MEMOIRS OF SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ᏴᎪᎡᎢ . EDITED BY HIS SON, CHARLES BUXTON, M.A., M.P. WITH AN INQUIRY INTO THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION. "The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great differ- New Edition. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1882. By the same Author. THE IDEAS OF THE DAY ON POLICY. ANALYSED AND ARRANGED. Third Edition, 8vo, 6s. NOTES OF THOUGHT AND CONVERSATION, Post 8vo. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 942.07 B98ma AN INQUIRY INTO THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION,* BY CHARLES BUXTON. A HUNDRED years ago, when black men were seldom seen north of the Tweed, an old Scotch gentlewoman meeting a negro in the street, cast up her eyes and hands, exclaiming, "Hech, sirs, what canna be made for the penny!" And well might the British people do the same. At a cost, not of one penny, but of five thousand million pennies, we have produced that curious specimen of the human race, the free negro of the West Indies. Such was the outlay. Now, what is the result? What sort of thing have we got for our money? Was that a wise investment of capital? The reply of some high authorities has been given, and is this - Our islands, they say, the richest and loveliest in the world, are fallen from wealth to ruin - crumbling, deserted, desolate towns — empty harbours -trade gone-agriculture at death's door-the old staples vanished away - the owners of these once fertile lands languishing in poverty, or dead of broken hearts-the negroes, for whom all was done, "sunk up to the ears in pumpkin," growing every day more savage, more idle, more beastly. Such, they tell us, is the work that our philanthropy has worked out under the sun. Now, is that so, or is it not so? The subject deserves some thought. England's giving freedom to her slaves was an act unique in the history of man. We know not where an example can be found of so noble a sacrifice made by a whole people. As to its prudence, some may think one thing, and some an *This Essay appeared in the April number of the Edinburgh Review, 1859. It has been thought worth while to prefix it to these Memoirs, in order to shew, from irrefragable statistics and official reports, that the work to which my father's life was given has not proved, as many suppose, a failure. other; but no man can lay it at the door of any selfish feeling. The people of the United Kingdom believed slavery to be cruel. It seemed to them a breach of the law of love which the gospel had laid down. For these reasons, and for these alone, they made up their minds to be rid of it. But they were not hurried away by their zeal; they chose to pay the cost themselves; and £20,000,000 was paid down by them to get the slaves set free. To us, who saw this done, it may seem an every-day affair. But seen from afar, in the coming ages, it may strike men as sublime. Was it, after all, an act of shining folly? Has it really wrought woe and not weal in the world? It is worth while to find out the true reply to these questions. For if all this were so, then that noble old maxim, that "Right never comes wrong," would be overthrown. Here we have a nation plainly setting itself to do right, "because right was right;" because it thought more of what was due to God and man, than of itself. Has this been a failure? has this done harmi and not good? then it may be unwise to do right. Wrong, perhaps, might as well be kept going. The laws of God and the rights of man may be well enough in their way, but should we obey the one, or observe the other, we may find ourselves made fools of. We are far indeed from denying that the owners of West Indian property have gone through a time of deep distress. The cry of despair that rose from them in 1847, and the next years, was appalling. Many and many a family once blessed with opulence sank into poverty, while hundreds of others had their fortunes shattered, if not destroyed. No wonder such an overthrow should have been loudly noised, not only through England, but through the world, and that emancipation should be looked upon as having given the death-blow to our once thriving colonies. People were not likely to bear in mind that, however sad these events might be, still the great outcry arose fourteen years after slavery (ten years after the apprenticeship) had been done away, and at once upon a change of a wholly different kind. Nor could they have been expected to remember that the cries of distress came, not from the whole population of those islands, but mainly from the proprietors living in England, whose voice therefore rang the louder, but might not be the voice of the mass of the people. It was natural for the world to think that the whole of our sugar colonies were sinking into ruin, though the out |