having presented a Petition from a Chelsea pensioner, named John Hughes, complaining of the withdrawal of his pension, proceeded to call the attention of the members of his Majesty's Government present to the existing distress in Ireland. That distress had reached, he said, a dreadful extent in the western and south-western counties. In the county Tipperary, a mendicity institution had been established, and on the 2nd instant there were upwards of 1,000 persons dependent on it for relief. The distress in question had not arisen from a scarcity of provisions, but from a want of employment, and that employment, he contended, might be afforded by reclamating the waste lands in Ireland, of which there existed 4,500,000 acres, and which would give a profitable return of four per cent on the capital expended on their cultivation. Absenteeism was one of the great causes of the distress in Ireland. He had before him accounts of three Coroner's inquests, held upon persons who had absolutely died of starvation in Ireland. He hoped that some measure for the relief of the poor of Ireland would be brought in the next Session.

argued, that an extensive system of emigration was the proper remedy for the evil with which Ireland was now afflicted. If it were true that the cultivation of the waste lands in Ireland would remedy the evils under which its population laboured, and at the same time afford the profitable return that had been stated, then the gentry of Ireland were the most disgraced race in the world, for not adopting such a measure; but such was not the case. An extensive and properly-conducted system of emigration was the real and efficient cure for the evil, and the only right mode of rescuing the population of Ireland from its present state of want and misery. He trusted that measure would be taken up by some person better able than he was to interest Parliament in all its details. It was, in his opinion, the most important subject which could come under its consideration, and neglecting it was one great cause of the continued poverty and misery of the people, both in England and Ireland. For his own part he must say, that he had not found that support in bringing the question forward on which he thought he might fairly reckon, and though he did not anticipate that it would be in his power to again call the attention of that House to the subject, he should not cease out of doors to promote emigration, as the only effectual means of relieving the general distress.

corroborated the statement of his hon. friend, the member for Dublin, as to the distress which existed in Ireland. He explained, that the difficulty as to the cultivation of the waste lands arose from no legislative measure having been passed for the purpose. There was no doubt that they would give a profitable return.

said, that at the commencement of the Session, in suggesting the measures of relief applicable to the state of the country, he did not mention emigration, because measures were then required calculated to afford immediate and not gradual relief. They had obtained measures of that description since in the shape of a great remission of taxation, and he thought the subject of emigration was one well worthy of consideration hereafter.

wished to know from the right hon. Baronet, whether it was the intention of his Majesty's Government to afford any assistance, in the shape of a grant of public money, towards relieving the distressed and starving population of Ireland?

trusted that when he stated it was not the intention of his Majesty's Government to propose to Parliament any such measure for the relief of the distress in Ireland, it would not be supposed that though it had come to such a determination, it did not at the same time feel the deepest sympathy for the sufferings of the people of Ireland. That distress he hoped would be mitigated, if not entirely removed, by the further progress of the potatoe harvest, and of the harvest generally. The voting of public money for the relief of that distress, by forcing employment when there was not naturally a demand for it, might afford temporary relief, but it would be sure to be followed hereafter by an aggravation of the evil in every respect, and one of its immediate effects would be, to paralyze at once those efforts of private charity and benevolence, from which sources alone such relief should properly be derived. He did hope that the landed proprietors of Ireland would feel it incumbent upon them to relieve that distress at present. Measures were now under the consideration of Parliament, with a view to afford a permanent remedy for the evils under which the poor of Ireland laboured; but the existing temporary distress would be best remedied by the charitable exertions of the gentry and landed proprietors of that country. From his experience in Ireland he never saw any permanent good effected by votes of public money for forcing employment there—it was only postponing the evil day, which came at a later period with additional aggravation. He hoped that, whatever might be the inclination of his right hon. friend, some body of constituents would be found who would compel him to continue to exercise his talents and abilities for the good of his country. He thought, however, that his right hon. friend, in arguing the question of emigration, had assumed that there was now no relief administered to the distress of the country through that channel. Now he (Sir R. Peel) contended, that there was always a stream of emigration flowing towards our colonies. He hoped that that stream would flow quicker than at present, but, even now he was obliged to confess that it had set in too rapidly for some particular colonies. There had been a new colony recently established at Swan River. He had read over the report, and a very able report it was, that had been sent home within a few days by the Governor, Captain Stirling. In that report Captain Stirling state that the new colony was suffering great inconvenience from the number of emigrants who were flocking to it. Persons, he said, came to the Swan River without having the mental enterprise or the physical strength that was requisite to triumph over the difficulties which beset every infant settlement. He therefore added, "Instead of encouraging emigration to this quarter, discourage it, for the parties who come out are only likely to find the distress aggravated under which they are suffering at home." He could assure his right hon. friend, that Government had by no means neglected the subject of emigration. A gentleman of great ability and high character, who had considerable experience in the settlement of new countries, was now travelling, by direction of the Government, through our North American colonies. He was to draw up an account of their present condition, their present resources, and their future capabilities, and he trusted that, when that gentleman's report should be received, there would be an opportunity of carrying into effect, to some extent at least, the projects of his right hon. friend. Some previous arrangement must be made with the colonies to which the stream of emigration was to be directed, otherwise it would be productive of mischief both to the party emigrating, and to the country to which he emigrated. For his own part, he frankly confessed that he saw a better chance of relieving the distress of Ireland, by arranging a scheme of emigration from that country with some of our colonies, than by setting its surplus population to cultivate its waste lands.

wished to know whether the Government would have any objection to let the report of Captain Stirling, from Swan River, be published.

said, that he had no objection to allow the greater part of that report to be published; on the contrary, he thought that the publication of it would have the tendency to disabuse the over-sanguine expectations which the country seemed inclined to entertain at present respecting that colony.

Sir; In rising to bring before the House a subject more momentous, in the eyes both of this country and of the world, than any that has occupied our attention during the whole of a long pro- tracted Session, I feel that I owe some apology for entering upon it at so late a day. I know, too, that I am blamed in many quarters, for not postponing it till another season. But the apology which I am about to offer is, not for bringing it forward to-day, but for having delayed it so long; and I feel that I should be indeed without excuse, that I should stand convicted of a signal breach of public duty, to the character and the honour of the House, to the feelings and principles of the people, nay, to the universal feelings of mankind at large, by whatever names they may be called, into whatever families distributed, if I had not an ample defence to urge for having so long put off the agitation of this great question. Occurrences which happened at the commencement of the Session, and the matters of pressing interest which attended its close, must plead my justification. Early in the year I had hoped that the Government would redeem the pledges which they gave me last Session and which then stayed my steps. I had expected to have the satisfaction of seconding a measure propounded by the Ministers of the Crown for improving the administration of justice in the Colonies, and especially for amending the law which excludes the testimony of slaves. That those expectations have been frustrated, that those pledges remain unredeemed, I may lament, but in fairness I am bound to say I cannot charge as matter of severe blame on the Government, because I know the obstacles of a financial nature, which have stood in the way of intentions sincerely entertained to provide a pure and efficient system of judicature for the West-India Islands. Until I saw that no such reforms could be looked for in that high quarter, I was precluded from undertaking the subject, lest my efforts might mar the work in hands far more able to execute it. This is my defence for now addressing you at the end of the parliamentary year; but to imagine that I can hold my peace a moment longer, that I can suffer the Parliament to be prorogued, and above all to be dissolved, and the country to be assembled for the choice of new Representatives, without calling on the House for a solemn pledge, which may bind its successors to do their duty by the most defenceless and wretched portion of their fellow subjects, is so manifestly out of the question, that I make no apology for the lateness of the day, and disregard even the necessary absence of many fast friends of the cause, and the general slackness of attendance, incident to the season, as attested by the state of these benches, which might well dissuade me from going on. And now, after the question of Colonial Slavery has for so many years been familiar to the House, and I fear still more familiar to the country, I would fain hope that I may dispense with the irksome task of dragging you through its details, from their multiplicity so overwhelming, from their miserable nature so afflicting. But I am aware that in the threshold of the scene, and to scare me from entering upon it, there stands the phantom of colonial independence, resisting parliamentary interference, fatiguing the ear with the thrice-told tale of their ignorance who see from afar off, and pointing to the fatal issue of the American war. There needs but one steady glance to brush all such spectres away. That the colonial legislatures have rights—that their privileges are to be respected—that their province is not to be lightly invaded—that the Parliament of the mother country is not, without necessity, to trench on their independence—no man more than myself is willing to allow. But when those local assemblies, utterly neglect their first duties—when we see them, from the circumstances of their situation, prevented from acting—struggling in these trammels for an independent existence—exhausted in the effort to stand alone, and to move one step wholly unable—when at any rate we wait for years, and perceive that they advance not by a hair's breadth, either because they cannot, or because they dare not, or because they will not—then to contend that we should not interfere—that we should fail in our duty because they do not do theirs-nay, that we have no right to act, because they have no power or no inclination to obey us, would be not an argument, but an abomination, a gross insult to Parliament, a mockery of our privileges—for I trust that we too have some left—a shameful abandonment of our duty, and a portentous novelty in the history of Parliament, the plantations, and the country. Talk not of the American contest, and the triumph of the colonists! Who that has read the sad history of that event (and I believe among the patriarchs of this cause whom I now address there are some who can remember that disgrace of our councils and our arms) will say, that either the Americans triumphed or we quailed on one inch of the ground upon which the present controversy stands? Ignorance the most gross, or inattention the most heedless, can alone explain, but cannot at all justify, the use of such a topic. Be it remembered, and to set at rest the point of right, I shall say no more—let it not once be forgotten that the supremacy of the mother country never for an instant was surrendered at any period of that calamitous struggle. Nay, in the whole course of it, a question of her supremacy never once was raised; the whole dispute was rigorously confined to the power of taxing. All that we gave up, as we said voluntarily, as the Americans more truly said, by compulsion, was the power to tax; and by the very act which surrendered this power, we solemnly, deliberately, and unequivocally reasserted the right of the Parliament to give laws to the plantations in all other respects whatever. Thus speaks the record of history and the record of our Statute-book. But were both history and the laws silent, there is a fact so plain and striking, that it would of itself be quite sufficient to establish the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. I believe it may safely be affirmed, that on neither side of the water was there a man more distinguished for steady devotion to the cause of colonial independence, or who made his name more renowned by firm resistance to the claims of the mother country, than Mr. Burke. He was, in truth, throughout that memorable struggle, the great leader in Parliament against the infatuated ministry, whose counsels ended in severing the empire; and far from abating in his opposition as the contest advanced, he sacrificed to those principles the favour of his constituents, and was obliged to withdraw from the representation of Bristol, which, till then he had held. His speech on that occasion re-affirms the doctrines of American independence. But neither then, nor at any other time, did he ever think of denying the general legislative supremacy of Parliament; he only questioned the right of taxing the unrepresented colonies. But another fact must at once carry conviction to every mind. During the heat of the controversy, he employed himself in framing a code for the government of our sugar colonies. It was a bill to be passed into a law by the Legislature of the mother country; and it has fortunately been preserved among his invaluable papers. There is no minute detail into which its provisions do not enter. The rights of the slave, the duties of the master, the obligation to feed and clothe, the restriction of the power of coercion and punishment, all that concerns marriage and education, and religious instruction, all that relates to the hours of labour and rest, every thing is minutely provided for, with an abundance of regulation which might well be deemed excessive, were not the subject that unnatural state of things which subjects man to the dominion of his fellow-creatures, and which can only be rendered tolerable by the most profuse enactment of checks and controls. This measure of most ample interference was devised by the most illustrious champion of colonial rights, the most jealous watchman of English encroachments. With his own hand he sketched the bold outline; with his own hand he filled up its details; with his own hand, long after the American contest had terminated, after the controversy on negro freedom had begun, and when his own principles, touching the slave-trade and slavery, had bent before certain West-India prejudices, communicated by the party of the planters in Paris with whom he made common cause on revolutionary politics,—even then, instead of rejecting all idea of interference with the rights of the colonial assemblies, he delivered over his plan of a slave code to Mr. Dundas, the Secretary for the Colonies, for the patronage and adoption of Mr. Pitt and himself. I offer this fact as a striking proof that it is worse than a jest, it is an unpardonable delusion, to fancy that there ever has existed a doubt of the right of Parliament to give the colonies laws. But I am told, that, granting the right to be ours, we ought to shrink from the exercise of it when it would lead to an encroachment upon the sacred rights of property. I desire the House to mark the short and plain issue to which I am willing to bring this matter. I believe there is no man, either in or out of the profession to which I have the honour of belonging, and which, above all others, inculcates upon its members an habitual veneration for civil rights, less disposed than I am lightly to value those rights, or rashly to inculcate a disregard of them. But that renowned profession has taught me another lesson also; it has imprinted on my mind the doctrine which all men, the learned and the unlearned, feel to be congenial with the human mind, and to gather strength with its growth—that by a law above and prior to all the laws of human lawgivers, for it is the law of God—there are some things which cannot be holden in property, and above every thing else, that man can have no property in his fellow-creature. But I willingly avoid those heights of moral argument, where, if we go in search of first principles, we see eternal fogs reign, and "find no end, in wandering mazes lost." I had rather seek the humbler regions, and approach the level plain where all men see clear, where their judgments agree, and common feelings knit their hearts together; and standing on that general level, I ask, what is the right which one man claims over the person of another, as if he were a chattel and one of the beasts which perish? Is this that kind of property which claims universal respect, and is clothed in the hearts of all with a sanctity which makes it inviolable? I resist the claim; I deny the title: as a lawyer I demur to the declaration of the right; as a man I set up a law superior in point of antiquity, higher in point of authority, than any which men have framed—the law of nature; and, if you appeal from that, I set up the law of the Christian dispensation, which holds all men equal, and commands that you treat every man as a brother! Talk to me not of such monstrous pretensions being decreed by Acts of Parliament, and recognized by treaties! Go back a quarter of a century to a kindred contest, when a long and painful struggle ended in an immortal triumph. The self-same arguments were urged in defence of the Slave-trade. Its vindication was rested upon the rights of property, as established by laws and by treaties; the right to trade in men was held to be as clear then, as the right to hold men in property is held to be clear now. For twenty-five years, I am ashamed to repeat, for twenty-five years, to the lasting disgrace of the Parliament, the African slave traffic was thus defended; and that which it was then maintained every one had a right to do, is now denounced by our laws as piracy, and whoso doeth it shall be hanged as a felon. But I am next told, that, be the right as it may, the facts are against me; that the theory may be with those who object to slavery, but the practice is in favour of the system. The negroes are well off, it seems; they are inured to the state in which they have been born and grown up; they are happy and contented, and we shall only hurt them by changing their condition, which the peasantry of England are desired to regard with envy. I will not stoop to answer such outrageous assertions by facts or by reasons. I will not insult your understanding, by proving, that no slave can know happiness or comfort; that where a man is at the nod of another, he can know nothing of real peace or repose. But I will at once appeal to two tests; to these I shall confine myself, satisfied that if they fail to decide the question, I may resort in vain to any arguments which philosophers can admit, or political economists entertain, or men of ordinary common sense handle. The two tests or criteria of happiness among any people, which I will now resort to, are the progress of population, and the amount of crime. These, but the first especially, are, of all others, the most safely to be relied on. Every one who has studied the philosophy of human nature, and every one who has cultivated statesman-like wisdom, which indeed is only that philosophy reduced to practice, must admit, that the principle implanted in our nature, which ensures the continuance of the species, is so powerful that nothing can check its operation but some calamitous state of suffering, which reverses the natural order of things. Wherever, then, we see the numbers of men stationary, much more when we perceive them decreasing, we may rest assured that there is some fatal malady, some fundamental vice in the condition of the community, which makes head against the most irresistible of all the impulses of our nature. Now look to the history of the black population, both free and slave, in the Antilles. In the British islands, including Barbadoes, on a population of 670,000 slaves, there was a decrease of 31,500 in the six years which elapsed between 1818 and 1824; in Jamaica alone, upon the number of 330,000, a decrease of between 8,000 and 9,000. But not so with the free men: although placed in circumstances exceedingly unfavourable to increase of numbers, yet such is the natural fruitfulness of the negro race that they rapidly multiplied. The Maroons doubled between 1749 and 1782; and when great part of them were removed after the rebellion of 1796, those who remained increased in six years, from 1810 to 1816, no less than eighteen per cent; and in five years, from 1816 to 1821, fourteen per cent. In North America, where they are better fed, the negroes have increased in thirty years no less than 130 per cent. Look next to Trinidad; in four years, from 1825 to 1829, the slaves have fallen off from 23,117 to 22,436, notwithstanding a considerable importation under an order in council, being a decrease of at least a thirty-fourth, but probably of a twentieth. But what has happened to the same race, and circumstanced alike as to climate, soil, food, in short every thing save liberty? Nature has with them upheld her rights; her first great law has been obeyed; the passions and the vigour of man have had their course unrestrained; and the increase of his numbers has attested his freedom. They have risen in the same four years from 13,995 to 16,412, or at a rate which would double their numbers in twenty years; the greatest rate at which population is, in any circumstances, known to increase. There cannot be a more appalling picture presented to the reflecting mind than that of a people decreasing in numbers. To him who can look beyond the abstract numbers, whose eye is not confined to the mere tables and returns of population, but ranges over the miseries of which such a diminution is the infallible symptom; it offers a view of all the forms of wretchedness, suffering in every shape, privations in unlimitted measure—whatever is most contrary to the nature of human beings, most alien to their habits, most averse to their happiness and comfort—all beginning in slavery, the state most unnatural to man; consummated through various channels in his degradation, and leading to one common end, the grave. Show me but the simple fact, that the people in any country are regularly decreasing, so as in half a century to be extinct; and I want no other evidence that their lot is that of the bitterest wretchedness: nor will any other facts convince me that their general condition can be favourable or mild. The second general test to which I would resort for the purpose of trying the state of any community, without the risk of those deceptions to which particular facts are liable, is the number of crimes committed. In Trinidad, I find that the slaves belong- ing to plantations, in number 16,580, appear, by the records printed, to have been punished in two years for 11,131 offences; that is to say, deducting the number of infants incapable of committing crimes, every slave had committed some offence in the course of those two years. It is true that the bulk of those offences, 7,644, were connected with their condition of bondage—refusing to work, absconding from the estate, insolence to the owner or overseer; all incidental to their sad condition, but all visited with punishment betokening its accompanying debasement. Nevertheless, other crimes were not wanting: 713 were punished for theft, or above 350 in a year, on a number of about 12,000, deducting persons incapacitated by infancy, age, or sickness, from being the subjects of punishment. Let any one consider what this proportion would give in England: it would amount to 350,000 persons punished in one year for larceny. In Berbice, on a population of 21,000 plantation slaves, there were 9,000 punishments; no record being kept of those in plantations of six slaves or under: and in Demerara, of 61,000, there were 20,567 punished, of whom 8,461 were women. I cannot here withhold from the House the testimony of the Protector of Slaves, to the happiness of their condition. "I cannot," says that judicious officer, "refrain from remarking on the contented appearance of the negroes; and, from the opportunities of judging which I have, I think that generally they have every reason to be so." I would not have this Protector placed in the condition of the very happiest of this contented tribe, whose numbers are hourly lessening, and whose lives are spent in committing crime and in receiving punishments. No, not for a day would I punish his error in judgment, by condemning him to taste the comforts which he describes, as they are enjoyed by the very luckiest of those placed under his protection. But such testimony is not peculiar to this officer. Long before his protectorate commenced, before he even came into this world of slavery and bliss, of bondage and contentment, the like opinion had been pronounced in favour of West-Indian felicity. I hold in my hand the evidence of Lord Rodney, who swore before the Privy Council that he never saw an instance of cruel treatment;—that in all the islands, "and," said his Lordship, "I know them all," the negroes were better off in clothing, lodging, and food, than the poor at home, and were never in any case at all overworked. Admiral Barrington, rising in ardour of expression as he advanced in knowledge, declares that he has often wished himself in the condition of the slaves. Neither would I take the gallant Admiral at his rash word, sanctioned though it be by an oath. I would not punish his temerity So severely as to consign him to a station, compared with which he would in four-and-twenty hours have become reconciled to the hardest fare on the most crazy bark that ever rocked on the most perilous wave; or even to the lot which our English seamen are the least inured to—the most disastrous combat that ever lowered his flag in discomfiture and disgrace. But these officers confined not their testimony to the condition of slavery; they cast its panoply around the Slave-trade itself. They were just as liberal in behalf of the Guineaman, as of those whom his toils were destined to enrich. They gave just as Arcadian a picture of the slaver's deck and hold, as of the enviable fields whither she was fraught with a cargo of happy creatures, designed by their felicitous destiny to become what are called the cultivators of those romantic regions. "The slaves on board are comfortably lodged," says one gallant officer, "in rooms fitted up for them." "They are amused with instruments of music: when tired of music, they then go to games of chance." Let the inhabitants or the frequenters of our club-houses hear this and envy—those "famous wits," to whom St. James's purlieus are "native or hospitable:" let them cast a longing look on the superior felicity of their sable brethren on the middle passage. They toil not, neither do they spin, yet have they found for them all earthly indulgences; food and raiment for nothing; music to charm the sense; and when, sated with such enjoyment, the mind seeks a change, games of chance are kindly provided by boon traffic to stimulate the lazy appetites "The slaves," adds the Admiral, "are indulged in all their little humours." Whether one of these caprices might be to have themselves tied up from time to time, and lacerated with a scourge, he has omitted to mention. "He had frequently," he says, "seen them, and as happy as any of the crew, it being the interest of the officers and men to make them so." But it is Admiral Evans who puts the finishing stroke to this fairy picture. "The arrival of a Guineaman," he says, "is known in the West Indies by the dancing and singing of the negroes on board." It is thus that these cargoes of merry, happy creatures, torn from their families, their native fields, and their cottages, celebrate their reaching the land of promise, and that their coming is distinguished from the dismal landing of free English seamen, out of West-India traders, or other receptacles of cruelty and wretchedness. But if all the deductions of philosophy, and all the general indications of fact, loudly prove the unalterable wretchedness of colonial slavery, where, may it be asked, are the particular instances of its existence? Alas! there is no want of these: but I will only cull out a few, dealing purposely with the mass rather by sample than by breaking its foul bulk. I shall illustrate, by a few examples, the effects of slavery in communities to the exertions of which we are bid to look for the mitigation and final extinction of that horrid condition. A certain Reverend Thomas Wilson Bridges was charged with an offence of the deepest die. A slave girl had been ordered to dress a turkey for dinner, and the order having been disobeyed, he struck her a violent blow, which caused her nose and mouth to flow with blood, applying to her at the same time an oath, and a peculiarly coarse epithet, highly unbecoming in a clergyman, and indeed in any man, as it is the name most offensive to all womankind. He then commanded two men to cut bamboo rods and point them for her punishment. She was stripped of every article of dress, and flogged till the back part of her, from the shoulders to the calves of the legs, was one mass of lacerated flesh. She made her escape and went to a Magistrate. The matter was brought before what is called a Council of Protection, where by a majority of fourteen to four it was resolved that no further proceedings should take place. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, however, thought otherwise, and in a despatch, with no part of which have I any fault to find, directed the evidence to be laid before the Attorney General. I understand that the reverend gentleman has not been put on his trial. I hope I may have been misinformed: I shall rejoice to find it is so. I shall also be glad to find that there is no ground for the charge: although the man's servants, when examined, all admitted the severity of the flogging; and himself allowed he had seen it, though he alleged he was not near, but could not deny he had heard the screams of the victim. This reverend Mr. Bridges I happen to know by his other works, by those labours of slander which have diversified the life of this minister of peace and truth. For publishing one of these, a respectable bookseller has been convicted by a jury of his country; others have been passed over with contempt by their illustrious object—that venerable person, the great patriarch of our cause, whose days are to be numbered by acts of benevolence and of piety; whose whole life—and long may it be extended for his own glory and the good of his fellow-creatures!—has been devoted to the highest interests of religion and charity; who might have hoped to pass on his holy path undisturbed by any one calling himself a Christian pastor, even in a West-Indian community. This man, however, has so far succeeded, whether by the treatment of his slaves, or the defamation of Mr. Wilberforce, in recommending himself to his fellow-citizens in Jamaica, that a great majority of the Protecting Council forbade his conduct being inquired into. So vain is it to expect from the owners of slaves any active execution of the laws against slavery! And will you then trust those slave-owners with the making of such laws? Recollect the memorable warning of Mr. Canning, given thirty years ago, and proved true by every day's experience since. "Have a care how you leave to the owners of slaves the task of making laws against slavery. While human nature remains the same, they never can be trusted with it." It is now six years since I called the attention of Parliament to one of the most grievous outrages that ever was committed since the Charaibean Archipelago was peopled with negro slaves—the persecution unto death of a Christian minister, for no other offence than preaching the Gospel of his Master. I was then told, that no such wrong would ever be done again. It was a single case, which never could recur: at all events, the discussion in this House, and the universal reprobation called forth, even from those who had not sufficient independence to give their voices for doing justice upon the guilty, would, I was told, effectually secure the freedom of religious worship in future. I was silenced by the majority of votes, but not convinced by such reasons as these. And I now hold in my hand the proof that I was right. It is a statement promulgated by a numerous and respectable body of sincere Christians, with whom I differ both in religious and political opinions, but in whose conduct, if there be any thing which I peculiarly blame, it is their disinclination to deviate from a bad habit of passive obedience—of taking all that is done by men in authority to be right. They seem, however, now to be convinced that they have carried this habit too far, and that the time is come when they can no longer do their duty and hold their peace. The narrative which they have given, confirmed by the conduct of the government itself, is such as would have filled me with indignation had I read it six years ago; but after the warning voice so loudly raised in the debates upon the Missionary Smith's murder, I gaze upon it astonished and incredulous. The simple and affecting story is told by Mr. Orton, a blameless and pious minister of the Gospel in Jamaica. He first alludes to the "daring attack made on the mission premises, at St. Ann's Bay, on Christmas-day, 1826" (the festival chosen by these friends of the Established Church for celebrating their brotherly love towards another sect). "The attack," says he, "was made by a party of white persons, of the light company of militia, who were stationed at St. Ann's Bay as the Christmas guards. The plan appeared to have been premeditated, and there remains but little doubt that the design was murderous. A great number of balls were fired into the chapel and house, fourteen of which I assisted to extract from various parts of the building; and upon noticing particularly the direction, and measuring the distance from which some of the shots must have been fired, it appeared that Mr. and Mrs. Ratcliffe and their child most narrowly escaped the fatal consequences which were no doubt designed." All attempts to bring these criminals to justice failed, it seems, for want of evidence—a somewhat extraordinary incident in a community calling it self civilized, that so many persons as must have been concerned in it should all have escaped. In the course of the next summer, Mr. Grimsdall, another clergyman of the same persuasion, was arrested twice; the second time for having preached at a small place called Ocho Rios, in an unlicensed house, although a license had been applied for and refused, contrary to the judgment of the Custos and another Magistrate. He was flung into a noisome dungeon, "such," says the narrative, "as no person in Great Britain can have any conception of. His constitution, naturally strong, could not sustain the attack—he sunk under the oppression of these persecutors, and the deleterious effects of confinement in a noxious prison; and this devoted servant of God, after a painful sickness of sixteen days, was delivered by death from the further sufferings projected by his unfeeling persecutors. He died the 15th day of December, 1827." Mr. Whitehouse, too, was a preacher of the Gospel, and consequently an object of persecution. In the summer of 1828 he was seized and carried before a Magistrate, accused of having preached without a license; that is, of having a license in one parish and preaching in another. He besought the Magistrates as a favour, to be bound in irons in the market-place, instead of being confined in the cell where his predecessor had been deprived of life. They treated his remonstrances with indifference, said they were resolved to do their duty, professed not to regard what the public might say of them, and added, that "whoever might come should be treated in the same manner." He was accordingly flung into the dungeon where Mr. Grimsdall had perished. "I found it," says he, "occupied by an insane black woman. She was removed, but the cell was exceedingly filthy, and the stench unbearable. It was now eight o'clock in the evening, and the gaoler said he must lock up. I desired that the cell floor might, at least, be swept, which a few friends immediately attended to. There was no bed provided for me, not even one of straw; and it was not until I had made several requests to the gaoler, that a few benches from the chapel were allowed to be brought in, on which to make a bed. A large quantity of vinegar, and one of strong camphorated rum, was thrown upon the floor and walls, for the purpose of counteracting the very disagreeable effluvia which proceeded from the filth with which the place abounded; but this produced very little effect. The sea-breeze had subsided, and the only window from which I could obtain the least air, was just above the place in which all the filth of the premises is deposited." Mr. Orton received the intelligence of his persecuted brother's affliction, with a request that he would perform his pastoral duty to his congregation. He did so, and was forthwith committed to the same gaol. "Of the horrid state of the place," he says, "an idea can scarcely be formed from any representation which can here be made, as common decency forbids the mention of its filthy condition, and the many unseemly practices which were constantly presented to our notice. The hospital, gaol, and workhouse, are united: the two former are under one roof, occupying an area of about twenty-five feet by thirty-five. On the ground-floor were three apartments. In the condemned cell were two unfortunate creatures awaiting their doom. In an adjoining cell were many negroes, confined for petty offences; and in another apartment on the same floor, forty were crammed together, who had been taken in execution, and were waiting to be driven and sold in the market. This building, small and confined, was, especially during the night, literally stowed with persons, so that from the number of the prisoners, and the extreme filth of the negroes, it was almost unbearable." Let us but reflect on the sufferings of imprisonment even in the best gaol of our own temperate climate; and let us then add to those the torments of the tropical heats! Think of being enclosed with crowds beyond what the air will supply with the needful nourishment of the lungs, while a fiery sun wheels round the clear sky from morning to night, without the veil of a single cloud to throw a shade between; where all matter passes instantly from life to putrescence, and water itself, under the pestilent ray, becomes the source of every frightful malady! Add the unnatural condition of the inmates, not there for debts or for offences of their own, but seized for their owner's default, and awaiting, not the judgment of the law, or their liberation under an Insolvent Act, but till the market opens, when, like brute beasts, they are to be driven and sold to the highest bidder! In such a dungeon was it that Mr. Orton and his brethren were immured; and when their strength began to sink, and it seemed plain that they must speedily follow their friend to the grave, they were taken before the Chief Justice, who instantly declared the warrant illegal, and their seventeen days' confine- ment to have been without the shadow of pretence. Who then was in the right, six years ago, in the memorable debate upon the persecution of the Missionary Smith? You, who said enough had been done in broaching the subject, and that religion and her ministers would thenceforward be secure;—or I, who warned you, that if my Resolutions were rejected, he would not, by many a one, be the last victim? I would to God that the facts did not so plainly prove me to have foretold the truth. I may seem to have said enough; but it is painful to me that I cannot stop here,—that I must try faintly to paint excesses unheard of in Christian times—which to match we must go back to heathen ages, to the days and to the stations, wherein absolute power made men, but Pagan men, prodigies of cruelty exaggerated by caprice,—that I must drag before you persons moving in the higher walks of life, and exerting proportionable influence over the society they belong to:—an English gentleman, and an English gentlewoman accused, guilty, convicted of the most infernal barbarity; and an English community, so far from visiting the enormity with contempt, or indignant execration, that they make the savage perpetrators the endeared objects of esteem, respect and affection! I read the recital from the despatch of the late Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Huskisson), a document never to be sufficiently praised for its statesmanlike firmness, for the manly tone of feeling and of determination united, which marks it throughout. "The slave girl was accused of theft," he says; "but some disobedience in refusing to mend the clothes was the more immediate cause of her punishment. On the 22nd of July, 1826, she was confined in the stocks, and she was not released till the 8th of August following, being a period of seventeen days. The stocks were so constructed, that she could not sit up and lie down at pleasure, and she remained in them night and day. During this period she was flogged repeatedly, one of the overseers thinks about six times, and red pepper was rubbed upon her eyes to prevent her sleeping. Tasks were given her, which in the opinion of the same overseer, she was incapable of performing; sometimes because they were beyond her powers; at other times because she could not see to do them on account of the pepper having been rubbed on her eyes: and she was flogged for failing to accomplish these tasks. A violent distemper had been prevalent on the plantation during the summer. It is in evidence, that on one of the days of her confinement she complained of fever, and that one of the floggings which she received was the day after she had made this complaint. When she was taken out of the stocks she appeared to be cramped, and was then again flogged. The very day of her release she was sent to field-labour (though heretofore a house servant,) and on the evening of the third day ensuing was brought before her owners as being ill and refusing to work, and she then again complained of having had fever. They were of opinion that she had none then, but gave directions to the driver, if she should be ill, to bring her to them for medicines in the morning. The driver took her to the negro-house, and again flogged her, though this time apparently without orders from her owners to do so. In the morning, at seven o'clock, she was taken to work in the field, where she died at noon." Mark the refinement of their wickedness! I nowise doubt, that to screen themselves from the punishment of death due to their crimes, these wretches will now say, they did indeed say on their trial, that their hapless victim died of disease. When their own lives were in jeopardy, they found that she had caught the fever, and died by the visitation of God; but when the question was, shall she be flogged again? shall she, who has for twelve days been fixed in the stocks under the fiery beams of a tropical sun, who has been torn with the scourge from the nape of the neck to the plants of her feet, who has had pepper rubbed in her eyes to ward off the sleep that might have stolen over her senses, and for a moment withdrawn her spirit from the fangs of her tormentors,—shall she be subjected by those accursed fiends to the seventh scourging? Oh! then she had no sign of fever! she had caught no disease! she was all hale, and sound, and fit for the lash! At seven she was flogged—at noon she died! and those execrable and impious murderers soon found out that she had caught the malady, and perished by the "visitation of God!" No, no! I am used to examine circumstances, to weigh evidence, and I do firmly believe that she died by the murderous hand of man! that she was killed and murdered! It was wisely said by Mr. Fox, that when some grievous crime is perpetrated in a civilized community, we are consoled by finding in all breasts a sympathy with the victim, and an approval of the punishment by which the wrong-doer expiates his offence. But in the West Indies there is no such solace to the mind—there all the feelings flow in a wrong course-perverse, preposterous, unnatural—the hatred is for the victim, the sympathy for the tormentor! I hold in my hand the proof of it in this dreadful case. The Mosses were condemned by an iniquitous sentence; for it was only to a small fine and five months' imprisonment. The public indignation followed the transaction; but it was indignation against the punishment, not the crime; and against the severity, not the lenity of the infliction. The governor, a British officer—and I will name him to rescue others from the blame—General Grant—tells us in his despatch, that "he had been applied to by the most respectable inhabitants to remit the sentence;" that "he loses no time in applying to Lord Bathurst to authorize the remission." He speaks of "the unfortunate Henry and Helen Moss;" says, "they are rather to be pitied for the untoward melancholy occurrence" (as if he were talking of some great naval victory over the Turk, instead of a savage murder), and that "he hastens to prevent the impression, which the mention of the case might make on his Lordship's mind." In a second despatch he earnestly renews the application; describes "the respectability of Mr. and Mrs. Moss, their general kindness to their slaves, the high estimation in which they are held by all who have partaken of their hospitality;" tells us that "they have always been favourably spoken of in every respect, including that of slave-management;" states his own anxiety, that "persons of their respectability should be spared from imprisonment;" and that at any rate "the mulct should be relinquished, lest they should be thought cruel and oppressive beyond others, and also in order to remove in some degree the impression of their being habitually and studiously cruel; "and he adds a fact, which speaks volumes, and may well shut all mouths that now cry aloud for leaving such things to the assemblies of the islands—"notwithstanding their being in gaol, they are visited by the most respectable persons in the place, and by all who knew them before." The Go- vernor who thus thinks and thus writes, has been removed from that settlement; but only, I say it with grief, to be made the ruler of a far more important colony. From the Bahamas he has been promoted to Trinidad—that great island, which Mr. Canning described as about to be made the model, by the Crown, for all slave colonies. Over such a colony was he sent to preside, who, having tasted of the hospitality of the Mosses, could discern in their treatment of their slaves, nothing out of the fair, ordinary course of humane management. From contemplating the horrors of slavery in the West Indies, it is impossible that we can avoid the transition to that infernal traffic, alike the scourge of Africa and America, the disgrace of the old world and the curse of the new, from which so much wretchedness has flowed. It is most shocking to reflect that its ravages are still abroad, desolating the earth. I do not rate the importation into the Brazils too high, when I put it at 100,000 during the last twelve months. Gracious God! When we recollect that the number of seventy-three capital punishments, among which are but two or three for murder, in a population of twelve millions, excites our just horror in England, what shall we say of 100,000 capital crimes committed by a handful of desperate men, every one of which involves and implies rapine, fraud, murder, torture, in frightful abundance? And yet we must stand by and see such enormities perpetrated without making any remonstrance, or even urging any representation! By the Treaty with Portugal, it is true, no such crimes can henceforth be repeated, for this year the traffic is to cease, and the mutual right of search is given to the vessels of both nations, the only possible security for the abolition being effectual. But there is another country nearer to us in position, and in habits of intercourse more familiar, one of far more importance for the authority of its example, in which the slave-trade still flourishes in most portentous vigour, although denounced by the law, and visited with infamous punishment: the dominions of the Monarch who calls himself "Most Christian," and refuses the only measure that can put such wholesale iniquity down. There it must thrive as long as groundless national jealousies prevent the right of search from being mutually conceded. Let us hope that so foul a stain on the character of so great a nation will soon be wiped away; that the people who now take the lead of all others in the march of liberty, will cast far from their camp this unclean thing, by all lovers of freedom most abhorred. I have heard with amazement some thoughtless men say, that the French cannot enjoy liberty, because they are unused to it. I protest before God I could point to no nation more worthy of freedom, or which know better how to use it, how to gain it, how to defend it. I turn with a grateful heart to contemplate the glorious spectacle now exhibited in France of patriotism, of undaunted devotion to liberty, of firm yet temperate resistance to arbitrary power. It is animating to every beholder; it is encouraging to all freemen in every part of the world. I earnestly hope that it may not be lost on the Bourbon Monarch and his Councillors; for the sake of France and of England, for the sake of peace, for the sake of the Bourbon Princes themselves, I pray that they may be wise in time, and yield to the wish, the determination of their people; I pray, that, bending before the coming breeze, the gathering storm may not sweep them away! But of one thing I would warn that devoted race; let them not flatter themselves that by trampling upon liberty in France, they can escape either the abhorrence of man or the Divine wrath for the execrable traffic in slaves, carried on under their flag, and flourishing under their sway in America. I will tell their ghostly councillors, in the language of a book with which they ought to be familiar—"Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." To what should they lend an ear? To the commands of a God who loves mercy, and will punish injustice, and abhors blood, and will surely avenge it upon their heads; nothing the less because their patronage of slavery in distant climes is matched by their hatred of liberty at home. Sir, I have done. I trust that at length the time is come when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that slave-owners are the best law-givers on slavery; no longer allow an appeal from the British public, to such communities as those in which the Smiths and the Grimsdalls are persecuted to death, for teaching the Gospel to the negroes; and the Mosses holden in affectionate respect for torture and murder: no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warn- ings, and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights—talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right—I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes—the same throughout the world, the same in all times—such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes;—such it is at this day: it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations; the covenants of the Almighty whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet in despite of law and of treaty that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware—let their assemblies beware—et the Government at home beware—let the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake,—awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; and, if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them: but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God! I therefore move you, "that this House do resolve, at the earliest practicable period of the next Session, to take into its serious consideration the state of the Slaves in the Colonies of Great Britain, in order to the mitigation and final abolition of their Slavery, and more especially in order to the amendment of the administration of justice within the same."

Lord Morpeth seconded the Motion.

I rose for the purpose of seconding this Motion, not aware that it had received already that support from my noble friend; but I do not rise after the brilliant, elaborate, and moving speech of my hon. and learned friend, presuming to expect the attention of the House to anything that could proceed from so humble a pleader as myself in support of the same righteous cause. But, Sir, when I state that circumstances, in the first instance personal to myself, but far from foreign to the success of this cause, may make this the last time in which I may be able to lift up my voice in this House in defence of the rights of humanity, I hope the House will indulge me for one moment while I plainly state the facts. It may be not unknown to many Members of this House, that upon the direct announcement of my hon. friend, the member for Bristol, that it was not his intention to offer himself again for the Representation of that city, I had publicly offered myself as a candidate; and permit me to add, that I did this with the strongest assurances of support, and most flattering prospects of success; but no sooner had I made known my decided sentiments upon the great question relating to Slavery, than I was threatened with a most formidable opposition from the powerful body connected with the West Indies. Those whose warmest support I had reason to expect fell from my side, and the intention was avowed of setting up against my hon. friend who had retired, some other person belonging to the West-India interest, or known to be a sure supporter of the views which they entertain. I have been implored, in consequence, by my nearest connections, if I cannot bring myself to oppose the objects of the hon. and learned Gentleman, at all events to absent myself from the House this night. But those advisers little know the spirit by which my public conduct has been actuated, if they imagine that any personal consequences to myself can possibly influence my attendance or my vote in this House; and even if, as it is too probable, my cause may succumb under the weight of such domineering interest, it will be a subject of lasting congratulation to myself, as it is of present satisfaction, that the last vote I shall have to give in this Parliament will have been in the sacred cause of humanity. I have trespassed thus on the attention of the House, that I may assure my hon. and learned friend, and the other advocates of the same cause, that unexpectedly called into the field, however much they may desire a more able supporter, they shall have no reason to apprehend in me any want of steadiness of purpose or purity of principle.

denied the correctness of the allegations brought against the West-India colonists, and contended that in pursuance of the resolutions of the House of Commons in 1822, the colonies had adopted measures for the amelioration of the condition of the slaves. The hon. Member referred to documents to prove, that in the majority of the colonies, regulations had been adopted for the religious instruction of the negroes, for a mitigation of the punishments to which they were liable, to prevent the separation of their families, to admit their evidence, and to recognize their right to hold property, and maintain civil actions. All the colonies were proceeding more or less rapidly in the spirit of the resolutions, and such being the case, it would be wrong in the House to step forward, and, by dictating to the colonies, produce mischievous effects. The hon. Member quoted the opinion of the Secretary for the colonies, in which Grenada was described as having honourably distinguished itself with respect to the treatment of slaves, and argued, that the colonies generally had made all the ameliorations and improvements which were consistent with the state of society in those places. He denied the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement, that not only were the colonies contumacious, but that the West-India body in this country had approved of their contumacy; and referred to a resolution of that body, on the 24th of February, 1830, in confirmation of this assertion. The ratio of manumission having very greatly increased of late years, in proportion to the population of the colonies, the West-India body was, naturally enough, opposed to compulsory manumission, in Barbadoes, within the last twenty-five years, the number of free blacks and coloured persons had increased from 10,000 to 40,000, principally by means of manumission. The hon. Member proceeded to complain of a publication by the Anti-slavery Society at the commencement of the Session, in the same spirit as his hon. and learned friend's speech at the conclusion of it, the object apparently, of both, being to rouse popular indignation against the West-India planters. He denied that the inferences contained in the Society's publication were correct, any more than those to be inferred from the speech of his hon. and learned friend. The colonies were not to be blamed; in the first place, it rested with the Government here, to mature measures fitted to the state of society in the colonies, and that being effected, the greatest possible benefit might be expected from having persons in the colonies qualified to carry the laws into execution. The hon. Member concluded by expressing his opinion, that the state of the colonial judicature ought to be inquired into in the next Session of Parliament; and by quoting instances in proof of the inconvenience that resulted from the imperfect system which prevailed at present in many of the colonies.

contended, that the Colonial Legislatures had not done all that they ought to have done; and from the manner and spirit in which they proceeded, he was apprehensive, that unless the Legislature of this country took the business of Legislation on this subject into its own hands, nothing effectual would be done within any reasonable period of time. After an experiment of seven years since the time when Mr. Canning's Resolutions were passed, much yet remained to be done that should have been done before this time. It ought to be recollected that the master still had the power to give thirty-nine stripes with the cart whip to his slave—man, woman, or child—without challenge; and it was sufficient reason for him to say that the slave had offended him. Suppose such a thing were attempted in this country, between the landlord and the peasant, the speech of his hon. and learned friend, powerful as it was, would be weak, compared with the actual occurrence of such atrocities under our own eyes, in impressing us with a proper sense of their enormity.

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem

Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."—

The incidents that scarcely affected the people when described as happening abroad, would not be borne, did anything bearing a resemblance to them happen in this country. A late case which happened in Jamaica of a girl severely and even cruelly punished, had been noticed here by the Colonial Secretary; and how was that mentioned in the Jamaica newspapers? They appeared to consider it an insult to the Jamaica authorities, that it had been mentioned here with reprobation, and the circumstance, they said, showed the folly and weakness of at least one member of the Colonial Office. This would not have been said in the newspapers unless it had been in harmony with the opinions and feelings of the colonists. Was that a kind of language which the colonists ought to be allowed to hold with respect to the authorities in this country? Was it not meant as an insult? And was it not the same as saying—"We will do as we please, and flog our slaves as we please?" And yet, if there was any man more disposed than another to treat them with temper and forbearance, it was the Colonial Secretary. With respect to religious instruction, the best was that which was most discountenanced by the Colonial authorities. He did not speak merely his own language, but that of thirteen or fourteen of the members of the House of Assembly, who gave the highest praise to these religious instructors for teaching submission and obedience. It had been said of the Island of Grenada that it had advanced further than others; but that implied that some were behind what they ought to be, and all the islands ought to be put on an equal footing. Then there was no encouragement to the slaves to marry. It was barely a permission, for the married slave had no peculiar privilege; and as for the voluntary manumissions, they did not amount to more than two, or one and a half per cent. and when would slavery be abolished under such a system? As to compulsory manumission, the system of appraisement rendered it almost of no avail. He would not go any further into detail, but there was a point or two of a general nature on which he was desirous to touch. A claim to property in a man, and a claim to property in his favour, were two very different things, A claim to property in a person was forbidden by the laws of God and man. A master might say to his slave.—"Are you happy?" And suppose he answered "I am," the master might say, "I will sell you to the man whom you most hate." In Jamaica the individuals of slave families could not be separately sold at judicial sales; but that was not the only way in which slaves could be disposed of, and the advantage to the slaves was but little; and yet Englishmen had been heard to say that the condition of the slaves was good, as compared with that of the English peasantry. It was better that the Legislature of this country should now proceed without delay to carry its own resolutions on this subject into effect, without trusting to the colonial Legislatures to pass resolutions which they themselves had to carry into execution. He might refer to what the colonial speakers themselves said on the subject. One of them, Mr. Hanby, of Barbadoes, quoted Montesquieu in favour of slavery, but he would recommend Mr. Hanby to study what that great man said of the effects of slavery on the character of both master and slave. He might even quote a speech of Mr. Hanby himself, as to the decrease in the slave-population, and from that they might form an inference as to the treatment of the slaves. His hon. and learned friend had cleared the way for the interference of the Legislature. He had shown its right to interfere, and the necessity for its interference was made perfectly clear. It was high time that we should do what was necessary to induce the colonial legislatures to adopt measures which not only they, but which we should call adequate to the purpose, so that another seven years might not be allowed to pass without doing something effectual. There was one other point about which he was desirous to say something before he sat down, and that related to the protectorate of slaves. It had been considered, and justly, that the protectors ought not to be slave-holders, and the principal slave-protector was not allowed to be a slave-holder. But his assistants might hold just as many slaves as they chose, and that in the very parish or district where their functions were exercised. This could scarcely be consistent with efficient protection, and was rather an evasion of the object of the plan.

said, that although there was so very thin an attendance of hon. Members, still he was glad, for some reasons, that he had an opportunity of addressing the House on this subject. His hon. friend, the member for Evesham, (Mr. Protheroe), had told them how much he had sacrificed by voting in favour of anti-slavery opinions. If it were any consolation to his hon. friend, he would tell him that the Anti-slavery Society had also offered up its victims. That Society had denounced many, among whom he was one, although he had never uttered one word, or written one word, or done one action, in opposition to the Resolutions of Parliament in 1823. After the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down, he could understand the reason of this conduct on the part of the Anti-slavery Society. It would be in the recollection of the House that, in 1823, Mr. Buxton moved a resolution, to the effect that slavery was repugnant to the Constitution of this country, and to the doctrines of the Christian religion, and that it ought to be abolished, Mr. Buxton's Resolution, he need hardly say, took no notice of the interests of the planters. Mr. Canning, on that occasion, moved counter-resolutions, which were agreed to by the House, and which, after saying that the slaves should be prepared for a participation in those civil rights which were enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects, continued thus—"That this House is anxious for the accomplishment of this purpose, at the earliest period that shall be compatible with the well-being of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property." Such was the vote to which the House had unanimously agreed in 1823. But what had been the doctrines of the Anti-slavery Society since? What were the opinions of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and of the hon. member for Norwich, as expressed that night? Why, that there could be no such equitable consideration of the interests of private property, because slavery was inconsistent with the doctrines of the Christian religion. They gave the word "equitable" to the wind, although they had been parties to the House pledging itself to this Resolution. This, he contended, was not fair and straightforward dealing; if they wished to place the Slavery question on the basis, that to make one man the property of another was repugnant to the doctrines of Christianity, and that therefore the Legislature ought to proceed to the immediate abolition of slavery, without any regard to the interests of private property,—if such were their intention, let them take the opinion of the House and of the country upon it in that shape. He had no doubt what the result of such an appeal would be; but in the mean time, he protested against persons being denounced as friends to the continuance of slavery, because they acted conscientiously in obedience to the vote of the Legislature. He would ask, however, if the whole system of compulsory manumission, which the Anti-slavery Society had enforced on Mr. Canning, did not rest upon the principle that man might be the property of man. That system had at first been open to many objections, but by various Orders in Council it had been so modified as to be deprived of all the dangers that formerly attended it; and he entirely agreed with those who thought that the colonial legislatures ought, in justice, in humanity, and in prudence, to admit it into their law. He differed, however, altogether from those who thought that we should legislate on the subject at home. He was of opinion that nothing could be more unwise than to irritate the West-Indians by attempting to force laws upon them,—because he was sure that that attempt would not only be unjustifiable, but that it would fail entirely. He had heard a great deal, on various occasions, from the other side of the House, about the impropriety and injustice of our interfering with the legislative assemblies of Canada; and would it not, he begged to know, be equally improper and unjust for us to interfere, on this or any other subject, with the legislative assemblies of the West-Indies? He repeated, that he thought the colonial legislature ought to admit into their law those regulations which had been made by Orders in Council for the improvement of the condition of the slaves; but he was quite sure it would be unwise to attempt to force these upon the West-Indians. If the West-Indians refused to admit them, there were other ways of punishing their contumacy: the Legislature might, for instance, put higher duties on their products, but it ought not to interfere with the colonial legislatures. He would take the opportunity of submitting certain Resolutions to the House, not with the expectation that they would be agreed to by the House, but with the view simply of putting them upon record. The right hon. Gentleman then read the following Resolutions:—

1. "That the Resolutions of this House of the 15th of May, 1823, distinctly contemplated, on the one hand, the ultimate participation by the slaves in his Majesty's colonies, 'in those civil rights, and privileges enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects,' and on the other, the accomplishment of that purpose, subject to the 'fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property.'

2. "That the changes of law which have been deemed by Parliament the most equitable and expedient for the accomplishment of these two distinct pledges, are to be found in the various Orders in Council which have been issued in the ceded colonies, and which have been successively laid on the Table of the House.

3. "That it appears to this House that the only part of that new system of law which has met with serious remonstrance and protest, in consequence of its tendency being presumed to prejudice the equitable interests of private property, has been those enactments which, in the first instance, introduced the principle of what has been called 'compulsory manumission.'

4. "That it is the opinion of this House that, as long as the money-price received by the master for a manumitted slave shall enable him to purchase a slave of equivalent value, no injury can accrue from the abstraction of such slave, beyond that character of injury which is at all times inseparable from a forced commutation of property, though attended with the fairest principle of compensation.

5. "That it is the opinion of the House that the clauses introduced into the Order in Council of the 2nd of February, 1830, do secure an equitable principle of manumission, as far as it is possible to carry such a principle into effect by legislative enactments.

6. "That this House is at the same time of opinion, that the classes in that Order in Council, which prohibit absolutely all contribution from private individuals or corporate bodies, towards the manumission of a slave, require essential modification.

7. "That this House fully appreciates the degree of caution with which it is necessary to legislate in all matters affecting the equitable interests of property, to the conservation of which this House is pledged; and that it will direct its unceasing attention to the course and effect of this change of legislation in the ceded colonies, for the purpose of satisfying, in the fullest sense, the distinct and difficult pledges of Parliament, above cited from the Resolutions of 1823, which Resolutions equally contemplated the interests of the master, and the well-being of the slave.

8. "That the change of law in the ceded colonies being now fully and satisfactorily accomplished, with the exception above-mentioned, this House is entirely prepared to expect, that the legislative colonies will voluntarily and completely incorporate into their respective codes of law, at the earliest possible period, those ameliorations in the laws affecting the slave-population, which are now in complete operation in the ceded colonies, and which may not hitherto have been adopted by the Colonial Legislatures."

said, it was indispensable that he should offer a few observations to the House. He was anxious to have done so at an earlier period of the evening; but he was not sorry that he had given way to his right hon. friend. It was not, however, his intention to follow his right hon. friend through the various details into which he had been pleased to enter.; neither was he prepared to adopt his Resolutions, which he had now only heard for the first time, and in which he could hardly venture to concur under any circumstances, and certainly not without mature consideration. And next, as to the Resolution of the hon. and learned member for Knaresborough, he did not find it possible for him to concur in it; and he should be sincerely glad if the hon. and learned Member would consent not to press it, for several reasons; first, on account of the deserted state of the benches—from which the inference necessarily drawn, when the division went forth to the world, and above all to the colonies, would be—that that important question had been listened to with little interest in the House of Commons. Now, this he should much regret; because he was anxious, whatever might be the opinion of the House respecting this great question of slavery, that it should go out to the colonies with all that weight which the expression of any decision upon the part of a large body of hon. Members must neces- sarily convey with it. The hon. and learned Gentleman had, in his Resolution, introduced points to which he could not give his assent. He confessed that he did not much approve of the idea of pledging the next Parliament to any line of conduct respecting that important question; it would be far better to leave that Parliament to consider the question without any previous pledge being given in its name, and especially by so very thin a House. Besides, that Resolution went to an extent to which he could not go—it went, not only to the mitigation of slavery, but it pledged the House to the ultimate abolition of slavery altogether. In saying this, however, he trusted it was unnecessary for him to state his dislike to slavery. He could assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that his sentiments altogether coincided with his upon the subject; he considered that the condition of slavery was injurious both to the master and the slave, and was equally inconsistent with humanity and with the Christian religion; but it would not do to travel into abstract principles; in this opinion he agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman, and after having heard him give it utterance, he was surprised that he had started the question, whether it was or was not fit and proper that such a system should exist? What they had to consider was the actual state of things without reference to abstract principles. The property in a slave was as much property as any other species of possession, and as much under the protection of the law as any other denomination of property whatever. He feared, accordingly, that in assenting to the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposition, they might be proceeding too rapidly, and thus, instead of improvement, they might introduce desolation, and so bring destruction both upon the slave and his master. In these matters it was not judicious to be swayed by feeling; on the contrary, they should take sound moderation for their guide, and be deeply impressed by a calm and considerate view of the dangers which attended proceeding with too great rapidity in the endeavour to produce that improvement immediately which could only be the work of time and deliberation. The hon. and learned Gentleman was also anxious to amend the administration of justice in the colonies, and here he had alluded to a pledge which had been given by him (Sir G. Murray) to that purpose. Now he could confidently state, that there was no indisposition upon the part of Government to do that which he had declared it was desirous of doing; but other subjects, of momentous importance, had occupied the most serious attention of Parliament during a large portion of the Session, and the pledge would have been redeemed if those other measures had not engrossed the greater part of the time of the House, while another portion of it was wasted in discussing questions, which, although no doubt interesting to those Gentlemen who brought them forward, were yet entertained by Parliament without any profitable result. He stated that a measure, with the object desired by the hon. Member, was then under the consideration of his Majesty's Government; and he anticipated little, if any, opposition to it in that House; but he regretted to think that it was likely to experience some in the West Indies; and he was not relieved from that apprehension by what he had heard from an hon. Member that night. He trusted, however, that when the object of it was well understood, all obstacles would vanish. He entirely agreed with the hon. and learned Member in the opinion, that the mother country had a right to legislate for the colonies. He approved of the principle that slave evidence should be permitted—that was to say, he thought a condition of slavery should not incapacitate a man from giving evidence—leaving it of course to the Court and the Jury to give it the weight it deserved. As for the Consolidation Slave Acts bill, he considered it contained many humane regulations, which were well worthy of adoption, but unfortunately there were some clauses which, in his opinion, rendered it inadmissible: and he therefore thought it proper that the disapprobation of Government should be expressed. With respect to the case of the clergyman, mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman, who was guilty of cruelty to his female slave, that had called forth the indignation of the authorities at home, and he was then in correspondence with the government of Jamaica on the subject. As to Mr. Orton, it was impossible to hear of the religious intolerance of which he had been the victim without indignation, and he had the satisfaction to inform the House, that the Magistrates who refused to commit the persons en- gaged in the outrage on that gentleman had been displaced. In answer to another topic he begged to remark, that although entertaining a most sincere respect for the Established Church, he yet thought that the Dissenting Missionaries were more successful instruments than the members of the Establishment in spreading the Gospel amongst the negroes, but he could not at the same time avoid lamenting that these pious persons' exertions were in too great degree tinctured with an overweening zeal and enthusiasm. With respect to the case of a person named Moss, to which the hon. and learned Member had referred, he was aware that that person had been guilty of great barbarities; but he wished to observe that this person's name was Henry Moss. There was a Mr. John Moss in the same island, a very respectable individual, and he was induced to mention this, as he had been confounded with Henry Moss. He did not, however, think with the learned Gentleman, that General Grant's conduct on that occasion was censurable. He had only lent a too ready ear to the representation of some of the most respectable people of the island; and knowing him to be a most humane and honourable man, he had thought it quite consistent with his duty to recommend the General to his Majesty as a proper person to be appointed governor of Trinidad. Finally, he again called on the hon. Member not to press his Resolution; and he said, he thought the Resolutions adopted by the House, on the 15th of May, 1823, were sufficient warrant for the Government to proceed in urging on all possible improvement, consistent with that extreme caution which it ought to feel in interfering in matters so materially affecting the colonists, or in taking any step which might deteriorate their property, or still more, destroy it altogether.

supported the Motion. If he should have the honour of a seat in the next Parliament, and no other person brought forward Resolutions on the subject, he would do so, and he trusted that at the approaching General Election, electors would require from the candidates a pledge that they would give their assistance to all measures calculated to abolish slavery.

was understood to maintain, that the condition of the slaves in the West Indies was not such as it had been represented by the hon. and learned member for Knaresborough. In considering this question, the House ought to recollect the very important fact, that the trade of the West Indies had been greatly reduced within a few years, and that care should be taken not to endanger it still further. There was a general disposition among the colonial legislatures to ameliorate the condition of the slave-population; and he was persuaded, that if the subject were let alone, that desirable object would be much more speedily obtained than it would be by any attempt to urge it forward by motions such as the present.

supported his hon. and learned friend's Motion, and contended that a question of greater interest could not be brought before the House. He could not conceive any possible objection to the Motion. He could not conceive why the Colonial Legislatures should be less inclined to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, in consequence of any declaration in their favour by Parliament. On the contrary, it appeared to him that such a declaration would be a sharp spur to their intentions. He agreed in opinion with the right hon. Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, that this was a question which ought to be discussed with great temper and forbearance. At the same time it was impossible for any man not to feel indignation at the eloquent statements of his hon. and learned friend, the member for Knaresborough. He should be exceedingly sorry, however, to cast any general reflection on all the West-India proprietors. Many among them he knew to be as humane, considerate, and good men, as any human beings upon earth; and he was quite sure that they would be most happy if any means could be pointed out for remedying the evils arising from the existing state of things. It would be to waste the time of the House, were he to dwell for any length of time on the evils attendant on the state of slavery in which so large a part of the population of the West Indies was plunged. He did not mean to say that the colonial legislatures had not done something—nay, that they had not done much; but more remained to be done; and it was highly necessary that the House of Commons should look steadily at what was going forward, and should urge on the tardy steps of the slave-owners. All that the Motion of his hon. and learned friend did was to call upon the House to express a strong opinion on the subject; an opinion which could not fail to produce a beneficial effect on the public mind. Although the adoption of the Motion would not pledge a future House of Commons to any particular course, it would have an effect on the manner in which the subject would be considered when brought forward again. Not having at any time heard suggestions in that House, from those who were anxious to get rid of slavery, as to the best mode of accomplishing that object, and having had several suggestions of that nature offered to him by some West-India proprietors, he would take this opportunity of throwing them out for the consideration of the House. There was no West-India proprietor who would not be too happy if means could be devised of placing the negro-population of the West-Indies in as good a condition, and of rendering them as well behaved, as the labouring population of Europe. The great difficulty was, to discover some motive by which the slave might be induced to labour, without any reference to harsh and cruel stimulants. No man would labour without some motive. All people laboured as little as they could help. It had, however, been suggested to him, that it would be easy, by various devices, to induce the slave-population of the colonies to perform voluntary labour. In the first place, it was supposed that it might be advisable to provide that all slaves having obtained means of doing so, should be entitled to purchase their freedom. Another plan was, that an average should be made of the day's labour of a slave; that he should be set that as a task; and that he should be allowed to employ his surplus time in the furtherance of his own purposes. Another plan hinged upon the possibility of inducing slaves, by granting indentures to them to work out their slavery; and that this should be accompanied by a remission of duties on the part of Government to the proprietors of those slaves. To supply such motives as would produce the final, though gradual emancipation of the slaves, was a subject well worthy the consideration of Parliament. Although it was certainly true, that the interests of all parties ought to be consulted on this subject, yet the main topic for them to consider legislatively, was, undoubtedly, the condition of the black population itself. Every thing ought to be done for that population which was consistent with justice, and with the due regard which ought to be paid to the interests of other parties. All interests, indeed, should be consulted—the West-Indians and the mortgagees, and above all, unquestionably, the condition of the black population. The public had also a great interest in this question, for the West Indies formed a most important possession to this country, far more important, he contended, than even the East Indies. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not oppose the Motion; and he was firmly of opinion, that the West Indians, by promoting emancipation, would benefit themselves as well as the negroes. He did not think the West-India colonists were to blame for the present system, and the emancipation of the negroes at present would be very hard upon the proprietors. This, therefore, was a question which should be touched upon with great delicacy, and ought never to be agitated, except very gently. Measures should be adopted to prepare them for that state, and if they were resorted to with zeal and sincerity, the time necessary to prepare them might be much shorter than was calculated. The difficulties might be found to diminish as they advanced, and they might come at last to the result which they all so much desired. Anxious that such steps should be taken, he was not disposed to remove the case altogether from the hands of the Government. He gave credit to Government for its intentions, and he was sure that the matter could not be in better hands than those of the right hon. and gallant Secretary (Sir George Murray). But he believed that the good intentions of the Government might be promoted by a vote of that House. He trusted, therefore, that no objection would be made, in the next Session of Parliament, to take the whole of this important subject into most serious consideration, and it would be well for the House, at that moment, to declare that such was its intention; and then, when it was brought under discussion next Session, every one would be fully prepared. While he was upon his legs he would, in connection in some degree with this subject, quit for one moment the treatment and condition of black slaves, and call the attention of the House to the case of the treatment of an English seaman, whose death, it was stated in the public prints, had been occasioned by flogging, He could easily bring the case to the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, by mentioning the name of the Captain, which was Mingay. He just threw out this allusion to the case, in order that the Admiralty might have their attention directed to the subject; and he begged to add, that at as early a period as possible, he should feel it his duty to bring the subject of flogging in the navy before the House. He had been the more surprised at the account of this man's death, as he had imagined that under the present system no more than twelve lashes were ever inflicted; but it appeared that he had been mistaken, for this poor man had received four dozen, and death was stated to have been the consequence. Some inquiry had taken place, but not of a satisfactory kind. He called the attention of the Admiralty to it, because this was a mode of punishment which both in the army and navy, he hoped he should live to see finally abolished. With respect to the Motion of his hon. and learned friend, it had his cordial support.

said, that with reference to the case just mentioned by the hon. Baronet, he begged to state, that the moment the death of the man was known a Coroner's Inquest sat on the body; and having examined evidence on the subject, the Jury gave a particular award, by which they paid the greatest compliment to the Captain and officers of the ship, for the humane manner in which they had discharged their painful duty. The fact was, that the man was at the time labouring under erisypelas, and that the disease and the punishment acting together, caused his death; but the Jury were satisfied, that both during the punishment and after it, the greatest care had been employed. After the verdict, it was impossible for the Admiralty to blame the officer, more especially as the crime the man had committed deserved the punishment inflicted. There was no actual limit assigned to the punishment a captain could inflict; but forty-eight lashes were rarely, he might say almost never, ordered.

said, he had never listened to a speech with greater pleasure than to that of the hon. Baronet on the other side of the House. It was a speech calculated to advance that moral improvement, to which alone they could look for the extinction of Slavery. He feared that they never could confer much advantage on the slave by forced legislation. He did not object to the Motion as pledging the Parliament to a particular course, for they had a right to consider Parliament as a continuous body, though now on the eve of dissolution—they had done so in 1806, when that Resolution was passed, which a future Parliament had recognised and carried into effect; but he thought that, except in very extraordinary and pressing cases, pledges ought not to be given, for, if they were not redeemed, they must operate to depreciate the character of Parliament. The Resolution professed to contemplate the final abolition of slavery—a proposition to which he was unwilling to pledge himself, without knowing in what manner it was to be brought about. That was one of his objections to the Motion, another was, that it said nothing about compensation. Arguing with the slave as to the right by which we held him, he must confess that he had no reply; but arguing with the West-India proprietor as to the effect which the abolition of slavery must have upon his property, he would contend, that the proprietor had as strong a claim to compensation as the possessor of any other description of property that could be mentioned. If it was the resolve of that House to remove the blot which he would frankly admit still rested on the national character in this respect, still he felt it ought to be accompanied by another measure, which would show that the Legislature had not, in its zeal for humanity, forgotten the interests of those individual proprietors which might probably be affected, if not materially injured, by its determination to effect a great change in our colonial policy. Would it be wise in the House to determine, in the present state of things, that it would take into its consideration the propriety of an immediate emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies, without maturely weighing and considering the character and the probable effect which this measure would most likely have on the condition of the slaves themselves, in whose favour the measure of emancipation had been agreed to be conceded? The hon. and learned Gentleman, in the eloquent speech they had heard with so much pleasure, dwelt on the dangers which were to be apprehended from the attempt to force a measure of the kind which he recommended on the colonial legislatures, despite of their feelings and predilections on this delicate subject, and had asked if there could be traced any resemblance in the situation of these colonies and our North American colonies previous to their revolt in the last century.

said, across the Table, his observation was confined to the right of this country to tax the colonies, not to legislate for them in respect to measures of general applicability to the colonies.

continued—Could any one dwell for a moment on the horrors to be apprehended from being, in consequence of such an interference by Parliament with the internal concerns of these islands, forced to the awful emergency of waging war upon the white population of our own colonies and the colonial legislatures? With what dangers must such a measure be surrounded, from the probable widening of the breach between the colonists and the coloured population!—breach which must ever, he feared, continue, so long as slavery itself continued in those colonies. The case of the West-Indian population was singular. They were prepared to look on this subject with very different eyes from those with which we viewed it. "Virtus non sine moribus viget." And much as he should be sorry to find that the conduct of the slave-proprietor in the Bahama islands, Henry Moss, was not an exception to the conduct of other slave-proprietors, he should still more regret that, by any conduct of our own at home, such a person should be hence considered an object proper to excite the sympathy of slave-proprietors generally in the West Indies. Without going to the extent which the hon. and learned Gentleman's motion would pledge the House, he would ask, were there not means in their power of effecting much for the amelioration of the slave, and the elevation of his moral character in the social scale;—for instance, by enabling the slave to give his evidence in courts of law, and in other respects fitting and preparing him to enjoy that blessing which it was the object of all our late measures to impart to him—liberty? Such a preparatory course had not been considered unwise by the legislatures in Grenada and in Tobago. But he knew, from an intelligent individual, that though there might be less Hesitation as to enabling a slave to give evidence generally in courts of law, even against the task-master or the overseer, still there were scruples as to the propriety of allowing him to be a witness against his owner, or one who unavoidably had, from his rights of property in him, such a control over the slave. He trusted the hon. and learned Member would, upon mature deliberation, be of opinion that this was not a proper occasion to press the House to a division on the subject. If he were to persist in the intention he had avowed, and divide the House, there would be possibly a fresh ground of remonstrance taken up, on the smallness of the number of Members now present when such an important question was under discussion. He hoped the colonists would take the wished-for hint furnished by this and other motions previously submitted to the British Legislature, and begin to improve and ameliorate the condition of the slave-population; and that the West-Indian colonists would be fully convinced there was no intention on the part of the Legislature here to interfere, so as to interrupt their efforts to improve the morals and condition of those more immediately committed to their charge, and in whom they had every reason to feel the most lively interest. For his part, he was anxious to maintain, and bound to maintain, the authority of Parliament—not to tax the colonies, but to ensure there, as well as at home, the due administration of justice. He hoped the concession, enabling the slave to give evidence in courts of law would pave the way to other arrangements of the local legislatures, which would engender and foster more kindly feelings between the owners of slaves and the slaves themselves; that there would be no pretext furnished to their over-anxiety for their own interests, by the forcible interference of the Legislature at home, to attempt to prolong the dependance of their slaves, and that the West-Indian legislatures would set about, in good earnest, improving the condition of the negroes, in order to prepare them for the reception of more important concessions hereafter; thus warding off in time the dangers which were possibly to be anticipated from that interference of which they were so apprehensive, but for which nothing but their own disinclination to attempt the improvement of their slave-population could furnish Parliament with a motive, or their enemies with a pretext.

could not agree with the recommendation of the right hon. Gen- tleman, not to press this Motion to a division. The secret of their small numbers, unfortunately, could not be kept. It was a proverb that a secret was a secret with two, but ceased to be so when more than two persons knew of it, for that the third person was always diffident of his own powers of keeping the secret, and, therefore, at once determined to get the assistance of three or four others. An hon. Member had once complained of him for having, on the 19th of May, 1826, made a similar motion, by which the hon. Member had been subjected to questions on the hustings. Why that was just what he wished. He hoped the constituents would, at the approaching election, ask the same questions. He hoped that candidates would answer by pledges, and that the constituents would warn them, that if these were not redeemed, these Representatives should not represent them again. He knew, that in most other cases a death-bed repentance was of little value, but it went a great way with constituents. But the House was advised to give no pledge, for that it might not be redeemed, and then the character of the House would be lowered. He would not inquire how much character the House had to lose, but he knew that, in the question before them, the performance of their pledges ought to be rigidly and severely enforced. There were precedents for his Motion—first, in that of Mr. Fox, in 1806, on the subject of the slave trade, Mr. Fox then being (unfortunately, for a short period only) the Minister of the Crown, and the leader of the House of Commons; and, secondly, in that of Mr. Canning, on the Catholic Question, on the 22nd June, 1812, when, though the Government moved an amendment, that amendment was rejected, and the question of the pledge triumphantly carried. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) had said, that a measure of this kind could not be adopted without deliberation. Why that was precisely what he (Mr. Brougham) desired. He wished the House to pledge itself that it would take the subject into consideration in the ensuing Session. That was the object of his Motion. The right hon. Gentleman had objected to the introduction of the terms "final emancipation," but he (Mr. Brougham) had not said a word about any fixed period for that measure. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas—and the latter was any thing but a visionary or romantic man—had proposed a resolution fixing a period, after which no negro born in the colonies should be a slave. He (Mr. Brougham) proposed no such measure. All he proposed was, that the House should pledge themselves not to emancipate, but to inquire as to what measures would tend best to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, so as to lead most effectually to final emancipation, but without fixing any time at which it should take place. He had no notion of any appeal to brute force; all he wished was, that Parliament should do its duty. If it waited till the colonial legislatures took up the subject effectually, it might wait for generations, and nothing would be done. The constituents of those legislatures were men who all took a wrong view of this subject, and if the legislatures were disposed to act, they could not. Objections were made in 1807, that if Parliament carried the question of abolition, the colonial legislatures would not consent; but the measure was carried, and not a word of objection was heard from the legislatures of Jamaica or Barbadoes, not to mention Tortola, or other small islands, in the shape of resistance to it. The same thing would occur if the Parliament passed such a measure as he alluded to. When Parliament was found to be firm in its purpose, the colonists would obey. But then the right hon. Gentleman seemed to fear that this country might be called on to make war on the colonists to compel the adoption of the conditions which might be imposed on them. He was surprised to hear such an argument from the right hon. Gentleman. Did the people of this country make war on Ireland to compel the Orangemen to accept the terms of the arrangements flowing out of the concession of Catholic Emancipation? They had heard a great deal of the resistance of the colonies. They were told at the time the slave-trade was abolished, that the colonists would oppose the wishes of the mother country, but somehow or other the object was effected, and they had heard nothing of the resistance. Again, it was said that the colonial legislatures were the fittest to carry the wishes of the abolitionists into effect, because they were best acquainted with the state of the blacks, and the circumstances under which the alterations could be most beneficially carried into effect. If those colonial legislatures represented the intelligence, and the good feeling, and the humane disposi- tions of the West-India proprietors, he would most readily believe that it would be wisest to intrust the task to them; but, unfortunately, the West-India proprietors, in whom such a trust might be reposed, were all resident in this country, and none but the lower description of whites, men prejudiced in favour of the abuses of the system, and interested in their continuance, were to be found in these assemblies, to which it was wished to leave the power of legislating on this subject. It was his opinion, and he had heard nothing to change it, that the reform must commence at home. He avowed that he was much surprised at the argument of his right hon. friend, the member for Newcastle (Mr. W. Horton), who would not assent to any regulation for the colonies made by Parliament, which, being at such a distance, could not be acquainted with local circumstances, yet his right hon. friend had himself held out to the chartered colonies, not an Act of Parliament, but an Order in Council, drawn up by men not nearer to or better acquainted with the local circumstances, and called upon them to obey that Order. He agreed with the right hon. Baronet, that the worst part of this dismal case was, the effeet which certain atrocities had produced amongst society in the West Indies, and he desired no better evidence of the manner in which the wishes of the people of England were likely to be complied with by the colonists, than what was to be found in their conduct towards the Mosses. When Mr. Henry Moss was released from confinement, after having suffered a merited punishment for his cruelty, the whites of the colony actually gave him a public dinner, for the purpose of marking their sense of his conduct. After such an admission as that, it was vain to talk of a dependence on the colonial legislatures. It was vain to hope for any amendment in the regulations, with respect to the religious worship, or the Sunday labour. The Parliament of England must interfere to compel the fulfilment of that pledge, so often given, and so often broken. If the colonists, at the eleventh hour, still hesitated—if they disregarded all the warnings they had received—if at the moment that the eleventh hour was about to strike, they still persisted in contemning the wishes of the people and the Parliament of England, the work would be taken out of their hands, and they would be compelled, in despite of all resistance, to prompt and full submission. He was sorry to learn that his Motion was resisted. He regretted that the Government should have determined to refuse the little he asked, for he thought it much too little; but he had the satisfaction of feeling, that if the Houses of Parliament neglected their pledges, and the performance of their paramount duty, the people of England would do theirs. The House divided—For Mr. Brougham's Motion 27; Against it 56;—Majority 29.