"Would the Magistrates suppress any publica of the murder of the whites afterwards, the cultitions of the kind?" vation of Indigo was suspended; the supply lesNo sooner had the report from which these ex-sened while the demand increased; this operated tracts were taken, been submitted to Parliament, as a protection to the cultivation elsewhere; and than the very means suggested by the above interro- now not a pound is grown except in British India.* gatories, were put in the most active operation. Having, in consequence of immediate abolition of The London Anti-Slavery Society sent forth its slavery in Hayti, monopolized, for her East India emissaries; printing presses were established; possessions, the growth of Indigo--our Cotton and and in the course of two years time, our South- Sugar were next coveted for those vast regions,' as ward-bound mails were loaded down with incendi- her possessions there were darkly styled in the ary publications. The people rose up in mobs- Congress of Vienna. As a preparatory step to broke into the post-offices, and made bonfires in this transfer, however, abolition of slavery in the the streets. Petitions were then poured in, and English West Indies-but not in the East, was ANGRY DISCUSSIONS HAVE BEEN TAKING PLACE deemed to be necessary. The former are contiPERPETUALLY IN CONGRESS" from that time to guous to our own shores; and, by abolition there, this. The missionaries Thompson, and others, the many honest and simple-minded christians and were sent over to fan the flame. It was not philanthropists, in their blind zeal for the cause, until 1834-35,-subsequent to this report-that would be hoodwinked, while the Sir John Hipthese things occurred. Is there no evidence pisleys of the government could the better feed here in support of our assertion, that there are designing men in the government of Great Britain, who make a decoy-duck of the slave-trade They conceal their motives under its banners; and cry out against it, not because they love Africa, or have any sympathy for the negro, but because they hate America. I HATE America, said Sir John Hippisley, at the meeting of the Somerset freeholders. He was hissed by the people. And there are at this day, in the high towers of England-among what is called the bulwark of her strength, many Sir Johns-only they are more violent in their hatred, and less candid at the confession, than he. Every nation that granted the right of search, put a round to the ladder by which England hoped, and was endeavoring, to elimb up into American ships. fat their ancient grudge.' 'Our colonists,' Great Britain had been told, by an East India proprietort-'Our colonists have been undersold and driven out of the market by the Cotton of the Americans ;' and in 1833, slavery was abolished in the West Indies by an act of Parliament. The people-for the people of England are the friends of America, the people, in the honesty of their purpose, were proclaiming 'emancipation to man every where from the thraldom of man;' but the band of enemies who possess influence enough to give direction to the measures of government, had no fellow-feeling for the white slaves of England, nor for the copper-colored slaves of India, nor for any, except for the curley head and dark skin of Ethiopia. And accordingly, the 44th section of the abolition act, declares, "that the said act shall not extend to any of the territory in possession of the East India Company, or to the islands of Ceylon or St. Helena." This provi Formerly, the Indigo plant was grown in SouthCarolina and Georgia and the dye constituted a staple production of the island of San Domingo. The climates of British India are, many of them, sion shows that it was not the institution of slathe same as those of these regions and efforts very against which the measures of the governwere made by the servants and friends of the Com-ment were directed; these were aimed only at that pany to introduce the cultivation of the Indigo slavery through which a rival might be crippled, and plant on the banks of the Ganges and Burrampoo- not at that every where, which holds man in bondage ter. The most effectual means of accomplishing to his fellow-man. It was set forth in a royal statute this, was to interrupt its cultivation in the French that it was slavery in the West, and not the more colony by a blow aimed at the institution of slavery. horrid system of slavery in the East, which the Chance soon put it in their power to make the at- government designed to suppress; for the systempt. Ogé, a French mulatto of San Domingo, tem of slavery in the East Indies is more abject was invited to accompany Mr. Clarkson from Paris and miserable than it is any where in this country: to London. Here the philanthropist lost sight in proof of which we quote from the Asiatic Jourof him; and the fanatics of slavery, and the ene-nal, which is published in London and supported by mies of France took him in hand: they sup- Asiatic interest, and which treats knowingly, of plied him with money, arms and a ship, and sent British India. him across the Atlantic to foment a servile insurrection in the French colony. He accomplished his mission. And though he was caught and hung, it was not before the seeds of a more dreadful massacre had been sown on the island. In consequence * Cobbett's Letters. "We know that there is not a servant of Government in the south of India, who is not intimately acquainted with excellent article in it, entitled East India Cotton, to which *Southern Quarterly Review for April, 1842. See an we are indebted for much valuable information. † James Cropper. of the cotton growers to a point to which we have often referred for some time past, viz. the competition of East india with the lowest kinds of American. By a table which we find in our Liverpool files, we perceive that the import of American in the first three months, in 1838, was Of East India, While in the corresponding period, in 1842, 346,700 bales. 4,800 304,700 57.200 6 "The delivery for consumption in 1838, for the same period, was-of American, East Indian, the alarming fact, that hundreds of thousands of his fellowcreatures are fettered down for life to the degraded destiny of slavery. We know that these unfortunate beings are not as is the case in other countries, serfs of the soil, and incapable of being transferred, at the pleasure of their owners, from one estate to another. No, they are daily sold like cattle, by one proprietor to another: the husband is separated from the wife, and the parent from the child. They are loaded with every indignity; the utmost possible quantity of labor is exacted from them; and the most meagre fare that human nature can possibly subsist on, is doled out to support them. The slave population is composed of a great variety of classes; the descendants of those who have been taken prisoners in time of wur; persons who have been kidnapped from the neighboring States; people who have been born under such circumstances, as that they are considered without the pale of ordinary castes; and others who have "Showing an increase in five years' consumption of me been smuggled from the coast of Africa, torn from their coun-hundred and fifty per cent. in the latter, against a decline m try and their kindred, and destined to a most wretched lot, and, as will be seen, to a more enduring captivity than their brethren of the western world. Will it be believed that Government participates in this description of property: that it actually holds possession of slaves, and lets them out for hire to the cultivators of the country--the rent of a whole family being two fanams, or half a rupee, per annum?" Two fanams a year; ($ 3,50,) three dollars and a half for the hire of the slave and his family! The climate of India is proverbially pestilential and many times more sickly than this. There is not a slaveholder in America, who would not readily compound with the physician at twice this sum, for medical attendance alone upon each family of his servants. Neglected in sickness, scantily supplied, and sorely tasked in health, what must be the condition of the slave in India. The mildness of slavery here can give the philanthropist no idea of its horrors there. Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue rank in such tributes, the crafty government of England has the impudence to preach up to American statesmen, a Christian League,' a 'Holy Alliance;' and, in the presence of the States of Christendom,' to feign a sympathy for the black slave of the West; while, with her iron hoof upon their necks, she is holding in the most cruel bondage, millions of black and red men in the East. In the face of such facts as these, how can it be expected that an intelligent people will give to the British government, in its efforts against the African slave-trade, credit for any motives of humanity? Its hollow professions are sounded by its own acts. Ought we to league with such a power? Same period 1842: the former of about five per cent." 219,400 bales, . 13,100 211.000 32,800 "The Boston Atlas affirms that every arrival from England, shows the constant increase of imports of East India cotton, and the constant decrease of American. It is stated that during the three months of January, February and March, 1842, there were 188,423 bales of American coffed imported, being 47,333 less than during the same period iast year! During these same months, there was, as compared with the year before, an increase of imports of Indian cot ton to the amount of 40,014 bales! The decrease of Ameri can imports was at the rate of twenty per centum; the increa of the East Indian at the rate of one hundred and fiftres per centum!" Extract from the Bombay Times of July 10, 1841. "In the article of cotton alone, it appears we have rece ved a supply exceeding that of the same period in the previous year by 38,538,303 lbs. into the supplies of cotton brought to market during the -* On carrying out our inquiries further, and examining months ending the 31st May, we find that the result is wes calculated to astonish those who have not been marking the progressive increase of this product, but have been ¿wek ing with fancied security on their recollections of what used to constitute a large supply, viz. 200,000 to 25000 bales. It appears, then, that, from the 1st June, 184, 20 the 1st June, 1841, the imports of cotton into Bombay have amounted to 174,212,755 lbs. This is a larger quantity than America produced up to the year 1826, and more than was consumed in England during the same year. In 1825, the entire production of the United States amounted only to 169,860,000 lbs. ; though, 12 years after, in 1837, ad reached 444,211,537lbs. (Vide McCulloch, article Coven "As a further encouragement to the cultivators, we may state that the consumption of East India cotton, in Grea Britain, has increased in a greater ratio than that of ary other quality whatever. In 1816, at which period the ave rage price of American uplands was 184d., and that of Sar 154d., the consumption of American was 4,036 bales, and East Indian 207 bales per week. In 1839, when the are As soon though, as abolition was effected in the rage price of uplands was 7.875d., and Surats 54d., the c West Indies-a farther development of the plot was sumption of American was 15,644, and East Indian 25 made: Agents were sent over to this country from packages per week; the increase in 23 years of the last England, to engage for the East India service, per- being in the ratio of ten to one, and that of the first tare ? sons and machinery skilled and necessary for the culture and preparation of Cotton. How far this step is likely to answer its object, the subjoined extracts, cut from recent papers, will show: EAST INDIA AND AMERICAN COTTON. four to one. In the same period the consumption of bir zilian, Egyptian, and West Indian qualities had not destand Extract from the circular of Messrs. Freeman and Cook, dated London, January 1, 1842. "Cotton.-The cotton trade with India for the last tw years has been highly important, in every point of ve Alluding to the dulness of the Cotton market, the New The imports in 1841 reached nearly one-third those from York American says: the United States; which has had a very depressing indus "While on this point we may as well call the attention ence on the value of American cotton." As soon as it could be done, the cultivation of cion? Shall not the dictates of prudence be heedcotton was to be changed, de golpe, from the Uni- ed? And, with such cause, oUGHT we not to be wary of father-land? as to this day we love to call the old country.'* * Just as the proof-sheets of this were about to leave our hands, we were favored with the following copy of a letter, dated: "NEW-YORK, 19th May, 1842. ted States to India, as indigo had been; therefore the progress of the experiment in the East was closely observed in all its stages; and while its re- The mass of the people in all countries are what sults were witnessed with anxious solicitude, and they seem. It is the designing few only who plot increasing satisfaction, preparations were making and conduct the intrigues of a party or of a state; in the West, for striking the last decisive blow, and of those few who manage the government of should a resort to force become necessary. The chief Great Britain, it is only a part that plots treason Naval station at Halifax, was too far removed from against the Republic. It was something new to the probable scene of action; it was quietly trans- see Great Britain first gird herself about with powferred from the North to Bermuda, within thirty-er, and then approach us, brandishing and flourishsix hours of our Southern coast, and the place ing, for moral effect, a Holy Alliance' made with immediately strengthened and fortified. A standing the 'States of Christendom,' to awe us into subarmy of Blacks was organized in the West Indies. mission. But our old men knew what to expect A line of men-of-war steam packets, thence to from Great Britain when leagued with other Euroour coast was arranged; they are commanded pean powers in alliance; and those still in the prime by Navy officers, and carry their guns in the of manhood can well remember how ruthlessly the hold ready to be hoisted up and mounted at work of coalitions has been done upon the states any moment; the raven-colored troopers with of Europe. They can recollect, how, by an allitheir sable banners, were within a few hours' ance, the Republic of Genoa was given to the ran of our shores; and they stood ready for king of Sardinia; and how Poland was dismemany service at a moment's warning. The Quin- bered by an alliance. They could not forget that tuple Treaty was to operate as an armed intervention for regulating the commerce of Ameriea, and for adjusting a certain domestic institution of ours, in such a manner, that the staple productions of the Southern States might be at once trans"Sir, I am an Irish protestant who have been in this ferred from the valley of the Mississippi to the country forty-nine years, with frequent and long absences. banks of the Ganges, its great rival stream. The I once had the honor of serving my adopted country as conpreliminaries of the convention were arranged in se- sul: in this office, I did all in my power to render it respeccret; we were not consulted as to any of its provi- table, by holding up the American government as worthy of sions; it attached suspicion to every vessel of ours imitation, and often was distressed with the aristocratic sentiments sported in mixed companies by native-born citithat should be seen within either of the three great zens of the United States. In truth, I am a republican of zones of the earth, and left the common highway the Jeffersonian school; and as such, I could not be otherof nations free to us, only over the frozen seas of wise than highly gratified by the perusal of your article on the extreme North or South. It is not in the dis-"THE RIGHT OF SEARCH," in the Southern Literaposition of the American people to be suspicious of their neighbors. Had such preparations been made about the dominions of an European power, they would have excited suspicion at once, and brought forth a demand to know their object. Indeed so closely does England watch her neighbors, and so easily are her fears excited by the movements of other nations, that France cannot put a few more "The other was that a British frigate, commanded by one than her usual complement of ships in commission, Balderston, fired into a pleasure yacht belonging to Mr. without receiving a message from across the Chan- Washington Morton, in sight of Sandy Hook; on board of nel to know the cause of the secret or unusual pre-which the owner was, in company with other gentlemen of paration. But, practically, the Americans know this city. I mention these aggressions because they were wanton and unprovoked, and they show the disposition of nothing of the intrigues of governments, and take the government and people of Great Britain (not Ireland) but little note of their manœuvres and designs. The towards this country. And this hatred will never be allowfirst intimation that we had of these arrangements, ed to sleep, for we shall never be forgiven our Declaration was in a demand, positive and peremptory, requiring of Independence; and whatever may be the professions of as to surrender up our rights, and permit our vessels the British government, be it Whig or Tory, the hatred is to be searched, because it was indispensable to the the same at heart; and they will go to war with this country, whenever they think they can do so with success; and great object which the 'States of Christendom' had it is for this purpose and no other that they are now preparIn view. Is there in all this, no cause of suspi-ing such a gigantic fleet of war-steamers. Guns in the hold.-So stated by Mr. Cushing in Con gress as to the Dee. + Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Stevenson. ry Messenger of last month; and I beg you not to stop there. It may be proper here to inform you of two acts of aggression which took place, I think, about 1806 or '7,--or perhaps before. "One was that a British frigate, in sight of the Jersey shore, fired into the sloop Richard, Capt. Pierce, bound from Brandywine Mills to New-York, with a cargo of flour and Indian meal, and killed Mr. Pierce, the brother of the master. I am yours, very respectfully, N. } it was the strong arm of an alliance, that had these only, with the aid of colonization and the inrobbed Denmark and Sweden of Norway and fluence of Christian principles, can the African Finland; that had forced the republican citi slave-trade be effectually suppressed. The righ zens of Holland to become the subjects of a king; of search,' as experience has proved, operates is that had graciously bestowed the republic of Ve- an aggravation of the evil. If the voice of Africa nice as a present to Austria. It was an Euro- could be heard as to the conduct of England with repean alliance, we all recollect, that lopped off a gard to the slave-trade, it would be in the tone of province from the dominions of the Grand Turk; entreaty and prayer, to let us alone; your intenand it was the combined forces of allied sovereigns tions may be good, but your interference has only that destroyed his fleet and laid waste the plains made oppression more galling and slavery more of Syria. All these acts, and more too, were bitter.' forcibly brought to the minds of our statesmen, We do not think that we venture too much when they surveyed the lines which England in the opinion as to what each State of Chris had been drawing about their commerce and their tendom may do at home in aid of suffering Afcountry. She had run her wide parallels across rica, simply by calling upon all good citizens, and the commercial parts of the ocean; and our traders enjoining its custom-house officers, its consuls and who make ventures there, read in the terms of the commercial agents, to collect and report all infortreaty, a motto for their flag, which England had mation concerning slavers and vessels suspected of gone down to paraphrase from Dante's inscription engaging in the slave-trade. With proper energy over the infernal regions: LEAVE THRIFT BEHIND, in this respect, on the part of governments, the it never enters here, was to be painted on the ber-armed cruisers on the coast of Africa might, in gee of every American vessel as she crossed the the course of a very short time, be furnished with dark parallel, and bounded over into the "suspicious accurate drawings and descriptions of every veslatitudes." The approaches of England in Chris- sel engaged in the slave-trade. With the astian Alliance,' her present manner and previous sistance of proper agents on the coast of Africa, conduct, all warned us of intrigue, and design, and with a code of signals, and a well digesand admonish us to be on our guard. We have ted plan of coöperation for all the cruisers there taken our stand upon the broad platform of national employed, this information would become common rights, from which we will not be moved. And property, and each cruiser might then go in purwe leave it to the civilized nations of the world suit of the vessels of its own nation, with the auto judge if right, humanity and justice be not on vantage of knowing where to lie in their track our side. When the British government shall cease to sell its We are earnest in our desires to suppress the captured slaves-when it shall abandon its intrigues slave-trade, and we are willing to cooperate with for the right of search which has done the African s England and the States of Christendom against much more harm than good-and shall advocate the odious traffic. We know England to be ambi- some such practical plan as this for the suppression of tious, grasping and wary; we therefore must keep the slave-trade, then and not till then, will we give her at boat-hook's length. We can never trust her the old country' credit for motives of humanity on board of our merchantmen. Our armed crui- and a sincere desire to succor the slave. Let a sers may cooperate with hers-farther than this, LINES, ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. Alas! alas! that fair and pearl-veined brow, God help the Mother! She, whose anguished heart, The Mother, still all watchfulness and love, Her child is cradled now in Death's cold arms. 46 be never so hard to bear, she only, of all the world, should know she suffered. "And did you remark any change in the letters before you heard that Charles was false, Cornelia?" She acknowledged that she did not. "Then I entreat you, not to take a course which may destroy all your future happiness. The woman's pride upon which you so much rely, may save you from the compassion of the world; but, believe me, you will find it but a miserable comforter to your own heart." “Oh, Mrs. Cameron!" exclaimed Cornelia; “you who have lived only in life's sunshine, and whose even temperament must ever have left you a stranger to mental conflict, can realize nothing of my anguish of spirit." A cloud passed over the usually calm face of Mrs. Cameron, an expression as from the awakening of bitter recollections, as she replied: "It is because I would save you from the terrible darkness that fell upon my own path-from the bitter, and unavailing anguish which my own spirit has known, that I have so importunately urged you to desist from your purpose." "Have you then known sorrow? corroding sofrow?--you whose existence I have ever thought of, as one of tranquil, and unalloyed happiness ?" "Yes, Cornelia, I have known sorrow, and this has made me the more solicitous in endeavoring to guide you, and mould your disposition, (which I saw that nature had formed much like my own,) in such a manner as to leave you a stranger to the like trial. You were very young, when your father, at his decease, left you to the guardianship of Mr. Cameron: and I have ever since that period, endeavored to fulfil a mother's duty to you. Perhaps it may profit you to hear my early history; and though it is to me, like tearing open a long closed wound, I am willing, for your sake, to bear the pain. You have ever treated me with respect when I advised you; but still have considered me, from what you thought my passionless temperament, incapable of understanding the impulses of your own. Per Because," responded Mrs. Cameron, “I hope the report, which has been so distressing to you, You little knew the tempest that premay prove groundless; and I have not read Charles ceded the deep calm which is now settled upon my Willmott rightly, if he would brook your distrust- own spirit, until my existence is become waveless ing his truth, upon a mere rumor. An enduring as the unbroken surface of a summer sea. estrangement would be the consequence; and you haps you know already, that this is not my native would ensure his unhappiness as well as your own." state. My birthplace is upon the banks of the But Cornelia Grey insisted that the information Connecticut, and there I passed the first twenty which she had received of her lover's falsehood, years of my life. Like you, I never remember a could be relied upon that his devoted attentions mother's care, for mine was taken from me while to a lady of the place in which he resided, had I was still in infancy; but if it had been possible been remarked, and that it was generally believed that aught else could supply the place of a mother's he was to marry her; and now, she remembered love, I should never have felt its deprivation, that his recent letters had lacked the deep affec-blessed as I was, with the devoted affection of one tion which former ones had spoken-and she as- of the best of father's. O, the devotion of a sured her friend, that the pride inherent in woman's parent's love, when centered upon an only child! heart, would sustain her in the course upon which Although I warmly returned his attachment, I can she had decided; and that, let her anguish of spirit now look back, and painfully recall many-a-time VOL. VIII-51 |