lent; and if, instead of being amused with correspondence and diplomacy, we were to satisfy them, by our acts, of our fixed determination to exact the fulfilment of the contract, by all the means which Providence has put in our power, a blow would, probably, be dealt to the trade in slaves, from which it never would recover. These are the principal means, from the employment of some or all of which the colonists think they might receive assistance. But be it that they are mistaken. If they did nothing more than present themselves before the throne, with a representation of the grinding distress under which they are wasting away, we think they would have a title to expect that those distinguished individuals, to whom the government of the country is from time to time entrusted, on account of their experience and wisdom, should be able to devise some plan for their benefit, though none had occurred to themselves, however anxiously they had sought it. It is only in such cases of difficulty that those who arrogate the name of statesmen can vindicate their title to the character; and they seem to us to stultify themselves when they renounce the duties inherently belonging to their office. We repeat, then, that if under such pressure, as the West Indians have alleged and proved, they were to do no more than to raise their voice, and lift up their hands for help, they might, in a case of calamity so severe and extensive, look confidently to the executive and the legislature, for aid as well as commiseration.

It is, however, one of the circumstances which has touched the West Indians most nearly, that their situation has never, of late years, sufficiently attracted the notice of the country at large, or been made the subject of serious deliberation and inquiry in either house of parliament. They have been treated as extravagant, grasping, oppressive men, with whom we have hardly any dealings or connexion, instead of intelligent, industrious subjects, forming an important and integral portion of the empire. This has happened invariably when their interests have been brought under discussion, and never more strongly than in the House of Commons on the 21st of February, 1831. All members admitted the urgency of their distress; but there their kindness ended. Even Sir Robert Peel, to whom they have, in various instances, been so much indebted, expressed himself thus:

To the terms of my noble friend's motion, therefore, and the manner in which it has been brought forward, I do not object; but if the motion of my noble friend means anything, it must mean a reduction of duty on West India produce. I am placed in this difficulty, therefore, that though I fully admit that the West India colonists require relief, yet if I vote for the resolution of my noble friend, in the present state of the budget, I may be encouraging the expectation, that some

fiscal

fiscal reduction will be made for the relief of the West India interests, which hereafter it may be found impossible to effect. Now, in the present state of the budget, and of the country, the noble lord having pledged himself, as I understand, to the reduction of the duties on coals-as I have not heard a satisfactory explanation of the taxes that are to be imposed, I cannot with due regard to the paramount duty of supporting the public faith, pledge myself to concur in the taking off any other taxes.

Nothing can be more just than the observations which the right honourable baronet has made upon the paramount necessity of maintaining public credit; and it is upon the single ground of public credit that I am indisposed to entertain this motion at present. It is not with reference to the state of parties, or to political considerations, but solely in reference to the public credit, that I cannot give my vote for the motion; and I trust, therefore, that my noble friend will not persevere in it. With regard to the offer of a committee, which has been made by the noble lord opposite, I hope my noble friend will not accept it, because I do not think that a select committee upon the West India trade would do any good. I thought it was distinctly understood last year, that the question was to be left with the responsible advisers of the crown; and if the members of two different governments have not been able to prepare any measure calculated to afford relief, it proves not that the government needs facts or materials such as a committee could furnish them with-not that they do not desire to afford every possible relief to the West India interests; but the difficulty arises from this circumstance, that the state of the public revenue does not permit the government to effect the remission of duties from which such relief must be derived.'*

What, we may be allowed to ask, is the practical inference to be deduced from this language, coming from such a person? It appears to us to admit of no other interpretation than this—that a season may arrive when the flourishing state of our finances may render it expedient to consider whether some relief may not be granted to the West Indians-if relief should then be of any use; but that, however insupportable their griefs may be, the whole of the colonies must be content to sink into decay, before one of the public creditors shall have withheld from him the smallest fraction, either of principal or interest, which he is entitled to demand at the exchequer. More weighty matters than these declarations involve have never been broached in parliament; and it is to be deplored, that the financial circumstances of the state should have led to their announcement. But they have been heard-not once, or twice, or from a single member, and have not been overlooked by those whom they concern. With all the respect we entertain for the judgment of those from whom we differ, we find it impossible

* Mirror of Parliament for February, 1831.

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to reconcile ourselves either to the justice or expediency of acting upon the principles here recognised. If a disastrous emergency should arrive, in which unforeseen and unprecedented sacrifices should become requisite, it seems contrary to all the dictates of natural equity or of that understood compact by which society is every where held together, that any one class of the community should be completely pressed to the earth, before any of the others are compelled to lend their shoulders to the burden.

We doubt whether it would be wise, even if the West India colonies were willing, to subject them to such extremity. From the indifference with which they are sometimes mentioned, it might be supposed that they were only a few specks in the Atlantic ocean, the superintendence of which had accidentally been thrown upon us, but by whose prosperity or adversity we could be in no degree affected. We must crave leave, in very few words, to remind our readers what these plantations of ours really are. They consist of about seventeen islands or groups of islands, together with certain large tracts of land on the continent of South America-contain about 65,000 white, and 850,000 people of colour and negroes, and employ about 438,000 tons of British shipping, and 23,000 seamen. The exports to them exceed four millions annually; the imports amount to nearly nine millions; and they bring about seven millions altogether every year into the national treasury. We acknowledge it to be our opinion, that the prosperity of possessions, bringing with them such vast and varied advantages, and which we have kept so long, and, but for our own fault, may keep for ever, ought to form an object of no ordinary solicitude; and that if we clearly saw our own interest, the whole, subjects as well as creditors, of the mother-country have the strongest inducements to consult their welfare and protection.

In some way or other, however, an impression prevails that, after all, the distresses of the colonists are more apparent than real, and that as their state has always been more or less fluctuating, their present troubles will not be accompanied with the dismal consequences with which we have been threatened. Strange as it may seem, we believe that, even among the higher orders of society, this is a very ordinary delusion. From the time of the deluge to the passing hour, nothing but the shock of the event usually awakens mankind to a sense of that which the ordinary exercise of their faculties would have shewn them must inevitably happen. If the colonists have been guilty of no exaggeration, and if no relief be afforded, bankruptcy and ruin must soon sweep, like one of their own hurricanes, over the whole West Indies. It will not indefinitely await the leisure of the British legislature, and every season makes the danger vastly more imminent. Whether, in order to deliver themselves from the storm before its full fury has begun

to

to descend upon them, it may not enter into the minds of the colonists to withdraw from us altogether, and attach themselves to another country which will deal towards them more kindly, is a subject it does not fall within our present province to prosecute. We refer our readers to the following remarks of Mr. Barclay, to whom we have been already so much indebted.

If, as has been said, a spirit of discontent is rapidly spreading among a people hitherto famed for their loyalty, it well deserves the attention of his Majesty's ministers to inquire into the cause of such a change. The Abbé Raynal long ago predicted that the West India islands would one day belong to America, on which they were dependent, as they still are, for the great necessaries of life. I would by no means insinuate that the hearts of the colonists are yet turned against the land of their fathers, notwithstanding the tide of animosity that has there run so violently against them; but there is a limit to endurance, and it is impossible to look at the changes in that part of the world, and not see the increased probability of such an event. Our West India colonies are unable to oppose the power of the parent state in enforcing measures of the most injurious tendency; and hence they may be treated with less delicacy than is deemed necessary with some other colonies belonging to the crown; but in the event of a war with America, it will not be found wise to treat them in such a manner as may make it desirable for them to pass under the protection of that power, "to which," as the President of the United States in his last message to Congress observed," they geographically belong." The cession of Florida to the republic was the stepping-stone to the island of Cuba, which may, even now, be considered as in the grasp of the United States. True, no avowal of their intention has yet been made, nor is it necessary, so long as none of the European powers interfere; and every advantage that actual possession could give is derived from a complete monopoly of its invaluable trade. But though no overt act has yet announced their design, the feeling on this point in the United States is well known. In fact, the possession of the Havannah, as commanding the Gulf of Florida, and consequently the coasting trade of America between New Orleans and New York, is now regarded as necessary to their safety; and this is the plea that will assuredly be urged when the proper time shall come to enforce it.'*

As a parting request, we earnestly intreat all those to whose lot it may fall, either in or out of Parliament, to bear a part in the discussion or settlement of the various questions to which their attention has here been directed, not to regard the dangers against which Mr. Barclay has cautioned us to beware, as either imaginary or distant. Within these few days rumours have reached us of an intended congress of deputies from the various British West India islands to consider of the best means of promoting the common safety in the present crisis, which is intended to be held at Barbadoes. Whether they be true or false, the * Barclay's Effects of late Colonial Policy, p. 46.

fact

fact of their circulation proves unanswerably the progress of the sentiments which Mr. Barclay states to have been for some time secretly gaining ground among the colonists. The patience

of the most loyal subjects and adherents, when too long tried or disappointed, may at last become exhausted. If we do not bethink ourselves in time, and correct the language used, and measures pursued by us for some years back towards our colonies in all parts of the world, they will be torn from us one after another, until we are left to lament-alone and unpitied-our contracted and misguided policy, and ponder, when it is too late, over the departed greatness of our empire. But yesterday, if the king's present ministers had been able to carry their measure about Canada timber, they would have placed the British parliament in direct collision with the legislative assemblies of all our North American colonies.* Let them consider well, ere they proceed further in the spirit which dictated that so nearly fatal measure.

We beg leave to direct attention to the irrefragable proofs of this statement in the Appendix to the third edition of Sir Howard Douglas's Considerations on the Value and Importance of the British North American Provinces,' (just published). When this gentleman, justly preferring duty and character to the advantages of a high and lucrative office, put forth the first edition of this tract, he rendered to those provinces the greatest service they ever received at the hands of any individual. He furnished the facts and arguments which overthrew the ministerial measure-and lost his government of New Brunswick accordingly; but the statements which he put forth as to the political effects of the measure, if carried, are already confirmed and strengthened, in every particular, by addresses forwarded by all the local assemblies on the first rumour of what was intended reaching their ears. To give one specimen-the Petition to the King from the Council and House of Assembly of New Brunswick (dated 23rd Feb. 1831) contains these words :

'That the commercial intercourse between the United Kingdom and the Northern Colonies, especially this province of New Brunswick, would be very greatly reduced, if not altogether annihilated, by withdrawing the protecting duties on our wood, and the consequent increase of supply of this article to the mother country from the northern powers of Europe, we fear is too evident to need any proof, and we therefore contemplate the disastrous consequences of such a measure with no small degree of discouragement and dismay.

But the commercial evils which would ensue to these Colonies, are not the only ones which we apprehend; we very much fear that the ruin of the wood trade with the United Kingdom would be viewed by all the North American Colonists, as such an abandonment of their interests in your Majesty's Councils, as could not fail to excite discontent, and have a strong tendency to shake the loyal affection, which they have hitherto cherished with such honest zeal towards the parent state; and there is no political evil which the inhabitants of this province would more seriously deprecate, than a weakening of their ties to that country, which they, and their fathers before them, have so steadfastly adhered to throughout every change of fortune, prosperous or adverse.'

From Quebec, Halifax, &c. &c., the language is equally strong and decided. Who can without alarm read such language from the North American colonists, consider the actual case of the West Indians, and recollect that the authors of the Timber Bill are still at the helm; that they still avowedly persist in their opinion on that subject; and that their organs of the press are at this moment denouncing the opponents of the Canada Bill, as the advocates of dry rot both in our constitution and our timber?' The meaning of course is, that a reformed parliament would, among its first acts, sever the connection with the North American provinces. What then?

ART.