The argument, 'That the colonial slaves are better off than the British peasantry', answered from the Royal Jamaica Gazette of June 21, 1823 / By Thomas Clarkson, M. A.

Thomas Clarkson

Date:: [between 1820 and 1829?]

Credit: The argument, 'That the colonial slaves are better off than the British peasantry', answered from the Royal Jamaica Gazette of June 21, 1823 / By Thomas Clarkson, M. A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Cover
Cover

2/8 page 26

I stop now to make a few remarks upon these two advertisements. First, it appears that the slaves in the British colonies can be sold. Can any man, woman, or child, be sold in Britain? it appears, secondly, that these slaves are considered in no other light than as cattle, or as inanimate property. The first advertised were to be sold with so many head of stock, and the others with a cart. Now, do we think or speak of our British labourers or servants in the same way ? Do we not consider them, on the other hand, as of the same nature as our¬ selves ? And do we not generally entertain a tender feeling towards them, and sympathize with them in occurrences of affliction and distress ? It appears, thirdly, that those slaves are sold for their master’s debts. Can British labourers or servants be sold for the same cause, or on account of the imprudence or wickedness of their employers ? It appears, fourthly, that those slaves who are sold for their master’s debts must often be sold separately from those with whom nature has joined them together by a consanguinity the most endearing, and by ties which are held the most sacred. In sales such as that in the first adver¬ tisement, where the estate and the slaves were to be sold together, the latter might suffer no other inconvenience than that of changing masters. But in sales which are compulsory, like those in the second advertisement; that is, where writs are executed by the Deputy Marshal for debt; scenes most revolting to humanity must often take place. Lucy and her children might, it is true, be sold together. But she may have had other children not included in the same levy ; or she may have had a husband, and her chil¬ dren a father, from whom they may now be for ever separated. And the twenty-six men; where are their wives and children, and other connections ? Here then we see the tenderest ties of nature forcibly broken asunder; and we may imagine, if we can, the distress of mind, and the sighs and tears, which accompany their final separation. Can such afflicting scenes occur among the peasantry of Britain ? Who can interrupt their domestic enjoyments, with impunity? It is not in the power of the king himself to separate the husband from the wife, the mother from the child, or the pa¬ rents from their children. I come now to another part of the Gazette in question, which enables me to throw new light upon the argument, that “ the slaves in the British colonies are better off than the peasantry of Great Britain itself.” I find in this Gazette, that more than one hundred slaves are advertised as having- run away from their masters, and as then detained in the jails or work- houses of the different parishes where they were taken up !! ! What a fact is this !!! More than one hundred runaways appear in one Gazette to have been taken up and committed to jail!!! But may I ask, runaways from what ? Why, according to the accounts of our opponents, they must have been runaways from comfort—runaways from happiness. Was ever such a desertion heard of before from such a cause? We have heard of persons quitting their situations, because they were uneasy in them, but never because they were comfortable. This is only natural. It is implanted in our nature to seek and to cleave to what¬ ever may be agreeable to us, but to avoid whatever may give us uneasiness or pain. We may be assured then that the slaves in question ran away, not because they were happy, but because they were miserable. They must have known before-hand, how difficult it would be to escape for any length of time, and that, if found again, they would be lodged in a jail, and returned from thence into the hands of their irritated masters to be whipped, to be put into the stocks, and otherwise barbarously used, if not to be made to work perhaps a part of the rest of their lives in chains ; and yet, not¬ withstanding all this, they ran away. What then does this prove, but that

The argument, 'That the colonial slaves are better off than the British peasantry', answered from the Royal Jamaica Gazette of June 21, 1823 / By Thomas Clarkson, M. A.

Licence and re-use

Contents