view with uniform suspicion our uniform failure when our object is to abolish or limit this same slave-trade. I suspect that it may arise from there being some similarity between our exertions in the cause and those of some of its official advocates in this House—that we have been very sincere, no doubt, but, rather cold; without a particle of ill-will towards the abolition, but without one spark of zeal in its favour. The question, then, of "What can we do to stop the foreign slave-trade?" I shall answer by putting another question-I ask, "How did we contrive to promote the slave-trade when that was our object ?" I only desire one-tenth part of the influence to be exercised in favour of the abolition that was used, with such fatal success, in augmenting the slave-traffic, when, by our campaigns and our treaties, we had acquired the dominion of boundless regions, and then laid waste the villages and fields of Africa that our New Forest might be cleared. Speech on Slave-Trade, June 15, 1810. Military Flogging;—its Tendency. I have lately expressed myself strongly in abhorrence of the flogging of negroes a race less connected with us than the objects of this motion; and the House were loud in their detestation of the cruelty. Why not, when it comes nearer home, and among a gallant and manly race of beings? The spectacle of a military flogging is one of the most horrid; and that, not on the testimony of persons of peaceful habits, but on the authority of officers educated in the view of them. That the punishment is ignominious is proved on the testimony of officers of the highest distinction; viz., General Stewart, Sir Robert Wilson, and General Cockburn. Flogging turned the indignation at the crime against the punishers. The punishment is not merely obnoxious as not reclaiming the culprit, but is an offence to public decency. There are other modes of making discipline secure, such as deprivation of pay and restraint of food; but now we take the wretched victim down from the triangles, an object for the dissecting-room or for the hospital, to be hung up again and receive another such punishment. The practice is ruinous to the soldier; he thereby looses his spirit, feeling, and character. Debate on Flogging, House of Commons, June 20, 1811. Privileges of the House of Commons in stopping the Supplies. The very best privilege of the House of Commons-the power of granting or refusing the Supplies-is the great and only security that the people have in their representatives against the influence and encroachments of the Crown. Jan. 21, 1812. Degradation of the British Soldier. A trifling violation of duty undoubtedly merits some punishment, but not flogging; and, in cases of munity or personal violence to an officer, if the officer were knocked down and trodden upon, then a severer punishment than that of flogging ought to be adopted; but this severe punishment degrades man to the brute, and harrows up and cauterizes the feelings of all who witness it. Can anything be more abominable than to set apart a class of our fellow-citizens, and demand from them a callousness and insensibility which we would not allow in any other class in the British dominions? While we cherished all the kindly affections in every other branch of the community, and doomed a particular class to such a rigorous and unfeeling system, have we not reason to apprehend the effects either in after-times or in times nearer our own? If the soldier ought to be set apart as little as possible from the citizen, how can we justify a punishment which is confined exclusively to the soldiers-a punishment which debases those who suffer, those who inflict it, and those by whom it is witnessed? Debate on Corporeal Punishment, House of Commons, The Cry of" The Church is in Danger." I can see no risks to the Church of England while the laws protect and endow her; and while those laws are observed I can feel no alarm from Dissenters, or Methodists, or any other class in the religious world. From universal toleration, and even liberal kindness to all sects, I can conceive no possible danger to ensue; but from an opposite line of conduct-from singling out one sect and running it down-from confining your intolerance to a single sect, and that a far more numerous and more powerful one than all the rest together or from capriciously granting it certain immunities and unreasonably withholding others--I confess I can see probable dangers; and from no one mode of treatment do I conceive such dangers more likely to result than from the strange perversion of fact, and that utter blindness to all history and of every day's experience, which leads some men to cry out, when they have no other ground whereupon to justify their conduct towards that one sectthat the Church is safe on all its other quarters, and only in danger from them. Speech on the Catholic Claims, April 24, 1812. Benefits of Trial by Jury. Why do we prize the trial by jury above all the other blessings of our free Constitution? It is not because, in the ordinary ques tions of property, twelve uninformed men are fitter to decide than a bench of learned judges. No, nor yet because, in such common cases, the twelve men are capable of deciding so well as the judges. But still the method of trial is inestimable, for a most sufficient reason-because every now and then a question occurs where some bias may exist in the judge's mind-where his feelings may be swayed by the influence of the Crown which appointed himwhere his connexion with the people is too slender to inspire him with the proper feelings-where the habits of his profession, or the prejudices of his rank, may interfere with the full discharge of his high functions. Then it is-in the rare and not in the ordinary case that the interposition of a jury is thought, and rightly thought,. to correct the supposed partialities of the judge or to supply the proper feelings; and, whether by checking or by prompting, to restore to the even-handed scales of justice their due force. Horrors of the Plague of London. Ibid. Nothing in the story of that awful pestilence which once visited this city is more affecting than the picture which it presents of the vain efforts made to seek relief. Miserable men might be seen rushing forth into the streets, and wildly grasping the first passenger they met, to implore his help, as if by communicating the poison to others they could restore health to their own veins, or life to its victims, whom they had left stretched before it. In that dismal period there was no end of projects and nostrums for preventing or curing the disease, and numberless empirics every day started up with some new delusion, and rapidly made fortunes of the hopes and terrors of the multitude, and then as speedily disappeared, or were themselves torn down by the general destroyer. Meanwhile the malady raged until its force was spent: the attempts to cure it were doubtless all baffled; but the eagerness with which some men hailed each successive contrivance proved too plainly how vast was their terror, and how universal the suffering that prevailed. June 16, 1812. Military Renown of England.—Jealousy of America.—Slave Trade. Never did we stand so high since we were a nation, in point of military character. We have it in abundance, and to spare. This unhappy and seemingly interminable war, lavish as it has been in treasure, still more profuse of blood, and barren of real advantage, has at least been equally lavish of glory; its feats have not merely sustained the warlike fame of the nation, which would have been much; they have done what seemed barely possible, they have greatly exalted it; they have covered our arms with immortal renown. Then, I say, use this glory, use this proud height on which we now stand, for the purpose of peace and conciliation with America: let this and its incalculable benefits be the advantage which we reap from the war in Europe; for the fame of that war enables us safely to take it. And who, I demand, give the most disgraceful counsels-they who tell you we are in military character but of yesterday -we have yet a name to win-we stand on doubtful ground-we dare not do as welist, for fear of being thought afraid-we cannot, without loss of name, stoop to pacify our American kinsmen; or I, who say we are a great, a proud, a warlike people-we have fought everywhere, and conquered wherever we fought-our character is eternally fixed; it stands too firm to be shaken, and on the faith of it we may do towards America, safely for our own honour, that which we know ⚫ our interests require? This perpetual jealousy of America! Good God! I cannot with temper ask on what it rests. It drives me to a passion to think of it. Jealousy of America! I should as soon think of being jealous of the tradesmen who supply me with necessaries, or the clients who intrust their suits to my patronage. Jealousy of America, whose armies are yet at the plough, or making, since your policy has willed it so, awkward (though improving) attempts at the loom;-whose assembled navies could not lay siege to an English sloop of war!-jealousy of a power which is necessarily peaceful as well as weak, but which, if it had all the ambition of France, and her armies to back it, and all the navy of England to boot,-nay, had it the lust of conquest which marks your enemy, and your own armies as well as navies, to gratify it, is placed at so vast a distance as to be perfectly harmless! And this is the nation of which, for our honour's sake, we are desired to cherish a perpetual jealousy, for the ruin of our best interests. I trust that no such phantom of the brain will scare us from the path of our duty. The advice which I tender is not the same which has at all times been offered to this country. There is one memoroble era in our history when other uses were made of our triumphs from those which I recommend. By the Treaty of Utrecht, which the execration of ages have left inadequately censured, we are content to obtain, as the whole price of Ramilies and Blenheim, an additional share of the accursed slave-trade. I give you other counsels. I would have you employ the glory which you have won at Talavera and Corunna in restoring your commerce to its lawful, open, honest course, and rescue it from the mean and hateful channels in which it has lately been confined. And if any thoughtless boaster in America or elsewhere should vaunt that you have yielded through fear, I would not bid him wait until some new achievement of our arms put him to silence, but I would counsel you in silence to disregard him. Extract from Speech in House of Commons on Orders in Council, June 16, 1812. Opinion of an Income Tax. I cannot impress too deeply on the public mind the unequal manner in which this tax operated; nor can I reprobate sufficiently the inquisitorial mode of its collection. It injured in a greater proportion than it oppressed: it injured in a higher degree than it produced revenue. The very circumstance of its being so productive a tax, formed one of the strongest grounds of objection to it. It did so because such a productive tax was likely to render Ministers more profuse and extravagant. I hope such a tax will never be agreed to by Parliament. I hope the country would rise as one man against it. Committee of Supply, Feb. 12, 1816. A Standing Army. I cannot agree with the Noble Lord (Castlereagh) in letting it be thought for an instant, that soldiers would disgrace themselves in becoming citizens by being disbanded. Iwould speak the language of the Constitution, and say to the soldier, "You have faitfully performed the duty for which you were called forth; return now, and be again a citizen." This is the language of the Constitution, and if the time is passed when such language will be held in the House, I still hope that, out of it, no one will dare to say that a soldier would be degraded by becoming a citizen. It has been said by some gentleman on the other side, "Is this a fair return for the services of those troops, that, when you no longer want their exertions, you shall send them adrift, and suffer them to become scavengers?" I wish no such thing. I do not wish to see them unrewarded for their services, but I cannot for one moment think that they would be degraded by returning to that state of society from which they should not have been called in the first instance but of necessity. House of Commons, March 12, 1816. Opinion on the Detention of Buonaparte. I have no hesitation in saying that I conceive no harm can result from this measure;* I have no objection to it whatever, as far as I can judge at present: on the contrary I think that the opinions about it must be almost unanimous, as far as relates to the securing the custody of Buonaparte's person; and if any doubts arise, it will be best to settle the question by a legislative act. For whether we consider Buonaparte as a prisoner of war, not claimed by his own Government, or in any other light, we have, under the circumstances which have occurred, an unquestionable right to detain him |