ng a better administration,
or whether the tories could safely appeal to the test of a popular
election? Lord John Russell concluded by suggesting to Sir William
Molesworth the expediency of withdrawing his motion, in order that the
house might divide upon the amendment. The right honourable baronet
consented to this; but said that, for his own part, he felt precluded
from voting on either side on the amendment of Lord Sandon. On a
division ministers had a majority of twenty-nine only; the numbers
being, against the amendment, three hundred and sixteen; for it, two
hundred and eighty-seven.

REVIVAL OF ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION, ETC.

At this period anti-slavery agitation again became the order of the
day. On the one hand there existed a large class of declaimers and needy
orators who were interested in the revival of the subject; and on
the other, there was a powerful body of humane people, to whom the
contemplation of the sufferings of the negro people had become habitual,
and who required little inducement to recur to such an exciting theme.
But there was a cause for this display of philanthropy: the slave
was still in chains, and was still suffering from the lash of the
hard-hearted driver. The legislatures also in the colonies were not free
from blame; they acted in many cases with obstinacy and intemperance;
and Jamaica especially afforded many instances of systematic violations
of the imperial law. The apprentice system, in point of fact, was a
complete failure: it produced on the part of the slaves contumacy; and
on the part of the masters breaches of the law, cruelty, and violence.
From these circumstances there was no difficulty in lighting up a flame
in England on the subject. Meetings were held and petitions got up, with
a view of hastening the time when the slave should become a man among
his fellow-men. The subject of slavery was brought before the house of
lords, on the 29th of January, by Lord Brougham, who, after presenting
a petition from Leeds, praying the immediate abolition of negro slavery,
delivered an eloquent and impassioned speech on the enormities still
committed in the slave-trade. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Glenelg
admitted that Lord Brougham's statements of the horrors of slavery were
substantially correct. In his speech his lordship had said, that British
officers were induced to allow vessels equipped for the slave-trade to
escape, in order to secure the head-money, and to wait a