talk of it to the people, mean nothing but to deceive them. The very act of justice and good government, which secures to every man his respective right, excludes the idea of positive equality. The Roman slave had some rights of personal property, though he had no other. That example, however, is but little to my purpose compared to the condition of the Helots, under the tyranny of Sparta. My general wish and object is to make the service of the negroes, as much as possible, a real service, by attaching it to the soil, and as little as possible personal service. The negroes, in our islands, are equally subject to both, or may be capriciously transferred from one to the other. The horrible barbarity, with which the Helots were treated, was the deliberate policy of the state, not the indulgence or result of personal cruelty. The Spartans were far outnumbered by the Helots. The security of the few was thought to be incompatible with common justice, or even with common mercy, to the many. One crime produced another. The first violation of right, in reducing a free people to slavery, could only be supported by a perpetual outrage to humanity. Such at least was the principle and practice of that extraordinary government, in which every thing was original and unexampled. In another instance, directly applicable to my present purpose, they departed boldly from all the vulgar rules of human prudence; and yet they acted wisely. They renounced the uses of property for themselves, and in effect gave the lands of Laconia to the Helots, to be cultivated by them, on the sole condition of returning to their masters a fixed and certain tribute in kind, equivalent to a quit-rent, which could never be increased. To every other intent of use and profit, the Helots were in fact proprietors of the lands. The amount of the demand on the produce of their labour being once made unalterable, a vigorous and general cultivation followed. Many years ago, I endeavoured to inculcate a similar principle on the English government of Bengal. I said then, and I say now, leave the lands with the natural owners, the Zemindars, and fix your demand of a certain portion of the produce at once and for ever. Subject, as it is, to a foreign dominion, much heavier in detail than that of a single resident despot, Bengal cannot exist, with security of any kind to the natives, or with permanent advantage to the govern[3 Q] dition, and to live happily in it. From this fact he concludes, that there is no labour that man can execute, which may not be performed by freemen. My conclusion from it is, that the more of freedom you can impart to a slave, the more he will labour, provided it be accompanied with a gradual accession of profit. "Cupiditate peculii nullam conditionem recusant durissimæ servitutis." In society, or in contact with society, I hold that the possession of property, of some kind and to some degree, is more necessary to a slave than to a freeman. It tends to give him not only comfort but protection, and necessarily prepares him not only for social benefits, but for personal improvement. The savage is satisfied with his liberty. Instead of stationary labour, he ranges for subsistence; and, having little or no idea of property, has still less of laws or settlement. In society, a free man may do without property; because he is free. His liberty is his freehold. Without acquisition he may have enjoyment. But, in some way or other, he must serve, or he must labour. So must we all, though in different senses, or in opposite directions. The many cannot govern the few, nor do they desire it. But is there a rank in society, including the highest, in which the master in effect is not very often more a servant to his servants, than they are to him? From my own experience, though on a little scale, I can affirm it to be true. But the relations between the different classes of mankind, to be usefully maintained for any, must be reciprocally observed by all. In the lowest situations of life, the people know, as well as we do, that wherever personal industry is encouraged and property protected, there must be inequalities of possession, and consequently distinction of ranks. Then come the form and the order, by which the substance is at once defined and preserved. Distribution and limitation prevent confusion, and government by orders is the natural result of property protected by freedom. Take care that you adhere to it. Where the few possess all, and the multitude have nothing, there is no government by orders. Every thing is in extremity, and nothing in gradation. It is ignorance or calumny to say, that if the poor man was allowed his humble share in the allotment, he would feel any disposition to invade the portions of the ranks above him. Equality of condition is impossible. They who [VOL. XXXII.] ment may be made with greater ease and ing power, on any other principle. The effective right of property was inviolable in the Helot, though subject, in his person, to a cruelty at once deliberate and capricious, and though his life was never safe. He still held a middle rank between the freeman and the domestic slave. The Helots were commonly inrolled in the Spartan armies; and, though seldom rewarded for their courage or fidelity, their condition was mended, at least as long as the war lasted. The life of a soldier, with all its fatigues and dangers, is undoubtedly preferable to that of a slave. We are told that the negroes on our plantations are always ready to take up arms for their owners, and to fight in their defence; and this is advanced for a triumphant proof of their attachment, and consequently of the mildness with which they are treated. In some cases, it may be so. I have no wish or occasion to overstate any thing to the disadvantage of the planters. But, generally speaking, the fact does not prove the proposition. All it proves, with any certainty, is, that in the army the negroes are sure of food and clothing, and exempted from field labour and arbitrary punishment. How were the armies of Lewis 14th recruited in the latest of his wars? The distress and misery of every other condition of life drove all men into the army, where alone it was possible to subsist. How often have we been told that the wonderful facility with which the French have been able to keep their forces complete in the present war, proves nothing but the general desolation of the country, and that all the bread, that ex-duced from practice, the difficulty of conisted, was reserved for the army. This victing a white man of any crime against example of the Helots, Sir, is direct and a negro, is little less than insurmountpowerful to my immediate purpose. They able. The negroes are not supposed to be were slaves, and they had landed property, moral agents. Against a white man, no or an equivalent to it in the use and en- evidence of theirs is admitted. The laws, joyment. In our own ancient history, if they were good, cannot act for want of the first estate or tenure, superior to proof. The hand of the magistrate, downright slavery, but inferior to every though disposed to punish, is disarmed or other condition, was that of a Villan re- suspended. The most shocking acts of gardant, whose service was annexed to cruelty are encouraged by impunity; and, the manor or to the land, and who could in the midst of horrible sufferings, there not be separated from it. To a state re- is no complaint. By mending the posisembling this, I would, in the first in- tive existence of the negro you will grastance, raise the negro. The planters dually raise him to a moral character, should be obliged to furnish every adult sufficient at least to make his evidence negro, as they say they do at present, admissible. Without it, he can have no with a cottage and a small portion of land protection from the laws. His credit and for his own use, with implements of til- estimation will grow with the interest you lage, and a fixed allowance of time for give him, and keep pace with the advancultivation; the entire produce to be his tages, in which you suffer him to partici own. In some of the islands, this allot-pate. In no case should the negroe be re the superior court. I have another measure in contemplation, materially connected with the general object of relief, for which I am contending, though it be not to operate immediately in the islands. I know that, in the circumstances to which I am compelled to submit, it could not fail of producing many salutary effects; and yet I cannot mention it with moved, against his will, from the spot which he has cultivated, much less from the estate. They should always descend, or be transferred together. In no case should wives be separated from their husbands, or children from their parents. In these institutions I lay my foundation. Particular regulations will follow in their place. There should be a general limitation by law of the hours of labour accord-out a deep sensation of regret. With or ing to age and sex. Indulgence to weak ness or infirmity must still be left to the discretion and benevolence of the master. Every negro should have the privilege of applying the petty profits of his industry to the recovery of his freedom, by buying out the remainder of his slavery, or some part of it, at a price to be fixed by law. Fathers and mothers, who have brought up a certain number of children, should be rewarded with premiums, and the mothers exempted from labour. No man should be deemed capable of the office of overseer or manager of an estate, who was not of a certain age, and married. The superintendance of female slaves would naturally devolve, as it ought, to the care of his wife. I need not paint the cases, in which the sympathy of a woman and a mother would be a source of comfort and relief to these creatures. The sufferings, appropriated to the sex, demand the office, and allot the department. I am not, Sir, so weak or inexperienced as to expect that, if laws were ever so judiciously framed to accomplish all these salutary purposes, they would execute themselves, and especially in the West-India islands, without the concurrence of other establishments. Undoubtedly there must be special courts, and magistrates and officers, to receive complaints, to prosecute, and to punish. There must be a judge conservator of the negroes in every island, with an advocate and attorney to plead and act for them, appointed by the king, and dependent solely on the crown, with sufficient salaries, and no way interested in the property or produce of the plantations. Under the principal judge, and by his deputation, there should be itinerant inspectors, with some of the powers of a justice of peace, who should travel occasionally, and not at stated periods, in circuits through the islands, give notice of their arrival at convenient stations, and wait there a sufficient time to receive complaints; in petty instances, to give redress; in graver cases, to institute a more serious proceeding before without it, the general plan might proceed. But, if the plan fails, the measure I allude to is indispensable. I shall submit it to the consideration of the House, as I received it from a gentleman, who possesses a considerable property in Antigua, and with whom I have the hap piness to be united by personal friendship as well as by alliance. As it is still permitted to be the will of Parliament, that this infernal trade should continue, let us endeavour to mitigate, if we can, the hor rors that belong to it. There ought to be commissioners stationed at the principal places of traffic on the coast of Africa, with salaries sufficient to engage men of character to accept the office, and with legal powers to examine the accom modation in the ships, to superintend and regulate the purchase of negroes, to act as magistrates of the market, to prevent or put a stop to treacherous or fraudulent transactions, to see that iniquity and injustice are at least conducted fairly, on their own pretended principles, and without unnecessary aggravations. Above all things, it should be the care and duty of such commissioners to prevent the separation of families-not to suffer the wife to be divided from her husband, the sister from the brother, the infant from its mother. The sales in the islands should be governed by the same rules. A multitude of other duties and offices, with which the commissioners should be charged, will occur upon reflection. That a case should exist, with the consent of an enlightened government, in which such an institution should be wanted, is shameful, is intolerable. I am sure it is an opprobrium to the name of England. In the treatment of the negroes in our islands, of all its evils the most grievous and afflicting remains to be considered. As long as it exists, I know that general institutions, laws, and magistrates, will avail but little in their defence. The arbitrary power of the whip, committed to men without feeling, to be exercised in anger, and unchecked even by the interest of an owner in the well-being of the object, is not in its nature capable of regulation, or subject to control. To limit the number of stripes, to, interpose between the naked helpless wretch,-a pregnant woman perhaps,-and the uplifted hand of the driver, would be an unjust invasion of necessary authority, and possibly in its consequences might hazard the crop. For a mischief of this kind there is no partial remedy. In the place of a despotic power of punishment entrusted to a single person, I would substitute a form of trial, not less effectual to insure the reasonable demand on, labour, and equally safe to the only interests, which the planters seem to think of. I would give jurisdiction to the negroes, in every plantation, over one another. The whole gang of males adult should constitute the pannel, out of which a kind of jury should be formed by lot or by selection, with a right of challenge, on one side to the offender, and on the other to the master, or to his representative, who should superintend and regulate the proceedings, and mitigate or remit the sentence, if he thought proper. Gentlemen, who are fond of justice, may apprehend, perhaps, that a black tribunal would rarely if ever inflict sufficient punishment on a negro. I, for my part, am confident that, as soon as they understood their office, and were sensible of the trust reposed in them, they would rather lean to severity, and that the overseer would often find himself obliged to restrain it. On this principle, the discipline of our armies in India is effectually maintained. 'An hon. gentleman near me (general Smith) can give your better information on this subject. But I know enough of it to be able to assure you that no Sepoy can be punished but by the sentence of a court martial composed of native officers, who have all been taken from the ranks, and with an European officer to act as judge advocate; and that I never heard the justice of their proceedings disputed. As long as they are tolerably well treated, they are attached to their officers, and will follow them as far as the best British troops. A remarkable instance of this attachment, and of their disposition to do even more than justice on offenders of their own cast, occurred a few years ago. Captain Ewans, an officer general beloved, at the head of his battalion, was murdered by a Sepoy, who suddenly went out of the ranks and shot him, without notice or complaint, or any provocation that could be discovered. The whole battalion saw the fact. The grenadiers on the flanks immediately wheeled without orders, and surrounded the assassin. The difficulty then was to prevent their tying him to a horse's tail, and dragging him to death without a trial. The British officers insisted on his being regularly tried, and executed in the usual military form. I need not, however, have gone so far from the islands for a successful instance of practice founded on the same principle. I have not the honour of knowing the gentleman, whose example I am going to appeal to; I mean sir Phillip Gibbs; but I know his character, and what his conduct has been in the management of his estate in Barbadoes. The former is eminently humane; the latter equally judicious. His virtues are to me a proof of his wisdom. He gives his negroes land and stock, with time to cultivate. He feeds and clothes them well. He encourages marriage among them, and allows of no punishment but by the sentence of a jury of negroes. The consequence is that his slaves do double the work of others, because they are better able and more willing. The instructions he has given to the managers of his estate are a model for imitation. The success and the profit have corresponded with the benevolent design. Before I quit this first division of my subject, I owe it in justice to an honourable person, lately a distinguished member of this House, as well as to my cause, not to conceal the lights I have received from him, and to avail myself, as far as I can, of the concurrence of his authority. On a subject of this nature there cannot, in my opinion, be a greater. I mean Mr. Burke. Divided, at we are, by an irreconcileable difference of opinion on another important subject, and separated in private life as long as that unfortunate question continues, I still hope and believe that the bond of personal friendship and good-will between us will never be dissolved. As soon as I had determined to take an active part in this business, I went to Mr. Burke, as wiser men have done before me, for advice and information. I know how little I am qualified to occupy his station on any subject, and that I have undertaken a task, which eminently and peculiarly belonged to him. To form and to digest a complete and perfect code of laws, on a subject so extensive and so full of difficulties, would be a work appropriated to the powers and compass of his mind. His industry and perseverance alone could carry it into execution. On a transcendent question, such as this, of morals implicated with policy, the eminence of his mind extends his view, and gives him an horizon, which vulgar vision cannot reach to. If Mr. Burke were here,-for his own happiness I cannot wish it, this would be his office. How gladly would I resign it to him! Non foret ambiguus tanti certaminis hæres. I have not seen the plan which he drew up some years ago, and which he then communicated to a right hon. gentleman, high in office in Ireland (Mr. Pelham); and since to a right hon. friend on the other side (Mr. Windham). Nor would I avail myself now of his permission to see it, because I soon perceived that it went to an extent and embraced a multitude of objects, which I knew it was impossible for me to manage. To force them on my mind, without capacity to receive them, would be only to embarrass or utterly to discourage me. Perhaps, too, I might differ from him on the most prudential course of proceeding. You will not suspect me of setting my judgment in competition with his. If it were possible for him to lead the cause himself, I should hold myself ready for any subordinate part in it, and to be guided by his judgment. But, if I am to act, I must act upon my own. I am not thoroughly convinced of the advantage of forcing a great variety of institutions to march together and in front. Or possibly it would be more honest to say, that I consult my own infirmity in leaving as much as I can to the gradual operation of those simple principles and limited institutions, which I am more able to comprehend, to arrange with effect, and apply to practice. The House, Sir, is now in possession of the general object and principles of the plan, which I meant to lay before you. There are some persons undoubtedly, whose hearty concurrence I am not sanguine enough to expect; but I do not believe it possible that any man will directly and openly assert, that such an object, if it were attainable, is not to be desired;-that such a plan, if it were practicable, is not fit to be encouraged. No human resolution will go that length. I know, as well as they do, on what ground they are prepared to meet me, and for what question the strength of their opposition is reserved. Admitting the measure to be eligible in itself, they ask me now by what means do you propose to carry it into execution? What course would you pursue? What power would you employ? I shall not keep these gentlemen in suspense. My answer, I see, is waited for with an impatience, which indicates the certainty and anticipates the triumph of immediate victory. They exult in the practical difficulties inseparable from every attempt to do good in this world, and which, they trust, are insurmountable in the present instance. Well, Sir, I am ready to gratify their desire, and prepared, as I think, for all the objections that can be rationally urged against me. This part of the question is not new to me. What I know of it is derived not only from study and reflection, as deep as I am capable of giving to any subject, but from the wisdom of great men, whom I have known, and from the experience of events, which have happened in my own time. Though too young to take part, I was old enough to observe, and I had access to some of the greatest sources of instruction. The power, which I mean to resort to, for carrying this plan into effect, is that of the British parliament over the colonies of Great Britain. No man is fairly at issue with me, who does not distinctly deny that power. Is there a statesman in this House, is there an individual of any rank or consideration here, who will take it upon himself, directly and plainly, to maintain that denial or, in other words, to affirm, that in no case whatever has the British parliament a right to make laws to bind the British colonies? I cannot believe it. But, if there be, let him come forward and declare himself. On that question, inconsiderable as I am, and bold as it may appear, I am ready to meet him in front, to show that he knows nothing of the principles of legislation, of the policy of states, or of the duties of government, and to make him, for his ignorance at least, the scorn of mankind. If he admits that cases may possibly exist, in which the power may be necessary, and the right undisputed, I then shall have nothing to prove, but that this is eminently a case in point,in which the application of the unquestionable power of parliament must be resorted to, because no other power on earth is equal to the purpose. I am as ready as any man to allow, or to contend, if it were necessary, that the transcendent power of |