Complete Works of Edmund Burke
Page 537
Will you have the goodness to excuse the length of this letter? My earnest desire of explaining myself in every point which may affect the mind of any worthy gentleman in Bristol is the cause of it. To yourself, and to your liberal and manly notions, I know it is not so necessary. Believe me,
My dear Sir,
Your most faithful and obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, April 4th, 1780.
To JOHN MERLOTT, Esq., Bristol.
LETTERS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE EXECUTIONS OF THE RIOTERS IN 1780.
LETTERS.
To the Lord Chancellor.
My Lord, — I hope I am not too late with the inclosed slight observations. If the execution already ordered cannot be postponed, might I venture to recommend that it should extend to one only? and then the plan suggested in the inclosed paper may, if your Lordship thinks well of it, take place, with such improvements as your better judgment may dictate. As to fewness of the executions, and the good effects of that policy, I cannot, for my own part, entertain the slightest doubt.
If you have no objection, and think it may not occupy more of his Majesty’s time than such a thing is worth, I should not be sorry that the inclosed was put into the king’s hands.
I have the honor to be, my Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
CHARLES STREET, July 10, 1780.
To the Earl Bathurst, Lord President of the Council
My Lord, —
I came to town but yesterday, and therefore did not learn more early the probable extent of the executions in consequence of the late disturbances. I take the liberty of laying before you, with the sincerest deference to your judgment, what appeared to me very early as reasonable in this business. Further thoughts have since occurred to me. I confess my mind is under no small degree of solicitude and anxiety on the subject; I am fully persuaded that a proper use of mercy would not only recommend the wisdom and steadiness of government, but, if properly used, might be made a means of drawing out the principal movers in this wicked business, who have hitherto eluded your scrutiny. I beg pardon for this intrusion, and have the honor to be, with great regard and esteem,
My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
CHARLES STREET, July 18, 1780.
To Sir Grey Cooper, Bart.
Dear Sir, —
According to your desire, I send you a copy of the few reflections on the subject of the present executions which occurred to me in the earliest period of the late disturbances, and which all my experience and observation since have most strongly confirmed. The executions, taking those which have been made, which are now ordered, and which may be the natural consequence of the convictions in Surrey, will be undoubtedly too many to answer any good purpose. Great slaughter attended the suppression of the tumults, and this ought to be taken in discount from the execution of the law. For God’s sake entreat of Lord North to take a view of the sum total of the deaths, before any are ordered for execution; for by not doing something of this kind people are decoyed in detail into severities they never would have dreamed of, if they had the whole in their view at once. The scene in Surrey would have affected the hardest heart that ever was in an human breast. Justice and mercy have not such opposite interests as people are apt to imagine. I saw Lord Loughborough last night. He seemed strongly impressed with the sense of what necessity obliged him to go through, and I believe will enter into our ideas on the subject. On this matter you see that no time is to be lost. Before a final determination, the first thing I would recommend is, that, if the very next execution cannot be delayed, (by the way, I do not see why it may not,) it may be of but a single person, and that afterwards you should not exceed two or three; for it is enough for one riot, where the very act of Parliament on which you proceed is rather a little hard in its sanctions and its construction: not that I mean to complain of the latter as either new or strained, but it was rigid from the first.
I am, dear Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
Tuesday, 18th July, 1780.
I really feel uneasy on this business, and should consider it as a sort of personal favor, if you do something to limit the extent and severity of the law on this point. Present my best compliments to Lord North, and if he thinks that I have had wishes to be serviceable to government on the late occasion, I shall on my part think myself abundantly rewarded, if a few lives less than first intended should be saved [taken?]; I should sincerely set it down as a personal obligation, though the thing stands upon general and strong reason of its own.
A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY DUNDAS, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE. WITH THE SKETCH OF A NEGRO CODE. 1792.
Dear Sir, — I should have been punctual in sending you the sketch I promised of my old African Code, if some friends from London had not come in upon me last Saturday, and engaged me till noon this day: I send this packet by one of them who is still here. If what I send be, as under present circumstances it must be, imperfect, you will excuse it, as being done near twelve years ago. About four years since I made an abstract of it, upon which I cannot at present lay my hands; but I hope the marginal heads will in some measure supply it.
If the African trade could be considered with regard to itself only, and as a single object, I should think the utter abolition to be on the whole more advisable than any scheme of regulation an reform. Rather than suffer it to continue as it is, I heartily wish it at an end. What has been lately done has been done by a popular spirit, which seldom calls for, and indeed very rarely relishes, a system made up of a great variety of parts, and which is to operate its effect in a great length of time. The people like short methods; the consequences of which they sometimes have reason to repent of. Abolition is but a single act. To prove the nature of the trade, and to expose it properly, required, indeed, a vast collection of materials, which have been laboriously collected, and compiled with great judgment. It required also much perseverance and address to excite the spirit which has been excited without doors, and which has carried it through. The greatest eloquence ever displayed in the House has been employed to second the efforts which have been made abroad. All this, however, leads but to one single resolve. When this was done, all was done. I speak of absolute and immediate abolition, the point which the first motions went to, and which is in effect still pressed; though in this session, according to order, it cannot take effect. A remote, and a gradual abolition, though they may be connected, are not the same thing. The idea of the House seems to me, if I rightly comprehend it, that the two things are to be combined: that is to say, that the trade is gradually to decline, and to cease entirely at a determinate period. To make the abolition gradual, the regulations must operate as a strong discouragement. But it is much to be feared that a trade continued and discouraged, and with a sentence of death passed upon it, will perpetuate much ill blood between those who struggle for the abolition and those who contend for an effectual continuance.
At the time when I formed the plan which I have the honor to transmit to you, an abolition of the slave trade would have appeared a very chimerical project. My plan, therefore, supposes the continued existence of that commerce. Taking for my basis that I had an incurable evil to deal with, I cast about how I should make it as small an evil as possible, and draw out of it some collateral good.
In turning the matter over in my mind at that time and since, I never was able to consider the African trade upon a ground disconnected with the employment of negroes in the West Indies, and distinct from their condition in the plantations whereon they serve. I conceived that the true origin of the trade was not in the place it was begun at, but at the place of its final destination. I therefore was, and I still am, of opinion that the whole work ought to be taken up together, and that a gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies ough
t to go hand in hand with anything which, should be done with regard to its supply from the coast of Africa. I could not trust a cessation of the demand for this supply to the mere operation of any abstract principle, (such as, that, if their supply was cut off, the planters would encourage and produce an effectual population,) knowing that nothing can be more uncertain than the operation of general principles, if they are not embodied in specific regulations. I am very apprehensive, that, so long as the slavery continues, some means for its supply will be found. If so, I am persuaded that it is better to allow the evil, in order to correct it, than, by endeavoring to forbid what we cannot be able wholly to prevent, to leave it under an illegal, and therefore an unreformed existence. It is not that my plan does not lead to the extinction of the slave trade, but it is through a very slow progress, the chief effect of which is to be operated in our own plantations, by rendering, in a length of time, all foreign supply unnecessary. It was my wish, whilst the slavery continued, and the consequent commerce, to take such measures as to civilize the coast of Africa by the trade, which now renders it more barbarous, and to lead by degrees to a more reputable, and, possibly, a more profitable connection with it, than we maintain at present.
I am sure that you will consider as a mark of my confidence in yours and Mr. Pitt’s honor and generosity, that I venture to put into your hands a scheme composed of many and intricate combinations, without a full explanatory preface, or any attendant notes, to point out the principles upon which I proceeded in every regulation which I have proposed towards the civilization and gradual manumission of negroes in the two hemispheres. I confess I trust infinitely more (according to the sound principles of those who ever have at any time meliorated the state of mankind) to the effect and influence of religion than to all the rest of the regulations put together.
Whenever, in my proposed reformation, we take our point of departure from a state of slavery, we must precede the donation of freedom by disposing the minds of the objects to a disposition to receive it without danger to themselves or to us. The process of bringing free savages to order and civilization is very different. When a state of slavery is that upon which we are to work, the very means which lead to liberty must partake of compulsion. The minds of men, being crippled with that restraint, can do nothing for themselves: everything must be done for them. The regulations can owe little to consent. Everything must be the creature of power. Hence it is that regulations must be multiplied, particularly as you have two parties to deal with. The planter you must at once restrain and support, and you must control at the same time that you ease the servant. This necessarily makes the work a matter of care, labor, and expense. It becomes in its nature complex. But I think neither the object impracticable nor the expense intolerable; and I am fully convinced that the cause of humanity would be far more benefited by the continuance of the trade and servitude, regulated and reformed, than by the total destruction of both or either. What I propose, however, is but a beginning of a course of measures which an experience of the effects of the evil and the reform will enable the legislature hereafter to supply and correct.
I need not observe to you, that the forms are often neglected, penalties not provided, &c., &c., &c. But all this is merely mechanical, and what a couple of days’ application would set to rights.
I have seen what has been done by the West Indian Assemblies. It is arrant trifling. They have done little; and what they have done is good for nothing, — for it is totally destitute of an executory principle. This is the point to which I have applied my whole diligence. It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done, — hic labor, hoc opus.
I ought not to apologize for letting this scheme lie beyond the period of the Horatian keeping, — I ought much more to entreat an excuse for producing it now. Its whole value (if it has any) is the coherence and mutual dependency of parts in the scheme; separately they can be of little or no use.
I have the honor to be, with very great respect and regard,
Dear Sir,
Your most faithful and obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, Easter-Monday night, 1792.
SKETCH OF A NEGRO CODE.
This constitution consists of four principal members.
I. The rules for qualifying a ship for the African trade.
II. The mode of carrying on the trade upon the coast of Africa, which includes a plan for introducing civilization in that part of the world.
III. What is to be observed from the time of shipping negroes to the sale in the West India islands.
IV. The regulations relative to the state and condition of slaves in the West Indies, their manumission, &c.
PREAMBLE.Whereas it is expedient, and comformable to the principles of true religion and morality, and to the rules of sound policy, to put an end to all traffic in the persons of men, and to the detention of their said persons in a state of slavery, as soon as the same may be effected without producing great inconveniences in the sudden change of practices of such long standing, and during the time of the continuance of the said practices it is desirable and expedient by proper regulations to lessen the inconveniences and evils attendant on the said traffic and state of servitude, until both shall be gradually done away:
And whereas the objects of the said trade and consequential servitude, and the grievances resulting therefrom, come under the principal heads following, the regulations ought thereto to be severally applied: that is to say, that provision should be made by the said regulations,
1st, For duly qualifying ships for the said traffic;
2nd, For the mode and conditions of permitting the said trade to be carried on upon the coast of Africa;
3rd, For the treatment of the negroes in their passage to the West India islands;
4th, For the government of the negroes which are or shall be employed in his Majesty’s colonies and plantations in the West Indies:
Ships to be registered.Be it therefore enacted, that every ship or trading vessel which is intended for the negro trade, with the name of the owner or owners thereof, shall be entered and registered as ships trading to the West Indies are by law to be registered, with the further provisions following:
Measured and surveyed.1. The same entry and register shall contain an account of the greatest number of negroes of all descriptions which are proposed to be taken into the said ship or trading vessel; and the said ship, before she is permitted to be entered outwards, shall be surveyed by a ship-carpenter, to be appointed by the collector of the port from which the said vessel is to depart, and by a surgeon, also appointed by the collector, who hath been conversant in the service of the said trade, but not at the time actually engaged or covenanted therein; and the said carpenter and surgeon shall report to the collector, or in his absence, to the next principal officer of the port; upon oath, (which oath the said collector or principal officer is hereby empowered to administer,) her measurement, and what she contains in builder’s tonnage, and that she has —— feet of grated portholes between the decks, and that she is otherwise fitly found as a good transport vessel.