Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the
Fall
of
Slavery
195
British
minority
had
to
live
under
a
system
of French civil
laws
so
antiquated
that
they
had
long
been
discarded
in
France,
laws
that
knew
nothing
of
commerce or
freehold
tenure.
6
The Eastern
Town-
ships,
whose
population
was
English-speaking,
had
not
a seat
in the
assembly
because
they
had
been settled after
the
original
establishment
of
electoral
constituencies
and these had remained
unaltered.
In
order
to
strangle
the executive
into
submission,
the
assembly
had
refused
to
vote
supplies,
with the
result
that "all
improvement
was
at
a
stand,
the roads were
neglected,
education
was
overlooked,
the
public
build-
ings
were suffered to
fall
to
decay,
and
the
country
generally
. .
.
was
brought
to
such
a
state
that there was not
a
Canadian
whose interests
did
not suffer."
Moreover,
the executive had
struck
back.
Unable
to
meet
the minimum
needs of
government
out of
the
40,000
annual
revenue
which was
not
derived
from
provincial
statute
and
therefore
not
legally
subject
to the
assembly's
control,
7
the
governor,
on
his
own
authority,
had
met the
deficit
by drawing
on
the
proceeds
of
the
100,000
revenue at
the
disposal
of
the
assembly.
He had
no
legal
right
to do
this,
but
he felt
that
the
assembly
had
forced
him to
it.
In
conclusion,
Huskisson
rebuked
some
fellow
members
of
parlia-
ment,
and some
other
people
outside,
who had become
so
impatient
with the troubles
of Canada
that
they
would
get
rid of
them
by
getting
rid
of
it. He
poured
forth
his scorn
upon
the
idea.
Discarding
all
argument
over
material
advantages,
he
declared
that
justice
and
honor
forbade
any
such
desertion
of
loyal
British
subjects.
"We
have
carried
our
language,
our
free
institutions,
and
our
system
of
laws,
to
the
remote
corners
of the
globe
. .
. what
we
now foster
as
colonies
will
be,
no
doubt,
one
day
or
other,
themselves
free
nations,
the
communicators
of freedom
to other
countries
Whether
Canada
is
to
remain
forever
dependent
on
England,
or
is to
become
an
independent
state
not,
I
trust,
by
hostile
separation,
but
by
amicable
arrangement
it is still
the
duty
and
interest
of
this
country
to imbue
it
with
English
feeling,
and benefit
it with
English
laws
and
institutions."
Huskisson
failed,
as
his
words
reveal,
to
reach
the
root
of
the
prob-
lem
in Lower
Canada,
and
the French
Canadian
leaders
did
their
best
to
keep
it
hidden
from
English
eyes.
What
these
leaders
said
in French
o
Here
Huskisson
appears
to
have
overlooked
the
fact
that
in
1826
parliament
had
mitioated
this
evil
by passing
the Canada
Tenures
Act,
which
made
English
law the
rulefor
the
regulation
of
reafproperty
in the
Eastern
Townships.
But that
district
was
still
without
law
courts
for
the
adjudication
of
property
and without
registry
offices
for
the
registration
of
deeds.
7
All
hut
5,000
of this
revenue
was
derived
from
the
Quebec
Revenue
Act of
1774.
196
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
to
their
own
people
was not
what
they
said
to
the
rest
of
the
world
in
English,
and
this
for
very
natural
reasons.
While
rousing
their
fol-
lowers
hy
unrestrained
appeals
to
narrow
national
prejudice,
they
were
most careful
to
pose
before
the
British,
particularly
in
England,
as
the
righteous
champions
of
constitutional
government
and
popular
free-
dom.
His
Majesty
had no
subjects
more
loyal
than the
French
Cana-
dians,
according
to the
petitions
and
delegations
they
sent
to
London.
They
appealed
to
the
British
government
to end the
un-British
rule
of
the British rulers
in
their
midst.
French
Canadian nationalism
was
concealing
itself
beneath
the cloak
of
British
constitutionalism.
Small
wonder
the Commons
committee could
not
penetrate
the
disguise.
The
failure of
the
committee becomes
more
understandable
when we take
into account two
other
facts of the
time. As we
look
back
today,
we see
how
nationalism,
in its
new
dynamic phase,
shook
nine-
teenth
century
Europe
to
its
very
foundations
and
later
spread
through-
out
the
world;
but
all
this,
being
yet
in
the
future,
was
beyond
the
ken
of
Englishmen
in 1828.
The real
nature
of
the
troubles
in
Lower
Can-
ada
was
also obscured
by
what was
happening
next
door,
in
Upper
Canada,
where a
genuine
constitutional
struggle
was
developing.
There
the first
assembly
that was not in
general
harmony
with the
upper
chamber and
the
executive
was
elected
in
1824;
and
the
popular
party
was
appealing
to the
Colonial
Office,
with
not a
little
success,
against
specific
actions of
the
local
ruling oligarchy.
The
Commons
committee,
which
was
appointed
"to
inquire
into
the
state of the
civil
government
of Canada"
as
established in
1791,
submitted
a
well-meaning
but
rather
innocuous
report.
It
proposed
no radical
change,
but
it
did
lay
down
a
principle
that
reflected
the
growing
liberal outlook of the
age.
It was
that such
alterations
as
might
be desirable
should,
as far
as
pos-
sible,
be
effected
by
the
local
legislatures
working
in
cooperation
with
the
local
government,
rather
than
by
the
paramount
authority
of
parlia-
ment.
The committee
recommended some
detailed
concessions
on
both
sides
and a
more
conciliatory disposition
in the
operation
of the
consti-
tution in
the
two Canadas.
One
recommendation,
suggested by
Huskisson
and
based
on do-
mestic
British
experience,
was
that the
assembly
should
have
control of
the
whole revenue and
provide
a
permanent
civil
list
to
preserve
the
independence
of the
judges
and other
principal
officers
of
government.
This
compromise
was
possible
in
Upper
Canada but
not
in
Lower
Canada,
where
party
division
cut
too
deep.
The
difference
was
demon-
strated
in
183
1,
when
the new
Whig
government
surrendered
financial
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the Fall
of
Slavery
197
control
to
the
two
Canadian
assemblies
and
asked them
to
reciprocate.
The
Upper
Canadian
house
obliged,
while
the Lower
Canadian
body
took
all and
gave
nothing,
not
even its
thanks.
The tension in
the
lower
province
was
rising
to
a
dangerous
pitch.
The
spring
of
1832
saw
an
election riot in
Montreal,
where
three men
were
killed and
many
were
wounded
when a
nationalist
crowd clashed
with
the
troops
called
out
to
preserve
order.
Papineau
then
shrieked
that
Craig, governor
before
the
War of
1812,
had
only
imprisoned
men
whereas
Aylmer,
the
governor
of
the
day,
shot them
down
in the street.
Lower
Canada,
which
contained
by
far the
largest
white
population
of
any
colony
in the
empire,
was
ripening
for
the rebellion of
1837. But
the
problem
of
government
in
this one
colony
could
not
compare
in
magnitude,
or
in
appeal
to the British
public,
with
the
problem
of the
blacks
in
the whole
series
of
old colonies that had
long
since
ceased
to
be
predominantly
white.
The issue of
slavery
progressively
overshadowed all other
colonial
questions
in the
first
third
of the nineteenth
century.
When
parliament
abolished
the
British slave
trade
in
the
spring
of
1807,
eight
months
before the United
States slave
trade
became
illegal
under
the
Constitu-
tion,
the
promoters
of
the measure
had no
intention of
following up
their success
by
demanding
the
abolition of
slavery. They
believed
that
the
Negroes
were unfit for
it,
but
they
did look forward
to the
gradual
amelioration of the lot
of
the slaves. Would not self-interest drive
the
planters
to
preserve
and
improve
their slave
stock,
now
that
they
could
not
replenish
it,
instead
of
wearing
it
out,
as
they
had been wont to do
because
it
was
cheaper
to
import
fresh stock? In
the
words of
James
Stephen
the
elder,
the friends of the blacks
anticipated
"an
emancipa-
tion
of
which
not the
slaves
but the masters
themselves would be the
willing
authors." It
was not
in
the colonies
but in Africa that the
friends
of
the
blacks
sought
to
follow
up
their
success.
In the summer
of 1807
they
founded
the African
Institution,
the
original
purpose
of
which
was
to
encourage
merchants and
missionaries who would
bring
civilization
and
Christianity
to Africa
and thus
"repair
the ruin
and
degradation
which
we
have contributed
to
bring upon
her."
This
organization,
in which
the
elder
Stephen
and
Wilberforce
played
the
leading
roles,
soon found
that
it had more
urgent
work to
do
in
the
colonies,
because
the
act of
1807
did not
operate
as
expected.
The
iniquitous
traffic
had to
be
stopped
in
fact
as
well as
in
law,
and
the slaves
had
to
be
protected
against
their
masters.
These
then
became
the
two chief
objects
of
the African
Institution.
In 1811
it
got
new
198
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
teeth
put
into
the
law,
which
had
prescribed
nothing
more
severe
than
heavy
fines
and
confiscation,
by
making
slave
trading
a
criminal
offense
for
which
the
punishment
was
transportation.
But this
was
not
enough
for
Stephen.
He
insisted that
illicit
importation
would continue
until
a
rigid
registration
law,
requiring
a
clearly
identifiable
description
of
every
individual
slave,
prevented
masters
from
acquiring legal
title
to
any
black
property
that
might
be
smuggled
in;
and he
persuaded
the
prime
minister,
his friend and
patron,
to
try
the
experiment
in
the
new
colony
of Trinidad.
This was
just
before
Bathurst entered
the
cabinet;
and
apparently
it was
Stephen
who
prepared
the first
draft
of the
order
and
selected
the
registrar
to
implement
it in the island.
Until the
close of the
war,
the
Royal Navy
could
and did
give
almost
universal
application
to the British law
against
the
slave
trade,
but
the
return of
peace
made this no
longer
possible
and raised
the
prospect
of
a
revival of the traffic in the hands of
other
powers.
Thereupon
a
tremendous
wave of
feeling
swept
over
England
to force
the
govern-
ment to use its
strong
international
position
to make
abolition
universal.
According
to
the Duke
of
Wellington
the
people
were
willing
to
go
to
war
for
abolition.
During
seven weeks in
the
early
summer
of
1814
no
less
than 772
petitions
bearing
almost
a million
signatures
(the
total
population
of
Great
Britain
was
only
thirteen
million)
were
addressed
to
the
House of Commons. Under
such
pressure
the British
govern-
ment was
embarrassingly
importunate
at the
Congress
of
Vienna.
Other
countries
suspected
some hidden
British
design;
and
France,
Spain,
and
Portugal
held out
resolutely.
It
was
this vehement
outburst
of
British
public
opinion
and
its failure to
get
complete
international
cooperation
to
wipe
out the traffic in slaves
that
provides
the
back-
ground
for the efforts
then
made to
mitigate
the
evils
of
slavery
in the
British
colonies.
There
was
quite
a
tussle over
the extension of
Stephen's
registration
scheme,
which had been confined to Trinidad. In
1815 it was
applied
to St.
Lucia and
Mauritius without
any difficulty
because
they
were
crown
colonies
too. But it was a
different
matter
to
thrust
it
upon
the
old
colonies,
for there
it meant
riding roughshod
over
long-established
rights
of
self-government.
It
was
on
this
point, apparently,
that
Bathurst broke
with
the
elder
Stephen
in 1815. The
crusading
lawyer
knew full well that the
legislatures
of
these
colonies,
being
filled
with
slaveowners,
were
bitterly opposed
to
any
such
reform;
and
he could
not
suppose
for a
moment,
as
he
said,
"that the
Government
of
this
country
will
ever
admit
or
countenance in
Parliament
the monstrous
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the Fall
of
Slavery
1
99
pretension
of
those
petty
assemblies
to
exclude in such
a
case
the
controlling
and
regulating
hand of
the
supreme
legislature."
But
the
colonial
secretary
balked
at
the
idea
of
imposing
a
registration
law
upon
them
by
act
of
parliament.
Stephen's
famous
brother-in-law
tried
to force the
issue
by
introduc-
ing
into
the House
of
Commons a
bill to establish
registry
offices
in all
the West
Indian
colonies
and
a
registry
office
in
England
where
duplicates
of
the
island
registers
would be
kept
for
inspection.
No
master could then
have
any
property
right
over
a black
who was
not
properly
registered.
The
bill
provoked
two heated
debates,
not over
the
principle
of
registration,
which was
generally
accepted,
but over
the method
of
adopting
it. The
ministry
fought
for
legislation
by
the
colonies,
while
Wilberforce
was
easily
able
to
prove
that
they
had
consistently
rejected
measures
for the
benefit of
their slaves
even
when
recommended
by
the
House
of
Commons or
their
own
committees
in
England. Though
he
and his
fellows
had the better
of
the
argument,
he
was
persuaded
to withdraw the bill
until
replies
could be
got
from
the
colonies,
Bathurst
pledging
himself to
urge
the
reform
upon
them.
The
Colonial Office was
thus
prodded
into
coercing
the
colonial
legislatures
by
threatening
them with
parliamentary
action
if
they
did
not do as
desired. The circular
dispatch
that shook
this
big
stick
at the
West Indies
went
out
in
the
summer
of
1816,
when resentment in the
islands
had been forced to fever heat
by
an
Easter
rising
of slaves
in
Barbados.
Only
one white
was
killed,
but
many
estates
were wrecked
and hundreds of blacks
were slain
or
executed. Of
course
Stephen
and
his
African Institution
were cursed for
instigating
the
revolt;
but the
Caribbean
legislatures
bowed
to
their
will
and
passed
registration
acts.
Then the
government
had
parliament
crown
the
system
in 1819
by
setting
up
a central
registry
office
in
London.
The
constitutional
aspect
of this
struggle
over
registration
is interest-
ing.
The real
victory lay
with
the
Colonial
Office,
and
it
was
a
double
victory
over
parliament
as
well
as the
colonies.
The
ministry
had held
off
parliament
from
asserting
its
supremacy
over elected
colonial
legis-
latures,
which
therefore
might
and
did
for a while believe
they
had
preserved
their
independence.
But
the
fact
of their submission
belied
their belief. What
they
preserved
was
a rather hollow form. The
power
exercised
by
the Colonial
Office
over
the
crown colonies was
now
being
definitely
extended
over
the old
colonies
that had
long managed
their
own
internal affairs.
Thenceforth
they
were
subject
to
growing
dicta-
tion from
London
until
they
too
became
crown
colonies.
On
the
other
200
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
hand,
the ministers
could
count
on
the
West
Indian interest
in
the
House
of
Commons
to
back
their
resistance
to
parliamentary
interfer-
ence
in
colonial
administration,
and on
the
"African"
party
to
uphold
the
prerogative
of
the Crown
to
legislate
for
the
conquered
colonies.
Registration
was not the
only phase
of the
slavery question
that
was
changing
the
relations between
the
colonies and
the mother
country.
Sentiment
in
England
was
outraged
to
discover that
British
slaves
had
almost no
protection
in
law
and
less
in the
application
of
it.
They
could
not be
legally
married
or
baptized,
nor
could
they
own
property
or
purchase
their
redemption
from
bondage,
nor
could
they
expect
much
justice
from
white
judges
and
juries. They
were
neglected by
the
Church of
England,
which confined
its
activities
to
the
whites;
and
when missionaries
of other denominations
tried
to
give
them a
little
Christian
education,
these bearers
of
the
Gospel commonly
met
with
short
shrift from
the
masters,
who
would
tolerate
no
tampering
with
their
slaves.
Slavery
in the
British West
Indies,
as in the United
States,
was
much
harsher than
in Latin
America,
primarily
because
of a
difference
in
legal
and
religious
tradition.
8
When
the
Spaniards
and
Portuguese
set-
tled
in
the
New
World,
they
carried with them a
law,
inherited
from
the
Roman
Empire,
that
recognized
and
regulated
the institution
of
slavery;
and
the Roman
Catholic
Church,
by insisting
that
slaves
had
souls to save and must be
regarded
as
members of
the Christian
com-
munity,
gave
a
strong
religious
sanction
to
the
slave codes
in
the
Spanish
and
Portuguese
colonies.
English
law,
on the
other
hand,
knew
nothing
of
slavery
when the
English
colonists
brought
the two
together;
and as
it
had no other
category
for slaves
than
that
of
chattels,
this
is
what
they
became in
the
eyes
of the law.
Victims
of a
defective
law,
the
slaves in
the
English
colonies
9
were
also
victims
of a
weakness
in
Protestantism,
which
felt little or no
responsibility
for
the
salvation
of
nonwhite
races
until
the
rise of
the
humanitarian
movement.
From
almost the
turn of
the
century
the
correspondence
between the
secretary
of
state
and
the
governors
of
the
various
British
Caribbean
islands
was more
and more concerned
with
improving
the
lot
of the
slave
by
humanizing
the law and its
administration.
Conditions were
so bad
that
almost
any change
would have been for
the
better;
yet
it
8
On
this
subject
see
Frank
Tannenbaum,
"The
Destiny
of the
Negro
in
the
Western
Hemisphere,"
Political Science
Quarterly,
March
1946,
pp.
1-41.
8
This of course does
not include the
conquered
colonies,
such
as
Trinidad,
where
the
British continued
the
Roman
law.
The Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the Fall
of
Slavery
201
was
very
difficult
to
effect a
change.
The
Barbadian
assembly
balked
at
making
murder
of
a
slave a
felony
until a
special
message
was sent in
the
king's
name,
and
in
another
island
martial
law
had to be
pro-
claimed to
bring
about
the
execution
of a
council
member who
de-
lighted
in
torturing
Negroes
to
death.
The
"Africans" in the
House of
Commons
made
great
capital
out
of the
atrocities
of this
particular
monster,
and
local
resistance
to
the
reform
of
slavery
cured
more than
one West
Indian
governor
of
any
faith
in
West
Indian
self-government.
Still
the
ministry
was
loath
to
appeal
to
parliament
against
it,
and the
legislative
colonies
remained
sullenly
deaf
to the
repeated
urgings
of
the
Colonial
Office to
purge
slavery
of
its evils.
In
1823
the
crusade
of
the
"Africans"
changed
its
course. The
slave
trade,
though
banned
by
most
countries,
was
as
great
an
evil
as
ever,
and so were
the
conditions
of
slavery
in the
British
colonies. The
labors
of
a
generation
seemed
to
have
gone
for
nothing
because
they
had been
directed
along impossible
channels.
Therefore the
champions
of the
blacks at
last
decided
to
drive
for
the abolition of
an
institution that
could not
be
reformed.
In
January
1823
they
organized
the
Anti-
Slavery
Society
10
in
London,
which
within
a
year
had
a
couple
of
hundred
branches
all
over the
country.
In
March,
the
old and
ailing
Wilberforce
fired the
opening
shot in
the
new
campaign
by
presenting
a
Quaker
petition
to
parliament
to
abolish
slavery
in all
British
posses-
sions;
and in
May,
Thomas Powell
Buxton,
whom
he
had chosen to
be
his
successor as
parliamentary
leader of the
cause,
followed it
up
by
moving
"that
the
state
of
slavery
is
repugnant
to
the
principles
of
the
British
constitution,
and of the
Christian
religion,
and
that
it
ought
to
be abolished
gradually throughout
the British
colonies,
with
as much
expedition
as
may
be found consistent
with a
due
regard
to
the
well-
being
of the
parties
concerned."
The
plan
then
propounded
by
Buxton had two
parts,
to
the first
of
which
he
pinned
his faith. It
was that
every
child born after a
certain
date
should
be
free.
As
parliament
had
made it
piracy
to
enslave a
full-
grown
Negro,
it
should
sweep
away
the law
that made slaves
of
chil-
dren
by
the mere fact of birth.
Then
slavery
would
slowly
but
surely
die
out.
The
second
part
concerned
existing
slaves.
Buxton said
he
could
not
demand
their
immediate
emancipation
because
they
were
not
ready
for
it,
but
he called for
a
series of drastic reforms
that
he
had
already
communicated
to Bathurst.
Among
other
things,
the law
official name
was
the
"Society
for
the
Mitigation
and
Gradual
Abolition of
Slavery
throughout
the British
Dominions,"
but
this was
popularly
shortened
as
above.
202
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
should
cease
to
regard
slaves
as
chattels;
it should
admit
their
testimony
in
the
courts;
it
should shift
the burden
of
proof
from
them to
masters
who
claimed
their
services;
it
should
remove
all
obstructions
to
manu-
mission and should follow
Spanish
precedent
by
allowing
them
to
purchase
freedom
at a
just
price;
it should
not
permit
any
slaveowner
to be
governor, judge,
or
attorney
general;
it should
recognize
and
protect
the
marriage
of
slaves;
it
should
make
provision
for
their
reli-
gious
instruction
and
give
them
Sundays
to
themselves;
and it
should
restrain the masters'
power
of
punishment.
Buxton's attack
precipitated
a
parliamentary
battle
between
the
West Indians and
the "Africans"
that lasted
until
well
into
the
next
morning,
when it
was
ended
by
the unanimous
passage
of a
compro-
mise
advanced
by
the
government.
This shelved
the
first
part
of
Bux-
ton's
plan,
the
government
asserting
that the
emancipation
of
infants
whose
parents
would
remain in
bondage
was
unwise;
but
it
committed
the
House
and
the
ministry
to
gradual
emancipation
by
the
progres-
sive
mitigation
of
slavery,
on the
understanding
that
it
would
be
on
such lines
as were set forth in the second
part
of the
plan.
The
govern-
ment also
explained
that it
would
adhere to the
policy
it had
pursued
on
the
registration question,
enforcing
the
program
in the
crown
colo-
nies
and
recommending
it to
the
other
colonies. If
the latter
were
contumacious,
the ministers
"would
not hesitate to come
down
to
.
Parliament for counsel."
Behind
the
government compromise
were
several
important
con-
siderations
that
are
clearly
evident.
Almost
everybody
admitted that
the
sugar
colonies were
suffering
acute
economic distress
and
therefore
deserved
sympathetic
handling.
This was also
good
politics
because
there
were
many
members
of
parliament,
in both
houses,
who
were
financially
interested,
directly
or
indirectly,
in
these
islands
whose
whole
economy
was
on
the
brink
of
ruin.
Moreover,
the
West
Indians
and the East
Indians
in
London were
at
this time
taking steps
that
promised
to make
the
obdurate assemblies
fall into
line.
During
the
three weeks
prior
to
Buxton's
attack,
knowing
it
was
coming
and
greatly fearing
its effect
upon
the
slave
population
of the
Caribbeans,
the
Society
of West
India
Planters
and
Merchants
formulated
a
pro-
gram
of
reform so
thorough-going
that
it was
almost
the
same
in
many
particulars
as the
second
part
of
Buxton's
plan.
The
society
then im-
portuned
the
colonial
legislatures
to
go
all the
way
with
the
govern-
ment,
and
that
promptly,
lest
it
be
too late
to
head
off
the
antislavery
drive
in
Britain and
dangerous
trouble with
the
Negroes
on
the
planta-
The
Rise
of
the Colonial
Office
and the Fall
of
Slavery
203
tions.
The East
Indians were
clamoring
for
a reduction
of
the duties
on
their
sugars
to
give
them
the same
preference
as
the
West
Indians
enjoyed,
and
just
a
week
after
Buxton's
attack there
was
a
motion
in
the
House
of
Commons for a
select committee
to
investigate
the
rates
on
East and West
India
sugar.
The
threat of
equalization,
which
would
make
it
impossible
for the
old
colonies
to
compete,
was
a sword
of
Damocles
suspended
over
the West Indies.
Bathurst
lost no time in
attempting
to
apply
the
policy
of
gradual
emancipation
to
which the
government
was now
pledged.
It
was
easy
to
get
a
program
of
reform because
it
had been
pretty
well
worked
out
for
him
by
Buxton and the London West
Indians,
but
it
was
hard
to
get
it
carried out. Instead
of
generous
cooperation,
the
colonial
secre-
tary
encountered bitter obstruction
in the colonies.
They
were
soon
in
an
angrier uproar
than
that
with which
the continental
colonies
had
begun
the American
Revolution.
The
island
planters,
however,
were
in
such
a
helpless
position
that
they
could
not
appeal
to
arms
against
the
mother
country. They
were in
mortal
terror
of
a
British
San
Do-
mingo;
and
they
resorted
to not
a little
violence,
sometimes
naked
and
sometimes
cloaked
in
legality,
to
cow
the
restless
Negroes
and
to
get
rid
of
the
missionaries,
whom
they
naturally
but
unjustly
suspected
of
fomenting
insurrection.
The most notorious
case
was that
of
John
Smith
in Demerara.
The
slaves
in that
crown
colony,
hearing
that
some
"good
thing"
ordered
from
London
was
being
withheld
from
them
by
local
authorities,
which
was
true,
went
on a
spree
of
liberty
in
August
1823.
They
neither
looted
nor
burned,
but
they
killed
two
whites
who
resisted
their
search
for
arms,
and
they
were
mercilessly
suppressed.
Not
content
with
tak-
ing
many
black
lives,
the
vengeance
of
the
planters,
of
whom the
gov-
ernor
was
one,
turned
on
Smith,
in
whose
chapel
they
said
the
plot
was
hatched.
Though
absolutely
innocent,
he
was condemned
to death
by
court
martial.
The
sentence
was
referred
to
England,
where it
was
quashed
too
late. While
still
in close
confinement,
he died
of tuber-
culosis.
Opinion
in
Britain
reacted
to the
martyrdom
of
John
Smith
much
as
it reacted
in
the
Northern
States
to
the
execution
of
John
Brown
a
generation
afterward.
In
the crown
colonies,
where
the
authority
of
London
was not
open
to
question,
the
reform
of
slavery
ran into countless
snags.
These
colo-
nies
had
different
laws
Dutch,
Spanish,
and
French
all
foreign
to
the
English
system;
and
these
divergencies
were
paralleled
in
many
other
conditions
surrounding
slavery.
The
Colonial
Office
had
there-
204
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
fore
to
rely
on
the
local
officials
not
only
to
enforce
the
desired
meas-
ures but
also to
adapt
them to
local
conditions,
all
of
which
meant
that
the
planters
in the
crown
colonies
had
plenty
of
opportunity
for
ob-
struction.
Naturally
they
made
the
most
of
it.
In
the
chartered
colo-
nies,
the
assemblies
would
not
comply
with
the
recommendations
of
the Colonial Office
even
though
the
latter
had
the
strong
backing
of
the
London West
Indians,
who
were
then
constrained
to defend
at
home
the
resistance
in
the colonies.
At
first
the
assemblies
adopted
a
policy
of evasion.
Instead
of
accepting
or
rejecting
the
prescribed
program,
they
reviewed
their
slave
laws,
made
some
ineffectual
little
changes
in
them,
and
then
professed
that
in
so
doing
they
were
giving
every
pos-
sible
satisfaction
to
the desires
of
the home
government.
Thus
flouted,
Bathurst
sent
out drafts
of
legislation
with orders
for
the
law officers
of
each
colony
to
frame
them
as
bills
to
be
introduced
into
the
local
legis-
lature.
When
this
was
done,
the
little
colony
of
Nevis
accepted
the
bills;
but
with
this
single
exception
every legislature
either
threw
them
out
or would
not
allow
them
to be
brought
in.
The
whole
business,
dragging
on
year
after
year,
was
most
exasperat-
ing.
The
slaves
were
exasperated,
their masters
were
exasperated,
the
Colonial
Office
was
exasperated,
the
whole
government
was
exasper-
ated,
the
antislavery
leaders
and
their
followers
in
parliament
and out
of
it
were
exasperated,
and
the
British
public
was
exasperated.
The
emancipationists,
unable
to
muster
a
majority
of votes
in
parliament,
were
determined
to
bring
outside
pressure
to bear
upon
that
body,
and
to
this
end
they
bombarded
the
people
with their
propaganda,
while
the
slavery
interests
bombarded
them
with
counterpropaganda.
The
press,
the
pulpit,
and the
public
platform
thundered.
The
agitation
at
home
aggravated
feeling
in the
colonies,
and
news from the colonies
fed
the
flaming
controversy
at home.
In
1830
the
antislavery
crusaders,
despairing
of
getting gradual
emancipation
by
colonial
action,
raised the
cry
of
immediate
emancipa-
tion
by
act of
parliament;
and
in the
elections
of
that
and the
following
year,
they pledged
parliamentary
candidates and
appealed
to
the
people
to
elect
them.
Though
by
this
time
public
interest was
chiefly
focused
on
the
great
question
of
parliamentary
reform,
this was not so much an
end
in
itself
as
it was
a means to effect other
reforms,
of
which the
abolition
of
slavery
was
not the
least;
reports
from
the
colonies then
drew
startling
attention to
the need
for
quick
and
strong
action on
slavery.
In
January
1831,
a
public meeting
of
planters
and merchants
in
Grenada
called
for a West India
congress;
two
months
later such a