by Edmund Burke
17. And be it enacted, that on misbehaviour and on complaint from the said synod, and on hearing the party accused in a plain and summary manner, it shall and may be lawful for the bishop of London to suspend or to remove any minister from his cure, as his said offences shall appear to merit.
18. And be it enacted, that for every two districts a school shall be established for young negroes to be taught three days in the week, and to be detained from their owner four hours in each day: the number not to be more or fewer than twenty males in each district, who shall be chosen, and vacancies filled, by the minister of the district; and the said minister shall pay to the owner of the said boy, and shall be allowed the same in his accounts at the synod, to the age of twelve years old, threepence by the day; and for every boy, from twelve years old to fifteen, five-pence by the day.
19. And it is enacted, that if the president of the synod aforesaid shall certify to the protector of negroes, that any boys in the said schools (provided, that the number in no one year shall exceed one in the island of Jamaica, and one in two years in the islands of Barbadoes, Antigua, and Grenada, and one in four years in any of the other islands) do show a remarkable aptitude for learning, the said protector is hereby authorized and directed to purchase the said boy at the best rate, at which boys of that age and strength have been sold within the year; and the said negro so purchased shall be under the entire guardianship of the said protector of negroes, who shall send him to the bishop of London, for his further education in England, and may charge in his accounts for the expense of transporting him to England: and the bishop of London shall provide for the education of such of the said negroes as he shall think proper subjects, until the age of twenty-four years, and shall order those, who shall fall short of expectation after one year, to be bound apprentice to some handicraft trade; and when his apprenticeship is finished, the lord mayor of London is hereby authorized and directed to receive the said negro from his master, and to transmit him to the island from which he came in the West Indies, to be there as a free negro; subject, however, to the direction of the protector of negroes, relatively to his behaviour and employment.
20. And it is hereby enacted and provided, that any planter or owner of negroes, not being of the Church of England, and not choosing to send his negroes to attend divine service in manner by this act directed, shall give, jointly or severally, as the case shall require, security to the protector of negroes, that a competent minister of some Christian church or congregation shall be provided for the due instruction of the negroes, and for their performing divine service according to the description of the religion of the master or masters, in some church or house thereto allotted, in the manner and with the regulations in this act prescribed with regard to the exercise of religion according to the Church of England.
Provided always, that the marriages of the said negroes belonging to dissenters shall be celebrated only in the church of the said district, and that a register of the births shall be transmitted to the minister of the said district.
21. And whereas a state of matrimony, and the government of a family, is a principal means of forming men to a fitness for freedom, and to become good citizens; Be it enacted, that all negro men and women, above eighteen years of age for the man, and sixteen for the woman, who have cohabited together for twelve months or upwards, or shall cohabit for the same time and have a child or children, shall be deemed to all intents and purposes to be married; and either of the parties is authorized to require of the ministers of the district to be married in the face of the church.
22. And be it enacted, that from and after the—of—all negro men in a healthy condition, and so reported to be, in case the same is denied, by a surgeon and by an inspector of negroes, and being twenty-one years old, or upwards, until fifty, and not being before married, shall, on requisition of the inspectors, be provided by their masters or overseers with a woman not having children living, and not exceeding the age of the man; nor in any case exceeding the age of twenty-five years; and such person shall be married publicly in the face of the church.
23. And be it enacted, that if any negro shall refuse a competent marriage tendered to him, and shall not demand another specifically, such as it may be in his master’s power to provide, the master or overseer shall be authorized to constrain him by an increase of work, or a lessening of allowance.
24. And be it enacted, that the minister in each district shall have, with the assent of the inspector, full power and authority to punish all acts of adultery, unlawful concubinage, and fornication, amongst negroes, on hearing and a summary process, by ordering a number of blows, not exceeding—for each offence; and if any white person shall be proved, on information in the supreme court, to be exhibited by the protector of negroes, to have committed adultery with any negro woman, or to have corrupted any negro woman under sixteen years of age, he shall be fined in the sum of—, and shall be for ever disabled from serving the office of overseer of negroes or being attorney to any plantation.
25. And be it enacted, that no slaves shall be compelled to do any work for their masters for [three] days after their marriage.
26. And be it enacted, that no woman shall be obliged to field-work, or any other laborious work, for one month before her delivery, or for six weeks afterwards.
27. And be it enacted, that no husband and wife shall be sold separately if originally belonging to the same master, nor shall any children, under sixteen, be sold separately from their parents, or one parent, if one be living.
28. And be it enacted, that if a husband and wife, which before their intermarriage belonged to different owners, shall be sold, they shall not be sold at such a distance as to prevent mutual help and cohabitation; and of this distance the minister shall judge, and his certificate of the inconvenient distance shall be valid, so as to make such sale unlawful, and to render the same null and void.
29. And be it enacted, that no negro shall be compelled to work for his owner at field-work, or any service relative to a plantation, or to work at any handicraft trade, from eleven o’clock on Saturday forenoon until the usual working hour on Monday morning.
30. And whereas habits of industry and sobriety, and the means of acquiring and preserving property, are proper and reasonable preparatives to freedom, and will secure against the abuse of the same; Be it enacted, that every negro man, who shall have served ten years, and is thirty years of age, and is married, and has had two children born of any marriage, shall obtain the whole of Saturday for himself and his wife, and for his own benefit; and after thirty-seven years of age the whole of Friday for himself and his wife; provided, that in both cases the minister of the district, and the inspector of negroes, shall certify, that they know nothing against his peaceable, orderly, and industrious behaviour.
31. And be it enacted, that the master of every plantation shall provide the materials of a good and substantial hut for each married field negro; and if his plantation shall exceed—acres, he shall allot to the same a portion of land not less than—: and the said hut and land shall remain and stand annexed to the said negro, for his natural life, or during his bondage; but the same shall not be alienated without the consent of the owners.
32. And be it enacted, that it shall not be lawful for the owner of any negro, by himself or any other, to take from him any land, house, cattle, goods, or money, acquired by the said negro, whether by purchase, donation, or testament, whether the same has been derived from the owner of the said negro, or any other.
33. And be it enacted, that if the said negro shall die possessed of any lands, goods, or chattels, and dies without leaving a wife or issue, it shall be lawful for the said negro to devise or bequeath the same by his last will: but in case the said negro shall die intestate, and leave a wife and children, the same shall be distributed amongst them, according to the usage under the statute, commonly called the Statute of Distributions. But if the said negro shall die intestate without wife or children, then and in that case his est
ate shall go to the fund provided for the better execution of this act.
34. And be it enacted, that no negro, who is married, and hath resided upon any plantation for twelve months, shall be sold either privately, or by the decree of any court, but along with the plantation on which he hath resided, unless he should himself request to be separated therefrom.
35. And be it enacted, that no blows or stripes, exceeding thirteen, shall be inflicted for one offence upon any negro, without the order of one of his Majesty’s justices of peace.
36. And it is enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of negroes, as often as on complaint and hearing he shall be of opinion that any negro hath been cruelly and inhumanly treated, or when it shall be made to appear to him that an overseer hath any particular malice, to order, at the desire of the suffering party, the said negro to be sold to another master.
37. And be it enacted, that, in all cases of injury to member or life, the offences against a negro shall be deemed and taken to all intents and purposes as if the same were perpetrated against any of his Majesty’s subjects; and the protector of negroes, on complaint, or if he shall receive credible information thereof, shall cause an indictment to be presented for the same; and in case of suspicion of any murder of a negro, an inquest by the coroner, or officer acting as such, shall, if practicable, be held into the same.
38. And in order to a gradual manumission of slaves, as they shall seem fitted to fill the offices of freemen, Be it enacted, that every negro slave, being thirty years of age and upwards, and who has had three children born to him in lawful matrimony, and who hath received a certificate from the minister of his district, or any other Christian teacher, of his regularity in the duties of religion, and of his orderly and good behaviour, may purchase, at rates to be fixed by two justices of peace, the freedom of himself, or his wife or children, or of any of them separately, valuing the wife and children, if purchased into liberty by the father of the family, at half only of their marketable values; provided, that the said father shall bind himself in a penalty of—for the good behaviour of his children.
39. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of negroes to purchase the freedom of any negro, who shall appear to him to excel in any mechanical art, or other knowledge or practice deemed liberal, and the value shall be settled by a jury.
40. And be it enacted, that the protector of negroes shall be and is authorized and required to act as a magistrate for the coercion of all idle, disobedient, or disorderly free negroes, and he shall by office prosecute them for the offences of idleness, drunkenness, quarrelling, gaming, or vagrancy, in the supreme court, or cause them to be prosecuted before one justice of peace, as the case may require.
41. And be it enacted, that if any free negro hath been twice convicted for any of the said misdemeanours, and is judged by the said protector of negroes, calling to his assistance two justices of the peace, to be incorrigibly idle, dissolute, and vicious, it shall be lawful, by the order of the said protector and two justices of the peace, to sell the said free negro into slavery; the purchase-money to be paid to the person so remanded into servitude, or kept in hand by the protector and governor for the benefit of his family.
42. And be it enacted, that the governor in each colony shall be assistant to the execution of this act, and shall receive the reports of the protector, and such other accounts, as he shall judge material, relative thereto, and shall transmit the same annually to one of his Majesty’s principal secretaries of state.
Thoughts and Details on Scarcity
In this, his most important statement on economic principles, Burke dramatically identifies himself with the laissez-faire ideals of Adam Smith. Famine and scarcity of foods had hit England in the 1790s as it waged war against France. Burke cautioned Pitt against using government relief to solve the crisis, for it would violate the natural laws of the market. Government intervention would, Burke writes, defy “the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God.”
OF ALL THINGS, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it; that is, in the time of scarcity. Because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded popular prejudices.
The great use of government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of irritation. The number of idle tales, spread about by the industry of faction, and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate prejudices, which, in themselves, are more than sufficiently strong. In that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the first thing that government owes to us, the people, is information; the next is timely coercion:—the one to guide our judgment; the other to regulate our tempers.
To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only so of the state and statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich—they are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on those who labour, and are miscalled the poor.
The labouring people are only poor, because they are numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude none can have much. That class of dependent pensioners called the rich is so extremely small, that if all their throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night’s supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves.
But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered; because in their persons they are trustees for those who labour, and their hoards are the banking houses of these latter. Whether they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust—some with more, some with less, fidelity and judgment. But, on the whole, the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes, as when they burn mills, and throw corn into the river, to make bread cheap.
When I say, that we of the people ought to be informed, inclusively I say, we ought not to be flattered; flattery is the reverse of instruction. The poor in that case would be rendered as improvident as the rich, which would not be at all good for them.
Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, “The labouring poor.” Let compassion be shown in action, the more the better, according to every man’s ability; but let there be no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable circumstances; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright fraud. It is horrible to call them “The once happy labourer.”
Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the laborious classes is increased or not, I cannot say. The seat of that species of happiness is in the mind and there are few data to ascertain the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical happiness is, to want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is, to want much, and to enjoy much.
If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our estimate, then I assert without the least
hesitation, that the condition of those who labour (in all descriptions of labour, and in all gradations of labour, from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is on the whole extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any standard of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the advantage of their augmented labour; yet whether that increase of labour be on the whole a good or an evil, is a consideration that would lead us a great way, and is not for my present purpose. But as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour, and meat of the first quality, is proof sufficient.
I further assert, that even under all the hardships of the last year, the labouring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago; or even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four years. I even assert, that full as many in that class as ever were known to do it before continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as my own information and experience extend.
It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal price of provisions. I allow it has not fluctuated with that price, nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they gave it as their opinion, that it might or it ought to rise and fall with the market of provisions. The rate of wages in truth has no direct relation to that price. Labour is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things; however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages have been twice raised in my time; and they bear a full proportion, or even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear a full proportion to the result of their labour. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon them in a diminished demand, or, what indeed is the far lesser evil, an aggravated price, of all the provisions which are the result of their manual toil.
