been
guilty of proposing to keep the negro in slavery five years, after we
were decided that he had a right to his freedom. The noble and
learned lord here proceeded to contend that up to the present time
the slave-owners, so far from being sufferers, had been gainers by
the abolition of slavery and the enactment of the system of
apprenticeship, and that consequently up to the present moment
nothing had occurred to entitle them to a claim upon the
compensation allotted by parliament. The slave-owners might be said
to have pocketed the seven millions without having the least claim
to them, and therefore, in considering the proposition he was about
to make, parliament should bear in mind that the slave proprietors
were, if anything, the debtors to the nation. The money had, in
fact, been paid to them by mistake, and, were the transaction one
between man and man, an action for its recovery might lie. But the
slave-owners alleged that if the apprenticeship were now done away
there would be a loss, and that to meet that loss they had a right
to the money. For argument's sake he would suppose this to be true,
and that there would be loss; but would it not be fair that the
money should be lodged in the hands of a third party, with authority
to pay back at the expiration of the two years whatever rateable sum
the master could prove himself to have lost? His firm belief was,
that no loss could arise; but, desirous to meet the planter at every
point, he should have no objection to make terms with him. Let him,
then, pay the money into court, as it were, and at the end of two
years he should be fully indemnified for any loss he might prove. He
called upon their lordships to look to Antigua and the Bermudas for
proof that the free negro worked well, and that no loss was
occasioned to the planters or their property by the granting of
emancipation. But it was said that there was a difference between
the cases of Antigua and other colonies, such as Jamaica, and it was
urged that while the negroes of the former, from the smallness and
barrenness of the place, would be forced into work, that in the
latter they would run away, and take refuge in the woods. Now, he
asked, why should the negro run away from his work, on being made
free, more than during the continuance of his apprenticeship? Why,
ag