nt as a loan to the West
Indian planters in order to help them over the diminution of income
which might be expected to follow any interference with the conditions
of slave labor.

The resolutions put forward by the Government were regarded as highly
unsatisfactory by most of the leading abolitionists. Macaulay indeed
argued with all his usual eloquence and skill in favor of the principle
of gradual abolition, and it is hardly necessary to say that it was not
in that speech he made use of the pithy sentence which we have already
quoted. Buxton proposed an amendment to the resolution, an amendment
in fact calling for immediate abolition, and the amendment was seconded
by Daniel O'Connell. Buxton, however, was prevailed upon not to press
his amendment on the ground that the Government were as eager for
emancipation as any one could {198} be, and that Lord Grey and his
colleagues were only anxious to bring forward such a measure as might
at once secure the support of the majority and prevent further delay,
while securing, at the same time, the ultimate and not distant
settlement of the whole question. O'Connell stood firm, argued
strongly against the proposed compromise, refused to accept it, and
actually pressed Buxton's amendment to a division. Of course he was
defeated by a large majority, but he carried a respectable minority
along with him; and few now can doubt that the amendment which he
pressed forward, even after its proposer had abandoned it, was right in
its principle, and that the Government, if forced to it, could have
carried a plan for immediate abolition with little more difficulty than
was found in carrying the scheme of compromise. As the discussion went
on the Government made some further concessions to the abolitionists,
by reducing the time and modifying the terms of the apprenticeship
system, and the abolitionists in general believed it their wisest
policy to accept the modified arrangement and thus avoid any further
delay. Another alteration of great importance was made by the
Government in favor of the planters, and was finally accepted by the
abolitionists and by the country in general. The friends of the
planters made strong representations to the effect that the proffered
loan would be of no use whatever to the owners of slaves whose property
was so soon to pass from their hands into freedom, and that there was
not the slightest chance of the planters being able to pay back to the
Englis