Chapter III.
INFRINGEMENT OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY.
Loss of property may be brought upon the Proprietor of a West India estate in two ways:
First, By introducing a new tone of feeling among the Negroes, and converting good servants into bad.
Secondly, By abstracting such a number of efficient hands from an estate, that the remainder are incompetent to carry on its cultivation in an effective manner, or to render its fixed capital productive.
If we imagine an estate, with a given number of negroes, to produce three hundred hogsheads of sugar a year, few will be inclined to doubt the disposition of the proprietor to increase its production, if practicable, to three hundred and fifty or four hundred. What are the means, then, to effect this object, without increasing the number of labourers? The proprietor finds himself possessed of a number of people, the development of whose full capability for labour depends upon their treatment.If they are prompted to work with willingness and satisfaction, skill in the various branches of work to be performed speedily displays itself. If thus some of the slaves can be converted from ordinary labourers into good tradesmen, and if those in the field can be taught to use their utmost dexterity in field-cultivation, a much more profitable division of labour than hitherto will be accomplished. Through this improvement there is less expense in superintendence, there is more work procured from the steady government of the negroes without rigorous coercion, and the cultivation is extended generally, from a better and more skilful distribution of the various employments on the estate.
To accomplish this condition of things, the proprietor is induced to grant to the slaves every reasonable indulgence and benefit. He uses a discriminating power, bestowing reward upon the well-deserving, and withholding it from the vicious; and thus holds up a double example to the rest.
On the other hand, the slaves, finding that the master deals out his favour with strict impartiality, are cheered under their labour by the assurance that their exertions will be appreciated, and emulate each other in assiduity and good conduct.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that it is the first interest of the master to have the minds of his people easy and contented; and that whatevertends to destroy their tranquillity occasions to him inevitable loss of property. He will not then be able to avail himself of that skill and willingness to work above described, and instead of having his three hundred hogsheads increased to four, which he might otherwise have expected from the greater diffusion of intelligence among the rising generation, he will have his produce diminished to two hundred, and rendered still less and less, as discontent spreads and becomes more deeply rooted among his people.
It is one of the worst features of compulsory manumission, that it must inspire this discontent. Is it surprising, therefore, that it should excite such strenuous opposition? The colonists know well, that there is not an instance in our colonies of free negroes working steadily in the field for hire; and that if their people be compulsorily freed, the cultivation of their estates must be superseded. There will no longer be a motive for the master, as at present, to bestow benefits upon the slave; on the contrary, every indulgence granted would only tend to swell that sum which is ultimately to be employed to the master’s injury. The negroes will learn, that benefits must cease to flow to them from their masters: hence the interests of the two, instead of being reciprocal as hitherto, become directly opposed to each other.
It is beyond any effort or precaution of themaster, when he can procure no other labourers, to retrieve the injury he thus sustains. His property is placed at the mercy of his own servants. In the practical operation of the measure, his best and most serviceable people will become the first discontented. They will, as a natural result, be directly induced to suppress their skill, zeal, and willingness to work, or in other ways depreciate their personal value.
When slaves have the power to enforce their freedom from their owners by such a process as that of appraisement, those who are of bad character are comparatively rewarded, while those who are really meritorious are punished.
Thus, on the same estate, a disorderly and unprofitable slave may be readily parted with by his master for fifty pounds, whilst another, a steady, intelligent, and assiduous slave, might, for these good qualities, be worth three hundred. Yet, disproportionate as are the characters and consequent value of the two, the desire for freedom will operate with both; but how strikingly unequal are the terms upon which they are to obtain the same reward. To the one who is profligate and undeserving the obstacle is trivial. On the contrary, the meritorious slave, applying to his master to know the amount of his ransom, finds it magnified above that of his fellow sixfold. He cannot fail to be struck with the largeness of the amount, and the time requisiteto raise it. Such an obvious departure from the principles of common equity, as this, must engender discontent, and prompt the meritorious individual to seek for the cause of this difference in value. He will conceive it gross injustice, that a bad character, who has always disregarded his master’s interests, should quickly get his freedom, whilst he himself, who has constantly studied those interests, must wait for it through a course of years lengthened in exact proportion to the value of his services.
When the measure fairly begins to work, the grievance is greatly aggravated.
It is intended, that a proportion of the capital sunk in the lands and buildings of each estate shall be added to the value of each slave.
Earl Bathurst, in his despatch to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, of the 25th February, 1826, says:—
“If, in the process of time, it should be unfortunately found, that the slaves thus manumitted altogether abandon their owners, and refuse to work as free persons, the owner not having the means, by reason of the Abolition Act, to supply the loss of his slaves, and not being able to engage any free labourer for his sugar-plantations, the price which must then be assigned to the loss of each slave must have a direct reference to that state in which the plantation will be placed by the progressive reduction of the means of cultivating it.”
Under this plan it will be thedeservingslaves who will have to pay for the lands and buildings.
The higher the personal value of the slave, the greater is hisrelativeutility to the plantation, and the greater must be the recompense awarded to the proprietor for superseded cultivation. The relative utility of a negro of bad character may thus be estimated at not more than ten pounds, while that of a trustworthy individual may rise so high as one hundred and fifty. In both these cases, the respective sums have to be added to the slave’s personal value, before his master can be said to have received an equivalent for his liberation. If the personal value of a slave of bad character be estimated at 50l., the compensation of 10l.for hisrelativeutility to the plantation being added, will make a sum of 60l.only, as the price of his manumission. If the personal value of the skilful and zealous slave be estimated at 300l., the equivalent of 150l.for hisrelativeutility to the plantation being added, will require as much as 450l.to be raised for the purchase of his manumission.
Here the impediment is increased from six to eight fold.
But there is yet further injustice. Not only are different descriptions of cultivation carried on in the colonies, but the same species of cultivation may greatly vary on estates contiguous to each other,from difference of soil, or other local circumstances. Accordingly as those circumstances are more or less favourable, in a corresponding proportion will be the value of the slave, and the appraisers will be called upon to adjust this value, thus varying in different districts of the same colony.
Suppose the fixed capital sunk on a coffee or cotton plantation to be 5,000l., and that sunk on an adjoining sugar-plantation to be 25,000l., while each possesses the same number of negroes. One of these from each plantation, of precisely similar capability and character, demands his freedom. The first finds there is to be an addition of but 10l.to his price; not from inferiority of character or skill, but from the accidental circumstance of his living on a plantation where the amount of fixed capital is small. The man from the latter, the sugar-estate, finds it, as before stated, so high as 150l., making the difficulty of obtaining freedom perhaps double, as compared with his companion and equal. The same argument would apply even to two estates, which both produced sugar, provided the buildings and machinery on the one were better and more complete than that of the other, or the land more productive.
Thus, the more extensively that machinery has been introduced to facilitate and lighten labour, the more will it be to the prejudice of the slaves. When the supply of labourers is short, to introducethe most advanced and highest description of machinery is all-important and desirable, and the main step to advance a colony to prosperity. But in the new measure proposed, this is checked at once, because no proprietor would think of an outlay, when it could be withdrawn in no other way than by pittances wrung from his best slaves, in their eagerness for freedom.
In contemplating these several facts, can there be a moment’s hesitation in regard to the discontent created? Let us imagine a serviceable man on a sugar-plantation applying for his freedom. He has formed in his own mind an estimate of what he ought to pay, and he betakes himself to the appraiser, with the money in his hand. To his astonishment he is asked a sum far beyond his means of payment; he cannot comprehend the cause; and no alternative remains to him but to go back and brood over his disappointment. When he finds his long-cherished hopes utterly frustrated; when, too, he perceives a worthless fellow, distinguished only for idleness and debauchery, now sporting and enjoying himself at liberty all day long, perhaps laughing at the deserving individual who remains in servitude; when he sees his acquaintance on some neighbouring plantation attain his freedom, merely from his chancing to live on an estate where less machinery was used, will he, in common reason, return to his duty acontented man? Is he not goaded on to renounce his better qualities, when he is thus made to feel, that they are insuperable impediments to the attainment of his natural wishes? He discovers that discontent is his surest remedy; that he has only to display the sullenness which he actually feels; that, in one word, he has but to become a bad subject, in order to obtain liberty the more speedily.
Can then the sturdiest champions of compulsory manumission attempt to maintain, that if this man was worth a dollar a day before this occurrence, he will be worth as much still; and if the return from his labour be reduced one-half or two-thirds, will any man contend that a direct violation of property has not been inflicted?
We have confined our attention, hitherto, to the most deserving slaves, because their welfare should be chiefly consulted in every new measure. But with the gang at large the injurious tendency is scarcely less striking. Besides a systematic practice of repressing dexterity and usefulness, the slave may even resort to bodily disablement, in order that his price may be lowered to his means. Such practices are known to exist at present, where there is no higher temptation than that of idling in the sick-house; and there could therefore be little expectation, that the practice would not increase under so much more powerful an inducement. It is vain to argue, that there are reasons, such as thefear of correction from his master or the magistrate, of sufficient weight to deter him from this course—the object for which he strives is perpetually in his view, and will inspire him to brave in its pursuit any present punishment, well knowing that the owner’s patience must at length be exhausted.
With the negroes generally, there is also a direct encouragement to theft, since, under the peculiar circumstances of West India cultivation, the master’s property is, necessarily, much exposed, and liable to be stolen by his slaves. Even at present, the quantity stolen annually is ascertained to be very great. Crime usually increases in proportion to temptation; and, under the proposed enactment, the slave must become habituated to fraudulent propensities, and all his ingenuity stimulated to the commission of secret theft. Thus is caused loss of property, both directly and indirectly: directly, by the sum taken from the proprietor in the property stolen; indirectly, by obstructing the steady government of the plantation, and occasioning unavoidable loss of labour in the services of the slave.
These are vital evils; and can any attempt be made to correct them, particularly the most important one relating to self-depreciation?
Lord Bathurst, in his despatch of the 25th February, 1826, acknowledges, that great mischief would ensue, if manumission were obtained by other means than those of individual and habitualindustry; and, in alluding to the possibility of a slave’s purchase-money being improperly obtained, his Lordship observes—
“For the sake of the community, indeed, such indiscriminate manumissions ought to be prevented; for, undoubtedly, if the purchase-money were obtained from any fund which may be formed for the liberation of slaves, there would be no test of previous habits of industry, of which there is presumptive evidence where the money is procured by the honest earnings of the slave. To supply this defect it may be provided, that in such cases a certificate of good conduct for five years should be required of the Protector of slaves, before the manumission should be completed.”
It is not difficult to perceive, that this idea of a certificate is perfectly nugatory. Who is to give it? The Protector, it seems. How is it possible for the Protector to judge of the private character of the thousands under his charge? Mr. President Wray, sitting in the Court of Policy, in Demerara, admitted, “that in a population of more than 70,000 negroes, the protector could not be supposed to be acquainted with individual characters.” To the proposed amendment, that the existence of habits of industry and good conduct should be shown before the same tribunal which inquired into the manner in which the property was obtained, it was urged, that no such tribunal would have better informationthan the protector himself; and any certificate of good behaviour coming from incompetent judges, must prove altogether futile as regards protection to the proprietor.
If the framers of the measure had interrogated managers or overseers as to the length of time and the close attention it requires to understand the character of the negroes, even of a moderately-sized gang, they would have little thought of expecting a single public officer to remedy the difficulty.
But if the protectors were multiplied from one to a thousand, and did nothing else but watch over the individual character of the slaves, the remedy must be fallacious. On the broad principle of the measure itself, no system of appraisement, no reference to previous character, can meet the artifices which a slave may employ to depreciate his value; because many of such artifices, depending on the suppression of skill or zeal, being of a negative character, defy detection; and, even were they detected, detriment to the proprietor’s interests must ensue, since a willing has been changed into a discontented labourer.
Upon the rising generation, too, of the negroes, the operation of the same baneful policy of self-deterioration must increase. The whole of the youthful class, whose faculties are just dawning, will be taught to suppress everything like acuteness,and to stifle every indication of future habits of industry.
Compulsory manumission, therefore, contains the worst principle of evil, a principle of growth. Each succeeding year will make more evident to the negroes the means with which they have been invested for self-depreciation; and each additional instance of its successful adoption by their fellows encourage numbers to resort to the same pernicious artifices.
How miserable, then, is the expedient ofpartiallyquestioning certain individuals in the colonies, who, thus interrogated, may pronounce that in thepresentcondition of the slaves the measure would be inoperative, while the same persons, if questioned with a view to thefutureeffects of the measure after ten or fifteen years of its adoption, would predict a widely different result!
The writer of the “Remarks” seems unwilling to contemplate the future, and condemns prospective arguments as speculative and merely matter of opinion. But if the negro prefer a state of idleness to one of constrained exertion, it follows that he must earnestly desire to obtain his freedom. If he have repugnance to labour, he will seek his freedom by those means which are easiest. If he possess common reason, he must perceive that the easiest of all methods lies in self-depreciation.
Would it not, then, be contrary to all principlesof equity or sound legislation, to subject what is thus a self-evident proposition to the test of experiment, since, ere the result of that experiment could be ascertained, irreparable injury must have been produced?
In reality, a part only of the subject has been treated of in Lord Bathurst’s despatch, and in the “Remarks,” inasmuch as they regard only those negroes who may be freed under the operation of the measure, and overlook those who, from inability to procure their freedom, still remain on the plantation.
But it has been shown, that greater deterioration of property may occur from an improper feeling excited among the negroes who remain, than from the more direct loss of labour occasioned by the abstraction of those who become free.
The capital sunk in land, buildings and machinery is known to be very extensive in West India plantations.
We have now to inquire whether, under the mode proposed, the proprietor will receive fair indemnification for this capital, from the slaves whomay obtain their freedom. It is conceived that, in every point of view, loss is occasioned; and that while the plan of increasing the price of the slave according to his relative utility to the estate is calculated to engender the greatest discontent generally, it at the same time affords inadequate compensation to the proprietor, in regard to those who may purchase their manumission.
Lord Bathurst and the writer of the “Remarks” consider the means of fair compensation for the fixed capital to be secured, as appears in the following extract from his Lordship’s despatch:—
“If by these regulations an adequate compensation be not secured to the owner, it must either be because the persons who are authorised to decide upon the amount are not likely to be fit or fair arbitrators, or because there are restrictions which will prevent the arbitrators from the free exercise of their judgment. Now it must be admitted nothing can be fairer than the proposed selection of arbitrators in the Trinidad Order: viz., that in the event of the owner and the slave not agreeing on the price of the slave’s manumission, the owner should appoint one, the protector of slaves another, and that an umpire should be appointed by the chief judge. It is clear that an arbitration on such principle would protect the interests of the owner, and if there were any objection it would be that the bias was in his favour.As to restrictions or limitations, there are none to obstruct the free exercise of their judgment.”
To this it may, in the first place, be replied, that the principle of appraisement in its practical operation supposes the price of slaves to continue to be regulated in the West India colonies by competition in the market, like commodities in commerce.
Before we go further, then, let us examine how West India property stands at present.
The following are the Gazette average prices of sugar for the last seven years: viz.,
182035s.0d.182131 0182229 4½182334 6182430 11½182538 7¼182635 6½
It might be presumed, that the amount of capital which an individual would be willing to vest in the purchase of a property would be proportioned to its net returns. But it can be proved, that in 1819, 65,000l.sterling was offered for a sugar-estate in Jamaica, and refused, as below its estimated value. About that period it was considered, that the increasing consumption of sugar, while the means of production were limited, presented a very favourable prospect for the West India planter. Accordingly,in the year 1820, 70,000l.sterling was offered for the abovementioned estate, and also refused for the same reason. But when the proceedings in this country in 1823 and 1824 began to operate, a mighty change took place. It can be shown that distrust gradually arose, and as the proceedings became more and more critical, in the same proportion and as quickly did the value of property progressively decline. The demands of alarmed creditors from all quarters fell on the planters; they became embarrassed; and the very same property for which, in 1820, 70,000l.sterling had been refused, when again put up for sale in 1826, found no real bidding higher than 32,000l.currency, being less than 23,000l.sterling.
Strong as this instance appears to be, others equally forcible could be adduced, of the ruinous deterioration of West India property from the like cause; and they exemplify the nature of those boons which the writer of the “Remarks” affirms to have been accorded to the colonists, and “for which they should feel grateful.”
If a decline in the value of the capital has ensued, whilst the price of the produce has remained nearly the same, it is proof positive that the depreciation of West India property is not attributable to circumstances purely mercantile, but that it is owing to the proceedings of the British legislature.
It is essential to keep this circumstance in mind,and to examine the mode of appraisement prospectively, when the principle of supply and demand no longer exists, as regards the objects to be appraised.
It is apparent, that to allow of a properly-constituted market-price, there must be purchasers; but if the principle of compulsory manumission be admitted, after what has been just stated relative to the deterioration in the value of property already produced, will any purchaser of slaves be found? Under the manifold evils detailed in the preceding section, no capitalist henceforward would think of making investments upon West India securities, and all transfer of property would be at an end.
The appraisers are employed to fix a price between conflicting representations of master and slave. But can a criterion for equitable adjustment be formed? The slave himself is the only purchaser who appears in the market, and in this condition of things any mode of appraisement must be unjust and injurious to the capitalist which assumes that colonial cultivation will continue unchanged, in the event of the proposed measure being carried into effect; and which does not take into the account the aversion which every capitalist will then feel to making a precarious investment dependent upon the uncertain services of the slaves.
This is founded upon the most simple principle.If a decrease in the value of capital have already occurred beyond what is attributable to circumstances purely mercantile, and is solely occasioned by the threatened measures of Government, it is a fair inference that a further decrease would ensue if such threatened measures were put into execution; and the effects of that opinion prevailing throughout the colonies, must render the chance of fully withdrawing the fixed capital more and more precarious, as the evils of the measure became more widely developed.
Let us suppose a sugar-plantation, with two hundred negroes, worth 40,000l.; one-half sunk in lands and buildings, the other half the value of the slaves. Accordingly as the negroes progressively free themselves, the 20,000l.sunk in lands and buildings has to be apportioned among them, and added to the price of their manumission. Now it must be recollected, thatthe wholeof the two hundred negroes are requisite to carry on profitable cultivation. The land and buildings cannot be disposed of, or circumscribed to suit a more limited business, as would be the case with premises in this country when a manufacturer reduced the number of his workmen.
After a number of men, then, are freed, the proprietor is left with a great concern upon his hands without people to carry it on. To be fully remunerated for the property sunk in that concern,the people remaining would have to pay, as he gradually becomes more and more short of hands, a prodigious sum for their freedom. Is it possible, from what has been stated, that he could receive full indemnification? Let it be recollected, that it will soon be, not a quota, but theentireof the fixed capital, which the efficient negroes, applying for freedom, will have to pay to indemnify their masters,—and in actual practice can this be done?
The writer of the “Remarks” illustrates the case by comparing a sugar-estate to a mill with a number of buckets! The reader, it is presumed, will be tempted to smile at the idea of considering the negroes as mere passive machines, devoid of those feelings, passions, and intelligence, which it is their master’s chief solicitude to call into existence.
But, to pass over the narrow and partial view of the subject here displayed, even were we to indulge the writer in his singular mode of illustration, it fails to establish his object. He says, if twenty buckets are attached to a wheel, and four be removed, the proprietor will be entitled to be remunerated for whatever loss of work this removal occasioned; and if the work turned off were diminished, from incompetency of power in the wheel, not only in the proportion of twenty to sixteen, being one-fifth, but in the proportion of two-fifths, then would the proprietor be entitledto receive, as equitable compensation, two-fifths of the value in place of one.
Now it is important to reflect, that if four buckets be taken away from the wheel, its motion may not only be diminished in a greater ratio than two-fifths, but it may bestopped altogether.
This is the proper application of such an illustration to the circumstances of a sugar-estate. If forty efficient negroes be removed out of two hundred, being the same proportion as in the assumed case of the buckets, will any person, acquainted with the colonies, maintain that cultivation could continue? An estate which had produced two hundred hogsheads of sugar would not merely be reduced two-fifths of that amount, that is to say, to one hundred and twenty hogsheads, but it would be altogether abandoned, because its returns would not cover its expenses.
The author of the bucket-illustration must be sensible of its fallacy, if he reflect that at some one point, the wheel, from its diminution of buckets, must stop.
The question is, as regards the cultivation of sugar, will this point soon be reached? Little is required to be said on this head, if the proprietors are prepared to establish the fact, that even at present they can scarcely spare one man.
Lord Bathurst acknowledges, indeed, the ultimateimprobability that the slaves could of themselves indemnify their master for the entire capital he has sunk; and his Lordship says, when the price of manumission rises from 100 to 500l., then it will be time for the nation to come forward. A most consolatory prospect! And what are the proprietors to dobefore the nation does come forward? When the discussion is beginning, and before the public are disposed to put their hands into their pockets, the proprietors buildings, machinery, roads, dams, are going into dilapidation, and he is a ruined man.
When we prove injury in the principle, it is scarcely necessary to descend to discuss the practice. Many colonists view with alarm the great power given to the Protector, and other officers of government. But let us pass over details. It is only necessary to reflect upon what the appraiser has to do, to perceive that the mode of working must be as bad as the design, and that the whole process must be vague and mere guess-work. Even admitting the very doubtful proposition, that impartial arbitrators could be selected, numerous peculiarities may exist to obstruct the formation of a sound judgment in regard to the value of a part of the planter’s stock, in consequence of the manner in which the whole is rendered profitable.
It is to repeat the opinion of every intelligent person recently returned from the colonies, to declare,that it is perfectly impossible for any appraiser, no matter how intelligent, experienced, or impartial, correctly to estimate the value of a slave, in order to award compensation in the manner described by Lord Bathurst.
Having shown, in the preceding section, that the fixed capital of an estate cannot be removed, we have now to show that the necessary expenses of carrying on its cultivation cannot be diminished.
Each proprietor is by law obliged to maintain the aged, the infirm, and the helpless, upon his estate. This duty he performs with the utmost cheerfulness. He can hold out to his able negroes no stronger incentive to good conduct than the assurance verified in their parents, that they will pass the evening of life in rest and contentment, with every little want provided for. The spectacle itself is one of the most agreeable which can strike the eye of the stranger; it is peculiarly grateful to the feelings of the negro; and most forcibly illustrates the happy state of things when benefits are made to How from the master alone. Compulsory manumission severs the link which makes this obligationmutual, for it gives to the master all the expense, and deprives him of the benefit.
On most West India plantations not more than one-third part of each gang can be considered as efficient for field-cultivation, there being included the old and infirm, the infant and the helpless, all of whom are unserviceable, but whom the proprietor is bound by every consideration to support.
The young and able, those in the prime of life, and under the strongest influence of the passions, to whom all the allurements of idleness present themselves in full force, would lose no time in availing themselves of any opportunity to go at large.
On the contrary, the old slaves on a plantation, in whom the ardent passions have subsided, knowing that they must soon come to be exempt from work, and entitled to that maintenance gratuitously from their master, which in a state of freedom they would have to earn for themselves, would make no attempt to procure their own liberation, but would devote their earnings, and any accumulation of money they may have already made, to the ransom of their children.
This double operation, therefore, of the young and efficient freeing themselves, or being freed by their aged connexions; and the superannuated and infirm remaining to be supported by the proprietor, would leave the burdens of a plantationundiminished, while its ability to bear them was nearly annihilated.
With regard to the other portion, from whom no labour is obtained, namely, the infants, the proprietor is induced at present to treat them with the utmost care, were it only for their future value. But the prospect of obtaining their future services might soon be changed.
Slavery, considered as an hereditary condition, is perpetuated on the side of the mother only; if means were taken to purchase all the female children, no calculation regarding relative value could be made, and the property of each proprietor must become extinct with the lives of his present negroes.
Now it is fair to apprehend, that the means of obtaining manumission might be improperly employed, for the purpose of exterminating slavery, regardless of all injury to the capitalist. Whether those means would be supplied from a fund raised in this country by speculative theorists hostile to the colonies, or, whether the slaves themselves would be, by such persons, instigated to purchase the female children, the result would be equally injurious to the proprietor.
Few persons require to be told, that the proportion of property under mortgage in the West Indies is considerable. It is singular, that, in the various discussions to which the Colonial Question has given rise, so little attention has been directed to the interests thus involved. Independently of the mortgagees themselves, it is the direct advantage of the planters to have every facility open for the raising of loans to meet temporary difficulties.
The act of Parliament, the 13 Geo. III. c. 14, invites loans from aliens, on the security of leasehold or freehold estates, in His Majesty’s West Indian Colonies. The 14 Geo. III. c. 79 legalizes the taking of interest by British subjects, for sums advanced on mortgage, and securities of any lands, tenements, hereditaments, slaves, and other things, at the rate allowed by the law of the colony where the mortgaged property lies. And the 3 Geo. IV. c. 47, further regulates the rate of interest, and extends its provisions to persons advancing capital in this country.
On the faith of these enactments, large investments on mortgage have been made. Slaves are recognised in them, as property in fee-simple, absolute, which has been confirmed by decisionsin our courts, both of law and equity. Consequently, all mortgagees rest their security not on Colonial enactments, but on British Acts of Parliament; and the law relating to mortgaged property in the colonies must be analogous to the law relating to mortgaged property in England.
By the law of England, when woods or messuages are included in a mortgage, none of those woods or messuages can be sold or alienated, either collectively or in part, by the mortgagor, or by any other known authority, even though the proceeds of such sale should be appropriated to the benefit of the mortgagee, without the express consent and concurrence of the latter; the law giving to him the sole privilege of determining as to whatever may affect his security.
By the same law of England, when slaves are expressly specified in a mortgage on West India property, neither the proprietor, nor any other known authority, can legally sell such slaves, even though the proceeds be applied in liquidation of the mortgage, unless it be with the previous consent of the mortgagee.
Yet it does not appear, that Earl Bathurst has explicitly provided for the claims of the mortgagee, who has lent his money in the firm reliance that the law has guaranteed, both to himself and to the mortgagor, the full effects of the stipulation of the mortgage contract.
But if the slaves, being in law real property, on which the mortgagee holds a lien, be permitted at their will to separate themselves from the plantation, it must weaken the security of the mortgagee, by removing the instruments through which the fixed capital was rendered productive, and by the employment of which for the benefit of the mortgagor, there was a reasonable confidence that the mortgage might ultimately be redeemed.
And in regard to the purchase-money paid by the slave to his owner, as the price of his liberation, if the amount go at once into the hands of the mortgagee, it is an injustice to the debtor, because he had a right to expect a rate of profit from his cultivation, much higher than the mere interest paid for his loan; and it is illegal, because it is beyond the terms of his contract with the mortgagee.
If, again, the money be deposited in some public chest, it is illegal and unjust to both parties: unjust, because the removal of an efficient hand entered not into the calculations of the owner of the plantation, and by the decrease of its produce from subtracted labour, he finds his debt not diminishing but growing larger, while the mortgagee runs the risk of losing his money;—illegal, because the stipulation forms no part of the mortgage contract.
When we show that illegality is added to injustice, we may close the case on the part of the proprietor.
Let us sum up the objections.
If not one man is freed, compulsory manumission changes his good slaves into bad ones. If any are freed, he gets inadequate remuneration for their loss. It unjustly makes the burdens on his estates perpetual; and in case of mortgages, is contrary to the statute-law of the realm.
Is compulsory manumission then compatible with a fair and equitable consideration of the rights of private property? Will any member of the legislature be willing to confirm an act of the executive, which is expressly contrary to the Resolution to which Parliament became pledged in 1823?