The correspondence of Mr. Canning with Mr. Galatin, lately published, evinces plainly the importance which is attached to our transatlantic possessions. It cannot be supposed that a minister of state will hold one tone to a foreign power, and a different one to ourselves.
It is on occasions of public diplomacy, when our own policy is opposed to that of the great rising republic of America, that the full swell of public opinion makes known the extent of interest felt by the British nation towards her colonies.
The love of dominion is natural to mankind, and few like to lose what they have once possessed; but, with the reflecting part of the nation, this feeling is strengthened by the consciousness that slavery itself will be promoted by the destruction of the British colonies. Foreign nations will take up what we abandon; and if we are still to consume sugar, the state of the continental markets proves to a demonstration that that consumption will be supplied by slave-labour, and not by free labour from either east or west.
Hence the safety of the colonies not only affects the dignity of His Majesty’s crown, which ministers have sworn to uphold; but it combines every consideration on this question which can influence the conduct of an independent member of the legislature.
If, then, there ever was a measure which involved a dilemma, it is that of compulsory manumission. It must either be operative, or, from the restrictions with which it is fenced, it must be inoperative.
Let us view it in both ways.
Section 1.
CULTIVATION SUPERSEDED.
It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the nature of the colonial system assumes the production in the colonies of commodities possessing exchangeable value, to be transported to the mother-country for sale, and tending, in the various relations of their transport, to promote and invigorate the national commerce.
But if the negroes free themselves in the manner proposed, this commerce must cease.
The writer of the “Remarks” has made one acknowledgment which greatly abridges the necessity for argument or examination on this head. He says, that no instance has yet occurred of free negroes working steadily for hire in the field, in the British colonies; and that it is not to be expected that they will so work, until their physical wants have been augmented.