  The following sheets first appeared in a periodical work called The Inquirer. They are now republished without undergoing any substantial alteration. The author however thinks it due to himself to state, that he would have materially qualified those parts of his essay which speak of the improved Condition of the Slaves in the West Indies since the abolition, had he then been acquainted with the recent evidence obtained upon that subject. His present conviction certainly is, that he has overrated that improvement, and that in point of fact Negro Slavery is, in its main and leading feature, the same system which it was when the Abolition controversy first commenced. It is possible there may be some, who, having glanced over the Title Page of this little work, may be startled at the word Emancipation. I wish to inform such, that Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, an acute Man, and a Friend to the Planters, proposed this very measure to Parliament in the year 1792. We see, then, that the word Emancipation cannot be charged with Novelty. It contains now no new ideas. It contains now nothing but what has been thought practicable, and even desirable to be accomplished. The Emancipation which I desire is such an Emancipation only, as I firmly believe to be compatible not only with the due subordination and happiness of the labourer, but with the permanent interests of his employer. I wish also to say, in case any thing like an undue warmth of feeling on my part should be discovered in the course of the work, that I had no intention of being warm against the West Indians as a body. I know that there are many estimable men among them living in England, who deserve every desirable praise for having sent over instructions to their Agents in the West Indies from time to time in behalf of their wretched Slaves. And yet, alas! even these, the Masters themselves, have not had influence enough to secure the fulfilment of their own instructions upon their own estates; nor will they, so long as the present system continues. They will never be able to carry their meritorious designs into effect against Prejudice, Law, and Custom. If this be not so, how happens it that you cannot see the Slaves, belonging to such estimable men, without marks of the whip upon their backs? The truth is, that so long as overseers, drivers, and others, are entrusted with the use of arbitrary power, and so long as Negro-evidence is invalid against the white oppressor, and so long as human nature continues to be what it is, no order from the Master for the better personal treatment of the Slave will or can be obeyed. It is against the system then, and not against the West Indians as a body, that I am warm, should I be found so unintentionally, in the present work. One word or two now on another part of the subject. A great noise will be made, no doubt, when the question of Emancipation comes to be agitated, about the immense property at stake, I mean the property of the Planters;—and others connected with them. This is all well. Their interests ought undoubtedly to be attended to. But I hope and trust, that, if property is to be attended to on one side of the question, it will be equally attended to on the other. This is but common justice. If you put into one scale the gold and jewels of the Planters, you are bound to put into the other the liberty of 800,000 of the African race; for every man's liberty is his own property by the laws of Nature, Reason, Justice, and Religion? and, if it be not so with our West Indian Slaves, it is only because they have been, and continue to be, deprived of it by force. And here let us consider for a moment which of these two different sorts of property is of the greatest value. Let us suppose an English gentleman to be seized by ruffians on the banks of the Thames (and why not a gentleman when African princes have been so served?) and hurried away to a land (and Algiers is such a land, for instance), where white persons are held as Slaves. Now this gentleman has not been used to severe labour (neither has the African in his own country); and being therefore unable, though he does his best, to please his master, he is roused to further exertion by the whip. Perhaps he takes this treatment indignantly. This only secures him a severer punishment. I say nothing of his being badly fed, or lodged, or clothed. If he should have a wife and daughters with him, how much more cruel would be his fate! to see the tender skins of these lacerated by the whip! to see them torn from him, with a knowledge, that they are going to be compelled to submit to the lust of an overseer! and no redress. "How long," says he, "is this frightful system, which tears my body in pieces and excruciates my soul, which kills me by inches, and which involves my family in unspeakable misery and unmerited disgrace, to continue?"—"For ever," replies a voice Suddenly: "for ever, as relates to your own life, and the life of your wife and daughters, and that of all their posterity," Now would not this gentleman give all that he had left behind him in England, and all that he had in the world besides, and all that he had in prospect and expectancy, to get out of this wretched state, though he foresaw that on his return to his own country he would be obliged to beg his bread for the remainder of his life? I am sure he would. I am sure he would instantly prefer his liberty to his gold. There would not be the hesitation of a moment as to the choice he would make. I hope, then, that if the argument of property should he urged on one side of the question, the argument of property (liberty) will not be overlooked on the other, but that they will be fairly weighed, the one against the other, and that an allowance will be made as the scale shall preponderate on either side.
ml#Anchor@3a12" class="pginternal">12] The French were not the authors of tearing to pieces the Negroes alive by bloodhounds, or of suffocating them by hundreds at a time in the holds of ships, or of drowning them (whole cargoes) by scuttling and sinking the vessels;—but the planters.
|
|
