430 HISTORY 



report, was forwarded to the Colonial Department at London to form the first 

 part of the protest of this Colony against the registration system. 11 



DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT. 



On the floors of the English Parliament the registration question called 

 forth serious debate. On the one hand, Wilberforce pressed the matter with- 

 out questioning, in his own mind, the right of Parliament to take action, or the 

 expediency of acting at once to suppress the trade; on the other hand, Lord 

 Castlereagh suggested that it would be well to ask the cooperation of the 

 colonial legislatures in excluding the slave-trade from the British possessions, 

 stating that " nothing short of absolute necessity should urge the assertion of 

 the right of Parliament to legislate for the colonies, and especially on a meas- 

 ure that would subject them to a tax without their own consent." ' : There was 

 no change in the view of the leading spirits in the movement as to the power 

 of Parliament to go ahead and make regulations as demanded by the extreme 

 members, but the milder counsels prevailed so far as to determine the Commons 

 not to act at once. The experience of the year that had just passed was sufficient 

 to prove the folly of attempting to compel the slaveholding colonies to 

 accept imperial regulation of so vital an institution as slavery. Parliament 

 decided to defer in the matter to the colonial legislatures, each to act for the 

 colony under its jurisdiction. The principles on which this legislation was 

 to be based were to be laid down by the home government, and sent to the 

 colonies as recommendations for the laws they were expected to pass. 13 These 

 recommendations were at first mere outlines of the principal points on which 

 it was desirable to obtain action from the legislatures; in time they grew to 

 greater proportions and the program developed with the experience of the 

 Ministry in dealing with the question, until finally they were brought to the 

 necessity of sending out for the legislature exact detailed models of the 

 statutes which the latter was expected to pass. Here began a struggle between 

 the local governments of the colonies, supported by the Ministry and the moral 

 influence of Parliament, on the one hand, and the local legislatures on the 



11 Loc. cit., p. 164. A request to the Colonial Agent was to accompany these 

 documents, to the effect that he should circulate them as a refutation of the charges 

 that had been made against the West Indian slaveholders. The report stated that 

 the Bahama people would resist to the point of emigration rather than submit to 

 any such regulation by the home government. 



'-Ann. Reg., 1816, pp. 87-89. 



13 H. V., 1816, pp. 12-16. 



