When the public attention was first called to this branch of the subject, it was alleged, and with considerable plausibility, that self-interest alone would be a sufficient security against abuses; for not only was the owner of the Slave ship interested in having the Slaves brought to the port of sale in the best possible condition; but the master, officers, and surgeons of the ships had all a similar interest, their profits being made to depend, in a considerable degree, on the average value of the cargo. To this argument from self-interest, it must be confessed, that more weight was justly due in this part of the case, than in any other; because the interest was nearer, and more direct, and was not counteracted by any interest of an opposite nature; yet even here it was proved but too decisively, that, as in other cases, nature was too hard for reason, the passions too powerful for interest. The habit of viewing, and treating these wretched beings as mere articles of merchandize, had so blinded the judgment, and hardened the heart, as to produce a course of treatment highly injurious to the interest of the owners and officers of Slave ships, and at the same time abounding in almost every circumstance that could aggravate the miseries of the Slaves. When the condition therefore and treatment of the Negroes on shipboard were first laid open, the indignation of the House of Commons was excited so strongly, that though the Session of Parliament had nearly closed, a Bill was immediately brought in and passed, with a view to mitigate their sufferings, during even the short period for which, it was then conceived, the existence of the Slave Trade could be tolerated. Human ingenuity had almost been exhausted in contriving expedients for crowding the greatest possible number of bodies into a given space; and when the smallpox, the flux, or any other epidemic, broke out among them, the scene was horrible beyond description. Even where there was no such peculiar aggravation, the sufferings of the poor wretches were such as exhausted all powers of description. Accordingly, the average mortality on board the Slave ships was very considerable. Often, during a voyage of a few weeks, so many perished, that if in any country the same rate of mortality should prevail, the whole population would be swept away in a single year. The survivors also were landed in such a diseased state, that four and a half per cent. of the whole number imported were estimated to die in the short interval between the arrival of the ship and the sale of the cargo, probably not more than a fortnight; and, after the Slaves had passed into the hands of the planters, the numbers which perished from the effects of the voyage were allowed to be very considerable[[14]].
A Bill for mitigating these evils was proposed by that justly respected member of the House of Commons, Sir William Dolben, and, after great opposition, was passed into a law. That law has since been from time to time renewed and amended, prescribing certain conditions and regulations, with a view to the health and comfort of the Slaves. For want of some effectual means of enforcing this law, many of its provisions have not, it is supposed, been carried into strict execution. Still its primary object has been attained, and the evils, arising from crowding great numbers into too small a space, have been considerably mitigated. Much good has likewise been done by turning the attention of the Slave dealers to the subject, and by convincing them that parsimony is not always œconomy.
But many of the sufferings of these wretched beings are of a sort, for which no legislative regulations can provide a remedy. Several of them, indeed, arise necessarily out of their peculiar circumstances, as connected with their condition on shipboard. It is necessary to the safety of the vessel, to secure the men by chains and fetters. It is necessary to confine them below during the night, and, in very stormy weather, during the day also. Often it happens that, even with the numbers still allowed to be taken, especially when some of those epidemic diseases prevail, which, though less frequent than formerly, will yet occasionally happen; and when men of different countries and languages, or of opposite tempers, are linked together; such scenes of misery take place as are too nauseous for description.[[15]] Still, in rough weather, their limbs must often be excoriated by lying on the boards; still they will often be wounded by the fetters:[[16]] still food and exercise will be deemed necessary to present the animal in good condition at the place of sale: still some of them will loath their food, and be averse to exercise, from the joint effect perhaps of sea-sickness and mental uneasiness; and still while in this state they will probably be charged with sulkiness; and eating, and dancing in their fetters will be enforced by stripes: still the high netting will be necessary, that standing precaution of an African ship against acts of suicide: but, more than all, still must the diseases of the mind remain entire, nay, they may perhaps increase in force, from the attention being less called off by the urgency of bodily suffering; the anguish of husbands torn from their wives, wives from their husbands, and parents from their children; the pangs arising from the consideration, that they are separated for ever from their country, their friends, their relatives, and connections, remain the same. In short, they have the same painful recollection of the past, and the same dreadful forebodings of the future; while they are still among strangers, whose appearance, language, and manners are new to them, and every surrounding object is such as must naturally inspire terror. In short, till we can legislate for the mind; till by an Act of Parliament we can regulate the affections of the heart, or, rather, till we can extinguish the feelings of nature; till we can completely unman and brutalize these wretched beings, in order to qualify them for being treated like brutes; the sufferings of the Slaves, during the middle passage, must still remain extreme. The stings of a wounded conscience man cannot inflict; but nearly all which man can do to make his fellow creatures miserable, without defeating his purpose by putting a speedy end to their existence, will still be here effected; and it will still continue true, that never can so much misery be found condensed into so small a space, as in a Slave ship during the middle passage.
But this part of the subject should not be quitted without the mention of one circumstance, which justly leads to a very important inference as to other parts of the case. When Parliament entered into the investigation of the situation and treatment of the Slaves, during the middle passage; notwithstanding the decisive proofs, adduced, and fatally confirmed by the dreadful mortality, of the miseries which the Slaves endured on shipboard, the Slave Traders themselves gave a directly opposite account; maintained that the Slaves were even luxuriously accommodated, and, above all, that they had abundant room, even when there was not near space sufficient for them to lie on their backs.[[17]] They added likewise, that at that very period the trade hung by a thread, and that the proposed limitation as to numbers, if carried into a law, would infallibly and utterly ruin it. The agent for the West Indies joined in their opposition, and predicted the mischief which would follow. The limitation was adopted; and scarcely had a year elapsed, before we heard from the West Indies, from the Assembly of Jamaica itself, of the benefits which the measure was likely to produce, on account of the gross abuses which had before notoriously prevailed, fatal alike to the health of the Slaves and the interest of the planters. Many years have now elapsed, and it is at length universally acknowledged, that the measure has eminently contributed to the interest of every one of the parties concerned.[[18]] May we not infer, that probably, in other parts of this question, the parties do not always judge very accurately with respect to their real interests; and that the prospect of immediate advantage may cause them to be insensible to a greater but more distant benefit.
Grand allegation of West Indians, that the stock of Slaves cannot be kept up without importations.
But against all, which justice and humanity could bring forward against the Slave Trade, it was still to be urged, that the continuance of it was necessary to the existence of our West Indian colonies. To put the argument in more specific form, it was objected, that the stock of Slaves then actually in the West Indies could not be maintained by natural generation, without being recruited from time to time by importations from Africa, and therefore, that the abolition of the Slave Trade would produce the sure, though gradual, ruin of our colonies, with all those effects on the wealth and strength of the mother country which must follow from the loss of so valuable a member of the empire.
To the examination of this objection, let me intreat your most serious attention; for on it, in fact, the whole argument turns, so far as policy is in question. For my own part I hesitate not to say, that, let the apparent temptation of profit be what it may, it never can be the real interest of any nation to be unjust and inhuman; to suppose the contrary, would be almost to arraign the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty, as it would undoubtedly be, to admit a principle directly at war with his revealed will. Nor can I forbear taking occasion to congratulate my country, that in the discussions on this subject, the greatest of her statesmen, both dead and living, even those who have differed almost on every other question, have declared their concurrent assent to that grand and aweful truth, that the principles of justice are immutable in their nature, and universal in their application; the duty at once, and the interest, of nations, no less than of individuals.
Fully impressed with the force of these sentiments, I could not believe that the prosperity of the West Indies must necessarily be built on a foundation of injustice and cruelty; neither could I understand why, in the West Indies alone, the Negroes could not even keep up their numbers. The contrary supposition is in truth refuted, not only by its being a contradiction of the great Law of Nature, but by its being contrary to the universal experience of all other countries. |Presumptive arguments to the contrary, furnished by experience.| For elsewhere, even under the most unfavourable circumstances, not merely the human species, but specifically the Negro race, had been found to increase; indeed Negroes were said to be by nature peculiarly prolific. The climate of the West Indies is similar to that of Africa. |In Africa| Why then should the same race of beings gradually diminish in the former country, which in the latter have so increased and multiplied, as for two centuries to bear the continual drain of their population to the opposite side of the Atlantic. On examining whether in fact the negro race has kept up its numbers in other foreign countries, we find that it has increased, and sometimes rapidly, even where the influence of the climate might be justly supposed to be highly unfavourable.
In the United States of America, Negro Slaves increase.
The climate of the United States of America is far from being well suited to the negro constitution, which, we are assured, is so little patient of cold, as even in the West Indies to suffer from it[[19]]. The cold in America is often very severe in the winter, even in the southern states; and the peculiar nature of the employment of great numbers of the Slaves who work on the rice plantations, must operate very unfavourably on their health; yet the Negro Slaves are universally acknowledged to have so rapidly increased in that country, that, according to the last census of the American population, without taking into the account any importations, the Negroes had increased so much in the ten years last preceding the augmentation, that, advancing at the same rate, their numbers would be doubled in about twenty-four years.