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The West India

continuing it, we shall have exempted ourselves | the slave trade. My honorable friend, however, from guilt, and have transferred the whole criminality to them; let us rather reflect that, on the very principle urged against us, we shall henceforth have to answer for their crimes, as well as our own. We have strong reasons to believe that it depends upon us, whether other countries will persist in this bloody trade or not. Already we have suffered one year to pass away, and now the question is renewed, a proposition is made for gradual, with the view of preventing immediate abolition. I know the difficulty that exists in attempting to reform long-established abuses; and I know the danger arising from the argument in favor of delay, in the case of evils which, nevertheless, are thought too enormous to be borne, when considered as perpetual. But by proposing some other period than the present, by prescribing some condition, by waiting for some contingency, or by refusing to proceed till a thousand favorable circumstances unite together; perhaps until we obtain the general concurrence of Europe (a concurrence which I believe never yet took place at the commencement of any one improvement in policy or in morals), year after year escapes, and the most enormous evils go unredressed. We see this abundantly exemplified, not only in public, but in private life. Similar observations have been often applied to the case of personal reformation. If you go into the street, it is a chance but the first person who crosses you is one,

Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam." We may wait; we may delay to cross the stream before us, till it has run down; but we shall wait forever, for the river will still flow on, without being exhausted. We shall be no nearer the object which we profess to have in view, so long as the step, which alone can bring us to it, is not taken. Until the actual, the only remedy is applied, we ought neither to flatter ourselves that we have as yet thoroughly laid to heart the evil we affect to deplore; nor that there is as yet any reasonable assurance of its being brought to an

actual termination.

African race

doomed to barbarism.

It has also been occasionally urged, that there (2.) That the is something in the disposition and can not be civ. nature of the Africans themselves ilized, but are which renders all prospect of civilization on that continent extremely unpromising. "It has been known," says Mr. Frazer, in his evidence, "that a boy has been put to death who was refused to be purchased as a slave." This single story was deemed by that gentleman a sufficient proof of the barbarity of the Africans, and of the inutility of abolishing

6 This line, with the remainder of the passage as

referred to in the next sentence, is found in the
Epistles of Horace, Book i., Epist. 2, lines 41-3:

Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.
He who delays the hour of living well,
Stands like the rustic on a river's brink,
To see the stream run out; but on it flows,
And still shall flow with current never ceasing.

barbarous in some of their

laws.

has told you that this boy had previously run
away from his master three several times; that
the master had to pay his value, according to the
custom of the country, every time he was brought
back; and that partly from anger at the boy for
running away so frequently, and partly to pre-
vent a still farther repetition of the same ex-
pense, he determined to put him to death. Such
was the explanation of the story given in the
cross-examination. This, sir, is the signal in-
stance that has been dwelt upon of African bar-
barity. This African, we admit, was unenlight-
ened, and altogether barbarous; but let us now
ask, what would a civilized and enlightened West
Indian, or a body of West Indians,
have done in any case of a parallel planters equally
nature? I will quote you, sir, a law,
passed in the West Indies, in the
year 1722, which, in turning over the book I
happened just now to cast my eye upon; by
which law, this very same crime of running
away, is, by the Legislature of the island, by the
grave and deliberate sentence of that enlightened
Legislature, punished with death; and this, not
in the case only of the third offense, but even in
the very first instance. It is enacted, "that if
any negro or other slave shall withdraw himself
from his master for the term of six months; or
any slave that was absent, shall not return with-
in that time, it shall be adjudged felony, and ev.
ery such person shall suffer death." There is
another West India law, by which every negro's
hand is armed against his fellow-negroes, by his
being authorized to kill a runaway slave, and
even having a reward held out to him for doing
so. Let the House now contrast the two cases.
Let them ask themselves which of the two ex-
hibits the greater barbarity? Let them reflect,
with a little candor and liberality, whether on
the ground of any of those facts, and loose insin-
uations as to the sacrifices to be met with in the
evidence, they can possibly reconcile to them-
selves the excluding of Africa from all means
of civilization; whether they can possibly vote
for the continuance of the slave trade upon the
principle that the Africans have shown them-
selves to be a race of incorrigible barbarians.

Resumption of whether other nations will ing the trade.

the question

unite in abolish

I hope, therefore, we shall hear no more of the moral impossibility of civilizing the Africans, nor have our understand ings and consciences again insulted, by being called upon to sanction the slave trade, until other nations shall have set the example of abolishing it. deliberating upon the subject, one nation, not ordinarily taking the lead in politics, nor by any means remarkable for the boldness of its coun

While we have been

cils, has determined on a gradual abolition;7 a determination, indeed, which, since it permits for a time the existence of the slave trade, would be an unfortunate pattern for our imitation. France,

The country referred to was Denmark, which, two years after the delivery of this speech (in 1794), made a law that the slave trade should cease at the end of ten years, i. e., in 1804.

it is said, will take up the trade if we relinquish it. What? Is it supposed that in the present situation of St. Domingo, of an island which used to take three fourths of all the slaves required by the colonies of France, she, of all countries, will think of taking it up? What countries remain? The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Spaniards. Of those countries, let me declare it is my opinion that, if they see us renounce the trade after full deliberation, they will not be disposed, even on principles of policy, to rush further into it. But I say more. How are they to furnish the capital necessary for carrying it on? If there is any aggravation of our guilt, in this wretched business, greater than another, it is that we have stooped to be the carriers of these miserable beings from Africa to the West Indies for all the other powers of Europe. And now, sir, if we retire from the trade altogether, I ask, where is that fund which is to be raised at once by other nations, equal to the purchase of 30 or 40,000 slaves? A fund which, if we rate them at £40 or £50 each, can not make a capital of less than a million and a half, or two millions of money. From what branch of their commerce is it that these European nations will draw to gether a fund to feed this monster? to keep alive this detestable commerce? And even if they should make the attempt, will not that immense chasm, which must instantly be created in the other parts of their trade, from which this vast capital must be withdrawn in order to supply the slave trade, be filled up by yourselves? Will not these branches of commerce which they must leave, and from which they must withdraw their industry and their capitals, in order to apply them to the slave trade, be then taken up by British merchants? Will you not even in this case find your capital flow into these deserted channels? Will not your capital be turned from the slave trade to that natural and innocent commerce from which they must withdraw their capitals in proportion as they take up the traffic in the flesh and blood of their fellow creatures? The committee sees, I trust, how little ground of objection to our proposition there is in this part of our adversaries' argument.

tion of Africa

ject of the measure proposed.

Having now detained the House so long, all The civiliza that I will further add shall be on that a leading ob important subject, the civilization of Africa, which I have already shown that I consider as the leading feature in this question. Grieved am I to think that there should be a single person in this country, much more that there should be a single member in the British Parliament, who can look on the present dark, uncultivated, and uncivilized state of that continent as a ground for continuing the slave trade; as a ground not only for refusing to attempt the improvement of Africa, but even for hindering and intercepting every ray of light which might otherwise break in upon her, as a ground for refusing to her the common chance and the common means with which other nations have been blessed, of emerging from their native barbarism.

Here, as in every other branch of this extensive question, the argument of our adversaries pleads against them; for surely, sir, the present deplorable state of Africa, especially when we reflect that her chief calamities are to be ascribed to us, calls for our generous aid, rather than justifies any despair on our part of her recovery, and still less any further repetition of our injuries.

tion.

I will not much longer fatigue the attention of the House; but this point has imArgument from pressed itself so deeply on my mind, history as to the prospect of that I must trouble the committee African civiliza with a few additional observations. Are we justified, I ask, on any theory, or by any one instance to be found in the history of the world, from its very beginning to this day, in forming the supposition which I am now combating? Are we justified in supposing that the particular practice which we encourage in Africa, of men's selling each other for slaves, is any symptom of a barbarism that is incurable? Are we justified in supposing that even the practice of offering up human sacrifices proves a total incapacity for civilization? I believe it will be found, and perhaps much more generally than is supposed, that both the trade in slaves, and the still more savage custom of offering human sacrifices, obtained in former periods, throughout many of those nations which now, by the blessings of Providence, and by a long progression of improvements, are advanced the furthest in civilization. I believe, sir, that, if we will reflect an instant, we shall find that this observation comes directly home to our own selves; and that, on the same ground on which we now are disposed to proscribe Africa forever, from all possibility of improvement, we ourselves might, in like manner, have been proscribed, and forever shut out from all the blessings which we now enjoy.

England once

polluted by hu and a mart of

man sacrifices,

slaves.

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There was a time, sir, which it may be fit sometimes to revive in the remembrance of our countrymen, when even human sacrifices are said to have been offered in this island. But I would especially observe on this day, for it is a case precisely in point, that the very practice of the slave trade once prevailed among us. Slaves, as we may read in Henry's History of Great Britain, were formerly an established article of our exports. "Great numbers," he says, were exported like cattle from the British coast, and were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market." It does not distinctly appear by what means they were procured; but there was unquestionably no small resemblance, in this particular point, between the case of our ancestors and that of the present wretched natives of Africa; for the historian tells you that "adultery, witchcraft, and debt, were probably some of the chief sources of supplying the Roman market with British slaves; that prisoners taken in war were added to the number; and that there might be among them some unfortunate gamesters who, after having lost all their goods, at length

staked themselves, their wives, and their chil- | system which has become the admiration of the dren." Every one of these sources of slavery world. From all these blessings we must forhas been stated, and almost precisely in the same ever have been shut out, had there been any truth terms, to be at this hour a source of slavery in in those principles which some gentlemen have Africa. And these circumstances, sir, with a not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the solitary instance or two of human sacrifices, fur- case of Africa. Had those principles been true, nish the alleged proofs that Africa labors under we ourselves had languished to this hour in that a natural incapacity for civilization; that it is miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and degenthusiasm and fanaticism to think that she can radation, in which history proves our ancestry to ever enjoy the knowledge and the morals of Eu- have been immersed. Had other nations adoptrope; that Providence never intended her to rise ed these principles in their conduct toward us; above a state of barbarism; that Providence has had other nations applied to Great Britain the irrevocably doomed her to be only a nursery for reasoning which some of the senators of this slaves for us free and civilized Europeans. Al- very island now apply to Africa; ages might low of this principle, as applied to Africa, and I have passed without our emerging from barbashould be glad to know why it might not also rism; and we who are enjoying the blessings of have been applied to ancient and uncivilized British civilization, of British laws, and British Britain. Why might not some Roman senator, liberty, might, at this hour, have been little sureasoning on the principles of some honorable perior, either in morals, in knowledge, or refinegentlemen, and pointing to British barbarians, ment, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of have predicted with equal boldness, "there is a Guinea. people that will never rise to civilization-there is a people destined never to be free-a people without the understanding necessary for the attainment of useful arts; depressed by the hand of Nature below the level of the human species; and created to form a supply of slaves for the rest of the world." Might not this have been said, according to the principles which we now hear stated, in all respects as fairly and as truly of Britain herself, at that period of her history, as it can now be said by us of the inhabitants of Africa?

present condi tion, yet engaged in keeping others bar barians.

extend the

If, then, we feel that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal ignorance would Her duty to have been the greatest calamity which boon to Af could have befallen us; if we view with rica. gratitude and exultation the contrast between the peculiar blessings we enjoy, and the wretchedness of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; if we shudder to think of the misery which would still have overwhelmed us had Great Britain continued to the present times to be a mart for slaves to the more civilized nations of the world, through some cruel policy of theirs, God forbid that we should any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and preclude the light of knowledge, which has reached every other quarter of the globe, from having access to her coasts.

Peroration: an

pects in the disduty.

We, sir, have long since emerged from barContrast of her barism. We have almost forgotten that we were once barbarians. We are now raised to a situation which exhibits a striking contrast to every I trust we shall no longer continue this comcircumstance by which a Roman might have merce, to the destruction of every imcharacterized us, and by which we now charac-provement on that wide continent; terize Africa. There is, indeed, one thing wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting even to this hour as barbarians; for we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves; we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions to civilization. We were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans are at present. But in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, favored above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivaled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society. We are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty. We are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice. We are living under a system of government which our own happy experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed; a

imating pros and shall not consider ourselves as charge of this conferring too great a boon, in restoring its inhabitants to the rank of human beings. I trust we shall not think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the slave trade, we give them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the world, and that we shall now allow to Africa the opportunity, the hope, the prospect of attaining to the same blessings which we ourselves, through the favorable dispensations of Divine Providence, have been permitted, at a much more early period, to enjoy. If we listen to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue this night the line of conduct which they prescribe, some of us may live to see a reverse of that picture from which we now turn our eyes with shame and regret. We may live to behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, in the pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which at some happy period in still later times may blaze with full luster; and joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that immense continent. Then may we

hope that even Africa, though last of all the quarters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those blessings which have descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world. Then, also, will Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it can be called) of no longer hindering that continent from extricating herself out of the darkness which, in other more fortunate regions, has been so much more speedily dispelled.

I shall vote, sir, against the adjournment; and I shall also oppose to the utmost every proposition which in any way may tend either to prevent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total abolition of the slave trade: a measure which, on all the various grounds which I have stated, we are bound, by the most pressing and indispensable duty, to adopt.

So great was the impression made by this speech, that nearly all the spectators present

-Nos que ubi primus equis oriens afflavit an. supposed the vote would be carried almost by

helis;

Illic sera rubens accendit lumina vesper.s

Then, sir, may be applied to Africa those words, originally used, indeed, with a different view :

His demum exactis

Devenêre locos lætos, et amœna vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas ;
Largior hic campos Ether et lumine vestit.
Purpuero :9

It is in this view, sir-it is an atonement for our long and cruel injustice toward Africa, that the measure proposed by my honorable friend most forcibly recommends itself to my mind. The great and happy change to be expected in the state of her inhabitants, is, of all the various and important benefits of the abolition, in my estimation, incomparably the most extensive and important.10

8

This passage is taken from Virgil's description of the zodiac in his Georgics (book i., lines 230-50), and of the sun's progress through the constellations, so that Morning rises on one side of the globe, while Evening follows in slow succession on the other. This Mr. Pitt beautifully applies to the successive rising of the light of science on the two continents of Europe and of Africa.

On us, while early Dawn with panting steeds,
Breathes at his rising, ruddy Eve for them
Lights up her fires slow-coming.

These words introduce Virgil's description of the Elysian fields in his region of departed spirits (Æneid, book vi., lines 637-41).

These rites performed, they reach those happy fields, Gardens, and groves, and seats of living joy, Where the pure ether spreads with wider sway, And throws a purple light o'er all the plains.

10 The last four paragraphs of this speech, togeth er with three others at the opening of the third head, "But now, sir, I come to Africa," are specimens of that lofty declamation with which Mr. Pitt so often raised and delighted the feelings of the House. His

acclamation. But the private, pecuniary interests which bore upon the House were too weighty to be overcome, and Mr. Dundas' plan of a gradual abolition had the preference by a majority of sixty-eight votes. Mr. Dundas now brought forward his scheme in detail, which was passed by a majority of nineteen, but the bill was lost in the House of Lords. The subject came up, through the indefatigable labors of Mr. Wilberforce, session after session, until in 1806, after Mr. Pitt's death, a resolution was passed declaring the slave trade was inconsistent with justice, humanity, and sound policy, and that measures ought to be taken for its immediate abolition." A bill to this effect was finally passed, February 6th, 1807; and January 1st, 1808, was fixed upon for the termination of the traffic on the part of the English.

that

America, in the mean time, had gone in advance on this subject, and stood foremost among the nations in her measure, for the suppression of the slave trade. In 1794, it was enacted that no person in the United States should fit out any vessel there for the purpose of carrying on any traffic in slaves to any foreign country, or for procuring from any foreign country the inhabitants thereof to be disposed of as slaves. In 1800, it was enacted that it should be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to have any property in any vessel employed in transporting slaves from one foreign country to another, or to serve on board any vessel so employed. In 1807, it was enacted that after the first of January 1808, no slaves should be imported into the United States. The slave trade was declared to be piracy by the American Congress in 1820, and by the British Parliament in 1824.

theme in such cases was usually his country-what she had been, what she might be, what she ought to accomplish. His amplifications are often in the best manner of Cicero, adapted to modern times.

SPEECH

OF MR. PITT ON THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, NOVEMBER 10, 1797.

INTRODUCTION.

FRANCE having declared war against Austria, April 20th, 1792, and against England, February 1st, 1793, all the leading powers of Europe united with the latter, and the contest soon became general. At the end of four years, the French had triumphed over their adversaries throughout the Continent; all the allies of England were driven from the field, and the Spaniards and Dutch were forced to turn their arms against her. The English, on the other hand, were every where victorious on the ocean, and had taken all her colonies from France, some valuable islands in the West Indies from Spain, and the Cape of Good Hope and the island of Ceylon from Holland, now the Batavian Republic.

But the internal condition of England made Mr. Pitt desirous of peace, and while his adversaries had nothing to restore, he had large possessions of theirs which he was willing to surrender as the price of a general pacification. Accordingly, on the fourth of July, 1797, he opened negotiations with the French at Lisle, through Lord Malmesbury, who had been sent the preceding year to Paris on the same mission, though without success. There were two parties at this time in the French government-the one moderate, the other violent and extreme. Hence, in conducting the negotiation, there was a continual fluc tuation and studied delay on the part of the French, until the violent party prevailed in the revolutionary movement of September 4th, 1797, when they broke off the negotiation, twelve days after, in a rude and insulting manner. Mignet gives a solution of their conduct in his History of the French Revolution: "The Directory, at this time without money, without the support of a party at home, with no other aid than that of the army, and no other means of influence than a continuation of its victories, was not in a condition to consent to a general peace. War was necessary to its existence. An immense body of troops could not be disbanded without danger." The nation was therefore to be dazzled, and the army employed, by an expedition for the conquest of Egypt, as the high road to the English possessions in India. Jomini admits, in his History of the Wars of the Revolution, that "Europe was convinced, on this occa sion at least, that the cabinet of St. James had evinced more moderation than a Directory whose proceedings were worthy of the days of Robespierre."

On the 24th of October, 1797, the King of England issued a "Declaration respecting the Negotiation for Peace with France," part of which will here be given, as a specimen of the noble and commanding style of Mr. Pitt in his state papers.

"HIS MAJESTY directed his minister to repair to France furnished with the most ample powers, and instructed to communicate at once an explicit and detailed proposal and plan of peace, reduced into the shape of a regular treaty, just and moderate in its principles, embracing all the interests concerned, and extending to every subject connected with the restoration of public tranquillity.

"To this proceeding, open and liberal beyond example, the conduct of his Majesty's enemies opposes the most striking contrast. From them no counter-project has ever yet been obtained; no statement of the extent or nature of the conditions on which they would conclude any peace with these kingdoms. Their pretensions have always been brought forward either as detached or as preliminary points, distinct from the main object of negotiation, and accompanied in every instance with an express reserve of further and unexplained demands.

"The points which, in pursuance of this system, the plenipotentiaries of the enemy proposed for separate discussion in their first conferences with his Majesty's minister, were at once frivolous and offensive; none of them productive of any solid advantage to France, but all calculated to raise new obstacles in the way of peace. And to these demands was soon after added another, in its form unprecedented, in its substance extravagant, and such as could only originate in the most determined and inveterate hostility. The principle of mutual compensation (before expressly admitted by common consent as the just and equitable basis of negotiation) was now disclaimed; every idea of moderation or reason, every appearance of justice, was disregarded; and a concession was required from his Majesty's plenipotentiary, as a preliminary and indispensable condition of negotiation, which must at once have superseded all the objects, and precluded all the means of treating. France, after incorporating with her own dominions so large a portion of her conquests, and affecting to have deprived herself, by her own internal regulations, of the power of alienating these valuable additions of territory, did not scruple to demand from his Majesty the absolute and unconditional surrender of all that the energy of his people, and the valor of his fleets and armies, have conquered in the present war, either from France or from her allies. She required that the power of Great Britain should be confined within its former limits, at the very moment when her own dominion was extended to a degree almost unparalleled in history. She insisted that in proportion to the increase of danger the means of resistance should be diminished; and that his Majesty

PP

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