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declared free; that all other then slaves should be registered as apprenticed labourers, and be obliged to work for their owners under conditions and for a period of time to be fixed by Parliament, and that a loan of fifteen millions should be offered to the planters. In this proposal there was still an adherence to the principle of gradualism, which, together with the compulsory apprenticeships, was opposed by Mr. Buxton. He found a strong supporter in Lord Howick, who had resigned office, as unable to countenance this principle. The Government yielded eventually to the arguments of these men, and of the others who held with them, and the term of apprenticeships was shortened. The field slaves were to have been apprenticed for twelve years, the house slaves for seven; these periods were now reduced to seven and five years, and shortly afterwards were remitted altogether, and the loan of fifteen millions was changed into a gift of twenty millions.

In subsequent years, when my father told the story of this battle and victory to his children gathered round him, he dwelt with joy-I would say joy, rather than pride-on this act, so honourable to England. I can recollect his pointing out to us that it was easy to collect signatures and sign petitions, and make thrilling speeches, but that the ready and joyful acquiescence of the people under the increase of their burdens, already too heavy, which this gift of twenty millions imposed on them, was an indisputable proof that this matter had taken hold of the hearts and consciences of the people; and he very distinctly told us that a regard for the true welfare of our fellow-creatures, and a ready spirit of self-sacrifice towards that end, ought to be an international principle, as well as a guide for men of the same race in their conduct to each other, and that in this lay the best hope of all true progress.

Earl Grey said to my father, in a conversation which he had with him not long before his death, that in looking back on the four years of his administration, there was not one of the measures carried in that period (and they were great measures) which he contemplated with so much satisfaction as the alteration of the Poor Laws. He said he believed his reputation hereafter would rest chiefly on that; he spoke of the awful demoralization and degradation into which the country was rapidly descending for lack of reform in that quarter. Every one knows the principle of the old Poor Law, which was benevolent and wise in the days of Elizabeth, but which affords one of the most striking witnesses of how very far the laws may lag behind the growing and changing facts and necessities of the age, and the enlightenment of the conscience of a people, thus becoming a laughing-stock to the people whose conscience they ought in a measure to guide, and, worse still, a curse and a shame to the nation which endures them. Parliamentary committees worked hard for several years at the subject. It was a subject on which my father had thought much. In 1830 he received from Lord Gascoyne (chairman of the committee of the House of Lords) an urgent invitation to come up to his house in London, to speak with him privately on the state of the poor in the north of England, and at the same time a letter from Lord Durham, saying, "I beg you will let me see you when you come up, as I wish to talk to you about the Poor Laws." He was summoned to attend a committee of the House of Lords in the spring of 1831. His evidence turned chiefly on the administration of the Poor-Laws as far as they related to employment and wages, and the examiners drew from him an account of the state of the working classes in the north, in order to compare it with that in southern counties.

The evil, which statesman after statesman had declined to touch, and which had gathered strength by neglect, was to some extent removed by the Poor Law Amendment Act of August, 1834. Abuses there are enough in our present Poor Law, yet the reform of that year was, to say the least, a blessed reprieve from near and threatening danger, a reprieve which enabled wise men to look around calmly and consider what more may and ought to be done.

K

CHAPTER VI.

"Well did he love the land that gave him birth,
Well did he serve her; foremost in the fight,
Where Faith and Manhood battled for the right.
Type of Northumbria's freedom and her worth ;
To help the oppress'd, to liberate the slave,
To curb injustice, tyranny, and wrong,-
Such were the tasks for which his arm was strong,
His pleading eloquent, his counsel brave.

The woodman's toil, the labour of the mine,

And busy husbandry confessed his care :

Cottage and farm, and school and House of Prayer,
Rose at his bidding on the banks of Tyne.

So lent he lustre to a noble name,

And true Northumbria shall guard his fame."

IN 1833 my father was appointed to take charge of the Greenwich Hospital Estates.

This property is situated in different parts of the county of Northumberland, and includes a large lead-mining district on Alston Moor, in Cumberland. It originally belonged to the Earls of Derwentwater. The last Earl, James Radcliffe, took part in the Stuart rebellion of 1715, and was beheaded. After the death of his only son, John, without heirs, the estates were, by Act of Parliament, granted to the Greenwich Hospital, an institution nobly designed, into whose internal administration much corruption afterwards crept, as is commonly the case with endowments. As there is apt to be

some confusion in people's minds on the subject, it is as well to say at once that my father had nothing whatever to do with the management of the splendid Hospital which stands on the banks of the Thames. He was much grieved when the Commission of 1859-60 showed that there had been an unwise administration of the funds, which by his able stewardship he had largely increased. He had the sole direction of the northern estates, 300 miles from the charity which benefited by them, and was wisely left by the Greenwich authorities unfettered in the exercise of his function; and with the exception of the punctual weekly record of transactions forwarded by him to the Board, he was as free in action as if he had been an independent landlord. This freedom was not indeed granted at first, but gradually, as his official chiefs saw what his character and abilities were. It was for the interest of the Hospital as well as for the tenantry under his control that he was left thus unfettered. For a corporate body to attempt to manage such a vast concern, from a distance of 300 miles, would have been futile or ruinous, especially when to the irresponsible character of a corporate body is added the fact that the individuals composing it were chiefly naval men, or persons cognizant only of the official business of cities, without the special training and long experience

1 He spoke of it thus in a letter, dated 1862 :-" It is well to expose such glaring mismanagement and flagrant abuse of funds intended for a benevolent purpose. I wonder in whose hands the misapplication began? I hope it may be thoroughly investigated and exposed, even if it should lead to a breaking up of the Hospital, as such, and a better and more economical distribution of the charity. Such inquiries may raise a clamour against the institution, and lead to the sale of the estates, and the conversion of the noble old place into a shipbuilding shed. Perhaps it would be as well."

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