SPEECHES 599 OF MESSRS. THOMSON & BORTHWICK, ON THE QUESTION OF COLONIAL SLAVERY, AS DELIVERED IN DR. WARDLAW'S CHAPEL, GLASGOW, ON THE THREE SEVERAL EVENINGS IN WHICH THE DISCUSSION WAS MAINTAINED. GLASGOW: W. R. M'PHUN, 86, TRONGATE. 1833. On Friday night, according to previous arrangement, these gentlemen met in Dr Wardlaw's chapel, to discuss the question of Colonial Slavery, face to face, and foot to foot, leaving the audience to decide on the cogency of their several arguments, and the justice of their respective opinions on the subject. Long before the doors were opened, hundreds of people had assembled, eager to gain admission to witness this intellectual tournament, and when opened the whole chapel was in a few minutes filled to an overflow, so that thousands who sought admission were obliged to go away ungratified. At six o'clock, the respective champions entered the arena of debate, and were received with applause and disapprobation, as suited the feeling predominant on the sides they had severally espoused. On the motion of Mr Borthwick, seconded by Mr. Thompson, Sir D. K. Sandford was called to the chair amid great accla mation. Sir D. K. Sandford, on taking the chair, observed, that in the discussion of a question of such vast importance as the one the parties had met that evening to debate, and one, too, which occupied so much of public curiosity, it was absolutely necessary that decorum and good order should be preserved. One of the parties had moved, and the other had seconded the motion, that he should take the chair on that occasion, and not, as had been inaccurately stated in one of the public prints, that he was solicited to preside by the sole wish of one party. He believed he had been appointed to the office, because he had gained the favourable opinion of both parties-because they thought that he would hold the balance with a true and steady hand. (Cheers.) But he would tell the meeting that he took the chair simply as their representative, and as the representative of those who were neutral on the question. All he wished to see was an impartial audience listen patiently to fair argument and sound reason alone ;-of these he would leave them to judge but he would suggest the propriety of abstaining from all manifestation of applause as well as of disapprobation. (Applause.) Persuaded he was, that in his present capacity, should he require support, the audience would support him (cheers)-and he would leave the whole matter to the sound feeling and good sense of the meeting, who he was sure, on a question of that importance, would preserve a breathless silence and drink in, with greedy ears, every word that was uttered by the speakFor himself he cared nothing, but only prayed "God speed the right." (Cheers). ers. Mr. Thompson then rose, and was received with immense applause. The Honourable Knight in the chair had well said that this was a most important question that was about to be discussed; and he therefore earnestly entreated the audience to be silent, solemn, patient, and impartial, while they sat as judges and as jurymen to try its issue. The question involved the honour and consisteney of England-the liberty and happiness of our Western dependencies. Let them therefore examine well the positions sought to be maintained, the arguments advanced, the facts stated, the documents quoted, the assertions made, the conclusions drawn. The individuals before them both professed to be the friends of the negro. Perhaps they were. It was for the audience to determine which was the wisest, the truest, and the best. He (Mr. T.) pleaded for the immediate, total, and everlasting emancipation of the enslaved population of the British colonies; his talented opponent sought the gradual emancipation of the same individuals. These were the great points on which they differed. The question was, Should colonial slavery be abolished immediately, or by gradual measures. He (Mr. T.) held colonial slavery to be unjust in its origin, pernicious in its practice, and fatal in its tendency. (Loud cheers) If it was a crime to steal a man and make him a slave, it was equally a crime to keep him a slave. The inspired law made no distinction; its language was, "Whoso stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely die." (Cheers) If it was wrong to steal the father or mother, it was equally wrong to enslave their hapless, unoffending progeny. Let it be well observed that the boasted humanity of the West Indians had never reached the point of making the child free. They say that slavery long continued disqualifies a human being for the enjoyment of sudden liberty-that a man having suffered captivity must be gradually prepared for freedom; and yet they wilfully and wickedly introduce the infant into the very condition which they contend unfits a man for the right use of perfect civil freedom. (Cheers) Let not the Negro mother be libelled; suffer her not to be charged with want of affection; The tigress doats upon her infant tribe, The vulture nestles o'er her callow brood, And even the shark beneath the mountain tide, And should it be believed that the sable negress, formed by the same hand, to give birth to creatures of a nobler order, and a higher destiny, was wanting in affection towards her off spring? No. Even if it were so, rather than the image of God should be desecrated by the hands of rapacious men, and the principles of eternal justice and equity so flagrantly violated, let the infant be cast upon the bounty of its beneficent Creator, and depend for protection and care upon Him who numbers the hairs even of the negro's head. By enslaving the infant, the original wrong was every day repeated, and an unoffending human being made to sustain the deepest earthly injury. "Hapless innocent!" (he might say,) "Thou art not thine own, thou art not thy mother's; it is not thy lot to be trained and nurtered under the affectionate authority of thy parents; another claims a vested right in thy bones, sinews, blood, liberty and life. (Loud cheers.) Was not such conduct an usurpation of the attributes and functions of the Deity? He put it to the judgment of British fathers, whether such a practice should be tolerated by a country professing and calling itself christian? (no, no.) He appeared, therefore, to claim liberty for every infant captive, and to require that henceforth no infant should be born a slave in any part of the British dominions. But his opponent had said the planters were kind to them-exercised towards them a humane and Christian care; but when, he would ask, did this course of humanity commence? Was it during the 150 years that slavery held an unmolested reign throughout our colonies? Were they then preparing them for freedom? Were they then the enemies of the slave trade? Did they ever tell the man stealer to put his helm about, and bear his unhallowed cargo to other shores? Never. Did they not voluntarily purchase all who were brought to their markets? Did they not coolly calculate which would be the more profitable plan, to kill them off without mercy and purchase more, or preserve them that they might propagate their species? (Cheers) Did their career of mercy commence when the enlightened Clarkson stood forth as the friend of Africa? Did not they heap upon him every description of abuse, and even plot to take away his life? And when subsequently a society was formed to do that for which they are now so loudly contending, viz., mitigate and gradually abolish slavery, did they not oppose that society and its supporters, in the same manner that they are now opposing the friends of immediate emancipation? His honourable opponent had talked of petitions against the slave trade from Jamaica and South Carolina, and argued from thence the hatred of the planters to the traffic. Why did they not show their hatred by ceasing to buy? What would be thought of a man who said, 'I hate drunkenness,' yet was ever sipping at the intoxicating bowl? or of one who should say, 'I hate dishonesty,' yet could not keep his hands from picking and stealing; or another who, professing to hate all manner of blasphemy, should be ever blaspheming the God that made him? (Cheers) At the very time that they were petitioning for the abolition of the slave trade, they were sacrificing thousands of victims on the altar of their base and insatiable cupidity. Let them talk of humanity as they might, they could get few to believe them until their actions justified their professions. (Cheers) It was right that their specious professions should be received with caution when it was remembered that they had ever been the enemies of all beneficial change. It was his (Mr. T.'s) opinion, that their scheme of gradual emancipation, in honesty and plain truth, meant everlasting slavery. (Cheers) The question was, Have we a right to monopolize the blessing of freedom, and to detain in a state of forced and unwilling bondage, our fellow men? All men must agree that we had not. It was contrary to the Divine law, to the principles of Christianity, and the provisions of the constitution. It was an outrage upon the rights of man, which no political circumstances could justify, and ought therefore to be at once and for ever abolished. But if there were any who did not proceed to the full extent of this argument, he called upon such to look at the evils of slavery, and to say whether the features it presented did not call for its instant destruction. The negro in the colonies might be bought, sold, flogged, and seized his children were doomed to a condition of interminable servitude-all the ordinary motives to physical or mental exertion were withheld—insuperable impediments were opposed to his instruction—he had before his eyes an example of the grossest licentiousness; his wife and his daughter were liable to be seized by ruthless hands for the gratification of diabolical lust-his sabbaths were necessarily devoted to labour, and could he even by industry or care, offer a reasonable price for his ransom, his master might indignantly refuse it, and hold him in captivity till death. He (Mr. T.) knew that some of these evi's had been denied, but he was prepared to show that they all existed to a most appalling extent. He would say a word on the subject of the whip. His opponent had either spoken of the whip as a nonentity, or represented it as a very harmless instrument of chastisement—all but entirely abolished in the colonies. He (Mr. T.) would prove not only that it existed, but was in every day use as the ordinary, not to say the sole stimulus to labour, and that it was a fearful and bloody instrument of torture. He would quote the DUKE OF MANCHESTER; in page 389 of the evidence recently given before the House of Lords, his grace was asked, "Did you ever hear of a slave being stimulated by the whip-beaten to make him work hard?" He replied; "Of course the drivers had the use of the whip, I believe from what I have always heard, from the situation I was in they would take good care I should never see any thing that was wrong." Again, "Do you believe that they are enabled to increase their labour by the use of the whip."—" I should expect that if they did not work, the driver would use his whip. They generally have it over their shoulders, and the handle before them, and there is a staff which the man leans on, or it is twisted round the staff. You may see hundreds without knowing what they are." Two or three things (observed Mr. T.) are worthy of notice in this short extract. 1st, The whip is used. 2d, His Grace was precluded by the situation he filled from coming to a knowledge of its brutal application. And 3dly, hundreds may be seen while the beholder remains in perfect ignorance of the nature and use of the instrument. Do not, therefore, be surprised, Sirs, when you hear persons from the colonies declaring solemnly their disbelief in the use or existence of the whip, since a Governor of 20 years standing swears to the fact that it is difficult to arrive at a knowledge of the circumstances. Mr. Taylor, a planter and manager, in a volume of evidence recently laid before the House of Commons, bears the following testimony to the use of the whip. "Physical coercion I conceive to be necessary to the production of labour through the instrumentality of slaves. When I took possession of his (Mr. Wildman's) estates, an overseer would have been discharged that flogged a woman. Occasionally a man would be flogged, but he went upon the principle of having, if possible, no corporal punishment with men, and decided'y not with women; but in spite of him the whip was used, and in spite of myself.' Mr. Taylor went on to state that he felt it impossible to work an estate profitably in the West Indies with a gang of slaves "under the combined system of religion, humanity, and slavery." When asked, however, if he believed the negro was willing and ready to work for hire, he answered, "decidedly ;" and went on to give several striking instances of the great industry, zeal, and cheerfulness with which the negro worked when offered a reasonable remuneration for his toil. He was again asked, "supposing you were a proprietor of a West India estate, from your experience of the disposition of the negroes to work for hire, would you go on with the system of slavery, or would you be disposed to emancipate the negroes." His reply was, "I would answer that question by stating the fact of my having offered to purchase Mr. Wildman's estates and to make them free; that I made a proposal with other individuals, that jointly they should be purchased, that schools should be maintained, and that a system of free labour should be adopted; and to do that it was necessary that I should involve every farthing I possessed, therefore the plain inference is, that I do conscientiously believe it may be done." Mr. Thomson also referred to the evidence of the Rev. John Barry, Vice Admiral the Hon. Charles Fleming, Robert Scott, Esquire, the Rev. Robert Young, James Simpson, Esquire, William Shand, Esquire, Vice Admiral Sir Charles Rowley, K. C. B., J. B. Wildman, Esquire, and William Taylor, Esquire; all of whom had asserted that the whip was used in Jamaica, and was considered to be essentially necessary to enforce labour under a slave system. In proof that the slaves, if placed in similar circumstances to those of the English and Scottish Peasantry, would labour with equal propriety, Mr. T. referred to the Parliamentary evidence of Messrs. Buxton, Duncan, Knibb, Barry, and Fleming, and argued that it was cruel and inconsistent to withhold from men the natural motives to labour and obedience, and then charge them with being slothful and refractory. (Cheers) His oppo. nent had declared that should a planter inflict but one lash on the back of a slave he would incur a penalty of £100 or twelve mouths' imprisonment, but he (Mr. T.) would quote the law upon the subject, and let the audience remember it was the quintessence of West Indian legislation that he was about to produce, the very last sample of the boasted humanity and fatherly tenderness of Jamaica senators; it was a clause in the consolidated slave code made with the avowed object of preventing arbitrary punishments. Mr. T. then exhibited the Jamaica Slave Code of February 19, 1831, snd read the 33d clause, by which it appeared that every person in authority, above a common driver, had power to inflict 39 lashes upon the body of a male or female slave. The person ordering the punishment being the sole judge of the guilt and turpitude of the alleged offender. What did a Christian audience think of such a law, and what would they henceforward think of him who eulogised the humanity of British slave-owners when such was their law for "restraining arbitrary punishments." Mr. Wildman's evidence went to prove that this amount of punishment might be inflicted for merely looking at his master. He (Mr. T.) had already stated that slavery and Christianity could not exist together in the West Indies. The patrons of slavery could never become, generally speaking, the friends of religion. He demonstrated this by recent occurrences in Jamaica. He alluded particularly to the mode in which a petition was received in the House of Assembly in December last—a petition praying for the abolition of Sunday markets. Almost every member then present treated the petition with contempt, covered with scorn and ridicule the five respectable clergymen by whom it was drawn up, and finally rejected it by a majority of 24 to 8. Thus a most respectful petition was presented by five pious and laborious ministers, stating the causes which operated against their ministerial duties, and praying for their removal; and the treatment they received was, that the grossest epithets were heaped upon their heads, the most unblushing insults were offered to the gospel, and the petition ultimately scouted as utterly unworthy to be entertained by “the humane and Christian-minded legislators of Jamaica.' The Jamaica Courant, in speaking of the merits of certain candidates who had offered themselves to the various parishes in Jamaica to be returned to the next House of Assembly, objects to one of the name of Panton, on account of his affection for evangelical clergymen, and expressed an earnest hope that he will be succeeded by some Gentleman of opposite sentiments, having a stake in the country, and who will know how to defend it. A stake in the Country, exclaimed Mr T. What is this stake? It is property in the bones and blood of their fellow creatures; but I am thaukful to say it is a rotten stake -a stake that is tottering to its fall, and will soon be rooted out |