Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/353

Rh condition of the slave, would be as useless as committing the keys of a treasure to a thief, with a strict charge to lock up all safely.
 * 1) By Mr. Brougham, expressive of the dissatisfaction of the house with the proceedings of the colonial assemblies, in rejecting, delaying, or very inadequately effecting, the reforms suggested by government, and pledging the house to an early consideration of the subject.

April 17, Lord Suffield brought forward the subject in the house of lords. In a long and animated speech he defended the abolitionists from the charges of rashness, precipitancy, and enthusiasm, and displayed the unmitigated horrors of slavery, from recent facts, and the hopelessness of trusting to colonial legislation to reform their own abuses. The object of his lordship's motion was an address to the king, praying that in future no person having possession, or reversionary or other interest in slaves, should be eligible to any of the offices of governor, chief justice, attorney-general, fiscal, guardian, or religious instructor, in any of the West Indian colonies. After some discussion, the motion was withdrawn.

Fresh information was continually coming to hand, and communicated to the public by the society, of recent transactions in the slave colonies, all of which tended to display their real state, and proved that some, which had been represented as conducted on so mild a system, as not to require the interference of government, had attained this character only through gross ignorance or wilful misrepresentation. This was the case with the Cape of Good Hope. In some colonies, the Mauritius especially, still more horrid and revolting results