It was moved by Mr. GEORGE STEPHEN, and seconded by the Rev. J. BURNETT,

"That the thanks of the Meeting be given to the Agents and Correspondents of the Society, for their recent great exertions in behalf of the cause, and especially in reference to the petition to the House

of Lords."

It was moved by Mr. BELDAM, and seconded by the Rev. J. BURNETT,

"That the thanks of this Meeting be given to the Chairman, for his great kindness in taking the Chair on this occasion, and for his able conduct in the occupation of it."

The motion being carried by acclamation,

The CHAIRMAN returned thanks for the honour which had been done him, and observed that, however he might seem to have been more active in the cause than some others, it was to be accounted for on this ground, that they had only heard of slavery, while he was a witness of it for eleven years. It was said to one who read the orations of Demosthenes, and admired them, What would you have felt if you had heard him speak them? So with respect to a very different theme---slavery---they would have felt their honest indignation roused, and their zeal for its overthrow far more excited, had they beheld its cruelties and atrocities. But he trusted that, while they were spared the painful sight, they would not relax in their efforts, but would unremittingly devote themselves, heart and soul, to the cause of the Negroes, so long as they remained unemancipated. The meeting then broke up about seven o'clock.

II. DEBATE ON MR. BUXTON'S MOTION IN THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS.

Mr. Buxton's motion on the Slavery Question came on for discussion on the 24th of May. It was in these terms:-"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon the measures which it may be expedient to adopt, for effecting the extinction of Slavery throughout the British dominions, at the earliest period compatible with the safety of all classes in the Colonies.'

"

After a very interesting discussion, of which one of the most remarkable features was the obviously improved tone and temper of the majority of the House on this great question, an amendment, proposed by Lord Sandon, and supported by Ministers, to the effect that all measures for the extinction of slavery should be "in conformity with the Resolutions of this House on the 15th day of May, 1823," was carried by a majority of 73, 163 voting for the amendment and 90 for the original motion. We must reserve for a subsequent number of the Reporter a more extended account of this debate and its important results. Meanwhile a list of the minority who voted for Mr. Buxton's motion, and of the select Committee appointed in conformity with the Resolution passed, may be found in the Anti-Slavery Record, No. 2.

London :-Printed by S. Bagster, Jun., 14, Bartholomew Close.

THE

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER.

No. 97.]

JUNE, 1832.

[VOL. v. No. 7.

REPORT OF A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE CAUSES AND REMEDY OF WEST INDIA DISTRESS, WITH THE EVIDENCE TAKEN.-PAPER OF 13th APRIL, 1832, No. 381, CONTAINING 350 PAGES.

The enormous bulk of this Report precludes an analysis of it. It is besides vague and unsatisfactory, and decides nothing. The witnesses, with scarcely an exception, are West Indians, and the evidence of course ex parte. We must confine ourselves to some cursory remarks upon it.

1. A common topic with all the witnesses is, the peculiar distress experienced, at the present moment, by the growers of West India produce. But is the existing distress so very peculiar as is pretended? With occasional gleams of prosperity, which have served only to aggravate the planters' general embarrassments, the whole history of West Indian speculation, for the last seventy or eighty years, has been, if we believe themselves, a succession of losses and disasters of the most extensive and overwhelming description.

"Mr. Long, himself a West Indian and the historian of Jamaica, establishes the fact, that, so long ago as the year 1750, the planters of that island were labouring under severe distress. Mr. Bryan Edwards, also a West Indian planter and the historian of the West Indies, referring to the period which closed in the year 1792, when his work first appeared, asserts (2nd vol. book vi. chap. i. 5th ed. p. 587) that though many have competencies which enable them to live well with economy in this country, yet the great mass of planters are men of oppressed fortunes, consigned by debt to unremitting drudgery in the Colonies, with a hope, which eternally mocks their grasp, of happier days, and a release from their embarrassments.'

But we have still more decisive authority than that even of Bryan Edwards, for the prevalence of great distress at this period, and during the twenty preceding years.

"On the 23rd of November, 1792, a Report was prepared on the Sugar Trade of Jamaica, by a Committee of the Assembly, and confirmed and printed by its order, which contains the following passage.

"In the course of twenty years, 177 estates in Jamaica have been sold for the payment of debts; 55 estates have been thrown up; and 92 are still in the hands of creditors; and it appears, from a return made by the provost marshal, that 80,121 executions, amounting to £22,563,786 sterling, have been lodged in his office in the course of twenty years.

Can any thing more disastrous be predicated of the present time?

"A gleam of prosperity followed the revolution of St. Domingo; but in a few years the sky was again overcast, and in a Report of the Assembly of Jamaica, of the 23d Nov. 1804, and printed by order of the House of Commons on the 25th Feb. 1805, we have the following statement.

"Every British merchant holding securities on real estates, is filing bills in Chancery to foreclose, although when he has obtained his decree he hesitates to enforce it, because he must himself become the proprietor of the plantation, of which from fatal experience he knows the consequence. No one will advance money to relieve those whose debts approach half the value of their property, nor even lend a moderate sum without a judgment in ejectment and release of errors, that at a moment's notice he may take out a writ of possession, and enter on the plantation of his unfortunate debtor. Sheriffs' officers and collectors of taxes are every where offering for sale the property of individuals who have seen better days, and now must view their effects purchased for half their real value, and at less than half the original cost. Far from having the reversion expected, the creditor is often not satisfied. All kind of credit is at an end. If litigation in the courts of common law has diminished, it is not from increased ability to perform contracts, but from confidence having ceased, and no man parting with property but for an immediate payment of the A faithful detail would have the appearance of a

consideration.

frightful caricature.'

In 1807, the consideration of the commercial state of the West Indies was referred to a Committee of the House of Commons. The Report of that Committee was printed, by an order of the House of the 24th July, 1807, and is numbered 65; and it may be referred to with great advantage, as exhibiting the uniformly ruinous nature of sugar-planting speculations in our slave colonies, and the desperate and costly expedients which the planters are in the habit of demanding for their relief. At that time, as now, the West Indies were described as liable, without speedy aid, to inevitable ruin, and to the loss of a vast capital.

"In the following year the same subject was pressed again on the attention of Parliament, and a voluminous Report was printed, by an order of the House of Commons of the 13th April, 1808, No. 178, in which it is recommended that sugar should be substituted for grain in our distilleries. To this Report is appended a detailed statement from the Assembly of Jamaica, dated 13th Nov. 1807, in which they state that, within the last five or six years, 65 estates had been abandoned, 32 sold under decrees of Chancery, and 115 more respecting which suits in Chancery were depending, and many more bills preparing.'From these facts,' they go on to say,' the House will be able to judge to what an alarming extent the distresses of the Sugar Planters have already reached, and with what accelerated rapidity they are now increasing; for the sugar estates lately brought to sale, and now in the Court of Chancery in this Island and in England, amount to about one-fourth of the whole number of the Colony.

"Your Committee have to lament that ruin has already taken place, and they must, under a continuance of the present circumstances, anticipate very shortly the bankruptcy of a much larger part of the com

munity, and, in the course of a few years, of the whole class of Sugar Planters, excepting perhaps a very few in peculiar circumstances.'

"And the remedy which the Jamaica Assembly recommended was to adopt means to raise the price of their sugar in England to from 60s. to 70s. a cwt. exclusive of duty, as alone adequate to afford a living profit to the planter; and to this end they recommend the substitution of their sugar for British grain in the distilleries.

"On the 15th of June, 1812, a 'Representation of the Assembly of Jamaica to the King' was laid on the table of the House of Commons, and printed by its order. It is numbered 279. In this representation similar complaints to those already specified were renewed. They there speak of their ruin as complete:- For two years has this most calamitous state been endured; the crops of 1809 and 1810 are in a state worse than useless; a third draws towards its close with no appearance of amendment or alteration. The crop is gathering in' (they are speaking here of coffee), but its exuberance excites no sensation of pleasure.' If the slaves of the coffee plantations are offered for sale, who, they ask, can buy them ?—The proprietors of the old sugar estates are them'If ever there was a selves sinking under accumulated burdens.' case demanding the active and immediate interference of a paternal government, to relieve the burdens and alleviate the calamities of a most valuable and useful class of subjects,' 'it is that of the Coffee Planters of Jamaica.'

"The remedy the Assembly proposed was a high protecting duty, or even a prohibition of other coffee.-But they proceed

"The distresses of our constituents are not confined to the Coffee Planters. The growers of cotton, pimento, and the minor staples, are also suffering severely from their depreciation. The Sugar Planters, however, call more especially for protection and interposition.' The ruin of the original possessors has been gradually completed. Estate after estate has passed into the hands of mortgagees and creditors absent from the island, until there are large districts, whole parishes, in which there is not a single proprietor of a sugar plantation resident.' 'The distress,' they add, cannot be well aggravated,' and the most moderate recompence which can save the sugar grower from ruin is said to be 50s. a cwt. exclusive of duty; for it is not to be concealed, and cannot be denied, that a crisis has at last arrived, when nothing but the immediate and powerful interposition of the supreme authority of the empire can prevent our utter destruction. Exactions, debasement, and privations have been long and patiently endured by the proprietors. A large proportion of them now see approaching the lowest state of human misery, absolute want to their families, and the horrors of a gaol for themselves!'

"The general effect of these statements, strong as they are, seems to have been borne out, in some measure, by a speech of Mr. Marryat, in the House of Commons, in 1813, in a debate on the East India sugar duties. He is stated to have then affirmed, That there were comparatively few estates in the West Indies that had not, during the last twenty years, been sold or given up to creditors.'

"And now, after a lapse of nearly twenty years more, during which the West Indies have been drawing immense sums from the pockets of the public for bounties and protections, and have had freedom too given to their commerce in an unprecedented degree, what is the language they are at this very moment addressing to Parliament and the nation? It is this,' The alarming and unprecedented state of distress in which the whole British West India interest is at this time involved,' the petitioners say, justifies them in imploring Parliament' to adopt prompt and effectual measures of relief, in order to preserve them from inevitable ruin.' And not satisfied with the protection they already enjoy, and a bounty of 5s. to 6s. a cwt., they again revert to the necessity of a large additional bounty in order to secure to them a remunerating price for their sugar.

"Instead of looking for help to their own industry and economy, and to the reformation in their plans of cultivation, they throw themselves on the bounty of the public.

"And what but this ill-timed bounty has been the cause why the West Indies should have continued in that low state of improvement which they now exhibit;—that the miserable hoe, raised by the feeble hands of men and women, driven forward by the whip, should still be the only instrument generally used in turning up the soil, to the neglect of cattle and ploughs;-that all modern improvements in husbandry should be almost unknown;-that one unvarying course of exhausting crops should be pursued without change or relief;—and that in a climate congenial to them the population should continue progressively and rapidly to decrease? These, and many other points that might be mentioned, are anomalies, which can only be accounted for by the withering influence of Slavery and of the factitious aid by which it is upheld. How different would have been the state of things in our Colonies, had a different course been pursued! How different would soon be their state, and this is now a far more important consideration, if they were led to depend on their own resources, and they were released from the injurious effects of that protecting system which has hitherto kept them from all effective efforts of improvement! If there be truth in history, or any certainty in political science, the downfall of the present system, and of the restrictive laws which maintain it, would prove beneficial to none more than to the Colonists themselves.

"But it is not the distress of the West India planters, as arising from the system we have been pursuing, which is chiefly to be deplored, but the sufferings which it entails on the slave population. For it admits of demonstration that, independently of the other evils of slavery, sugar planting, as conducted in the West Indies, is decidedly unfriendly to human life; and that its destructive influence is aggravated by the circumstances which swell the gains of the planter, namely, the fertility of the soil, and the protection afforded to his produce by bounties and protections. It is not merely that these advantages enable him to live at a distance from his slaves, who are thus left to the care of mere hirelings; but that they form a strong temptation to an