Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/29

21 without omissions, though my memory may not enable me to gather and notice all the allegations that have been made in the entire course of this debate. I shall not refer to anonymous and unauthenticated statements, but I shall found my argument almost wholly upon the public reports of responsible officers, laid upon the table of this House, and open to exposure if their statements bad been false. I should blush to follow the course of the honourable gentleman (Mr. Pease) who seconded the present motion, and who occupied the House with allegations from nameless persons, which it is wholly impossible to test. No, Sir, I had forgotten; in his courtesy he promised me the name of his informant: vote away the apprenticeship to-night, and give me the name to-morrow morning! Really, Sir, to advance such charges, and to expect that within a few hours of their promulgation this House is to go to a definitive vote on their uninvestigated credit, is the veriest mockery of justice that imagination can conceive.

But I thank the honourable and learned gentleman, the member for the Tower Hamlets, (Dr. Lushington,) for he, first of his whole party, seems to have disclaimed the idea of deciding this question upon rare and individual cases, and to have been struck with the idea that it was well to refer to the accredited statements which public functionaries have sent home. Sir, I agree with him; but, from the source to which he has referred me, I will show the falseness of his conclusions: and I agree with him in another principle which he laid down, that