are in essence one and the same, and in their nature equally objectionable; and, therefore, I am so far from rejecting the interpretation supposed to arise from the observation of my Noble Friend' (the Marquess of Lansdowne, then in the House of Commons), that the abolition of the African Slave-Trade will lead to the emancipation of slaves, that I—who, in another view of the thing, may not be so sanguine in my hopes, as to the period of the accomplishment of the object, as some of my friends-like the proposition the better, on account of its having that tendency; for surely the ultimate aim of us all must be to put an end to Slavery, as well as to the Slave Trade. What gentlemen have said, generally, of the Slave Trade, I would say of Slavery; that they are each malum in se. One of them,' the trade, has been characterized by epithets which I do not think have been misapplied in argument; for the fault is not in the description, but in the thing described *.'

Let the inhabitants of this enlightened empire take a lesson of consistency from their recent liberation of European bondsmen among the Algerines. When Lord Exmouth succeeded, by the bombardment of their fortress, in bringing a despot to terms, what would Europe have said, had he insisted merely upon the extinction of piracy, and left the captives in chains? Among those victims, there might have been some even of our own countrymen; taken, we will suppose, in a Lisbon packet, by some enterprising Algerine commander, who had ventured to steer through the Straits of Gibraltar, and to cruize at the very mouth of the Tagus. We may faintly imagine, what thunders of indignation would have rolled throughout the empire at the news, that even a single British family should have been manacled, branded, bastinadoed, and worked in a gang of

Substance of Debates,' 1806.-Similar opinions, relative to the identity of the slave trade with slavery, have been expressed by the Earls of Westmoreland and Liverpool, Earl Grey, Viscount Dudley, and other noblemen and gentlemen. 'Review of some of the Arguments commonly advanced against Parliamentary Interference,' &c. 1823.

White slaves under a Moorish driver! It is nevertheless undeniable, that an Algerine crew have as national and as moral a right to carry away, from the chain-pier at Brighton, a party of fashionables into African bondage; as we, Christian Protestants, possessed ourselves in the days of the Slave Trade; or now retain, in continuing the arrangements of a slave. cultured plantation.

Waving, however, any farther illustration of this analogy, the main inquiry-before us is to be considered as emphatically a question of fact. If the colonists can prove that their accusers, or rather the accusers of the West-India system itself for we do not wish to degrade a national question into personalities *—bring false evidence, the matter is set at rest. Or, if they can shew that decisive measures for the abolition are in progress, and advancing with as rapid a course as the simple equity of the case requires, the friends of the Negroes will silently retire, and deem it worse than foolish to embarrass the movements of the colonial department by untimely officiousness.

In the interval, it is asked, What has been the practical consequence, at the expiration of four years, of Mr. Canning's Resolutions in 1823? The country prefers as just a right to urge this question †, as any other interwoven with its interests. If petitions load the tables of Parliament on such agitated subjects as Catholic emancipation, corn laws, pauperism, and free trade; and if these things are incessantly canvassed at public meetings, and-in respect to the first of these topicsin visitation sermons and charges; why is it, that the investigation of slavery is interdicted, as though it were alone sacred from the most delicate interference on the part of a people, who elect their own representatives, and influence their votes in the senate; of a people, who, on a thousand other occasions, are practically invited by Government to decide upon the policy of its measures?

*See Note A.

+ See Note B.

аз

The privileges also of a free press are virtually withheld from the Abolitionists, while open to economists of every other class; so that when Earl Stanhope, Sir James Graham, Major Torrens, and several other gentlemen, published their theories on the corn laws; and some of these in direct hostility to the regulations proposed by the Cabinet; not the most gentle whispers of censure were breathed against them, either by ministry or opposition. In point of fact, his Majesty's official advisers, in both Houses, defer to what they expressly call the sense of the country, and to what is said out of doors; so that the Government is practically become the echo of public sentiment.

If men write on slavery, or any other subject, in a seditious spirit, the crime is their own; and they must venture upon the consequence. Yet no overflowings of treason have risen at home. On the contrary, they have flooded the colonies themselves. In the instance of the insurrection against the Wesleyans in Barbadoes, the local authorities, and, in them, the legislature at home, were insulted without disguise. The reception, likewise, of Earl Bathurst's despatches among the colonists has generally excited a spirit of turbulent opposition; an impatience of all controul on the part of the parent country. Not that the Abolitionists shrink from examining the question politically. They argue, that a sugar monopoly * is ostensibly as unfair as a corn one; as inconsistent with the principles of free commerce; and, by the unequal regulation of bounties and duties on the same articles, as strange and unjust in its operation, as if the treasury were to impose a duty on every load of hay and straw brought to the Haymarket from Surrey; and, at the same time, allow a bounty on all agricultural produce drawn to the same mart from Essex.

But we would principally view the inquiry in its highest relations. And, on this point, the advocates of the heathen Negroes feel difficulties multiplied around them, as they strive

* See Note C.

to confront such of their opponents as profess to be Christians and who among them disclaim the appellation ?—with the Christianity so darkly frowning upon the avarice, despotism, and cruelty which created and sustain the existing economy of the colonies. They feel how coincident with their own opinions on the abstract truth of the question at issue, and with their observation and experience, as connected with a long struggle against a powerful party, is the avowal of Paley, that— The influence of religion is not to be sought for in the councils of princes, in the debates or resolutions of popular assemblies, in the conduct of governments towards their subjects, or of states and sovereigns towards one another; of conquerors at the head of their armies, or of parties intriguing for power at home (topics which alone almost occupy the attention and fill the pages of history); but must be perceived, if perceived at all, in the silent course of private and domestic life. Nay, morė, even there its influence may not be very obvious to observation. If it check in some degree personal dissoluteness, if it beget a general probity in the transactions of business, if it produce soft and humane manners in the mass of the community, and occasional exertions of laborious or expensive benevolence in a few individuals, it is all the effect which can offer itself to external notice. The kingdom of heaven is within us. That which is the substance of the religion,-its hopes and consolations, its intermixture with the thoughts by day and night; the devotion of the heart, the controul of appetite, the steady direction of the will to the commands of God-is necessarily invisible: yet upon these depend the virtue and the happiness of millions. This cause renders the representations of history, with respect to religion, defective and fallacious, in a greater degree than they are upon any other subject. Religion operates most upon those of whom history knows the least,— upon fathers and mothers in their families, upon men-servants and maid-servants, upon the orderly tradesman, the quiet villager, the manufacturer at his loom, the husbandman in his fields.'- - The Christian religion also acts upon public usages

and institutions, by an operation which is only secondary and indirect. Christianity is not a code of civil law. It can only reach public institutions through private character. Now its influence upon private character may be considerable; yet many public usages and institutions, repugnant to its principles, may remain. To get rid of these, the reigning part of the community must act, and act together. But it may be long before the persons who compose this body be sufficiently touched with the Christian character, to join in the suppression of practices, to which they and the public have been reconciled, by causes which will reconcile the human mind to any thing, by habit and interest. Nevertheless, the effects of Christianity, even in this view, have been important. It has mitigated the conduct of war, and the treatment of captives. It has softened the administration of despotic, or of nominally despotic governments.'.....' It has greatly meliorated the condition of the laborious part-that is to say, of the mass-of every community, by procuring for them a day of weekly rest. In all countries, in which it is professed, it has produced numerous establishments for the relief of sickness and poverty; ́and, in some, a regular and general provision by law. It has triumphed over the slavery established in the Roman empire: it is contending, and, I trust, will one day prevail against the worse slavery in the West Indies*.'

In this honest passage, Dr. Paley has pointedly owned the very partial recognition, and almost the non-existence, of Christianity in colonial economy; and has closed his statement by expressing a hope, that what the Gospel once did in an idolatrous empire, it may still accomplish in islands colonized, for ages, by people professing to believe in Jesus Christ! He has, of course, anticipated our main position, that Christianity and Slavery-that is, be it distinctly understood, the cart-whip, demoralizing slavery of the West Indies; and not the milder modifications of bondage, existing by sufferance under the Jewish Theocracy;

* See Note D.