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
205
congress,
comprising
members of
the
several
legislatures
who had
been
chosen
by public
meetings
for
this
purpose,
met
in
Barbados
and
passed
some
vigorous
resolutions.
These
set forth
the
grievances
of
the
Carib-
bean
colonies
and
denounced
any
interference
with their
property.
Never before
had
anything
like
this
occurred
in the West Indies.
It
recalled
the
ominous
beginning
of the American
Revolution,
and
it was
followed
by
angrier
outbursts in
crown and chartered
colonies alike.
The
climax came
toward
the
end
of the
year
and
in
Jamaica,
with wild
talk
of
hoisting
the
American
flag
and
appealing
to
the
United
States
for
protection,
and
with a
destructive servile
insurrection,
which the
irresponsible
language
of
the
white leaders did not
a
little to
provoke.
It seemed
as
if the
whole of
the British
West Indies
might
blow
up
at
any
moment.
What
brought
this
Caribbean
crisis
to a
head
was
the
crisis
at home
over
parliamentary
reform;
for
it
was common
knowledge
that
the
passage
of the Reform
Bill,
by
routing
the
West
India interest from
its
entrenched
position
in
the House of
Commons,
would
deliver
parlia-
ment
to the
abolitionists. As
the
crisis over
parliamentary
reform
passed
in
May
1832,
when
Wellington
failed
to form
a
ministry
and
Grey
returned to
power
with a
royal
promise
to create
enough
peers
to
carry
the
Reform
Bill,
the
West
Indians lost
their final
battle
to save
slavery,
and
they
knew
it. Thenceforth
their interest
was
in
getting
the
best
possible
terms of surrender.
The
working
out of a scheme
for
emancipation
that would be both
"safe and
satisfactory"
was
a
slow
and
difficult
task
entailing
much
investigation
and
negotiation.
Not until
a
year
afterward,
in the
first
session
of the
first
reformed
parliament,
did the
government
present
its
detailed
proposals
to
the House of Commons.
The
institution of
slavery
was
to be abolished
throughout
all
British
possessions.
Slaves under
six
years
of
age
were
to
be
free
immediately.
All
others
were
to
work
their
way
to
freedom
through
a
period
of twelve
years,
bound as
ap-
prentices
to
give
three
quarters
of
the
day
or
week
to their old
masters,
from
whom
the
power
of
punishment
was transferred to
magistrates
answerable to the
home
government.
During
the
remaining
quarter
of
their
time,
the
apprentices
would
serve
as free
laborers
for
wages,
which
were
to
be fixed
at
one twelfth of their value
as
slaves and
to be
used
as
compensation
to the owners.
Meanwhile,
the
latter,
to offset
the
immediate loss
of one
quarter
of
the slaves'
time,
were
to
receive
a
government
loan
of
15,000,000,
which
was calculated
to
be ten
times
their
annual
profit
on
sugar,
rum,
and
coffee;
and if
parliament
desired
206
CHAPTER
TWELVE
to relieve
the slaves
from
paying
compensation,
it could
change
this
loan
into
a
gift.
The
government
admitted
that,
as
slavery
was
a
national
wrong
for
which
the
whole
nation
was
responsible,
the
people
of
the mother
country
should
share
with
the
slaves
and
their
masters
the
cost
of
extinguishing
it.
These
proposals
drew
cross
fire
from
the
abolitionists
and the
West
Indians.
The former
would
eliminate
or
at
least
reduce
the
period
of
apprenticeship,
and
they
attacked
compensation;
while
the
latter,
who
fiercely
resisted
every
attempt
to
cut
down
apprenticeship,
fought
for
more
adequate
compensation.
The
upshot
was
a
compromise.
The
gov-
ernment
agreed
to
make
an
outright grant
of
20,000,000,
and to limit
apprenticeship
for
field
hands
to
six
years
and
for
others
to four
years.
The
grant
amounted
to
nearly
half
the
national
revenue
for
a
year
and
about
the
same
proportion
of
the total
market
price
of
the slaves.
Toward
the
end
of
the
summer
the
Abolition
Bill,
which
was
drafted
by
James
Stephen,
became
law.
It
came
into
effect
eleven
months
later,
on
1
August
1834.
As
the
day
of
deliverance
drew
near,
there
was tense
anxiety
in the
mother
country
and
the
West
Indies
lest
the
slave
population
break
loose
in
an
orgy
of
blood
and
fire.
There
was
an
explosion,
but not of
the
kind
that
had
long
been
dreaded.
It
was
an
outburst
of
delirious
jubilation
unaccompanied
by
violence.
For
this
happy
restraint
much
credit
goes
to
the self-control
of
the
planters
who
knew
their
day
was
done,
to
the
strenuous
efforts
of
the
missionaries
who
had
won
the
confidence
of
the
slaves,
and
still
more
to
the
Negroes
themselves.
The
legislatures
of
Antigua
and
Bermuda
did
away
with
apprenticeship
at
once.
Elsewhere
the
system
worked
tolerably
well
except
in
Jamaica.
There
it
was
so
shockingly
abused
that
the
antislavery agitation
flared
up
in
England
again
and
forced
the
abandonment
of
apprenticeship
in
all
the
colonies
on
1
August
1838.
So
ended
the
liberation
of
some
three
quarters
of
a million
blacks
from
bondage.
How
they
would
use their
freedom
had
long
been
a
matter
of
bitter
dispute
between
the
antislavery
leaders
and
the
plant-
ers,
the former
insisting
and
the latter
vehemently
denying
that
free
labor
would
prove
more
profitable
than slave
labor.
The event
proved
the
planters
right;
for
the liberated
blacks,
able
to
sustain
life
with
a
minimum
of
toil
in
their
tropical
islands,
were little
tempted
by
wages.
But
the
planters
themselves
had conditioned
the event
by
their success-
ful
resistance
to
the
gradual
reform
of
slavery;
and
they paid
for
it with
their
own
ruin,
which
was now
nearly
complete.
CHAPTER
XIII
The Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
THE
RISE of the Colonial
Office and
the
fall of
slavery
reflected
a
changing
concept
of
empire.
The tide
of
British
imperialism,
which
had
reached
its first
flood
in the
Seven
Years'
War,
its
first
great
ebb
in
the
American
Revolutionary
War,
and
its second flood
in
the
Napo-
leonic
Wars,
was
again receding.
The turn came
in
the hour of
Britain's
most
resounding
imperial triumph
when,
as the
only
great
world
power
in
existence,
she
went to the
Congress
of
Vienna
and
there
made
an
unprecedented
renunciation of colonial
conquests
in order to
buy
a
lasting peace.
The
international
rivalry
for colonial
possessions,
which
had em-
broiled
European
powers
ever since
the
discovery
of
America,
had
come
to
an
end
with
the
practical
elimination
of all
Britain's com-
petitors;
and
until the
last
quarter
of
the
nineteenth
century,
when
new
conditions
precipitated
a
new
and
more
feverish scramble
for colo-
nies,
neither
Britain
nor
any
other
power
was
much
interested
in this
game
of
grab.
It
was
an
anti-imperialist
age,
which reached
its
climax
around
the
middle
of
the
century,
when most
people
in
Britain who
gave
any
thought
to
their
empire
actually
anticipated,
some
with com-
placency
and
some
with
impatience,
its
early
dissolution.
Paradoxically
this
attitude
of
indifference
or
aversion
prevailed
in
the
midst of
the
long
and
only
period
when British
sea
power,
without
which
the
sprawling
British
Empire
could
not
have
been
built
up
or held
together,
was
absolutely
supreme.
The burden
of
empire
was
beginning
to
weigh
upon
Britain
when a
special
department
of
government
was
organized
to
help
bear
it
and
when
a
new
sense
of
responsibility
found
expression
in the victorious
struggle
against
slavery.
In
the
arguments
that
flew
back
and
forth,
the
planters
made
strong
appeals
to
imperial
sentiment
and
interest,
thinking
this
would
embarrass
their
opponents
by rallying
public
opin-
208
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
ion
against
them,
while the
champions
of
the
blacks
did
not
hesitate
to
use
anti-imperial
language
to
further
their
cause.
Emancipation,
it
is
true,
was effected
by
an
exercise
of
imperial
power;
but
the
end
was
regarded
as
justifying
the
means,
and
the
end
was
the
very
opposite
of
imperialistic.
Britain
would
free
the
slaves
even
if it
ruined
her
West
Indian
colonies
and
even
though
it was
at
a
heavy
cost to
her
own
exchequer.
Whence
came
the
growing
idea
that
colonies
were
a
burden
rather
than
a benefit
to the
mother
country?
It
sprang
from
the
economic
teaching
of Adam
Smith,
In
the
long
chapter
on
colonies
in his
Wealth
of
Nations,
which
was
published
in
the
same
year
as
the
American
Declaration
of
Independence,
he
exploded
the
fallacy
on
which
the
old
colonial
system
rested.
According
to
this
fallacy,
the
profits
accruing
from
the
monopoly
of
colonial
trade
compensated
the
parent
state
for
the
outlays
it
incurred
in
protecting
the
colonies
and
this
monopoly.
His
closely
reasoned
analysis
showed
that
these
profits
were
collected
by
a
few
at
the
expense
of
the
many,
and
that
from
a national
point
of
view
the
monopoly
produced
loss
instead
of
gain.
This
was because the
artificial
restraints
which
the
system
imposed
on
the
freedom
of
trade
operated
to
divert
capital
and labor
from
more
to less
profitable
uses,
thereby cramping
the
prosperity
not
only
of
the colonies
but of the
mother
country
as
well.
He
also
pointed
out
how
enormous
were
the
ex-
penses
incurred
to
support
this
injurious
system.
In
addition
to the
cost
of
the
ordinary
peacetime
military
establishment
in the
colonies
twenty
regiments
of foot
and
auxiliary
services
and
the
cost of main-
taining
a considerable
naval
force to
keep
away
from the
colonies
"the
smuggling
vessels
of other
nations,"
there
was the
mountainous
cost of
past
wars
waged
for
the sake
of
the
colonies.
"Great
Britain derives
nothing
but
loss
from
the
dominion
which
she assumes
over her
colonies."
Adam
Smith thus
came to
the
conclusion
that,
as
the colonies
were a
source
of
weakness
rather
than
of
strength,
it would
be
to Britain's
advantage
to
give
them
up.
Yet
he admitted
that
this was a counsel
of
perfection,
which
"never
was,
and
never will
be,
adopted
by any
nation
in the
world"
because
it
would be
too
mortifying
to national
pride
and
too
injurious
to
the
personal
interests
of those
who formed
the
govern-
ment.
Therefore
he
proposed,
as
others
were then
doing,
that the
rising
American
difficulty might
be
solved
by introducing
colonial
representa-
tion
into
the
imperial
parliament.
As a
consequence,
some later
im-
perialists
of lesser
mind have
asserted
that
he
opposed
a
policy
of
The
Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
209
separation.
That
he
actually
favored
it
is
borne out
by
a memorable
passage
in
which
he
cast a
longing glance
at the
future
it
disclosed
to
him
in
1776.
By
voluntarily
surrendering
all
authority
over the
colo-
nies
and
allowing
them
to
be
completely independent,
he said:
Great
Britain
would not
only
be
immediately
freed
from the whole
an-
nual
expense
of
the
peace
establishment of
the
colonies,
but
might
settle
with
them such
a
treaty
of
commerce as would
effectually
secure
to her
a free
trade,
more
advantageous
to the
great
body
of the
people,
though
less
so to
the
merchants,
than
the
monopoly
which
she
at
present
enjoys.
By
thus
parting good
friends,
the
natural affection of the colonies to
the
mother
country,
which,
perhaps,
our late dissensions have well
nigh
extinguished,
would
quickly
revive. It
might dispose
them
not
only
to
respect,
for
whole
centuries
together,
that
treaty
of commerce which
they
had
concluded
with
us at
parting,
but
to favour
us in
war
as well
as
in
trade,
and
instead
of
turbulent and factious
subjects,
to become
our most
faithful,
affectionate,
and
generous
allies;
and the same
sort of
parental
affection
on
the
one
side,
and filial
respect
on
the
other,
might
revive between Great
Britain
and
her
colonies,
which
used
to
subsist
between
those
of
ancient
Greece and
the
mother
city
from which
they
descended.
Here
is
the
wisdom
of
a
great
seer
whose
prophetic
vision,
more
pene-
trating
than
that of
Lord
Durham two
generations
later,
embraced
the
British
Commonwealth of
Nations,
which
has
come
into
being
only
in
our own
time,
and
the
Anglo-American
alliance that has
been and
still
is
the
fond dream of
many
English-speaking
people
on both sides
of the
Atlantic.
Unfortunately
this wisdom
was
entirely
wasted. The
only
contribution that Adam
Smith made to
British
thinking
on matters of
empire
was
his thesis that the colonies
were
an
economic burden to
the mother
country.
It
was
years
before this
contribution
was
widely
accepted,
and
meanwhile
more
compelling
influences
were
driving
British minds
in
an
anti-imperialist
direction.
The loss of
the American
colonies was
a
blow
to
British
thinking
from which
it
never
recovered.
The immediate effect was to
shatter
the
British faith
in
empire.
Englishmen
then
remembered
ruefully
what
the
great
Frenchman
Turgot
had said
about
colonies:
that,
like
fruit,
they ripened
and
fell.
In
a
few
years,
also,
the
collapse
of
the
British
Empire
was
followed
by
the
collapse
of
every
other colonial
empire.
This made
the
American
Revolution
stand out as
the
beginning
of
a
world
movement
away
from
empire,
and
the
lesson of universal ex-
perience
was not lost
upon
people
in Britain. Another
sequel
to
the
210
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
American
Revolution
tended
more
specifically
to reconcile
the
British
to
the
recent
loss
of
their
colonies
and
to
encourage
them
to
face
a
future in
which
they
could
see
little
hope
for
their
empire.
It
was
the
development
of
their
trade
with the
United
States,
which
soon
proved
much
more
valuable than
their trade
with the
thirteen
colonies
had
ever
been.
When
the
thriving
commercial intercourse with
the
new
Republic
was
temporarily stopped
as a
consequence
of the
British
strug-
gle
against Napoleon,
by
the American
embargo
of 1808
and
the
War
of
1812,
another
by-product
of
the
European
conflict
brought
relief
to
the
British.
This was the
opening
of the
Latin American
market,
from
which
they
have never
since
been
excluded. Meanwhile
Napoleon's
Continental
System
had
brought
home
to them how
much
they
were
dependent
on the
European
market.
In other
words,
the
importance
of
extraimperial
trade was
growing
so
that
it was
beginning
to
eclipse
that
of
intraimperial
trade,
and here
we find
yet
another
powerful
in-
fluence
at
work. The
industrial
revolution was
expanding
British
pro-
duction
beyond
the
capacity
of
British
lands
to
absorb
it,
thereby
building up
a
pressure
that
sooner or
later
would
destroy
the
old
colonial
system.
On
the morrow
of
Waterloo the climate
of
opinion
in
Britain
grew
less
favorable to
colonies.
Then,
a
quarter
of a
century
after
Adam
Smith
was
laid
in
his
grave,
arose the
new
school of
classical
economists
in
England
notably
Ricardo,
James
Mill,
and
J.
R.
McCulloch
who
built
on the
foundations that
the
remarkable Scot
had laid.
These
new
masters
of the
new
science
reflected and
stimulated
a
widening
and
deepening
interest in
its
principles
and their
application;
and
though they
were
only
incidentally
concerned with
colonies,
as
bound
up
in the
mercantile
system
which
they
vigorously
assailed,
their
teachings
spread
the
idea
that
colonies were
an
economic
burden.
That
they
were an
economic
burden,
from the
standpoint
of
public
finance,
was
at
the
same time
gaining
recognition
in
government
circles.
There
was
scarcely
a
colony
that
did
not
have to be
subsidized out
of
the
Treasury,
and
the
newly
acquired
ones
were
the most
expensive
of
all.
The
drain could
not
escape
attention
because
the
government
was then
in
such
desperate
financial
straits that
every
item
of
expenditure
was
open
to
question.
The
staggering
cost
of the
long
French war
had un-
balanced
the
budget
almost
hopelessly,
parliament
revolted
against
the
peacetime
continuance
of
the
war-imposed
income
tax,
and
the
Chan-
cellor
of
the
Exchequer
was
borrowing
heavily
to
meet
the
chronic
deficit.
The
Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
211
The
British
Empire,
however,
was
not
approaching
dissolution;
for
it
was
something
more
than
a
profit
and
loss
account,
and
those
who
would
reduce
it
to
such
terms
can
never
understand it. In an
important
way
that has
been
too
little
seen,
it
resembled,
and has
continued
to
resemble,
some
better-class
families.
In these
families children
are
an
economic
liability
rather
than an
asset,
yet
the
parents
prefer
to
spend
their
money
in
having
and
raising
them.
So was
it with Britain.
Materially
she
might
be
richer
without
colonies,
but
they
gave
her
a
sort
of
parental
satisfaction
which
she,
being
a
wealthy country,
could
afford even in
those
years
of
economic
strain and
stress. No
one
in
responsible
position,
and few
others,
then
suggested
that
the
colonies
should
be
cast off.
British
opinion,
however,
was
pretty solidly
opposed
to
any
increase
in the
imperial
family.
More
colonies meant
more
burdens,
and
Brit-
ain did
not
want
them.
Again
and
again
she
rejected
them
by
repudiat-
ing
the actions
of
her
own
subjects
or
by
refusing
the
offers
of native
rulers
in
various
parts
of the
world,
particularly
Africa and
the
islands
of
the
Pacific, The
government's policy
was
definitely nonexpansionist
even
though
there were
some
extensions of the
empire
during
this
period.
In
1815
Britain
took
possession
of Ascension and Tristan
da
Cunha,
but
these were little
volcanic
specks
in the South Atlantic and
they
were
occupied
in
order
to
lock
Napoleon
more
securely
in
St.
Helena.
Also,
as we
have
seen,
British
conquests
in
India
continued
despite
the
desire of London to halt
them,
until
1818,
when
they
led
to a stabilization
of
the
frontier that lasted
for
nearly
a
generation,
except
in
the
East.
Beyond
the confines of
India
proper, racketeering
Burmese con-
querors
had
been
erecting
a
formidable
power;
and,
by
seizing
the
Burmese coastal
district of
Arakan
and
overrunning
the Indian
territory
of
Assam,
they
closed
in on
Bengal
from
the southeast and the north-
east.
Scorning
the
efforts
of
British embassies to
establish
friendly
relations
with
them,
they
swore
they
would
conquer
Bengal
and
sack
Calcutta.
In the fall
of 1 823
they
attacked;
and
in the
following
spring
the
British,
unable
to
get
any
reply
to
repeated
demands for
redress,
declared
war
against
them.
It lasted
for two
years
and
ended with the
British
annexation of the two
Burmese
provinces
of
Arakan
and Ten-
asserim,
which extended
right
down
the
eastern
shore
of the
Bay
of
Bengal,
and
the creation
of
a
British
protectorate
over
Assam,
which
gave
control
of
the
great
Brahmaputra
River.
One
might
imagine
that
the British
were
proud
of
the
empire they
212
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
had
gained
in
India,
but
they
were
not.
It had
ceased to be a
paying
concern for the
Company,
and it
had
become
a
heavy
load of
responsi-
bility
for the home
government.
The
East India
Company
had
lost
the
monopoly
of trade
with
India,
though
not
with
China,
when
parlia-
ment renewed its charter
in
1813;
the
volume
and
the
profits
of
its
Indian trade
had since
shrunk
while
those of its
China
trade
had
swelled
until the
latter
were
several
times
larger
than the
former;
and
its
government
of India
was
being
run at
a
loss
that could not
be
met
without
drawing
on
the
profits
from
China.
In official
British
circles
there
was
much
skepticism
about
the
future of the
British
Empire
in
India.
Its
early
demise
was
actually
prophesied
by
no
less
a
person
than
the
governor
general
himself,
Lord
Hastings.
"A
time,
not
very
remote,
will
arrive
when
England
will,
on sound
principles
of
policy,
wish to
relinquish,"
he wrote
in
1818,
"the
domination
which
she
has
gradually
and
unintentionally
assumed
over
this
country."
In
the
following
year,
1819,
Singapore
was added
to the
British
Empire,
but
this was a move
that
surprised
and
embarrassed both
the
East India
Company,
for
which
it was
purchased,
and
the British
gov-
ernment.
It
was the work
of one
man,
Sir
Stamford Raffles.
His
object
in
buying
from
the sultan
of
Jahore
what
was then
a
practically
uninhabited
mangrove
island
was
to
protect
the
Company's
trade with
the
Malay
states and
more
particularly
to
secure
the
vital trade with
China.
The route of
this trade ran
through
the
possessions
of
the
only
surviving
rivals of
the British in
the Far
East,
the
Dutch,
who threat-
ened
to close it.
Raffles' master
stroke
gave
the
British
potential
control
of
it,
and
his
reward
was characteristic
of
that
anti-imperialistic
age.
For
this
crowning
achievement
of
a
remarkably
fine
career,
the
governor
general
of
India
reproved
him,
the
ministry
in London condemned
him,
and
after his death
seven
years
later
the
Company
made his
widow
pay
the
expenses
of
the
expedition
with which
he took
possession
of
Singapore.
He
had committed
a
triple
indiscretion.
He
had made
a
strategic
move
against
the
Dutch,
he
had
risked
war,
and
he
had acted
without
specific
authority.
London
was determined
to
avoid
any
danger
of
war,
especially
with
the
Dutch,
because
British
policy
re-
garded
a
strong
Netherlands
as
one
of the
main
pillars
of
European
peace,
and
to
this
end
positive
orders
had been sent to the
governor
general
not
to
provoke
the
Dutch.
Promptly
and
vigorously
the Dutch
challenged
the
British
right
to
occupy
Singapore,
the
most
strategic
point
within
the
bounds of their
island
empire,
but
it was
soon evident
that
they
would not
go
to
war
The
Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
213
about
it.
Nevertheless,
George
Canning,
the President of
the Board
of
Control,
was
prepared
to
yield
the
point
and
evacuate
the
place
if
they
insisted.
The
question
was
not settled until
1824,
when
an
Anglo-
Dutch
treaty,
which
took
four
years
to
negotiate
and
was concluded
by
Canning
as
foreign
secretary,
disposed
of all
outstanding
differences
between
the two
powers.
Then,
in
return for
writing
off
300,000
of
a
400,000
debt still
owing
by
the Dutch and for
abandoning
an
old
foothold
in
Sumatra,
the
British
acquired
the Dutch
posts
in
India,
regained
Malacca,
which
they
had twice taken
and
restored,
and
got
recognition
of
their
title
to
Singapore.
As
they
already
had
the island
of
Penang
and
a
strip
of
territory,
Province
Wellesley,
on the
adjacent
mainland,
they
now
possessed,
with
the islands of
Malacca
and
Singa-
pore,
three
separate
bases on which the
future British
Malaya
was
built;
but
the
only
man
who
then
had
the
slightest
vision
of
it
was Sir
Stamford
Raffles,
and he was
broken
for
his
temerity.
Incidentally
Penang,
which was valued
chiefly
because
it commanded
the
northern
end of
the
Straits of
Malacca,
though
not
so
completely
as
Singapore
did
the southern
end,
was
costing
the
Company
about
80,000
a
year.
There
were few other
changes
in
the territorial limits
of
the British
Empire
between the fall of
Napoleon
and
the abolition
of
slavery.
Suspicion
that
France,
then
recovering
from
the
collapse
of
her Euro-
pean
empire
and
beginning
to erect
an
empire
in
Africa,
was
casting
covetous
eyes
on
unappropriated
parts
of
Australia
inspired
a
British
assertion
of title
to the
whole
of that
continent
in 1829.
In South
Africa,
the
frontier of
Cape Colony
moved
northward
with
trekking
Boers
and advanced
eastward
to
provide
a
narrow
unoccupied
buffer
against
hostile
native
invasions.
The
Cape
was an
expensive
liability,
which
the
possession
of
Mauritius
and St.
Helena
rendered
less
essen-
tial than
it
had been
as
a station
on
the
way
to India.
In
tropical
Western
Africa,
the
Sierra
Leone
settlement
of
free blacks
became
the
"white
elephant
of
the colonial
empire,"
as its cost
to
the British
Ex-
chequer
rose
to be
about
100,000
annually;
and
the
posts
on
the
Gold
Coast
and
the
Gambia
were so
worthless,
either as
centers
of trade or
as
bases
for
the
suppression
of
the slave
trade,
that
during
the
1820's
their
abandonment
was
seriously
considered.
In
the
middle
of
the
North
American
continent
a new
British
colony
began
to
appear
in
1812,
but
it was
on
what
was
already
British
soil
and
the
British
government
refused
to
accept
responsibility
for
it.
This
was
the
Red River
Settlement,
which
later
grew
to be
the Canadian
province
of
Manitoba.
It
was
a
proprietory
colony
founded
as
a
philan-
214
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
thropic
and
patriotic
enterprise
by
Lord Selkirk on land
that
the
Hudson's
Bay
Company
deeded
to him
for
the
purpose.
To the
only
rival
fur-trading organization,
the North
West
Company
of
Montreal,
the
project
was
nothing
but
a mortal blow
aimed
at it
by
the
English
company;
for
a
successful
colony
on
the
Red
River
would
cut
the
life
line
of tie
Canadian
company.
As there was
no
effective
government
in
that
distant
region,
the leaders
of
the
North
West
Company
took
the
law into
their own
hands
and ordered the destruction of
the
colony.
Twice their
half-breed
minions drove
the
settlers
off
by
force
the
second
time,
in
1816,
after
considerable
bloodshed.
Meanwhile,
in
spite
of Selkirk's
appeals
for
protection,
the authorities in
Canada
and
in
England
looked
the
other
way;
and afterward
he
found it
impossible
to
get justice
in
either
country,
where there was
a
strong prejudice
in
favor of the North West
Company.
1
The whole
tragedy
has
left a
stain
on
British
and
Canadian
history.
There
has
been
a
suspicion
that
official
London was
loath to
inter-
fere
on the
prairie
because the
North West
Company
was
serving
im-
perial
interests
on
the Pacific
coast
where,
between the
Russians
in
the
north and
the
Spaniards
in
the
south,
it was
transforming
a
no
man's
land,
claimed
by
the
United
States as well
as
by
Britain,
into a
British
fur-trading
region.
The
suspicion
appears
to be
groundless,
for
out
there it was
the
Canadian
company
that had
reason for
feeling
betrayed
by
the
home
government.
In
1814 British
neglect
allowed
the
Treaty
of
Ghent
to be
so
worded that the
United States
could
demand a
return
of the
Columbia River
post
that
John Jacob
Astor had
founded in 1 8
1
1
,
to break
into
the
fur
business
on the west
coast,
and
his
agent
on
the
spot
had
sold
to
the
Montreal
firm
in the
autumn
of
1813.
2
When
the
American
demand
was
made in
1815,
official London
turned a
deaf
ear
not to
Washington
but
to
the
Canadian
company,
which
petitioned
in vain
for
assurance of
protection;
and
early
in
1818
Britain
hastened
to
make
formal
delivery
of the
place
to the
United
States,
though
with-
1
It
had
great political
influence
in
Canada,
where
the
English company
was
i.
as
a
foreign
concern
inimical
to
Canadian
interests. One
might
expect
the
company
to
enjoy
corresponding
favor in
the
mother
country;
but
there
the
G.
company
had
the
general
advantage
of
standing
for free
enterprise
against
the trade
monopoly
granted
to the
Hudson's
Bay Company
by
an
ancient
royal
charter,
and
the
particular
advantage
of
having gained,
by
astute
politics,
the
ear
of
the
Colonial Office.
a
On the
ratification
of
the
Treaty
of
Ghent,
Simon
McGillivray
of
the
North West
Company
had an
interview
with
Bathurst
and then
reported
him
as
declaring
"decidedly
that the
country
in
question
was not
considered
as
a
conquest
to
be
restored
under
the
treaty,
but as a
British
territory
to
which
the
Americans
had
no
just
claim."