The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

he said at their first interview that

abolition was a question near his heart. A short time after,

there was a dinner at Mr. Bennet Langton’s, at which Sir Joshua

Reynolds, Boswell, Windham, and himself were present. The

conversation turned upon the African slave-trade, and Clarkson

exhibited some specimens of cotton cloth manufactured by the

natives in their own looms, the plant being grown in their own

fields. All the guests expressed themselves on the side of

abolition, and Mr. Wilberforce was asked if he would bring it

forward in the House. He said that he would have no objection

to do so when he was better prepared for it, providing no more

proper person could be found.

 

The Committee now went to work in earnest, and held weekly

meetings at Mr. Wilberforce’s house. Clarkson was sent to

Bristol and Liverpool, where he collected much information,

though not without difficulty, and even, as he thought, danger

of his life. A commission was appointed by the Lords of the

Privy Council to collect evidence. It was stated by the

Liverpool and planter party that not only the colonial

prosperity, but the commercial existence of the nation was at

stake; that the Guinea trade was a nursery for British seamen;

that the slaves offered for sale were criminals and captives

who would be eaten if they were not bought; that the middle

passage was the happiest period of a negro’s life; that the

sleeping apartments on board were perfumed with frankincense;

and that the slaves were encouraged to disport themselves on

deck with the music and dances of their native land. On the

other hand, the Committee proved from the muster rolls which

Clarkson had examined that the Guinea trade was not the nursery

of British seamen, but its grave; and they published a picture

of an African slaver, copied from a vessel which was lying in

the Mersey, and certain measurements were made, which, being

put into feet and inches, justified the statement of a member

in the House, that never was so much human suffering condensed

into so small a space.

 

Lord Chancellor Thurlow and two other members of the Cabinet

were opposed to abolition, and therefore Mr. Pitt could not

make it a government measure; and so although it was called the

battle between the giants and the pigmies; although Pitt, Fox,

Burke, Sheridan, Windham, and Wilberforce, the greatest orators

and statesmen of the day, were on one side, and the two members

for Liverpool on the other, the brute votes went with the

pigmies, and the bill was lost.

 

But now the nation was beginning to be moved. The Committee

distributed books, and hired columns in the newspapers. They

sealed their letters with a negro in chains kneeling, and the

motto, “Am I not a man and a brother?” Wedgwood made cameos

with the same design; ladies wore them in their bracelets or

their hair-pins; gentlemen had them inlaid in gold on the lids

of their snuff boxes. Cowper sent to the Committee the well-known poem, “Fleecy locks and black complexion”; the Committee

printed it on the finest hot-pressed paper, folded it up in a

small and neat form, gave it the appropriate title of “A

subject for conversation at the tea-table,” and cast it forth

by thousands upon the land. It was set to music, and sung as a

street ballad. People crowded at shop windows to see the

picture of the ship in which the poor negroes were packed like

herrings in a cask. A murmur arose, and grew louder and louder;

three hundred thousand persons gave up drinking sugar in their

tea; indignation meetings were held; and petitions were sent

into Parliament by the ton. Everything seemed to show that the

nation had begun to loathe the trade in flesh and blood, and

would not be appeased till it was done away. And then came

events which made the sweet words Liberty, Humanity, Equality,

sound harsh and ungrateful to the ear: which caused those who

spoke much of philanthropy, and eternal justice, to be avoided

by their friends, and perhaps supervised by the police; which

rendered negroes and emancipation a subject to be discussed

only with sneers and shakings of the head.

When the slave-trade question had first come up, Mr. Pitt

proposed to the French Government that the two nations should

unite in the cause of abolition. Now in France the peasantry

themselves were slaves; and the negro trade had been bitterly

attacked in books which had been burnt by the public

executioner, and the authors of which had been excommunicated

by the Pope. Mr. Pitt’s proposal was at once declined by the

coterie of the OEil de Boeuf. In the meantime it was discovered

that the French nation was heavily in debt; there was a loss of

nearly five million sterling every year; a fact by no means

surprising, for the nobles and clergy paid no taxes; each

branch of trade was an indolent monopoly; and poor Jacques

Bonhomme bore the weight of the court and army on his back.

Chancellors of the Exchequer one after, the other were

appointed, and attempted in vain to grapple with the

difficulty. As a last resource, the House of Commons was

revived, that the debt of bankrupt despotism might be accepted

by the nation. A Parliament was opened at Versailles; lawyers

and merchants dressed in black walked in the same procession,

and sat beneath the same roof with the haughty nobles, rustling

with feathers, shining with gold, and wearing swords upon their

thighs. But the commoners soon perceived that they had only

been summoned to vote away the money of the nation; they were

not to interfere with the laws. Their debates becoming

offensive to the king, the hall in which they met was closed

against them. They then gathered in a tennis court, called

themselves the National Assembly, and took an oath that they

would not dissolve until they had regenerated France. Troops

were marched into Versailles; a coup d’etat was evidently in

the wind. And then the Parisians arose; the army refused to

fight against them; the Bastille was destroyed; the National

Assembly took the place of the OEil de Boeuf: democracy became

the Mayor of the Palace. A constitution was drawn up, and was

accepted by the king. The nobility were deprived of their

feudal rights; church property was resumed by the nation; taxes

were imposed on the rich as well as on the poor; the peasantry

went out shooting every Sunday; the country gentlemen fled from

their chateaux to foreign courts, where wars began to brew.

 

Such was the state of affairs in France when Wilberforce

suggested that Clarkson should be sent over to Paris to

negotiate with the leading members of the National Assembly.

There was in Paris a Society called the Friends of the Blacks;

Condorcet and Brissot were among its conductors. Clarkson,

therefore, was sanguine of success; but it was long before he

could obtain a hearing. At last he was invited to dinner at the

house of the Bishop of Chartres, that he might there meet

Mirabeau and Seiyes, the Duc de Rochefoucauld, Pétion de

Villeneuve, and Bergasse, and talk the matter over. But when

the guests met, a much more interesting topic was in

everybody’s mouth. The king at that time lived at Versailles, a

little town inhabited entirely by his servants and his bodyguards. The Parisians for some time had been uneasy; they

feared that he would escape to Metz; and that civil war would

then break out. There was a rumour of a bond signed by

thousands of the aristocrats to fight on the king’s side. The

Guards had certainly been doubled at Versailles; and a Flanders

regiment had marched into the town with two pieces of cannon.

Officers appeared in the streets in strange uniforms, green

faced with red; and they did not wear the tricolour cockade

which had already been adopted by the French nation. And while

thus uneasy looks were turned towards Versailles, an incident

took place which heightened the alarm. On October 1st a banquet

had been given by the Guards to the officers of the Flanders

Regiment. The tables were spread in the court theatre: the

boxes were filled with spectators. After the champagne was

served, and the health of the royal family had been drunk, the

wine and the shouting turned all heads; swords were drawn and

waved naked in the air: the tricolour cockades were trampled

under foot; the band struck up the tender and beautiful ballad,

“O Richard! O my King! the world is all forsaking thee!”; the

queen came in and walked round the tables, bowing, and

bestowing her sweetest smiles; the bugles sounded the charge;

the men from different regiments were brought in; all swore

aloud they would protect the king, as if he was just then in

danger of his life; and some young ensigns carried by assault

certain boxes which expressed dissent at these proceedings.

This was the subject of conversation at the dinner to which

Clarkson was invited; and the next day the women of Paris

marched upon Versailles; the king was taken to the Tuileries

and the National Assembly became supreme — under favour of the

mob.

 

After several weeks Clarkson at last received a definite reply.

The Revolution, he was told, was of more importance than the

abolition of the slave-trade. In Bordeaux, Marseilles, Rouen,

Nantes, and Havre, there were many persons in favour of that

trade. It would be said that abolition would be making a

sacrifice to England. The British parliament had as yet done

nothing, and people doubted the sincerity of Pitt. Mr. Clarkson

asked whether, if the question were postponed to the next

legislature, it would be more difficult to carry it then than

now. “The question produced much conversation, but the answer

was unanimous — that people would daily more and more admire

their constitution, and that by the constitution certain solid

and fixed principles would be established, which would

inevitably lead to the abolition of the slave-trade; and if the

constitution were once fairly established, they would not

regard the murmurs of any town or province.”

 

Clarkson was not the only envoy who was defeated by the planter

interest on French soil. In the flourishing colony of St.

Domingo there were many mulatto planters, free and wealthy men,

but subject to degrading disabilities. When they heard of the

Revolution, they sent Ogé to Paris with a large sum of money as

a present to the National Assembly, and a petition for equal

rights. The president received him and his companions with

cordiality: he bid them take courage; the Assembly knew no

distinction between black and white; all men were created free

and equal. But soon the planters began to intrigue, the

politicians to prevaricate, and to postpone. Ogé‘s patience was

at last worn out; he declared to Clarkson that he did not care

whether their petition was granted them or not. “We can

produce,” he said, “as good soldiers on our estates as those in

France. If we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be

in vain to send thousands across the Atlantic to bring us back

to our former state.” He finally returned to St. Domingo, armed

his slaves, was defeated and broken on the wheel. Then the

slaves rose and massacred the whites, and the cause of

abolition was tarnished by their crimes. In England the tide of

feeling turned; a panic fell upon the land. The practical

disciples of Rousseau had formed a club in Paris, the members

of which met in a Jacobin church, whence they took their name.

This club became a kind of caucus for the arrangement of

elections, to decide the measures which should be brought

forward in the National Assembly, and to preach unto all men

the gospel of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It had four

hundred daughter