make a
great difference in the sum to be paid to the master. Calculations would
show that if the value of L30,000,000, or L37 10s. each were taken, and
the interest of money calculated at six per cent., the sum to be paid
to the master would be L27,000,000; but if the value of the slaves
were taken at L24,000,000, and the interest of money at six per cent.,
L15,000,000 would be the sum to be paid to him. Besides this, the
allowance for the advances for the support of the slave would, at ten
per cent., amount to L3,406,000; at eight per cent., to L3,786,000; and
at six per cent, to L4,900,000. This would show that the apprenticeship
materially came into the account, in estimating the compensation to the
master for his loss; and the compensation would not be made in a state
of slavery, but in a state of comparative freedom. Mr. Stanley said that
if the West India proprietors were asked what they thought of the plan
of apprenticeship, they would say that they could not go on without it;
and that without the application of such a principle in the bill, the
colonies would go to ruin, and the proprietors be reduced to beggary.
In fact, he said, if Mr. Buxton's motion should be carried, he must
be prepared to see the whole frame of civilization in the colonies
destroyed, and a state of things brought about which, however they
might in time settle down into some improvement, must at least begin in
barbarism. On a division, Mr. Buxton's amendment was lost by a majority
of only seven, one hundred and fifty-one having voted for it, and
one hundred and fifty-eight against it. The result of this division
convinced government that they must make some concession on this point;
and on the following day Mr. Stanley resolved to reduce the period of
prodial apprenticeship from twelve years to seven, and of non-prodial
from seven to five years. This was adopted, and clauses were added,
empowering the commissioners for the management of the national debt to
raise the money by a loan, specifying the manner in which the operation
was to be conducted after which the bill passed. In the upper-house some
amendments were added to the bill, which did not affect its substance,
and these were finally agreed to by the commons. Thus the dark spot of
slavery was wiped out of the British annals; we had no slaves at home,
and now it was nobly resolved that we should have none abroad--that
wherever Britain's power was felt, mankind should feel her mercy al