e our task is ended. With respect to Mr.
Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated Blacks, if
it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it is utterly
untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and artless way, are
more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they regard as incarnating
in her gracious person the benevolence which Mr. Froude so jauntily
scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under this head is intended for
the present generation of Blacks, it is a pure and simple absurdity.
What are we Negroes of the present day to be grateful for to the US,
personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial [116] Office exportations?
We really believe, from what we know of Englishmen, that very few
indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach otherwise than as a palpable
adding of insult to injury. Obliged to "us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude,
who speaks of us as dogs and horses, suggests that the same kindliness
of treatment that secures the attachment of those noble brutes would
have the same result in our case. With the same consistency that marks
his utterances throughout his book, he tells his readers "that there is
no original or congenital difference between the capacity of the White
and the Negro races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same
chances and with the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men
would be produced equally from both races." After this truthful
testimony, which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr.
Froude, in the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men,
worthy of the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not
disgusted, at being shunted out of bread in their own native land,
which their parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to
afford room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from
beyond the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend,
inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also?
And if so, what has the Negro to care--if let alone and not wantonly
thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural and
scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the
champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any
intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of
the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their
life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that the