Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 6 / With a Memoir and Index

by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay

Our commercial connexion with the West Indies is simply this. We buy our sugar from them at a higher price than is given for it in any other part of the world. The surplus they export to the Continent, where the price is lower; and we pay them the difference out of our own pockets. Our trade with the West Indies is saddled with almost all the expense of their civil and military establishments, and with a bounty of 1,200,000l. Let these be deducted from the profits of which we hear so much, and their amount will shrink indeed. Let us then deduct from the residue the advantages which we relinquish in order to obtain it,—that is to say, the profits of a free sugar trade all over the world; and then we shall be able to estimate the boasted gains of a connexion to which we have sacrificed the Negroes in one hemisphere, and the Hindoos in the other.

But the West Indians take great quantities of our manufactures! They can take only a return for the commodities which they send us. And from whatever country we may import the same commodities, to that country must we send out the same returns. What is it that now limits the demands of our Eastern empire? Absolutely nothing but the want of an adequate return. From that immense market—from the custom of one hundred millions of consumers, our manufacturers are in a great measure excluded, by the protecting duties on East Indian sugar.

But a great revenue is derived from the West Indian trade! Here, again, we have the same fallacy. As long as the present quantity of sugar is imported into England, no matter from what country, the revenue will not suffer; and, in proportion as the price of sugar is diminished, the consumption, and, consequently, the revenue, must increase. But the West Indian trade affords extensive employment to British shipping and seamen! Why more than any equally extensive trade with any other part of the world? The more active our trade, the more demand there will be for shipping and seamen; and every one who has learnt the alphabet of Political Economy, knows that trade is active, in proportion only as it is free.

There are some who assert that, in a military and political point of view, the West Indies are of great importance to this country. This is a common, but a monstrous misrepresentation. We venture to say, that Colonial empire has been one of the greatest curses of modern Europe. What nation has it ever strengthened? What nation has it ever enriched? What have been its fruits? Wars of frequent occurrence and immense cost, fettered trade, lavish expenditure, clashing jurisdiction, corruption in governments, and indigence among the people. What have Mexico and Peru done for Spain, the Brazils for Portugal, Batavia for Holland? Or, if the experience of others is lost upon us, shall we not profit by our own? What have we not sacrificed to our infatuated passion for transatlantic dominion? This it is that has so often led us to ri.-k our own smiling gardens and dear firesides for some snowy desert or infections morass on the other side of the globe: This inspired us with the project of conquering America in Germany: This induced us to resign all the advantages of our insular situation—to embroil ourselves in the intrigues, and fight the battles of half the Continent—to form coalitions which were instantly broken—-and to give subsidies which were never earned: This gave birth to the fratricidal war against American liberty, with all its disgraceful defeats, and all its barren victories, and all the massacres of the Indian hatchet, and all the bloody contracts of the Hessian slaughterhouse: This it was which, in the war against the French republic, induced us to send thousands and tens of thousands of our bravest troops to die in West Indian hospitals, while the armies of our enemies were pouring over the Rhine and the Alps. When a colonial acquisition has been in prospect, we have thought no expenditure extravagant, no interference perilous. Gold has been to us as dust, and blood as water. Shall we never learn wisdom? Shall we never cease to prosecute a pursuit wilder than the wildest dream of alchemy, with all the credulity and all the profusion of Sir Epicure Mammon?

Those who maintain that settlements so remote conduce to the military or maritime power of nations, fly in the face of history. The colonies of Spain were far more extensive and populous than ours. Has Spain, at any time within the last two centuries, been a match for England either by land or by sea? Fifty years ago, our colonial dominions in America were far larger and more prosperous than those which we at present possess. Have we since that time experienced any decay in our political influence, in our opulence, or in our security? Or shall we say that Virginia was a less valuable possession than Jamaica, or Massachusetts than Barbadoes?

The fact is, that all the evils of our Colonial system are immensely aggravated in the West Indies by the peculiar character of the state of slavery which exists there. Our other settlements we have to defend only against foreign invasion. These we must protect against the constant enmity of the miserable bondsmen, who are always waiting for the moment of deliverance, if not of revenge. With our other establishments we may establish commercial relations advantageous to both parties. But these are in a state of absolute pauperism; for what are bounties and forced prices but an enormous poor-rate in disguise?

These are the benefits for which we are to be thankful. These are the benefits, in return for which we are to suffer a handful of managers and attorneys to insult the King, Lords, and Commons of England, in the exercise of rights as old and sacred as any part of our Constitution. It the proudest potentate in Europe, if the King of France, or the Emperor of all the Russias, had treated our Government as these creatures of our own have dared to do, should we not have taken such satisfaction as would have made the ears of all that heard of it to tingle? Would there not have been a stately manifesto, and a warlike message to both Houses, and vehement speeches from all parties, and unanimous addresses abounding in offers of lives and fortunes? If any English mob, composed of the disciples of Paine and Carlile, should dare to pull down a place of religious worship, to drive the minister from his residence, to threaten with destruction any other who should dare to take his place, would not the yeomanry be called out? Would not Parliament be summoned before the appointed time? Would there not be sealed bags and secret committees, and suspensions of the Habeas Corpus act? In Barbadoes all this has been done.

It has been done openly. It has not been punished. It is at this hour a theme of boasting and merriment. And what is the language of our rulers? “We must not irritate them. We must try lenient measures. It is better that such unfortunate occurrences should not be brought before the Parliament.” Surely the mantle, or rather the cassock, of Sir Hugh Evans, has descended on these gentlemen. “It is not meet the council hear a riot. There is no fear of Got in a riot. The council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot.” We have outdone all the most memorable examples of patience. The Job of Holy Writ, the Griselda of profane romance, were but types of our philosophy. Surely our endurance must be drawing to a close.

We do not wish that England should drive forth her prodigal offspring to wear the rags and feed on the husks which they have desired. The Colonists have deserved such a punishment. But, for the sake of the slaves, for the sake of those persons, residing in this country, who are interested in West Indian property, we should grieve to see it indicted. That the slaves, when no longer restrained by our troops, would, in no very long time, achieve their own liberation, cannot be doubted. As little do we doubt that such a revolution, violent as it would doubtless be, would be desirable, if it were the only possible means of subverting the present system. The horrors of a battle or a massacre force themselves upon our senses. The effects of protracted tyranny, the terror, the degradation, the blighted affections, the stunted intellects, the pining of the heart, the premature decay of the frame, are evils less obvious, but equally certain; and, when continued through successive generations, make up a greater sum of human misery than was ever indicted in the paroxysm of any revolution. Still we cannot doubt that savages, rude in understanding, exasperated by injuries, intoxicated by recent freedom, would be much benefited by the wise and merciful control of an enlightened people.

We feel also for the West Indian proprietors who reside in England. Between them and the inhabitants of the Colonies we see a great distinction. There may be in this body individuals infected with the worst vices of the colonial character. But there are also among them many gentlemen of benevolent feelings and enlarged minds, who have done much to alleviate the condition of their slaves, and who would willingly see the meliorating measures which his Majesty’s ministers have suggested, adopted by the West Indian legislators. They have scarcely any thing in common with the Colonists, or with the scribblers whom the Colonists feed and clothe. They have taken little part in the controversy, ashamed probably of the infamous allies with whom they would have to cooperate. But what they have said has, upon the whole, been said manfully and courteously. Their influence, however, is at present exerted decidedly in favour of slavery, not, we verily believe, from any love of slavery in the abstract, but partly because they think that their own characters are in some degree affected by the attacks which are made on the Colonial system, and partly because they apprehend that their property is likely to suffer in consequence of the feeling which at present prevails throughout the country.