On this page

• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    No. 380, Jtoy 4, 1857.] THE LEADER, 63T

  • 

    NEW AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 3STo foreign Go...

  • 

    GRANYILLE THE EXPERT. It must be. very p...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The Dead-Housh. A Ba.Ni> Of Irish Member...

    fluence was in ecstasies , and complimented the " Whig orator upon the revival oi his original Btyle . Several waverers were carried over to the enemy by liord John Russeix . They must be marked . But what transaction has taken place between Cambridge House and Woburn Abbey ? The atmosphere is very thick at present , but it is clearing , and we shall soon know where we

    are . , The greatest number that ever voted lor the Ballot in the House of Commons was 216 On Tuesday evening , the minority consisted of 189 members , or 215 if pairs had been counted . The greatest number that affirmed the principle in the Parliament of 1847 was 150 ; in the Parliament of 1852 , 173 ; therefore , as Mr . Whitehurst says , the subject has once more been brouglit up to the point at which it was left by Mr .

    GrKOTE . But would not infinite gam accrue to the cause , if , out of the hundred and eighty-nine members who voted , twenty had resolutely forced on a formidable debate , and raised the rank of the Ballot as a parliamentary question ? As it was , the Liberals permitted JDord John Ktjssell to urge , uncontradicted , a series of the most unqualified and unsupported assumptions : that landlords do

    r * . * -m . . ^ . ^ i i i if * not intimidate , that electors do not ask for protection , and that the country is unfavourable to the proposed change . Mr . Bebkeley himself was disappointed . ' He had on this occasion looked hopefully forward to a strong expression of opinion on the part of the House ; ' but the House is worthless , and now Mr . Berkeley knows it . It is a Morgue , a theatre of inarticulate show ; a Club , in

    which the members pooh-pooh enthusiasm out of doors , and deserves no more to be styled a House of Commons than the great chop-house in Piccadilly deserves to be styled The Reform . Even popularity seems no longer an object of English ambition . There are new men in Parliament who might become distinguished if they had faith and spirit ; but no , as Manchester is not ashamed of her dummies , so the dummies are not ashamed of themselves . Instead of John

    Bkiqht there is John Potter , whose name is nowhere on the list ; iustead of Couden there is Akuoyjj , who votes against the Ballot ; instead of a Liberal party there is a gathering of nondescript sections , and the best among them are afraid to face a noisy call for a division .

    No. 380, Jtoy 4, 1857.] The Leader, 63t

    No . 380 , Jtoy 4 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER , 63 T

    New African Slave Trade. 3sto Foreign Go...

    NEW AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE . 3 STo foreign Government has so completely thwarted the policy of this country in various directions as that of France . The object of the Russian war with the Emperor Napoleon was to effect a diversion from the scrapes into which he had fallen respecting the ' Holy Places . ' England was persuaded to join in the war for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire , menaced by Russian encroachments on the Danube ;

    the treaty of peace has somewhat withdrawn the Russian frontier from that river ; , but by the assistance of France , Russia is now dragging Turkey into that consolidation of the Principalities which will facilitate her further progress at a future day . France lent us her name for the Neapolitan demonstration , and in return has compelled us to give up the substance of the movement : degrading us in

    the eyeB of Italy and of history . Lord Cla « iiBtfBQiN made a speech at the Paris Conference in favour of Piedmont ; , but the advice of Count "Walewskjc has prevailed , uml we have alienated our moab natural ally in' the North of Italy . Claiusnjjon was dragged at the cay of Walkwsk . i in the matter of the Belgian press . Dia Mouny has obtained a commercial treaty with Russia- — hns

    purchased advantages at St . Petersburg by betraying the " Western Alliance . But the last blow is the unkindest cut of all , and it ought to be felt severely by the Minister who at present conducts the affairs of England , who has been so ready an instrument of antislavery action , and so heartily applauded the elevation of Napoleon to the throne : France has effected a breach in the line of our antislavery operations .

    In March last , the Emperor granted a contract to a house at Marseilles , that of the Messrs . Regis , empowering them to convey ten thousand Africans from Quidah to Guadeloupe and Martinique , as free emigrants , to be employed iu the labour market of the French colonies . In the interval between the granting of that contract and its public announcement , an anti-slavery deputation , headed by Lord SnArTESBUBr , has waited upon Lord PALiiEKSTON , and has recommended to him exactly the same course—a free African emigration , for the English ,

    French , and Spanish West Indies , as well as for the southern states , of the American Union . The Anti-Slavery plan contemplated , however , two conditions as preliminary to the offer of this free African emigration to the foreign states ; the conditions being , that these states should join in a league with Great Britain , and that they should entirely prohibit slavery in their dominions . The substance of the new plan , however , con .-sisted in this free African emigration , which is identical with the plan sanctioned by the French Emperoirat Marseilles .

    "We have treaties with France as well as with other European countries , obliging them to join us in the armed suppression of the slave trade ; but the new scheme which is begun at Marseilles is not a slave trade . It is nothing more than a free emigration , such as our own Government attempted from Sierra Leone to the British West Indies , or , such as the anti-slavery' deputatiou proposed to Lord Palmierstox . We mav entertain

    great doubts as to the actual freedom secured for the free emigrant iu Guadeloupe and Martinique , but in theterms of the contract , in the authorized papers of the ship , in the whole form of the proceeding , the Blacks which will be found on board the vessels of M . Reois will not be slaves , nor will the vessels , we conceive , come under the operation of the slave-trade treaties . Our armed

    preventive force will have to stand aside and permit the transport of these Negroes from their native country to the French West Indies . It may be a gigantic ' dodge , ' but we do not perceive how the cleverest of Attorney-Generals — which Sir Richard Bethell is *—could devise auy procedure which would bring xis into court . Columbus showed the mode of making an egg stand by cracking its round end ; Napoleon and Regis together have shown how a treaty may bo cracked by means quite as simple .

    The Anti-Slavery deputation suggested to Lord Palme kston that this free African emigration could bo accompanied by a reinforcement of our preventive fleet in the West Indies , and moro especially by a fleet of gunboats to blockade Cuba . Now , the Spanish governors obtain decided advantages from tho continuance of tho slave trade ; they arc , of course , [ always representing tho enso of the planters to the Government nt Madrid , and Napoleon and Regis havo pointed out the nuiuuor in which enterprising men may become agents for a lreo African emigration to convev Black labourers into Cuba . What

    ia to prevent them P There ia not tho slightest Uoubt that tlfis free emigration , whether into Guadeloupe , Cuba , French Guiaua , or any other transatlantic tropical country , will be de facto a

    consignment of so many thousand Negroes from their native country to a state of compulsory labour . Although not to be touched by our slave-trade treaties , it will be a new slave trade . "With what face can we suffer that trade to continue , and at the same time deny to our ally Brazil , whom we have treated so harshly ; a commensurate supply of free Africans for our sugar plantations . But if we admit a free supply of Africans to Guadeloupe , Guiana , Cuba , and Brazil , how can we deny it to Jamaica and the rest of our own colonies ?

    Still more may we press the question how , if a free African labour trade is to be permitted , we can deny a corresponding freedom to the agents for conveying African labourers into the southern states of the Union ? What consistency will there be between this kind of free trade and the establishing of a blockade of gun-boats expressly for the purpose of preventing the traders in American labour from conveying Negroes to Cuba and onwards to the slave states of the "Union ?

    There is a considerable community of . feeling between the American republic and the young empire in France—a disposition to exchange courtesies and good offices which has displayed itself not alone in Paris ; and influential Americans will be well inclined to appreciate the sagacity which the Emperor Na-POiiEON has shown in this contract for M . Regis . It is , in fact , a grand stroke of practical wit , which , solves at a blow some knotty question .

    Granyille The Expert. It Must Be. Very P...

    GRANYILLE THE EXPERT . It must be . very pleasant to be Lord Gean-TiiiiiE . That nobleman ' s talent is not of a common order , and decidedly it is a comfort to be talented . His opportunities , too , are good , and his friends are faithful . We trust , if ever we deserve well of our country , to be vested with , an influence over the officials of the Duchy of Lancaster . In that case , we may rent productive estates , and our landlords will be the blandest that earth ever saw .

    No distrinffas , xxo capias ; not even a mention of those sour-smelling documents ; but , instead , roseate accommodation and honey-dew delay . Earl Granville , had he worn no coronet , might have been , a distinguished banker . He rented , not many revolving years ago , certain , properties belonging to tho Duchy of Lancaster . "When the saturnine days arrived , it was not alwnvs convenient . The council

    said , " Don't mention it ! " " Did you ask wh y this account was not passed by the auditor for a year and a half after the date to which it extended ? " was a question put on Monday last to Mr . Bertolacci . " Yes ; and the reason assigned by the deputy of the receiver-general was that the account had been kept open as long as possible to afford an opportunity to Earl Gkanville of paying the arrears of rent due by him for some mines . " Now . it is no reflection , even upon a peer , to

    say that wo must give him time . But is it right to become steward when you are in debt to tlio housekeeper ? We rather sympathize with the debtor ; but , as creditors , we must look to tho assignees , and thoy , instead of recovering the utmost , appear to havo instructed their accountant to strike out as much as possible as '

    irrecoverable' Lord Guanvillis was in arrears to the Duchy of Lancaster : —In the account for 1851 , 427 C 7 . 6 a , 5 UI In tho account for 1852 , 4001 / . 0 s . ldT In Iho account for 1853 , 4 , M < % 1 . 8 s . 5 d . In tho account for 1854 , 3501 ? . 18 s . Id . It may be asked , why did not tho economists in Parliament seize these items and anatomize thorn P Because tho account * were , juggled , as was the prac-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 4, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04071857/page/13/