s in the East
Indies give us the means, and afford us every facility, for acquiring
sugar, the produce of free labour, to an illimitable extent."

[13] The following striking passage from the writings of the
celebrated Dr Channing of America, was quoted by Sir Robert
Peel in the speech under consideration. "Great Britain, loaded
with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation,
contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to
give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African.
I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so
sublime. In the progress of ages, England's naval triumphs
will shrink into a more and more narrow space in the records
of our race--this moral triumph will fill a broader--brighter
page." "Take care!" emphatically added Sir Robert Peel, "that
this brighter page be not sullied by the admission of slave
sugar into the consumption of this country--by our
encouragement--and, too, our unnecessary encouragement of
slavery and the slave-trade!"--Noble sentiments!

So much for foreign sugar. Now for--

II. FOREIGN CORN; and we beg the special attention of all parties to
this portion of the manifesto of Sir Robert Peel:--

"Look at the capital invested in land and agriculture in this
country--look at the interests involved in it--look at the arrangement
that has been come to for the commutation of tithes--look at your
importation of corn diminishing for the last ten years--consider the
burdens on the land peculiar to this country[14]--take all these
circumstances into consideration, and then you will agree with Mr
McCulloch, the great advocate of a change in the Corn-law, that
'considering the vast importance of agriculture, _nearly half the
population of the empire are directly or indirectly dependent on it
for employment and the means of subsistence_; a prudent statesman
would pause before he gave his sanction to any measure however sound
in principle, or beneficial to the mercantile and manufacturing
classes, that might endanger the prosperity of agriculture, or check
the rapid spread of improvement.'"[15]

[14] "We believe," says _Mr McCulloch_ himself in another part
of the pamphlet, (Longman & Co., 1841, p. 23--6th Edit.) from
which Sir Robert Peel is quoting, "that land is more heavily
taxed than any other species of property in the country--and
that its owners are clearly ent