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Rh for brave insurrection had echoes reaching to the West Indies. An enfranchisement of Nonconformists in 1828, and of Catholics in 1829, followed. English newspapers were eagerly read in the West Indies, and the slaves became interested. In 1830, Charles X. of France, after conquering and keeping Algiers, because of an insult to his ambassador, violated his coronation oath, and was ejected from the throne by a popular rising.

The success of this French insurrection set all England agog; for we did not like to be behind the French in liberty. An insurrection of Belgium against the mild and equitable rule of the king of Holland followed, simply from the dislike of Catholics to a Protestant sovereign. Next came the uprising of Poland against the tyranny of the archduke Constantine and against his brother the emperor Nicolas: the Polish constitution had been violently overthrown some thirteen years earlier by Alexander I. That by the way. The important thing was, that the slaves in many of the West Indian islands became greedy for the public news of Europe. Some one was generally found able to read out the newspaper to the rest. When they learned how vehemently brave insurgents were praised, a warm zeal for freedom was kindled in many hearts. Happily they read also that the people of England abhorred slavery, and were exerting themselves for their emancipation. The hope of obtaining freedom peaceably restrained them from violent action. The Reverend John Barry, a Wesleyan missionary, who had resided twenty-seven years in Jamaica, attested that zeal for freedom had become an unquenchable passion there; and that when a number of them were executed after a recent insurrection, most of them died glorying in their fate, saying that if they had ten or twenty lives they would sacrifice all sooner than return into slavery. The Duke of Wellington, in the close of 1830, seeing the storm of liberty rising upon him, resigned on a trivial pretext; Lord Grey came to the front, and at once pronounced for Parliamentary reform.

King William IV. and the court yielded at first, but the House of Lords was obstinate, and a dangerous two years' struggle ensued. Meanwhile, matters grew worse, especially in Jamaica, which alone was equal to all the other West Indian colonies. In 1831 parochial meetings were openly held, in which the planters declared in violent words, that they would rather renounce allegiance to the British crown than allow the slaves to be freed. After this, they complained in a memorial that their slaves had been deceived into the belief that their freedom had been decreed in England, but withheld by their masters, and that this had led to insurrection. If it was true that this notion had been propagated among the slaves, evidently nothing so much propagated it as the conduct of the planters. But some insurrection there certainly was in 1832, which was speedily suppressed and cruelly punished. In Montego Bay alone, near a hundred slaves were hanged or shot, and one Baptist slave was flogged to death by five hundred lashes. Even magistrates assisted to pull down the chapels of the missionaries, as previously in Barbadoes. All these events could but embitter the negroes in other colonies, on the news reaching them. The Marquis of Sligo, a Jamaica proprietor, about this time, wrote thus to Sir Fowell Buxton: "When I went out to Jamaica, I thought that the stories of cruelty were merely the emanations of enthusiasts; rather a caricature than a truth. But before I had been very long in Jamaica, I had reason to think that the reality has been far underrated. This, I feel convinced, is the fact." As soon as the new ministry could gain free action for colonial affairs, it found the question of slavery in a truly critical state. According to a modern phrase, the relations were severely strained. Expectation among the slaves was intense. Any rude disappointment of hope might have caused insurrection, spreading as a flame from island to island. Public opinion in England would not endure the extinguishing of such a conflagration in blood, if the Whig ministry could have lent themselves to it. The planters collectively might quickly lose, not their "property" only, but their lives; as many as were not absentees. The ministers saw themselves forced to act, and that quickly. The Abolitionists in that first reform Parliament were numerous, but the ministry had an enormous preponderance and could not be outvoted. The colonial minister, "Mr. Secretary Stanley," afterwards Earl of Derby, was fluent of speech, ardent and flighty, vain, inexperienced, and utterly superficial; yet on him chiefly rested the conduct of this great measure. On reading his speeches at this distance of time, the weakness of the government measure amazes one. In the preface to his first bill, he avowed that "the only point to be discussed was, what is the safest, speediest, happiest way of effecting the final abolition of slavery; since the nation had now loudly and for a