“III. That this Committee regard in particular the last fact now stated with the deepest and most poignant regret; and that they earnestly invoke, not so much the fear of punishment as the sense of honour, of justice, and of benevolence, in the British community, for the correction of so great an evil.
“IV. That the difficulties encountered in the course of this prosecution in an English court of justice, and the extended ramifications of the slave trading interest which have been developed by it, have, in the judgment of this Committee, confirmed the principle held by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, that the only effectual mode by which the slave trade can be abolished is the abolition of slavery itself.
“John Scoble, Secretary.”
In these resolutions, the Committee describe the particular matter which they had under their consideration, viz. the supply of British goods. Not so in the previous resolution of the 9th of December (see [page xxvi]). In it a hope is expressed, that by the proceedings against Pedro de Zulueta, “a salutary check will be given to the notorious implication of British capital and commerce in that nefarious traffic.” How this implication takes place is not pointed out. Upon the merits of the matters contained in these resolutions, it is not, of course, my intention to enter; I take them as they are put forth, for the only purpose which perhaps gives them any value or importance, viz. as expressions of the sentiments and opinions of people who show every disposition to sanction, and have the pecuniary means required in order to encourage or to assist others in the use of that power of private prosecution which every one possesses, even if they themselves are not inclined to exercise it in their own persons.
Now, although it is not distinctly stated in the resolution just quoted how this notorious implication of British capital is supposed to take place—not to say any thing at present about a most unjustifiable use of the word notorious, which, in these matters, is constantly made—the mode in which the implication takes place must be supposed to be large enough to be notorious—large enough, when even a check to it is made the object of hope and the subject of a resolution, which, as it conveys a serious charge against fellow-citizens, nothing but a very overwhelming sense of the necessity of a check could have induced the Committee to overcome the painfulness of publishing. The term could not properly apply to any direct concern in the slave trade; that would be something more than implication. It cannot be confined to the supply of goods, since this is a subject treated in a separate set of resolutions. It must be taken to apply to other operations also, such as occur in the progress of a mercantile intercourse with other countries in which slavery, or the slave trade, are permitted to exist, and must apply to all or any transactions with those countries, at least, unless a clear and distinct separation can be made that will render it quite certain and quite capable of proof that neither the slave trade nor slavery can possibly be forwarded directly or indirectly by the transaction. This is the only certain way of avoiding implication. This sense of the charge against British merchants at large, is perhaps the only one which can render either intelligible or practicable the observation which was so emphatically delivered by the learned Serjeant Bompas in his opening speech at the trial, that “if merchants in this country would not accept bills drawn by slave traders, if they would not send goods from this country to be employed for the purpose—in fact, the trade could not be carried on at all.”
And whether this rather extraordinary assertion be or be not correct, I deal with it as with the resolutions of the Anti-Slavery Committee—it is quite enough, upon such a question, and with such momentous interests at stake, that such opinions prevail in certain quarters, and that the power exists of giving them that fatal effect which these proceedings reveal, in order to force upon us, as merchants, the consideration of whether any mercantile transactions whatsoever can possibly be carried on with countries wherein the slave trade or slavery exist, with any real safety to our persons and to our property, whilst things remain as they have been shown to be in the practical development of the law.
It is very true, that previous to the late elucidation of its working, there were such high legal authorities on the subject, as will be found in the pages immediately following this address; and even now, if a case is placed before the very highest counsel of the land, you will be told that knowledge, wilful knowledge, of the guilty intent can condemn the acts upon which you are seeking advice—that that, of itself, will condemn the most indirect—and nothing short of that can condemn the most direct act of abetting the slave trade. But, in order to make good a charge, the evidence of a probable knowledge is made up of those very acts which, without presupposing the knowledge, you had been told are innocent, perfectly legal, and such as you could perform. When once that case of probable knowledge is thus made out, you are called upon to meet it with a case of your own, in which you cannot allege, with any success, the innocent nature of your acts; for although those have been already declared to be innocent in themselves, they are also taken as evidence that you must be possessed of a knowledge of what they were intended to be made subservient to by a foreigner at some thousands of miles distant, in a country which to you may be terra incognita.
The question resolves itself therefore into one of prudence, about which you will be told by the learned Counsel, and properly told, that you alone can be, and you alone must be, the judge, viz. whether, under the state of the law which has been developed, it is safe to enter into any dealings, not which you know or suspect (this is a fraud of the law), but which may be rendered subservient, however indirectly by others, to a slave trading purpose. The letter of the law seems to speak of knowingly and wilfully aiding and abetting the slave trade, and so it is expounded by the highest legal authority of the land, when consulted upon any one case in perspective; but the practice renders this a most egregious fraud on the part of the law itself, which presents itself under false colours; for, whilst in theory it does not permit of any other advice being given for its observance than that just mentioned, in practice it has been seen how the proof of your knowledge is established, not by evidence produced against you, but by that which you do not produce when a case of probable knowledge, founded upon knowledge of others in totally different circumstances, has been made out.
These things speak for themselves and show what is the practical situation of merchants trading with countries in which dealing in slaves and slave negotiations are both legal and of common occurrence. I need not say, that the United States, Cuba, Brazils, and a large portion of Europe, without talking of Africa, fall exactly under this description. It has been admitted, for indeed it cannot be denied, that it is impracticable to draw a line of separation, in order to distinguish the illicit from the licit traffic, in countries where they both subsist, for they are interwoven and mix themselves with, and merge the one into, the other. This is perfectly clear, and indeed the only intelligible account of the matter. Under such a view of the nature of the thing—after what has been brought to light in the late proceedings as to the mode in which a man may be attacked, with ruin staring him in the face at the first onset, whatever the subsequent result may be, seized on—laid hold of at any, perhaps the most critical, moment—after what has been seen of the method in which his prosecution will be suffered to be carried on, and the manner in which the evidence will be made to bear, in order to prove the knowledge which constitutes the guilt—after seeing that no precaution can guard a man against the attack, and no endeavour to ascertain the real sense of the treacherous law, which speaks one thing and means a very different one—after seeing that as a merchant of wealth, character, and education, he carries in those very circumstances as many presumptions of guilt—after it has been shown that the only thing which can save him, according as the law is laid down and administered, is that which in the nature of mercantile transactions is, and must be in almost every case impossible—after all this, which the late proceedings have so strongly brought to light—there remains but one safe course, viz. to abstain from all mercantile intercourse with countries in which slavery or the slave trade exists.
The absurdity which appears on the face of such a statement as this just made, involving as it does the cutting off communication with half the world at least, and leaving the communication with the other half very much on the footing of an inconsistency, renders the accuracy of the rule, as a conclusion from the preceding reasoning, very suspicious. I appeal, however, to every candid and honest mind whether it be or it be not the conclusion which, but for its absurdity, (if so it is to be called) would be imperative, and such as could not be avoided without manifest want of honesty. If such is the real fact—if the conclusion is just and legitimate, and yet it leads to something absurd and wrong; then the principles upon which it proceeds must themselves be the wrong-doers. The state of the law, which leaves no other alternative than that of an impracticable absurdity on the one side, and on the other an exposure, imminent and threatening, to an indictment, followed up by the most terrible consequences, even if a conviction does not take place—must be wrong. It deserves a stronger epithet, lest it should be thought that by wrong is only meant unwise—it is positively of the very nature of a national crime—it is a deep moral stain upon the people who suffer this state of things to continue in all its hideous deformity, whilst the victims to such a state of the law could only be looked upon as barbarously sacrificed: the people tolerating its continuance, when once made aware of what was being done, could be considered only as a race of heartless, cruel tyrants. In the pursuit of a praiseworthy object it is very possible, and indeed it is not uncommon, for a nation no less than for an individual to betray itself into a very false position, which is made so much the more mischievous, because, in the case of the nation no less than the individual, people are found ready to take advantage of that position. But so soon as the evil reveals itself in this practical shape, the nation, quite as much as the individual, is called upon to remove the very possibility of a repetition of the act of oppression arising from that false position.