466 HISTORY 



alterations in order to make the address more respectful. All their suggestions 

 were rejected by the vote of 19 to 2, and the address was presented as it had 

 come from the hands of the committee."' The temper of this body was further 

 shown on the presentation of a despatch from the Secretary of State, in which 

 the full plan of the Ministry for the amelioration was outlined."' Those who 

 were urging these measures little reckoned that within the next two years 

 Parliament would take the vital step in disposing of this burdensome question ; 

 they could not foretell that the proposed regulations, if adopted, would have no 

 more than time enough to corne into full operation before the necessity for 

 them would have passed away. The hard experience of eight years had 

 impressed the Ministry with the necessity of firmness in dealing with 

 the holders of slave property, and of consistency in the advice that 



^^=H. v., 1832, pp. 18-19. 



1^ v., 1832, pp. 25-32. Copy of the despatch of Secretary Goderich. The home 

 government now attempted to make it known that there had never been any in- 

 tention on its part to deceive the colonists, but that now it was thought well to make 

 a full declaration of its motives and intentions which had actuated it throughout 

 the whole course of its dealings with the slave question. It was represented that it 

 was necessary to satisfy the feeling for the slaves in the mother country. On the 

 other hand, that there was a strong feeling of sympathy for the holders of West 

 Indian property, which was so much affected by these measures. It was represented 

 that during the last eight years the efforts in behalf of the slaves had met with 

 slight success, that advice given had been little heeded, and " in many cases rejected 

 without the forms of respect." The following was stated as the final intention, but 

 not in the spirit of peremptory dictation: "His Majesty's government intend to 

 propose to Parliament in the present session, in common with other financial meas- 

 ures of the year 1832, a measure of substantial relief for the West Indian interests, 

 so framed as to take effect on the produce of the Crown colonies as a matter of 

 course; and upon that of the other colonies only in which the provisions, in their 

 precise terms, and in their entire extent, of His Majesty's Order-in-council (of Nov. 

 2, 1831), for improving the condition of the slaves, shall have acquired the force 

 of law. The measure will be so framed, that the indispensable condition of re- 

 ceiving the benefit of it will be the existence of a colonial statute having passed 

 the colonial legislature simply, and without qualification in terms, or time, de- 

 claring the Order-in-council to possess the force of law in the colony." Further, it 

 stated that allowing the legislature to frame the statute was by no means the in- 

 tentions of the home government, as that left in its hands also the essence of the 

 law. The labors of several years had secured the faithful execution of very little 

 of the desired program. Prejudice prevented the Colony from doing what the 

 home government demanded; dispassionate self-possession, so much needed for 

 unbiased action, was absent. The government would be seriously concerned, if these 

 measures failed to pass. The prosperity of the planters was to be renewed. West 

 Indian insensibility to public opinion in the mother country was regretable in this 

 view, for it threatened the colonies with more dangerous calamities and commer- 

 cial reverses than they had ever experienced, and which It was beyond the power 

 of human resources to prevent. 



