Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/246

 advantageous to Great Britain, and therefore entitled to her protection. Secondly, such as authorized, protected and encouraged the trade of Africa, an advantageous in itself, and necessary to the welfare and existence of the sugar colonies; and, thirdly, such as promoted and secured loans of money to the proprietors of the said colonies, either from British subjects or from foreigners. These acts, he apprehended, ought to satisfy every person of the legality and usefulness of these trades. They were enacted in reigns distinguished for the production of great and enlightened characters. We heard then of no wild and destructive doctrines like the present. These were reserved for this age of novelty and innovation. But he must remind the house that the inhabitants of our islands had as good a right to the protection of their property as the inhabitants of Great Britain. Nor could it be diminished in any shape without full compensation. The proprietors of lands in the ceded islands, which were purchased of government under specific conditions of settlement, ought to be indemnified. They, also, (of whom he was one,) who had purchased the territory granted by the crown to General Monkton in the island of St. Vincent, ought to be indemnified also. The sale of this had gone on briskly, till it was known that a plan was in agitation for the abolition of the slave-trade. Since that period the original purchasers had done little or nothing, and they had many hundred acres on hand which would be of no value if the present question was carried. In fact, they had a right to compensation. The planters generally spent their estates in this country. They generally educated their children in it. They had never been found seditious or rebellious; and they demanded of the parliament of Great Britain that protection which, upon the principles of good faith, it was in duty bound to afford them in common with the rest of his majesty's loyal subjects.

Mr. Henry Thornton remarked, that the manner of procuring slaves in Africa was the great evil to be remedied. Africa was to be stripped of its inhabitants to supply a population for the West Indies. There was a Dutch proverb which said, "My son, get money, honestly if you can; but get money;" or, in other words, "Get slaves, honestly if you can; but get slaves." This was the real grievance; and the two honorable gentlemen, by confining their observations to the West Indies, had entirely overlooked it.

Though this evil had been fully proved, he could not avoid stating to the house some new facts, which had come to his knowledge as a director of the Sierra Leone company, and which would still further establish it. The consideration that they had taken place since the discussion of the last year on this subject, obliged him to relate them.

Mr. Falconbridge, agent to the company, sitting one evening in Sierra Leone, heard a shout, and immediately afterwards the report of a gun. Fearing an attack, he armed forty of the settlers, and rushed with them to the place from whence the noise came. He found a poor wretch, who had been crossing from a neighboring village, in the possession of a party of kidnappers, who were tying his hands. Mr. Falconbridge, however, dared not rescue him, lest, in the defenseless state of his own town, retaliation might be made upon him.