483 HISTORY 



carry on the public business." '"^ The abolition was accomplished by statute 

 of the imperial Parliament in the spring of 1833, the same year in which the 

 laboring classes in the mother country were relieved of part of the grievous 

 burdens under which they too had been laboring.'"^ Thus was done at one 

 stroke what might have been accomplished gradually, and without the necessity 

 of a violent shock to the owners of slave property, but for tlie course taken by 

 the colonies in evading the recommendations of the home government. 



Measures were necessary to provide for affecting the transition from the 

 regime of slavery to that of apprenticeship, as provided for in the abolition 

 act.^° The old laws governing the relation of the masters and their slaves were 



=^H. v., 1833, pp. 245-250. Address of the Executive to the legislature on 

 the emancipation. In this address it is also stated that had the measure for the 

 emancipation originated in the colonies, it would have been received with increased 

 gratitude and attended with diminished risk, but the experience of the last few 

 preceding years had convinced them that there was no ground for such a hope. 

 The assemblies were less disposed than ever to pass such a law. The Ministry rose 

 to meet the demands of public opinion. This address must have told the truth 

 very plainly, and must have given the local legislators such a view of the state 

 of things in Great Britain, and of what actually did bring on the emancipation, as 

 the Ministry did not want the colonists to have. Lord Stanley almost reproved 

 Balfour for his revelation of the secret motives that lay behind the conduct of the 

 Ministry in proposing this measure to Parliament. He did not deny that the 

 Lieutenant-Governor told the truth in his plain-spoken explanation of the conduct 

 of the Ministry. 



The chief of the investigations, referred to in the above quotation from the 

 Lieutenant-Governor's speech, was that of the House of Commons on West Indian 

 slavery, made in 1832. It is printed in the session papers of Parliament for 

 1831-32. vol. 20, a folio volume of several hundred pages. The information 

 which the committee was instructed to collect was, in the words of the 

 resolution authorizing them, as follows: To note, " (1) Any progressive improve- 

 ment which may have taken place in the state of the slaves since the abolition of 

 the slave trade in 1807; (2) the actual state and condition of the slaves^ the nature 

 and duration of their labor, and evidence as to instances of cruelty, and gross abuse 

 of authority and power; (3) the increase or decrease of the slave population, as 

 respects Africans and Creoles, and as affected by the state and system of slavery; 

 and (4) plans for improving the condition of the slaves, or affecting their emanci- 

 pation, and opinions as to the probable condition of the negro and the effect upon 

 society in the islands which is likely to be produced by such^emancipation." Ds., 

 S. St., 1832, dated August 11. 



On the publication of this report, naval officials were ordered to hold their ships 

 in readiness to answer calls upon them to put down violence, which it was feared 

 would result in some places. Secret instructions were sent to the governors of the 

 different colonies to cooperate with the. navy in the suppression of any disorders, 

 arising from this cause. See circular dispatch of Sept. 1, 1832, and the enclosed 

 secret instructions. There were no serious disturbances in the Bahamas. 



"'^ Imperial Statutes, 3 and 4 William IV, 73. 



■^'' Loc. cit. 



