, they were also supplied the first year with twelve months provisions; the second year with a sufficiency for six months; and the third year with what would answer for three months consumption. But in this instance, the fostering hand of government was stretched out in vain; these negroes, after the wanton consumption of the provisions so humanely bestowed upon them, sold their utensils of husbandry, relapsed into a state of idle ness and dissipation, and by various stratagems arrived in this country, where they were taken up by the Sierra Leone company, to be transplanted as a colony on their part of the African shore. Can your lordships be surprised, that with all the logical arguments of Mr. Stevens, the learned counsel should be obliged to admit, that the imports from the establishment of the colony of Africa is 4,000l. per annum, while their expense is 10,000l. Your lordships will observe, that the Sierra Leone company set out with a capital of 250,000l.; that Mr. Stevens has laboured to prove, that at present they are worth 50,000l., though I have the strongest reason to believe that they are not worth more than 30,000l. By Mr. Stevens's own account, there is an annual deficit of 6,000l. a year; so that these great and flourishing colonists, as they wish to be thought, must shortly dissolve partnership, or continue trade at an immense loss. Considering the manner in which this investigation has been carried on by those noble peers who support the bill, I am confident that if Mr. Mungo Park had been favourable to the abolition of this trade, he would have been brought to your lordships bar. I am, therefore, not a little surprised to hear Mr. Stevens quote certain pages in Mr. Park's very excellent work. And nothing could so completely refute Mr. Stevens's different quotations, as the simple, but elegant and forcible passage, quoted from the same author, by my valuable and learned friend, Mr. Law. The interior of Africa is at best but very little known to Europeans; nor indeed can it be a matter of astonishment, when, with one exception or two, the only occasions on which that coast has been visited by Europeans, were for the purposes of traffic; and it is well known, that on such adventures, the whole time of the merchants and masters of vessels is occupied by objects of commerce. But it is to me highly gratifying, that the undigested and simple account, presented at your lordships bar by the African merchants, agrees with the statement of Mr. Park, relative to the intended prohibited, district. It is therefore but fair to presume, that had Mr. Park, or any other impartial traveller, visited the other parts of the slave coasts, the evidence produced upon the general investigation by the African merchants, would have proved equally true and correct. For the sake of humanity, therefore, my lords, this trade ought to continue; for how many millions of lives have been saved in the kingdom of | tures bartered for a ton of ivory. It is a Dahomy; and how much bloodshed has very specious, though a very fallacious been spared amongst the wretched and argument, in support of the idea intended miserable victims in that quarter of the to be impressed upon your lordships globe, thus rescued from the knife!-Mr. minds by the friends of the bill, that the Macaulay has given a very minute account slave trade is not so materially an object on the subject of kidnapping, in which he with the natives, as that of other produc does not dare to insinuate that the British tions in Africa. Mr. Macaulay and Mr. trader is indirectly concerned. As for Dawes are obliged to admit, that the wars being the cause of slavery, it is ivory brought down to the markets is proved by Mr. Park, that whether upon suspended upon the backs of the slaves the coast or the interior, so far from that for sale, and, consequently, that it cannot being favourable to the slave trade, in be brought down from the interior in any either situation the trade for the time is other manner: from my own experience, utterly suspended! therefore it is not the amongst the Indians in North America, interest of the British trader to encourage the use of any beast to carry burthens is wars amongst the natives. equally as unknown as in Africa. The reason I take to be the same with the Indians as with the Africans, namely, that the conveyance is water-carriage; and that the Africans, as well as the North American Indians, have only a few carrying places between their great water communication: therefore, it is evident that these goods, bartered in lieu of ivory, are only carried short distances by men, and transported chiefly by water. Far be it from me, my lords, to draw any insidious inference from the evidence of Mr. Macaulay or Mr. Dawes, relative to grumattees, or domestic slaves employed by the colony, notwithstanding that the charter does not permit such a conduct, directly or indirectly; but slavery is so congenial to the laws, habits, and customs of Africa, that even Mr. Park was not able to distinguish the freeman from the In all climates, where food is easily obtained, cultivation is little attended to. Mr. Park bears strong testimony to that fact. For having been in the East Indies, on mentioning to the inhabitants of the interior of Africa the advantageous uses to which the elephant and bullock are applied on that continent, the natives laughed at him, and observed, that the only beast of burthen was the ass. Whenever a famine arises in any country where cultivation is little known, the consequences must indeed be fatal: and during dearths, Mr. Park mentions several instances of the natives selling themselves for food. As for crimes being the cause of slavery in Africa, it is, my lords, even no more than the law of this country; for what are the convicts that are annually transported to Botany Bay but slaves? The last cause of slavery in Africa, is the crime of witch-slave. craft. Now, though this country has been for many centuries under the benign influence of christianity, at the close of the last century, people were tried and convicted of witchcraft. Can your lord ships, therefore, be astonished, that the wild, ferocious, and ignorant African, should frequently consider persons guilty of a communication with evil spirits? -I have heard that the staple commodity of Africa is slaves. Every other article of commerce, even including ivory, is very small; and many of these articles, it has been satisfactorily proved at your lordships bar, have lain upon the hands of the merchants of this country at a considerable loss. It has been stated by Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Dawes, that the grumattees, or domestic slaves, who attend the caravans of slaves down to the coast, must be in great numbers, in order to carry back the different British manufac If I do not wish to make any wrong impression on the minds of your lordships; but a man less suspicious than myself might have good grounds for insinuating, that some members of the Sierra Leone company view, with an envious eye, the advantageous traffic now carried on between the African and British trader. the grand object of the company, like every other commercial association, be gain rather than loss, I have a right to think that some of the members lament their exclusion from the slave trade. If there be no cause for this suspicion, why molest and annoy the British trader in the exercise of that traffic, sanctioned for such a long series of years by custom and by parliament? Surveying the subject in this view, I have a right to maintain, that the British legislature, on the passing of the act for incorporating and establishing the Sierra Leone company, renewed and confirmed all their former acts in favour of the slave trade. So tender was the parliament of 1790, about the acknowledged right of the British trader to Africa, that fearful of affecting the interest of the West India merchants and planters, by the monopoly or prohibition of the slave trade, they cautiously introduced in the bill, for the establishment of the Sierra Leone company, the following protecting clause: "Provided also, that it shall not be lawful for the said company, either directly or indirectly, to deal or traffic in the buying or selling of slaves, or in any matter whatsoever to have, hold, appropriate, or employ any person or persons, in a state of slavery, in the service of the said company." In another part of the same law is a clause, expressly" securing the British merchants to Africa from the operations of the act." What am I to conclude from this protecting clause, but that the wisdom of parliament, penetrating into futurity, had resolved that all the former acts of the legislature should be respected and confirmed beyond the possibility of a doubt? I confess my astonishment at the presumption of the men calling themselves the Sierra Leone company. They audaciously appear at your lordships bar, and arrogantly insinuate, that you are incapable of deciding on the merits or demerits of an important case of legislation. On the ill-founded plea of humanity, they desire you to relinquish your colonial wealth, the sinews of our commercial existence, and sink into insignificance and contempt in the eyes of Europe and the world, by the adoption of their new system of philosophy and humanity. They call upon you to disfranchise the West India merchants and planters, to depopulate Liverpool, and to deprive some thousands of industrious and respectable men of their birth-right as British subjects. It has been falsely asserted, that European nations only carry on the slave trade with Africa. Even Mr. Stevens allows, that blacks are carried into Turkey, for the purposes of state, of luxury, and even for the seraglios of Mahometans. As to the fact, I will admit that gentleman to be right; but he is erroneous as to numbers; for, my lords, the numbers annually transported by the Eastern channels to Turkey, to Egypt, to Russia, and to the East Indies, are immense. I will not shock your lordships minds by the horrid cruelties and barbarities which the miserable and devoted wretches experience for the gratification of their Mahomedan and Eastern masters. And here I have a right to draw a contrast between the humanity of the West India traders, and the atrocity of those now described. In one case, we find the milk of human kindness: in the other, acts of turpitude and violence which outrage the sensibilities of nature, and mortify and disgrace mankind. The Portuguese transport 40,000 annually to the Brazils. The French, previous to the revolution, supplied their own islands with negroes from the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese and native merchants in India, carry on at this time the slave trade through Bombay. Since that period, a tax has been laid upon the importation of negroes into that place by British merchants. I dare say, the East India company were actuated by the most laudable motives, when they imposed a duty upon the importation of negroes in British bottoms; but with all deference to that respectable association, I think it a matter of great national importance, seriously to consider, how far it is prudent to encourage not only the Portuguese, but even the native powers, in efforts for the improvement of navigation, and the consequent increase of seamen, in seas so reremote from our home possessions. And here, my lords, I wish to remark, that this observation arises from pure motives of patriotism, as I am fearful of impolicy and danger from such rival powers, when usurping and armed with the authority of the moment.-Permit me, my lords, to illustrate these observations by some additional truths. It is a fact, well known to every British officer of the army and navy who has been at Gibraltar, that the emperor of Morocco has a very large black army within his dominions, the number of which he regularly maintains by sending down armed moors to bring away, by force, the negroes from their wives and families, without the advantage of barter, and without the most distant respect to the customs and manners of the Africans. I shall conclude my remarks on Africa with the memorable words of Mr. Park: "Such are the general outlines of that system of slavery which prevails in Africa; and it is evident from its nature and extent, that it is a system of no modern date. It probably had its origin with remote ages of antiquity before the Mahomedans explored a path across the deşert. How |