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"LET US MAKE A REPARATION TO AFRICA"
- WILLIAM WILBERFORCE 1789
Abolition
It follows the full text transcript of
William Wilberforce's speech on abolition of the
slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before
the House of Commons in London - May 12, 1789.
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When I consider
the magnitude of the subject which I am to |
bring
before the House, a subject in which the
interests, not of this country nor of Europe
alone, but of the whole world and of posterity
are involved, and when I think at the same
time on the weakness of the advocate who has
undertaken this great cause; when these
reflections press upon my mind, it is impossible
for me not to feel both terrified and concerned
at my own inadequacy to
such a task.
But when I reflect, however, on the
encouragement which I have had, through the
whole course of a long and laborious examination
of this question, and how much candor I have
experienced, and how conviction has increased
within my own mind, in proportion as I have
advanced in my labors; when I reflect,
especially, that however averse any gentleman
may now be, yet we shall all be of one opinion
in the end; when I turn myself to these
thoughts, I take courage.
I determine to forget
all my other fears, and I march forward with a
firmer step in the full assurance that my cause
will bear me out, and that I shall be able to
justify upon the clearest principles, every
resolution in my
hand, the avowed end of which is, the total
abolition of the slave
trade.
I wish exceedingly, in the outset, to guard both
myself and the House from entering into the
subject with any sort of passion. It is not
their passions I shall
appeal to I ask only for their cool and
impartial reason; and I wish not to take them by
surprise, but to deliberate, point by point,
upon every part of this question.
I mean not to
accuse any one, but to take the shame upon
myself, in
common, indeed, with the whole Parliament of
Great Britain, for having suffered this horrid
trade to be carried on under their authority. We
are all guilty we ought all to plead guilty, and
not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame
on others; and I therefore deprecate every kind
of reflection against the various descriptions
of people who are more immediately involved in
this wretched business.
In opening the
nature of the slave trade, I need only observe,
that it is found by experience to be just such
as every man, who uses his reason, would
infallibly conclude it to be. For my own part,
so clearly am I convinced of the mischiefs
inseparable from it, that I should hardly want
any further evidence than my own mind would
furnish, by the most simple deductions.
Facts, however,
are now laid before the House.
A report has been
made by His Majesty's Privy Council, which, I
trust, every gentleman has read, and which
ascertains the slave trade to be just such in
practice as we know, from theory, it must be.
What should we
suppose must naturally be the consequence of our
carrying on a slave trade with Africa? With a
country vast in its extent, not utterly
barbarous, but civilized in a very small degree?
Does any one suppose a slave trade would
help their civilization? Is it not plain that
she must suffer from it? That civilization must
be checked; that her barbarous manners must be
made more barbarous; and that the happiness of
her millions of inhabitants must be prejudiced
with her intercourse with Britain? Does not
every one see that a slave trade, carried on
around her coasts must carry violence and
desolation to her very center?
That in a
continent just emerging from barbarism, if a
trade in men is established, if her men are all
converted into goods, and become commodities
that can be bartered, it follows they must be
subject to ravage just as goods are; and this,
too, at a period of civilization, when there is
no protecting legislature to defend this their
only sort of property, in the same manner as the
rights of property are maintained by the
legislature of every civilized country.
We see then, in
the nature of things, how easily the practices
of Africa are to be accounted for. Her kings are
never compelled to war, that we can hear of, by
public principles, by national glory, still less
by the love of their people.
In Europe it is
the extension of commerce, the maintenance of
national honor, or some great public object,
that is ever the motive to war with every
monarch; but, in Africa, it is the personal
avarice and sensuality, of their kings. These
two vices of avarice and sensuality, the most
powerful and predominant in natures thus
corrupt, we tempt, we stimulate in all these
African princes, and we depend upon these vices
for the very maintenance of the slave trade.
Does the king of
Barbessin want brandy? He has only to send his
troops, in the nighttime, to burn and desolate a
village; the captives will serve as commodities,
that may be bartered with the British trader.
What a striking
view of the wretched state of Africa does the
tragedy of Calabar furnish! Two towns, formerly
hostile, had settled their differences, and by
an intermarriage among their chiefs, had each
pledged themselves to peace; but the trade in
slaves was prejudiced by such pacifications, and
it became, therefore, the policy of our traders
to renew the hostilities. This, their policy,
was soon put in practice, and the scene of
carnage which followed was such, that it is
better, perhaps, to refer gentlemen to the Privy
Council's report, than to agitate their minds by
dwelling on it.
The slave trade,
in its very nature, is the source of such kind
of tragedies; nor has there been a single
person, almost, before the Privy Council, who
does not add something by his testimony to the
mass of evidence upon this point. Some indeed,
of these gentlemen, and particularly the
delegates from Liverpool, have
endeavored to reason down this plain principle:
some have palliated it; but there is not one, I
believe, who does not more or less admit it. Some, nay most, I
believe, have admitted the slave trade to be the
chief cause of wars in Africa.
Mr. Penny, a
Liverpool delegate, has called it the concurrent
cause; some confess it to be sometimes the
cause, but argue that it cannot often be so.
Here I must make one observation, which I hope
may be done without offence to any one, and
which I do, once for all, though it applies
equally to many other evidences upon this
subject. I mean to lay it
down as my principle, that evidences, and
especially interested evidences, are not to be
judges of the argument. In matters of
fact, of which they speak, I admit their
competency. I mean not to suspect their
credibility with respect to any thing they see
or hear, or themselves personally know; but, in
reasoning about causes and effects, I hold them
to be totally incompetent.
So far, therefore,
from submitting to their conclusions in this
respect, I utterly discard them. I take their
premises readily and fairly; but, upon these
premises, I must judge for myself. And the
House, I trust, nay, I perfectly well know, will
in like manner judge for itself. Confident
assertions, therefore, not of facts but of
supposed consequences of facts, however pressed
by the Liverpool delegates, or any other
interested persons, go for nothing in my
estimation. And it is necessary that Parliament
should proceed upon this principle, as well in
this as every other public question in which
interested evidences must be examined.
Thus the African
committee have reported that very few
enormities, in their opinion, can have been
practiced in Africa. Because, in forty years,
only two complaints have been made to them. I admit the fact
to them undoubtedly. But, I trust gentlemen will
judge for themselves, whether Parliament is to
rest satisfied that there are no abuses in
Africa, in spite of all the positive proofs of
so many witnesses on the spot to the contrary. Whether, for
instance, Mr. Wardstrom's evidence, Dr.
Spaerman's, Captain Hill's, are to go for
nothing, many of whom either saw the battles,
were told by the kings themselves, that it was
for the sake of slaves they went to battle, or
conversed with a variety of prisoners taken by
these means.
In truth as
inquiry from the African committee whether any
foul play prevails in Africa, is somewhat like
an application to the Custom-house officers to
know whether any smuggling is going on. The
officer may tell you that very few seizures are
made, and very few frauds come to his knowledge.
But does it follow that Parliament must agree to
all the reasonings of the officer? And though
smuggling be ever so notorious through the land,
must agree there is no smuggling, because the
officer reports that he makes very few seizures,
and seldom hears of it?
I will not
believe, therefore, the mere opinions of African
traders, concerning the nature and consequences
of the slave trade. It is a trade in its
principle most inevitably calculated to spread
disunion among the African princes, to sow the
seeds of every mischief, to inspire enmity, to
destroy humanity. And it is found in practice,
by the most abundant testimony, to have had the
effect in Africa of carrying misery,
devastation, and ruin wherever its baneful
influence has extended.
Having now
disposed of the first part of this subject, I
must speak of the transit of the slaves in the
West Indies. This I confess, in my own opinion,
is the most wretched part of the whole subject.
So much misery condensed in so little room is
more than the human imagination had ever before
conceived.
I will not accuse
the Liverpool merchants. I will allow, them,
nay, I will believe them, to be men of humanity.
And I will therefore believe, if it were not for
the multitude of these wretched objects, if it
were not for the enormous magnitude and extent
of the evil which distracts their attention from
individual cases, and makes them think
generally, and therefore less feelingly on the
subject, they never would have persisted in the
trade.
I verily believe,
therefore, if the wretchedness of any one of the
many hundred
negroes stowed in each ship could be brought
before their view, and remain within the sight
of the African merchant, that there is no one
among them whose heart would bear it. Let any one
imagine to himself six or seven hundred of these
wretches chained
two and two, surrounded with every object that
is nauseous and disgusting, diseased, and
struggling under every kind of wretchedness!
How can we bear to
think of such a scene as this? One would think
it had been determined to heap on them all the
varieties of bodily pain, for the purpose of
blunting the feelings of the mind. And yet, in
this very point, to show the power of
human prejudice, the situation of the slaves has
been described by Mr. Norris, one of the
Liverpool delegates, in a manner which, I am
sure will convince the House how interest can
draw a film over the eyes, so thick, that total
blindness could do no more; and how it is our
duty therefore to trust not to the reasonings of
interested men, or to their way of coloring a
transaction.
"Their
apartments," says Mr. Norris, "are fitted up as
much for their advantage as circumstances will
admit. The right ankle of one, indeed, is
connected with the left ankle of another by a
small iron fetter, and if they are turbulent, by
another on their wrists. They have several meals
a day; some of their own country provisions,
with the best sauces of African cookery; and by
the way of variety, another meal of pulse etc.
according to European taste. After breakfast
they have water to wash themselves, while their
apartments are perfumed with frankincense and
lime juice. Before dinner,
they are amused after the manner of their
country. The song and the dance are promoted,"
and, as if the whole was really a scene of
pleasure and dissipation, it is added that games
of chance are furnished. "The men play and sing,
while the women and girls make fanciful
ornaments with beads, which they
are plentifully supplied with."
Such is the sort
of strain in which the Liverpool delegates, and
particularly Mr. Norris, gave evidence before
the Privy Council.
What will the
House think when, by the concurring testimony of
other witnesses, the true history is laid open.
The slaves, who are sometimes described as
rejoicing
at their captivity, are so wrung with misery at
leaving their country, that it is the constant
practice to set sail in the night, lest they
should be sensible of their departure.
The pulse which
Mr. Norris talks of are horse beans; and the
scantiness, both of water and provision, was
suggested by the very legislature of Jamaica, in
the report of their committee, to be a subject
that called for the interference of Parliament. Mr. Norris talks
of frankincense and lime juice, when the
surgeons tell you the slaves are stowed so close
that there is not room to tread among them, and
when you have it in evidence from Sir George Yonge, that even in a ship which wanted 200 of
her complement, the stench was intolerable.
The song and the
dance, says Mr. Norris, are promoted. It had
been more fair, perhaps, if he had explained
that word promoted. The truth is, that
for the sake of exercise, these miserable
wretches, loaded with chains, oppressed with
disease and wretchedness, are forced to dance by
the terror of the lash, and sometimes by the
actual use of it. "I," says one of
the other evidences, "was employed to dance the
men, while another person danced the women."
Such, then, is the meaning of the word
promoted. And it may be observed too, with
respect to food, that an instrument is sometimes
carried out, in order to force them to eat,
which is the same sort of proof how much they
enjoy themselves in that instance also.
As to their
singing, what shall we say when we are told that
their songs are songs of lamentation upon their
departure which, while they sing, are always in
tears, insomuch that one captain (more humane as
I should conceive him, therefore, than the rest)
threatened one of the women with a flogging,
because the mournfulness of her song was too
painful for his feelings.
In order, however,
not to trust too much to any sort of
description, I will call the attention of the
House to one species of evidence, which is
absolutely infallible. Death, at least,
is a sure ground of evidence, and the proportion
of deaths will not only confirm, but, if
possible, will even aggravate our suspicion of
their misery in the transit.
It will be found,
upon an average of all the ships of which
evidence has been given at the Privy Council,
that, exclusive of those who perish before they
sail, not less than 12 1/2 per cent perish in
the passage. Besides these, the
Jamaica report tells you that not less than 4
1/2 per cent die on shore before the day of
sale, which is only a week or two from the time
of landing. One-third more die
in the seasoning, and this in a country exactly
like their own, where they are healthy and
happy, as some of the evidences would pretend.
The diseases, however, which they contract on
shipboard, the astringent washes, which are to
hide their wounds, and the mischievous tricks
used to make them
up for sale, are, as the Jamaica report says, (a
most precious and valuable report, which I shall
often have to advert to) one principal cause of
this mortality. Upon the whole,
however, here is a mortality of about 50 per
cent, and this among negroes who are not bought
unless quite healthy at first, and unless (as
the phrase is with cattle) they are sound in
wind and limb.
How then can the
House refuse its belief to the multiplied
testimonies, before the Privy Council, of the
savage treatment of the negroes in the middle
passage? Nay, indeed, what need is there of any
evidence? The number of deaths speaks for
itself, and makes all such inquiry superfluous. As soon as ever I
had arrived thus far in my investigation of the
slave trade, I confess to you, sir, so enormous,
so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness
appear, that my own mind was completely made up
for the abolition. A trade founded in
iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be
abolished, let the policy be what it might, let
the consequences be what they would, I from this
time determined that I would never rest till I
had effected its abolition.
Such enormities as
these having once come within my knowledge I
should not have been faithful to the sight of my
eyes, to the use of my senses and my reason, if
I had shrunk from attempting the abolition. It
is true, indeed, my mind was harassed beyond
measure. For when West-India planters and
merchants reported it upon me that it was the
British Parliament had authorized this trade,
when they said to me, "It is your acts of
Parliament, it is your encouragement, it is
faith in your laws, in your protection, that has
tempted us into this trade, and has now made it
necessary to us." It became difficult, indeed,
what to answer; if the ruin of the West-Indies
threatened us on the one hand, while this load
of wickedness pressed upon us on the other, the
alternative, indeed, was awful.
It naturally
suggested itself to me, ho strange it was that
providence, however mysterious in its ways,
should so have constituted the world, as to make
one part of it depend for its existence on the
depopulation and devastation of another. I could not
therefore, help distrusting the arguments of
those, who insisted that the plundering of
Africa was necessary for the cultivation of the
West Indies. I could not
believe that the same Being who forbids rapine
and bloodshed, had made rapine and bloodshed
necessary to the well-being of any part of his
universe.
I felt a
confidence in this principle, and took the
resolution to act upon it. Soon, indeed, the
light broke in upon me. The suspicion of my mind
was every day confirmed by increasing
information, the truth became clear. The
evidence I have to offer upon this point is now
decisive and complete. And I wish to observe
with submission, but with perfect conviction of
heart what an instance is this, how safely we
may trust the rules of justice, the dictates of
conscience, and the laws of God in opposition
even to the seeming impolicy of these eternal
principles.
I hope now to
prove, by authentic evidence, that in truth the
West Indies have nothing to fear from the total
and immediate abolition of the slave trade. I
will enter minutely into this point, and I do
entreat the most exact attention of gentlemen
most interested in this part of the question.
The resolutions I have to offer are many and
particular, for the purpose of bringing each
point under a separate discussion. And thus I
hope it will be shown that Parliament is not
disposed to overlook the interests of the West
Indies.
The principle,
however, upon which I found the necessity of
abolition is not policy but justice; but though
justice be the principle of the measure, yet, I
trust, I shall distinctly prove it to be
reconcilable with our truest political interest.
In entering
therefore into the next branch of my subject,
namely the state of slaves in the West Indies, I
would observe that here, as in many other cases,
it happens that the owner of principal generally
sends out the best orders imaginable, which the
manager upon the spot may pursue or not, as he
pleases.
I do not accuse
even the manager of any native cruelty, he is a
person made like ourselves (for nature is much
the same in all persons) but it is habit that
generates cruelty. This man looking down upon
his slaves as a set of beings of another nature
from himself, can have no sympathy for them, and
it is sympathy, and nothing else than sympathy,
which, according to the best writers and judges
of the subject, is the true spring of humanity.
Let us ask then
what are the causes of the mortality in the West
Indies.
In the first
place, the disproportion of sexes; an evil,
which, when the slave trade is abolished, must
in the course of nature cure itself.
In the second
place, the disorders contracted in the middle
passage. And here let me touch upon an argument
for ever used by the advocates for the slave
trade, the fallacy of which is no where more
notorious that in this place. It is said to be
the interest of the traders to use their slaves
well; the astringent washes, escarotics, and
mercurial ointments, by which they are made up
for sale, is one answer to this argument. In
this instance, it is not their interest to use
them well. And although in some respects
self-interest and humanity will go together, yet
unhappily through the whole progress of the
slave trade, the very converse of this principle
is continually occurring.
A third cause of
deaths in the West Indies is excessive labor
joined with improper food. I mean not to blame
the West Indians, for this evil springs from the
very nature of things.
In this country the work
is fairly paid for and distributed among our
laborers according to the reasonableness of
things. And if a trader or manufacturer finds
his profits decrease, he retrenches his own
expenses, he lessens the number of his hands,
and every branch of trade fins its proper level.
In the West Indies the whole number of slaves
remains with the same master. Is the master
pinched in his profits, the slave allowance is
pinched in consequence. For as charity begins at
home, the usual gratification of the master will
never be given up, so long as there is a
possibility of making the retrenchment from the
allowance of the slaves. There is therefore a
constant tendency to the very minimum with
respect to slaves' allowance. And if in any one
hard year the slaves get through upon a reduces
allowance, from the very nature of man it must
happen, that this becomes a precedent upon other
occasions; nor is the gradual destruction of the
slave a consideration sufficient to counteract
the immediate advantage and profit that is got
by their hard usage.
Here then we
perceive again how the argument of interest
fails also with respect to the treatment of
slaves in the West Indies. Interest is
undoubtedly the great spring of action in the
affairs of mankind. But it is immediate and
present, not future and distant interest,
however real, that is apt to actuate us. We may trust that
men will follow their interest when present
impulse and interest correspond, but not
otherwise. That this is a true observation may
be proved by everything in life. Why do we make
laws to punish men? It is their interest to be
upright and virtuous, without these laws. But
there is a present impulse continually breaking
in upon their better judgment; an impulse
contrary to their permanent and known interest,
which it is not even in the power of all our
laws sufficiently to restrain.
It is ridiculous
to say, therefore, that men will be bound by
their interest, when present gain or when the
force of passion is urging them. It is no less
ridiculous than if we were to say that a stone
cannot be thrown into the air, nor any body move
along the earth, because the great principle of
gravitation must keep them for ever fast. The principle of
gravitation is true. And yet, in spite of it,
there are a thousand motions which bodies may be
driven into continually, and upon which we ought
as much to reckon as on gravitation itself.
This principle,
therefore, of self-interest, which is brought in
to answer every charge of cruelty throughout the
slave trade, is not to be thus generally
admitted. That the allowance is too short in the
West Indies appears very plain also from the
evidence. The allowance in the prisons I
conceive must be an under allowance, and yet I
find it to be somewhat less that this.
Dr. Adair (who is
not very favorable to my propositions, and who
by way of evidence, wrote a sort of pamphlet
against me to the Privy Council) has said that
even he thinks their food at crop-time too
little. And I observe from Governor Ord's
statement that he accounts for their being more
healthy at a less favorable seasons of the
year, from their being better fed at the
unfavorable season.
Another cause of
the mortality of slaves is the dreadful
dissoluteness of their manners. Here it might be
said that self-interest must induce the planters
to wish for some order and decency around their
families. But in this case also it is slavery
itself that is the mischief.
Slaves, considered
as cattle, left without instruction, without any
institution of marriage, so depressed as to have
no means almost of civilization, will
undoubtedly be dissolute. And, until attempts
are made to raise them a little above their
present situation, this source of mortality will
remain.
Some evidences,
indeed, have endeavored to disprove that there
is any particular wretchedness among the slaves
in the West Indies. Admiral Barrington tells you
he has seen them look so happy that he has
sometimes wished himself one of them. I conceive
that in a case like this an admiral's evidence
is perhaps the very worst that can be taken. It is as if a king
were to judge of the private happiness of his
soldiers by seeing them on a review day. The sight of the
admiral would, no doubt, exhilarate their faces.
He would see them in their best clothes, and
they, perhaps, might hope for a few of the
crumbs
which fell from the admiral's table. But does it
follow that there is no hard treatment of slaves
in the West Indies? The admiral's wish to be one
of these slaves himself proves perhaps that he
was in an odd humor at the moment, or perhaps
it might mean (for all the world knows his
humanity) that he could wish to alleviate their
sufferings by taking a share upon himself. But
at least it proves nothing of their general
treatment. And, at any rate, it is but a
negative proof which affects not the other
evidences to the contrary.
It is now to be
remarked that all these causes of mortality
among the slaves do undoubtedly admit of a
remedy, and it is the abolition of the slave
trade that will serve as this remedy.
When the manager
shall know that a fresh importation is not to be
had from Africa, and that he cannot retrieve the
deaths he occasions by any new purchases,
humanity must be introduced; an improvement in
the system of treating them will thus infallibly
be effected, an assiduous care of their health
and of their morals, marriage institutions, and
many other things, as yet little thought of,
will take place; because they will be absolutely
necessary.
Births will thus
increase naturally instead of fresh accessions
of the same negroes from Africa, each generation
will then improve upon the former, and thus will
the West Indies themselves eventually profit by
the abolition of the slave trade.
But, sir, I will
show by experience already had, how the
multiplication of slaves depends upon their good
treatment. All sides agree that slaves are much
better treated now than they were thirty years
ago in the West Indies, and that there is every
day a growing improvement. I will show,
therefore, by authentic documents, how their
numbers have increased (or rather how the
decrease has lessened) in the same proportion as
the treatment has improved.
There were in
Jamaica in the year 1761, 147,000 slaves. In the
year 1787, there were 256,000 slaves. In all
this period of 26 years, 165,000 were imported,
which would be upon an average 2150 per annum,
there being, on an average of the whole 26
years, 1 1-15th per cent yearly diminution of
the number of slaves on the island.
In fact, however,
I find that the diminution in the first period,
when they were the worst used was 2 1/4 per
cent. In the next 7 years it was 1 per
cent. And the average of the last period is
3-5ths per cent. It should also be observed that
there has lately been, on account of the war, a
much more than ordinary diminution, which was
the case also in the former war, besides that
15,000 have been destroyed by the late famine
and hurricanes.
Upon these
premises I ground a conclusion, that in Jamaica
there is at this time an actual increase of
population among the slaves begun. It may fairly
be presumed, that since the year 1782, this has
been the case, and that the births by this time
exceed the deaths by about 1,000 or 1,100 per
annum.
It is true the
sexes are not altogether equal. But this
difference is so small that if the proper number
of women were added, the births to be expected
in consequence would be no more than 300 per
annum, which shows this to be a matter of little
consequence.
In the island of
Barbados, the case is nearly the same as
Jamaica. In St.
Christopher's there are 9,600 females, and
10,300 males. So that an increase by birth if
the treatment is tolerable, may fairly be
expected. In Dominica,
Governor Ord writes, that there is a natural
increase, though it is yet inconsiderable, and
though the smuggling in that island makes it not
appear so favorably. In Nevis there are
absolutely five women to four men. In Antigua, the
epidemical disorders have lately cut off 1-4th
or 1-5th of the negroes; but this cannot be
expected to return, especially when the grand
cause of epidemical disorders is removed. In Bermudas and
the Bahamas there is an actual increase. In Montserrat
there is much the same decrease as there has
been in Jamaica, which is to be accounted for by
the emigrations from that island.
Such, sir, is the
state of the negroes in our West India islands.
And it is not only founded upon authentic
documents from thence, but it is also confirmed
by a variety of other proofs.
Mr. Long, whose
works are looked up to as a sort of West India
gospel upon these subjects, lays it down as a
principle, that when there are two negroes upon
an island to three hogsheads of sugar, the work
for them will be so moderate, as to ensure a
natural increase; and there is now much more
than this proportion.
It can be proved
too, that a variety of individuals by good usage
have more than kept up their stock. But,
allowing even the number of negroes to be
deficient, still there are many other resources
to be had - the waste of labor which now
prevails, the introduction of the plough and
other machinery, the division of work, which in
free and civilized countries is the grand source
of wealth, the reduction of the number of negroe
servants, of whom not less than from 20 to 40 are
kept in ordinary families.
All these I touch
upon merely as hints, to show that the West
Indies are not bereaved of all the means of
cultivation their estates, as some persons have
feared.
But, sir, even if
these suppositions are all false and idle, if
every one of these succedanea should fail, I
still do maintain that the West India planters
can and will indemnify themselves by the
increased price of their produce in our market;
a principle which is so clear, that in questions
of taxation, or any other question of policy,
this sort of argument would undoubtedly be
admitted.
I say, therefore,
that the West Indians who contend against the
abolition, are non-suited in every part of the
argument. Do they say that
importations are necessary? I have shown that
the very numbers in the gang may be kept up by
procreation. Is this denied? I
say, the plough, horses, machinery, domestic
slaves, and all the other succedanea will supply
the deficiency. It is persisted
that the deficiency can in no way be supplied,
and that the quantity of produce must diminish?
I then revert to that irrefragable argument that
the increase of price will make up their loss,
and is a clear ultimate security.
I have in my hand
the extract from a pamphlet which states in very
dreadful colors what thousands and tens of
thousands will be ruined; how our wealth will be
impaired; one third of our commerce cut off for
ever; how our manufactures will droop in
consequence, our land-tax will be raised, our
marine destroyed, while France, our natural
enemy and rival, will strengthen herself by our
weakness.
[A cry of assent being heard from
several parts of the House, Mr. Wilberforce
added,]
I beg, sir, that gentlemen will not
mistake me. The pamphlet from
whence this prophecy is taken was written by Mr.
Glover in 1774, on a very different occasion;
and I would therefore ask gentlemen, whether it
is indeed fulfilled? Is our wealth
decayed, our commerce cut off? Are our
manufactures and our marine destroyed? Is France
raised upon our ruins? On the contrary. Do we
not see by the instance of this pamphlet, how
men in a desponding moment will picture to
themselves the most gloomy consequences, from
causes by no means to be apprehended?
We are all, in
this respect, apt sometimes to be carried away
by a frightened imagination. Like poor negroes,
we are all in our turn, subject to Obiha; and
when we have an interest to bias us, we are
carried away ten thousand times more. The African
merchants told us last year that if less than
two men to a ton were to be allowed, the trade
could not continue. Mr. Tarleton, instructed by
the whole trade of Liverpool, declared the same:
told us that commerce would be ruined and our
manufactures would migrate to France.
We have petitions
on the table from the manufacturers, but I
believe they are not dated at Havre or any port
in France. And yet it is certain that out of 20
ships last year from Liverpool, not less than 13
carried this very ruinous proportion of less
than two to a ton. It is said that
Liverpool will be undone. "The trade," says Mr.
Dalziel, "at this time hangs upon a thread, and
the smallest matter will overthrow it."
I believe, indeed,
the trade is a losing trade to Liverpool at this
time. It is a lottery in which some men have
made large fortunes, chiefly by being their own
insurers, while others follow the example of a
few lucky adventurers and lose money by it. It is absurd to
say, therefore, that Liverpool will be ruined by
the abolition, or that it will feel the
difference very sensibly, since the whole
outward-bound tonnage of the slave trade amounts
only to one-fifteenth of the outward-bound
tonnage of Liverpool.
We ought to remember
also, that the slave trade actually was
suspended during some years of the war; nor did
any calamity follow from it.
As to shipping,
our fisheries and other trades will furnish so
many innocent and bloodless ways of employing
vessels that no mischief need be dreaded from
this quarter.
The next subject
which I shall touch upon is the influence of the
slave trade upon our marine; and instead of
being a benefit to our sailors, as some have
ignorantly argued, I do assert it is their
grave. The evidence upon
the point is clear; for, by the indefatigable
industry and public spirit of Mr. Clarkson, the
muster rolls of all the slave ships have been
collected and compared with those of other
trades. And it appears in the result that more
sailors die in one year in the slave trade than
die in two years in all our other trades put
together.
It appears by the
muster roll, to 88 slave ships which sailed from
Liverpool in 1787, that the original crews
consisted of 3,170 sailors. Of these only 1,428
returned: 642 died or were lost, and 1,100 were
discharged on the voyage or deserted either in
Africa or the West Indies. It appeared to me
for a long time unaccountable how so vast a
proportion of these sailors should leave their
ships in the West Indies. But I shall quote here
a letter from Governor Parry at Barbados to Lord
Sydney, dated May 13, 1788, transmitting two
petitions, and which explains this difficulty.
"To the African
trade on the coast I cannot venture to speak,
not being sufficiently acquainted with it; but
am fearful such monstrous abuses have crept into
it, as to make the interference of the British
legislature absolutely necessary; and have to
lament that it falls to my lot to possess your
lordship with the unpleasing information
contained in the enclosed petitions, which is
fully demonstrative of the shameful practices
carried on in that unnatural commerce."
He then speaks of
having seen Captain Bibby, who is the person
mentioned in the following petitions, though the
other captain had endeavored to prevent it, and,
he says, he has sent back the pawns (mentioned
also in the petition) to their enraged parents,
adding,
"That I cannot help having my
suspicions; and I was yesterday told, that he
had private instructions from the petitioners
not to present the petitions to me, if Bibby
would quietly resign the pawns; which leads me
to believe there was a general combination in
these unwarrantable practices among all the
masters of the vessels then in Cameroons river."
He then comes to
the subject of the British sailors.
"Your
lordship," says he, "is perfectly informed
of the nefarious practices of the African
trade, and the cruel manner in which the
greater number of the masters treat their
seamen. There is scarcely a vessel in that
trade that calls at Barbados, from which I
have not a complaint made to me, either by
the master of the seamen; but more
frequently the latter, who are often
shamefully used; for the African traders at
home being obliged to send out their ships
very strong handed, as well from the
unhealthiness of the climate, as the
necessity of guarding the slaves, soon feel
the expense of seamen's wages.
And as soon as
they come amongst these islands, and all
danger of insurrection is removed, the
masters quarrel with their seamen, upon the
most frivolous pretences, and turn them on
shore on the first island they stop at,
sometimes with, and sometimes without paying
them their wages; and Barbados being
windward station, had generally a large
proportion of these men thrown in upon her;
and sorry am I to say, that many of these
valuable subjects are, from sickness and the
dire necessity of entering into foreign
employ for maintenance, lost to the British
nation."
Thus do we see how Mr. Clarkson's account of the
muster rolls is verified, and why it is that so
vast a proportion of sailors in the slave ships
are lost to this country. But let us touch
also on the petitions which Governor Parry
speaks of. It seems that Captain Bibby, before
mentioned, had carried off from Africa 30 of the
king's children and relations left in pawn with
him, who retaliated by seizing five English
captains. These captains
dispatch a vessel with petitions to Governor
Parry to send back the king's sons in order to
their own release. Now, sir, let us
mark the style of these petitions.
"I, James M'Gauty,
I, William Willoughby, etc. being on shore on
the execution of our business, were seized by a
body of armed natives, who lay in ambush in
order to take us."
What villains must
these Africans be, to seize so designedly such
friends as the British subjects, and this merely
with a view to get back their children!
"This," says the
petition, "they effected, and dragged us to
their town, where they treated us in a most
savage and barbarous manner, and loaded us with
irons."
Observe, sir, the
indignant spirit of these captains; British
freemen to be loaded with irons! White men in
custody of these barbarous negroes? But what was
the cause of this abominable outrage?
"On account," say
they, "of the imprudent behavior of Captain
Robert Bibby," - but what was the imprudence?
"who carried off 30 pawns, who were the king's
and traders' sons, daughters, and relations."
Here, then, we
have a picture of the equitable spirit in which
this trade is carried on. These princes and
chiefs, who, by Captain Bibby's imprudence, had
lost all their families and children, propose,
however, to satisfy every demand, and to give
these captains their liberty, provided only they
may have their children back again.
"But," say two of
the captains, "We, finding that we could not
comply with their extravagant conditions, did
endeavor to regain our liberty, which we
effected. But we verily believe, that our
respective voyages are entirely ruined, the
natives being determined to make no farther
trade with either of us, nor pay the above
debts, until their sons, daughters, etc are
returned, and debarring us of wood, water, or
any country provisions. Therefore, we shall be
forced to leave the river immediately and, on
that account, we think our voyages ruined, as
before."
It has been urged
by some persons, in proof of the wicked
barbarity of these kings and chiefs, that they
pawn their own children, from which it is
concluded that they feel no sort of affection
for them, and therefore deserve all the evils
which we inflict upon them.
The contrary is in
truth the case. For the captains, knowing the
affection they have for their relations, are
willing to take them as hostages for very
considerable debts, and are sensible of their
ideal value, though the real value is trifling.
And the scene which I have just laid before you,
very fairly shows both the general spirit of our
captains, and the wretched situation to which
our commerce has reduced these African princes.
And if, sir, at
the very moment when Parliament was known to be
inquiring into this trade, these abuses are thus
boldly persisted in, how can we suppose that any
regulations or any palliatives can overcome
these enormities, and justify our continuance of
the trade?
It is true, the
African committee hear little of the matter; for
we find that even these captains, who were in
prison, instructed the bearer of their petition
not to apply to Governor Parry, except in the
last necessity, but merely to get back the
king's sons, meaning quietly to compromise
matters with Captain Bibby; and if it were not
for the vigilance of Governor Parry, the truth
would never have come out.
In like manner, we
find that although very few sailors, when they
come to Liverpool, go into an expensive
prosecution of their captains, yet Governor
Parry hears of complaints against them every
day. And we find that
Justice Otley, in the island of St. Vincent,
were law is cheap, both hears their grievances
and redresses them.
There is one other
argument, in my opinion a very weak and absurd
one, which many persons, however, have much
dwelt upon. I mean that, if we relinquish the
slave trade, France will take it up.
If the slave trade
be such as I have described it, and if the House
is also convinced of this, if it be in truth
both wicked and impolitic, we cannot wish a
greater mischief to France than that she should
adopt it. For the sake of
France, however, and for the sake of humanity, I
trust, nay, I am sure, she will not. France is too
enlightened a nation to begin pushing a
scandalous as well as ruinous traffic, at the
very time when England sees her folly and
resolves to give it up.
It is clearly no
argument whatever against the wickedness of the
trade, that France will adopt it. For those who
argue thus may argue equally that we may rob,
murder, and commit any crime, which any one else
would have committed, if we did not. The truth is that
by our example we shall produce the contrary
effect. If we refuse the abolition, we shall
lie, therefore, under the twofold guilt of
knowingly persisting in this wicked trade
ourselves, and, as far as we can, of inducing
France to do the same.
Let us, therefore,
lead the way. Let this enlightened country take
precedence in this noble cause, and we shall
soon find that France is not backward to follow,
nay, perhaps to accompany our steps. If they should be
mad enough to adopt it, they will have every
disadvantage to cope with. They must buy the
negroes much dearer than we; the manufacturers
they sell, must probably be ours; and expensive
floating factory, ruinous to the health of
sailors, which we have hitherto maintained, must
be set up. And, after all, the trade can serve
only as a sort of Gibraltar, upon which they may
spend their strength, while the productive
branches of their commerce must in proportion be
neglected and starved.
But I have every
ground for believing that the French will not be
thus wicked and absurd. M. Necker, the
enlightened minister of that country, a man who
has introduced moral and religious principles
into government, more than has been common with
many ministers, has actually recorded his
abhorrence of the slave trade. He has, under his
own hand in his publication of the finances,
pledged himself, as it were, to the abolition,
and it is impossible that a man can be so lost
to all sense of decency and common consistency
of character as not to forward, by every
influence in his power, a cause in which he has
so publicly declared himself.
There is another
anecdote which I mention here with pleasure,
which is that the king of France very lately
being requested to dissolve a society set up in
France, for the abolition of the slave trade,
made answer, "That he certainly should not, for
that he was very glad it existed."
I believe, sir, I
have now touched upon all the objections of any
consequence, which are made to the abolition of
this trade.
When we consider
the vastness of the continent of Africa; when we
reflect how all other countries have for some
centuries past been advancing in happiness and
civilization; when we think how in this same
period all improvement in Africa has been
defeated by her intercourse with Britain; when
we reflect it is we ourselves that have degraded
them to that wretched brutishness and barbarity
which we now plead as the justification of our
guilt; how the slave trade has enslaved their
minds, blackened their character, and sunk them
so low in the scale of animal beings that some
think the apes are of a higher class, and fancy
the orangutan has given them the go-by. What a
mortification must we feel at having so long
neglected to think of our guilt, or to attempt
any reparation!
It seems, indeed,
as if we had determined to forbear from all
interference until the measure of our folly and
wickedness was so full and complete, until the
impolicy which eventually belongs to vice, was
become so plain and glaring that not an
individual in the country should refuse to join
in the abolition; it seems as if we had waited
until the persons most interested should be
tired out with the folly and nefariousness of
the trade, and should unite in petitioning
against it.
Let us then make
such amends as we can for the mischiefs we have
done to that unhappy continent.
Let us recollect
what Europe itself was no longer ago than three
or four centuries. What if I should be able to
show this House that in a civilized part of
Europe, in the time of our Henry VII, there were
people who actually sold their own children?
What if I should tell them that England itself
was that country? What if I should point out to
them that the very place where this inhuman
traffic was carried on was the city of Bristol?
Ireland at that time used to drive a
considerable trade in slaves with these
neighboring barbarians; but a great plague
having infested the country, the Irish were
struck with a panic, suspected (I am sure very
properly) that the plague was a punishment sent
from Heaven, for the sin of the slave trade, and
therefore abolished it.
All I ask,
therefore, of the people of Bristol is, that
they would become as civilized now as Irishmen
were four hundred years ago. Let us put an end
at once to this inhuman traffic. Let us stop
this effusion of human blood. The true way to
virtue is by withdrawing from temptation. Let us
then withdraw from these wretched Africans those
temptations to fraud, violence, cruelty, and
injustice, which the slave trade furnishes.
Wherever the sun
shines, let us go round the world with him,
diffusing our beneficence; but let us not
traffic, only that we may set kings against
their subjects, subjects against their kings,
sowing discord in every village, fear and terror
in every family, setting millions of our
fellow-creatures a hunting each other for
slaves, creating fairs and markets for human
flesh, through one whole continent of the world,
and, under the name of policy, concealing from
ourselves all the baseness and iniquity of such
a traffic.
Why may we not
hope, ere long, to see Hans-towns established on
the coast of Africa as they were on the Baltic ?
It is said the Africans are idle, but they are
not too idle, at least, to catch one another.
Seven hundred to one thousand tons of rice are
annually bought of them. By the same rule, why
should we not buy more? At Gambia one
thousand of them are seen continually at work.
Why should not some more thousands be set to
work in the same manner? It is the slave trade
that causes their idleness and every other
mischief. We are told by one witness, "They sell
one another as they can." And while they can get
brandy by catching one another, no wonder they
are too idle for any regular work.
I have one word
more to add upon a most material point. But it
is a point so self-evident that I shall be
extremely short.
It will appear
from everything which I have said, that it is
not regulation, it is not mere palliatives, that
can cure this enormous evil. Total abolition is
the only possible cure for it.
The Jamaica
report, indeed, admits much of the evil, but
recommends it to us so to regulate the trade,
that no persons should be kidnapped or made
slaves contrary to the custom of Africa. But may they not
be made slaves unjustly, and yet by no means
contrary to the custom of Africa? I have shown
they may; for all the customs of Africa are
rendered savage and unjust through the influence
of this trade; besides, how can we discriminate
between the slaves justly and unjustly made? Can
we know them by physiognomy? Or, if we could,
does any man believe that the British captains
can, by any regulation in this country, be
prevailed upon to refuse all such slaves as have
not been fairly, honestly, and uprightly
enslaved? But granting even that they should do
this, yet how would the rejected slaves be
recompensed? They are brought, as we are told,
from three or four thousand miles off, and
exchanged like cattle from one hand to another,
until they reach the coast.
We see then that
it is the existence of the slave trade that is
the spring of all this
internal traffic, and that the remedy cannot be
applied without abolition.
Again, as to the
middle passage, the evil is radical there also;
the merchant's profit depends upon the number
that can be crowded together, and upon the
shortness of their allowance. Astringents,
escarotics, and all the other arts of making
them up for sale, are of the very essence of the
trade; these arts will be concealed both from
the purchaser and the legislature. They are
necessary to the owner's profit, and they will
be practiced. Again, chains and arbitrary
treatment must be used in transporting them; our
seamen must be taught to play the tyrant, and
that depravation of manners among them (which
some very judicious persons have treated of as
the very worst part of the business) cannot be
hindered, while the trade itself continues.
As to the slave
merchants, they have already told you that if
two slaves to a ton are not permitted, the trade
cannot continue; so that the objections are done
away by themselves on this quarter; and in the
West Indies, I have shown that the abolition is
the only possible stimulus whereby a regard to
population, and consequently to the happiness of
the negroes, can be effectually excited in those
islands.
I trust,
therefore, I have shown that upon every ground
the total abolition ought to take place.
I have urged many
things which are not my own leading motives for
proposing it, since I have wished to show every
description of gentlemen, and particularly the
West India planters, who deserve every
attention, that the abolition is politic upon
their own principles also.
Policy, however,
sir, is not my principle, and I am not ashamed
to say it. There is a principle above everything
that is political; and when I reflect on the
command which says, "Thou shalt do no murder,"
believing the authority to be divine, how can I
dare to set up any reasonings of my own against
it? And, sir, when we
think of eternity, and of the future
consequences of all human conduct, what is there
in this life that should make any man contradict
the dictates of his conscience, the principles
of justice, the laws of religion, and of God.
Sir, the nature
and all the circumstances of this trade are now
laid open to us; we can no longer plead
ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an
object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We
may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but
we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it;
for it is brought now so directly before our
eyes that this House must decide, and must
justify to all the world, and
to their own consciences, the rectitude of the
grounds and principles of their decision.
A society has been
established for the abolition of this trade, in
which dissenters, Quakers, churchmen, in which
the most conscientious of all persuasions have
all united, and made a common cause in this
great question.
Let not Parliament be the only
body that is insensible to the principles of
national justice.
Let us make a reparation to
Africa, so far as we can, by establishing a
trade upon true commercial principles, and we
shall soon find the rectitude of our conduct
rewarded by the benefits of a regular and a
growing commerce.
I shall now move
to several Resolutions upon which I do not ask
the House to decide tonight, but shall consider
the debate as adjourned to any day next week
that may be thought most convenient, viz.
1. That the
number of slaves annually carried from the
coast of Africa, in British vessels, is
supposed to be about 38,000. That the number
annually carried to the British West-India
islands has on an average of four years, to
the year 1787 inclusive, amounted to about
22,500. That the number annually retained in
the said islands, as far as appears by the
Custom House accounts, has amounted, on the
same average, to about 17,500.
2. That much
the greater number of the negroes, carried
away by European vessels, are brought from
the interior parts of the continent of
Africa, and many of them from a very great
distance. That no precise information
appears to have been obtained of the manner
in which these persons have been made
slaves. But that from the accounts, as far
as any have been procured on this subject,
with respect to the slaves brought from the
interior parts of Africa, and from the
information which has been received
respecting the countries nearer to the
coast, the slaves may in general be classed
under some of the following descriptions:
1st,
Prisoners taken in war.
2nd, Free
persons sold for debt, or on account of
real or imputed crimes, particularly
adultery and witchcraft, in which cases
they are frequently sold with their
whole families, and sometimes for the
profit of those by whom they are
condemned.
3rd,
Domestic slaves sold for the profit of
their masters, in some places at the
will of the masters, and in some places
on being condemned for real or imputed
crimes.
4th,
Persons made slaves by various acts of
oppression, violence, or fraud,
committed either by the princes and
chiefs of those countries on their
subjects, or by private individuals on
each other, or lastly by Europeans
engaged in this traffic.
3. That the
trade carried on by European nations on the
coast of Africa, for the purchase of slaves,
has necessarily a tendency to occasion
frequent and cruel wars among the natives,
to produce unjust convictions and
punishments for pretended or aggravated
crimes, to encourage acts of oppression,
violence, and fraud, and to obstruct the
natural course of civilization and
improvements in those countries.
4. That the
continent of Africa, in its present state,
furnishes several valuable articles of
commerce highly important to the trade and
manufactures of this kingdom, and which are
in a great measure peculiar to that quarter
of the globe; and that the soil and climate
have been found, by experience, well adapted
to the production of other articles, with
which we are now either wholly, or in great
part, supplied by foreign nations. That an
extensive commerce with Africa in these
commodities, might probably be substituted
in the place of that which is now carried on
in slaves, so as at least to afford a return
for the same quantity of goods as has
annually been carried thither in British
vessels. And lastly, that such a commerce
might reasonably be expected to increase in
proportion to the progress of civilization
and improvement on that continent.
5. That the
slave trade has been found, by experience,
to be peculiarly injurious and destructive
to the British seamen who have been employed
therein; and that the mortality among them
has been much greater than in His Majesty's
ships stationed on the coast of Africa, or
than has been usual in British vessels
employed in any other trade.
6. That the
mode of transporting the slaves from Africa
to the West Indies necessarily exposes them
to many and grievous sufferings, for which
no regulation can provide an adequate
remedy; and that, in consequence thereof a
large proportion of them has annually
perished during the voyage.
7. That a
large proportion of the slaves so
transported has also perished in the harbors
in the West Indies previous to their being
sold. That this loss is stated by the
assembly of the island of Jamaica at about
four and a half per cent of the number
imported; and is, by medical persons of
experience in that island, ascribed inn
great measure to diseases contracted during
the voyage and to the mode of treatment on
board the ships by which those diseases have
been suppressed for a time in order to
render the slaves fit for immediate sale.
8. That the
loss of newly imported negroes within the
first three years of their importation bears
a large proportion to the whole number
imported.
9. That the
natural increase of population among the
slaves in the islands appear to have been
impeded principally by the following causes.
1st, The
inequality of the number of the sexes in the
importations from Africa.
2nd, The
general dissoluteness of manners among the
slaves, and the want of proper regulations
for the encouragement of marriages and of
rearing children.
3rd,
Particular diseases which are prevalent
among them and which are in some instances
attributed to too severe labor or rigorous
treatment and in others to insufficient or
improper food.
4th, Those
diseases which affect a large proportion of
negro children in their infancy, and those
to which the negroes newly imported from
Africa have been found to be particularly
liable.
10. That the
whole number of slaves in the island of
Jamaica in 1768 was about 167,000. That the
number in 1774 was stated by Governor Keith
about 193,000. And that the number in
December 1787 as stated by Lieut. Governor
Clarke was about 256,000. That by comparing
these numbers with the numbers imported into
and retained in the island, in the several
years from 1768 to 1774 inclusive, as
appearing from the accounts delivered to the
committee of trade by Mr. Fuller; and in the
several years from 1775 inclusive, to 1787
also inclusive, as appearing by the accounts
delivered in by the inspector general; and
allowing for a loss of about one
twenty-second part b deaths on ship board
after entry, as stated in the report of the
assembly of the said island of Jamaica, it
appears, that the annual excess of deaths
above births in the island in the whole
period of nineteen years has been in the
proportion of about seven eights per cent,
computing on the medium number of slaves in
the island during that period. That in the
first six years of the said nineteen, the
excess of deaths was in the proportion of
rather more than one on every hundred on the
medium number. That in the last thirteen
years of the said nineteen, the excess of
deaths was in the proportion of about
three-fifths on every hundred on the medium
number; and that a number of slaves,
amounting to 15,000, is stated by the report
of the island of Jamaica to have perished,
during the latter period, in consequence of
repeated hurricanes, and of the want of
foreign supplies of provisions.
11. That the
whole number of slaves in the island of
Barbados was, in the year 1764, according to
the account given in to the committee of
trade by Mr. Braithwaite 70,706. That in
1774, the number was, by the same account
74,874. In 1780, by ditto 68,270. In 1781,
after the hurricane, according to the same
account 63,248. In 1786, by ditto 62,115.
That by comparing these numbers with the
number imported into this island, according
to the same account (not allowing for any
re-exportation), the annual excess of deaths
above births, in the ten years from 1764 to
1774, was in the proportion of about five on
every hundred, computing on the medium
number of slaves in the island during that
period. That in the seven years from 1774 to
1780, both inclusive, the excess of deaths
was in the proportion of about one and
one-third on every hundred, on the medium
number. That between the year 1780 and 1781,
there appears to have been a decrease in the
number of slaves of about 5,000. That in the
six years from 1781 to 1786, both inclusive,
the excess of deaths was in the proportion
of rather less than seven-eighths in every
hundred, on the medium number. And that in
the four years from 1783 to 1786, both
inclusive, the excess of deaths was in the
proportion of rather less than one-third in
every hundred on the medium number. And that
during the whole period there is no doubt
that somewhere exported in the first part of
this period than in the last.
12. That the
accounts from the Leeward islands and from
Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent's, do not
furnish sufficient grounds for comparing the
state of population in the said islands at
different periods, with the number of slaves
which have been, from time to time, imported
into the said islands, and exported
therefrom. But that from the evidence which
has been received respecting the present
state of these islands, as well as of
Jamaica and Barbados, and from a
consideration of the means of obviating the
causes which have hitherto operated to
impede the natural increase of the slaves,
and of lessening the demand of manual labor,
without diminishing the profit of the
planter, it appears that no considerable or
permanent inconvenience would result from
discontinuing the further importation of
African slaves.
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