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above all he repeated what he had said on a former occasion-"Oh, whatever you do, spare the people, and protect their employment."

Mr. Ellice said, in reply, that the present state of things was entirely owing to the plans of ministers. In 1822, a large issue of paper was allowed to meet the agricultural distress. Government was then enabled to reduce the interest on the 5 per cents. There appeared to be plenty of money in the country; individuals wished to procure a higher rate of interest than the funds provided, and they had, in consequence, had recourse to speculation. Instead of encouraging a large issue of paper now, he thought it would be better to grant relief to the country through the medium of Exchequer-bills. If the circulating medium were greatly increased, what would be the effect? A great rise in prices, which would decrease as the circulating medium was narrowed. And in what a situation would the country be then placed? He had hoped that the present conjuncture would have produced some wholesome disagreement between the government and the Bank; and he was sorry that the Bank had not forced the govern ment to abandon their present course. If the Bank had remained firm, government must have yielded the point, and the distress of the country would have given birth to other measures. He regretted very much that the Bank had become instrumental to the adoption of mere halfmeasures. The proper way to meet the existing distress would have been by an issue of Exchequer-bills.

The motion was agreed to.

PROMISSORY NOTES BILL.] On the order of the day for bringing up the report of this bill,

Mr. J. Smith said, he must repeat what he had before said, that the government by bringing this subject before the country as they had done, had created much danger, which they might have avoided by adopting the more prudent course of previous consideration and sedulous inquiry. The evil was said, in the first instance, to have arisen from the speculation which the issues of the private bankers were alleged to have encouraged; and the existing, as well as the apprehended mischief, was now traced to the circumstance of the country bankers paying off their notes, and thus narrowing the circulating medium. One hon. mem

| ber, not content with what the country bankers were doing, and what they were compelled to do, was desirous that they should be made to pay their notes in a week; without considering, however solvent they might be, whether the Bank of England would be able in so short a space to supply the demand for specie. He considered the attacks that had been made on the country banks, generally, as unfair and unworthy. After all that had been said of them, he would contend that the country bankers had done much good. He should like to know which of his majesty's ministers it was, who wrote the letter addressed to the directors of the Bank, which had been the subject of so much observation. He knew not who wrote it; but this he would state, that it contained internal evidence, that it was not written by the right hon. Secretary for Foreign Affairs. They had recently seen documents drawn up by the right hon. gentleman; and he defied any individual to point out the least affinity between the style of those documents and that in which this letter was couched. He might say further, that it was not the letter of the right hon. gentleman at the head of the Board of Trade; nor of any of the right hon. gentlemen opposite. Instead of entering into this correspondence, ministers should have brought the question before a committee in a quiet and unostentatious manner. Had they done this, wise and timely measures would have been adopted, and much mischief would have been prevented. He thought the proposition for obliging every country banker to make his notes payable at the place where they were issued, was a good one; but he believed that was pretty generally the case at present. His hon. friend (Mr. Attwood) had mentioned some districts, in which he described a different system to be prevalent. The notes issued in those districts, as he stated, were only payable in London. Now, he must say, that in the districts mentioned, he was not acquainted with any banker who pursued that course. If any such instance existed, he should rejoice to see it put an end to. He was afraid that in adopting the measures now under consideration, the government was acting too hastily. The proper mode of legislating on this subject would have been by the appointment of a committee. Parliament would then have been enabled to come forward with a measure almost, if not entirely, free from objection.

Mr. Attwood said, that the system which he had described prevailed in Wolverhampton, Stratford-upon-Avon, and other places.

Mr. Alderman Heygate said, he had been represented as having asserted, that the country bankers were perfectly satisfied with this measure. He had stated no such thing. What he had said was, that the country bankers did not wish to throw obstacles in the way of ministers; and that they had done all in their power to arrest the growing distress. The cause of the diminution of their circulation was, the general panic which existed. Being pressed, in consequence of that panic, they wished rather to act at once, than wait for the expiration of three years.

Mr. F. Palmer rose to express his strong disapprobation of the measure before the House. It was, in his mind, ill-timed, injudicious, and likely to bring most serious distress on the country. In 1822, a great issue of paper took place to meet the distresses of the agricultural interest. They were then said to go on well for a while; but, what was the country better for it now? At length the present misfortunes arose; and now fresh issues of papermoney were resorted to as a remedy. Arguing from the past, would not the state of the country, at a future period, and that not far distant, be just as deplorable as it was at present? The bill, he contended, was no remedy for the evil. It was merely a palliative; and when its effects had passed away, the patient would find himself worse than he was before. If the expenses of the country were not considerably reduced, there could be no safe return to a metallic currency. To attempt one without the other, would bring upon agriculture the severest distress; and then they must come to an amicable, or equitable adjustment-he did not care which term they chose for the purpose. He declared himself no friend to high prices. He knew that the manufacturing interests could not exist with high prices; much less could any natural competition be successful under them. But he knew, also, that if corn were not kept up to a certain price, starvation must ensue amongst the agricultural classes. Ministers had a really difficult task to perform. He believed they were earnest in their endeavours to do right. But here was their difficulty-they must have low prices for the manufacturers, and they must have high prices for the other classes.

But, under these circumstances, they were not justified in the unbounded extravagance of the expenditure. If the difficulty was to be met, it could only be by the most rigid economy. The interest of the debt, and the expenses of government, could not be paid at their present grievous amount in a circulation of increased value. Notwithstanding these things, ministers went on with their expenditure. One specimen of their estimates had been brought forward, and the House had seen with surprise that it was greater than it was last year. Two other specimens would be produced in a few nights, and, if he was not greatly mistaken, they also would be on an increased scale of expense. There was another point to which he wished to call the attention of the House, and that was the present mode of paying the public creditor. The money had been lent to the government in one species of currency, and it was now repaid in another; by which the payment was greatly increased beyond the amount of the original loan. Now he was of opinion, that, with respect to this matter, some adjustment ought to be made, and that the public creditor ought to receive his claim, if not in the same currency, at least on a calculation adjusted by the same currency. As the matter at present stood, this was not the case; for the public creditor had advanced his money when the guinea was worth 28s. and his claim was paid at the same nominal rate, when the guinea had been restored to its old standard of 21s. He had said so much merely in discharge of his duty.

The report being brought up,

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that there were some alterations which it was of importance should be made in this bill. The first of these was to expunge from the penalty-clauses that which empowered a justice of the peace summarily to levy the penalty inflicted by the act. His proposition was, that instead of this the penalties should be levied in the ordinary way, as in other cases of offences against the Stamp-acts. The other alteration was, that individuals should not be precluded from drawing checks upon their bankers for sums less than 51.

Sir M. W. Ridley said, that some persons had an idea in the north, that no onepound notes of any description were to remain in circulation after the passing of the bill. If the right hon. gentleman would give that notion a positive contra

diction, it would prevent any further misunderstanding upon a subject of much importance.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the object of the bill was the extinction of small notes at the end of three years. But, in his opinion, that extinction should be brought about within three years by as slow degrees as were practicable. If any persons had acted under the idea that small notes were immediately to go out of circulation, they had assuredly laboured under a complete misapprehension.

Mr. Hudson Gurney expressed a doubt whether, according to the present wording of the clause, any drafts for sums under five pound were not illegal, if they were drawn payable to order and not to bearer.

The Attorney-General said, that the act of the 17th Geo. 3rd had been brought in to prevent the circulation of one-pound promissory notes, and parliament had thought fit to extend the operation of it to all notes under five pound. The object then in view was, to prevent small bills being given at long dates; which other wise might have passed and circulated from hand to hand, as the small notes payable on demand had before done. The act, consequently, allowed bills to be drawn on bona fide debtors, at twentyone days' date, in a certain form contained in the act.

The proposed amendments were then agreed to.

Mr. Denman hoped, that instead of going to the third reading of the bill, the right hon. gentleman would allow it to be reprinted. He objected to it wholly, as a most impolitic interference with the principles of free trade, which the right hon. gentlemen had so honourably supported. This bill was of no effect. The last clause repealed it as to the Bank of England which was still permitted to issue one and two pound notes; a liberty which he did not think could be granted to them with greater propriety than to other banks. As, however, that liberty was reserved to them, he trusted that the Attorney-general would be directed to bring in a bill to mitigate the punishment of forgery, so as to prevent the recurrence of those horrid executions which were produced by the ease with which Bank of England notes might be forged.

The bill as amended was ordered to be printed, and read a third time on Thursday.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Wednesday, March 1.

After

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.] numerous petitions had been presented, praying for the Abolition of Slavery,

Mr. Fowell Buxton rose, pursuant to notice, to present a petition from the inhabitants of London, for the Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. It was, he said, more numerously signed than any petition that had ever before been presented to the House; the number of signatures being no less than 72,000. Following the petitions already presented that evening from many other populous and enlightened places, it proved beyond all doubt, the great and lively interest taken by the public with regard to this question. He should therefore avail himself of this opportunity, to ask the right hon. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, what was the course his majesty's government intended to pursue, as to the amelioration of the condition of the slave population in the colonies? He would not enter into the general argument of the question but he would state the precise position in which, at this moment, it stood. In 1823, his majesty's government said, that it was a question of such vast importance, and of such extreme delicacy, that they desired to have it placed in their hands. Those by whom it had been brought forward consented to the proposition, and it was accordingly transferred to the care of government. On that occasion the right hon. gentleman stated his opinions very fully regarding the general question of slavery; and, having since attentively and deliberately considered the right hon. gentleman's speech, he could find no material distinction between his views andthose of the original promoters of the discussion. The right hon. gentleman was far from attempting to justify the existence of slavery, as a desirable or even tolerable state of society; and he had admitted, that the principles of the Christian religion, and the spirit of the British constitution, were equally favourable to the extension of freedom to all who lived under their influence and protection. The right hon. gentleman was a decided advocate of the gradual extinction of what he treated as an unquestionable evil. He would not trouble the House by reading at length the Resolutions with which the right hon. gentleman, on that occasion, concluded his speech. It was enough to say, that

execution the proposed measures for the benefit of their slaves. He was anxious to avoid the excitement of feeling; and he would,therefore, only state the bare facts of the case. Generally speaking, he might say that very little indeed had been done. In Tobago, the legislature had certainly done something. They had altered the law of evidence, so as to admit the evidence of slaves against free persons in cases of murder and mayhem alone, and that under rigid restrictions; they had changed the market day from Sunday to Thursday; they had reduced the discretionary power of the master from thirty-nine to twenty lashes; they had enlarged the number of days allowed the slaves for their own grounds; and they had protected the slaves' property. In the Bahamas, they had partially legalized marriage, and forbidden the separation of families by judicial sale. In Barbadoes they had partially admitted the evidence of slaves against free per

their purport was clearly to pledge the House to an amelioration of slavery so effectual, as to lead to a participation, on the part of the negroes, in all those civil rights and privileges which the rest of the king's subjects enjoyed; in other words, to the final and complete abolition of slavery. In pursuance of these Resolutions, his majesty's government had framed an Order in Council, which they intended to bring into operation in those colonies which were immediately under the authority of the Crown, and to recommend it to the colonies having legislatures of their own, as the basis of their legislation for the slave population. That Order in Council, though defective in some material respects, certainly contained many excellent regulations. It provided, that negro evidence should, under certain restrictions, be admissible in the courts of law; the marriages of the slaves were legalized; the obstacles in the way of manumission were removed; the use of the whip, as the badge of author-sons. ity and the stimulus to labour, was prohibited, and, as regarded the punishment of females, entirely abolished; provision was made for eventually putting an end to the practice of Sunday markets, and Sunday labour; the property of the negro was protected; and he was empowered to apply the property he might possess in purchasing either his own redemption or that of his immediate relations. On the discussion in 1823, to which he had referred, all parties seemed to be agreed in principle. The only question was, how could the new system be brought, in the soonest and safest manner, into prac-lated the use of the whip, except in the tice? No doubt was expressed by the hon. gentleman connected with the WestIndia interest as to the cordial co-operation of the colonial assemblies. The right hon. gentleman, however, foreseeing, as it now appeared, the true nature of the obstructions to be apprehended, had declared that, if his majesty's government encountered any opposition partaking of the nature of contumacy, he would call on parliament to perform its duty towards the negroes, and exercise its power to compel the amelioration of their condition. The principles on which that amelioration was to proceed, were laid down in the Order in Council. Nothing could be more unequivocal than what was required from the West-India colonists; nor could any thing be more unequivocal than the utter refusal, on their part, to carry into

These, he believed, were all the improvements which had taken place. But even these scanty concessions had been accompanied with the re-enactment of the worst features of the old system. His majesty's government, therefore, were obliged to withhold their assent from even the acts which contained these partial amendments. To this extent the colonists had carried their attempts to ameliorate the condition of their slaves. The House would see, by the contrast, how little they had attempted. They had not abolished the driving system, or the flogging of females. They had not regu

instances mentioned, or mitigated the arbitrary power of the master, or lega lized the marriages of the negroes, or protected their property, or prevented them from being sold separately from their families. They had not in any case given to the slave the power of redeem. ing himself. In Jamaica, two very insignificant acts had been passed, which were calculated to give some incidental advantages to the negro, though, undoubtedly, the positive and direct advantages belonged wholly to the master. Nothing else had been done in that colony, nor, as far as he knew, in any of the other colonies, having local legisla tures, to carry into effect the recorded wishes of the House. The conclusion he drew from all this was, that it was only within the walls of that House, that they

could expect to see any measures enacted tending to the abolition of slavery. The fact was manifest, that either the House must renounce their pledge to the public in behalf of the negro, or at once take the question into their own hands. He was anxious to say nothing that could give offence to any party; but it was his duty broadly to declare his deliberate and confirmed conviction, that the House must do the work themselves, or suffer it to be altogether abandoned. He would conclude by reading an extract from a speech of the right hon. Secretary, which far more eloquently explained his sentiments on the subject than he could himself state them. The eloquence of the passage, however, was its least praise. The prophetic spirit by which it was dictated, entitled it particularly to the attention of the House, who would find that every apprehension expressed in it had unfortunately been realized-" Trust not," said the right hon. gentleman, "the masters of slaves in what concerns legislation for slavery! However specious their laws may appear, depend upon it they must be ineffectual in their application. It is in the nature of things that they should be so. Let, then, the British House of Commons, do their part themselves. Let them not delegate the trust of doing it to those who cannot execute that trust fairly. Let the evil be remedied by an assembly of freemen, by the government of a free people, and not by the masters of slaves."

The Petition was then brought up, and ordered to be read; and, upon the clerk proceeding to read it short, Mr. Buxton intimated that it was the express wish of the petitioners that it should be read at length. Several members called out "short;" but, upon Mr. Canning's stating that he should wish the request of the petitioners in this respect to be complied with, the whole of the petition was read by the clerk. It set forth,

"That the petitioners, while they express their sincere and grateful approbation of the resolutions adopted by the House on the subject of Colonial Slavery, and of the efforts which have since been made by his majesty's ministers to carry them into effect, lament that these efforts should have been almost wholly frustrated by the determined opposition of the colonial authorities to the united wishes of the government, the parliament, and the people of this country; that the

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petitioners have learned with deep regret from the official documents which have been laid on the table of the House, that the colonial legislatures have either treated the recorded wishes of parliament, and the recommendations and remonstrances of his majesty's government, with neglect, or have met them with the most determined opposition; that the alleged ameliorations of their slave codes manifest the same substantial disregard of the sacred principles of justice which characterized their old enactments; that the existing laws, which, in their practical operation, evidently afford no effectual protection to the slaves, have been made, as the petitioners conceived, on not a few recent occasions, an instrument of the most grievous injustice, cruelty, and oppression, and that the general treatment of the slave population continues to exhibit the same harsh and disgusting effects of the domestic despotism prevailing in the colonies, which first excited the indignant feelings of the British public, and which now call for universal commiseration and immediate relief; that it appears to the petitioners that this unjust and immoral system, as it exists in the British colonies, derives at this moment great support from those commercial regulations, which, by means of bounties and protecting duties in favour of the produce of slave labour, not only materially enhance its price to the British consumer, but augment the miseries of the slaves, and render their liberation more difficult; that, should the petitioners be called upon by the House to contribute for the purpose of extinguishing slavery, at least as large a sum as they now pay for its support, they will cheerfully obey the call; but that they entertain the most insuperable objections to the continuance of the existing restrictions on the commerce of the country in favour of slave-grown produce, because while those restrictions violate the recognized principles of sound commercial policy, and impose on the nation a heavy pecuniary burthen for the maintenance of slavery, they tend to counteract the hope of its reformation, they even serve to aggravate and perpetuate its evils, and they involve the people of this country still more deeply in the guilt of upholding it: that on all these grounds the petitioners humbly but earnestly implore the House to take the premises into their early consideration, and to adopt such measures as to the wisdom of the House shall seem meet

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