Letters on the West Indies

Front matter

ftrttcrs ON THE WEST INDIES. actors ON THE WEST INDIES. BY JAMES WALKER. LONDON: PRINTED FOR REST FENNER, PATERNOSTER ROW*. 1818. S. Curtis, Camberwell Press. BY TO THE PLANTERS OF TOBAGO AND ANTIGUA, ISLANDS DISTINGUISHED AMONG BRITISH COLONIES IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS LAID BEFORE PARLIAMENT, THE ONE BY ATTENTION TO THE CIVIL COMFORTS, THE OTHER ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THEIR NEGRO POPULATION, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH SINCERE WISHES, THAT EACH OF THE EXAMPLES, IMPROVING STILL FURTHER IN ITSELF, MAY SPREAD ITS BENEFIT OVER THE BRITISH WEST INDIES, AND TO THE PLACE OF ITS ORIGIN PROVE THE SOURCE OF CROWING PROSPERITY.

Introduction

These Letters, or rather Essays, were meant to be published anonymously, if published at all. An individual may have some acquaintance with a particular sub ject, and may, therefore, be willing to assume a common privilege, and deliver his sentiments upon it incognito ; when, at the same time, possessing no claim on the attention of the public, he would not have been equally ready to stand forward and address them in his own person : he may l>e confident in his cause and decided in his

INTRODUCTION.

. VIII views, while yet he feels that, if he had intended to appear openly as a pleader, he would have been very sparing of his appearance, under a consciousness that he may probably have before him some men whom it might better become him, on many points, to meet as instructors than auditors. Peculiar circumstances in the present case added their weight to these feelings. A pamphlet attacking the Official Report, and the general proceedings of the Com missioners for the management of the late Crown Estates in Berbice, issued this year from the pen of Joseph Marryat, Esq. 31. P. That a work on West Indian subjects should straightway be printed and avowed by the man who had lately come home from the direction of those properties, and yet should not be made the instrument of repelling that attack, must appear to amount to an admission, as far as his authority might be taken, that the commission was indefensible.

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. IX He cannot allow such an interpretation to be put on the silence which these Let ters observe on this matter ; and, therefore, having been persuaded by some friends, for whose opinion he feels much deference, to bring forward his name, he deems it neces sary to make an observation or two in explanation of his conduct. The manuscript was begun at the date prefixed to it ; it was completed in plan, and nearly completed in detail, before Mr. 3Iarryat's pamphlet appeared ; and if it had not been written at a considerable dis tance from London (with little other view, at first, than relieving a season of indisposi tion), it might have been in print long before the writer heard of the publication in ques tion. He has now seen the latter, and it has not occasioned any alteration in what he had prepared. Indeed he holds no au thority to stand forward as the defender of those who were his superiors in office as

INTRODUCTION.

. X they are in eminence. Accordingly, the respectable gentlemen who have been singled out as the objects of illiberal attack, are strangers to the present publication : — it will come to their eyes, from the press, as new as to any reader who never heard of the Berbice Commission. The connexion indeed in which the writer has stood with those gentlemen, which originated in an act of confidence on their part, is continued, he is happy to think, in particular friendship. But they are quite competent to their own defence ; and they are men who will know how to appreciate his motives in imposing on himself this reserve towards them. The truth is, the subject of West Indian amelioration has nothing to do with the personalities which have been attempted to be mixed with it. People at home, and moderate men in the colonies, therefore, must be desirous to see it stand entirely on its own merits. To this effect an humble

INTRODUCTION.

. XI attempt is here made, and it is only to be wished that it had been undertaken by abler hands. As to the particular topic which has introduced these observations, the writer would be doing injustice to himself and others if he did not shortly say, that he shall always reflect with satisfaction on the days he spent in Berbice in the exercise of the trust reposed in him by the Commis sioners for Crown Property. No estates in the West Indies could promise better than the plantations in question promised in the beginning of 1816 ; no slaves ever were in more perfect subordination than the negroes belonging to those properties were at the moment of the agent's separation from them. When the interesting undertaking Avas suddenly put an end to by the treaty with the King of the Netherlands, it was retrieving its affairs with a rapidity exceed ing the expectations (the moderate expec-

INTRODUCTION.

. XII tations) entertained by him or by his intelligent assistant 3Ir. Scott. Respecting even the preceding period., regarding which so much has been said, an answer of no small weight is to be found in the simple fact, that the whole duration ofthe commission from its commencement to its conclusion, including three successive agencies, was only four years — a very short time, as every thinking man knows, for an experiment in the agriculture of any country. Nor was the measure entered on as a fair experiment ; the Report states this in strong and repeated terms. Indeed, were the writer to presume on offering any opinion, it would be, that hope was rather, perhaps, too little admitted into the attempt, and that this may possibly have operated in some respects against its success. But after all the evils that happened it, and notwith standing its unfavourable pecuniary results, whatever these may have ultimately proved^

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. XIII it is an humble, but deliberate opinion, which was produced by personal acquaint ance with the properties, that if the under taking had been continued, and if its management had gone on in the real spirit of the instructions of the Commissioners, as it was at last doing (all the merit the writer claims), it would not only have re deemed its debt, but have proved a source of revenue, and of increasing revenue ; this, indeed, not suddenly, but after a reasonable term of years. It is easy to say, as is done in the examination of the Report, that all ideas of this kind are speculative. No less easily, though not quite so concisely, could numerous facts be placed in a light exceed ingly different from that in which they appear in that pamphlet. Some of these facts shall be thrown into a note,* namely, such of them as more or less concern the Writer's own administration ; the circum- * For this note, see the end of the work.

INTRODUCTION.

. XIV stances of the present publication seem now to require this in justice to himself. Further, however, he shall not, and, indeed, cannot go ; he has neither materials, authority, nor inclination. Instead of taxing his readers with the protracted discussion of a matter now at an end, he would much rather urge every intelligent and liberal West India proprietor to listen to the suggestions which, after all that has been passing for a period now nearly ten times longer than the duration of the undertaking in question, must continually arise in his own mind, on the great points that concern his Negroes. If any thing thrown out in these sheets shall be of use in aiding such suggestions. the whole purpose of the author will be attained. Truly solicitous for the good of the Colonies, and their harmony with the 3Iother Country, he writes not in a spirit of contention, but with the wish to advance, if

INTRODUCTION.

. XV his feeble aid could do so, both those great interests. Although, therefore, he avows himself one who thinks that the evils which require a cure are deeply rooted, and cannot with honesty be treated as slight ; although consequently some proprietors in the plantations may be ready to think his views strong, and a still greater number of inhabitants may feel his remarks to be somewhat free, he is not without confidence, that calm and moderate men among all classes, who go on with him to the end, will admit, that his genuine objects are the safety and prosperity of the British West Indies. As it has been already hinted, that these Letters might with propriety have been called by any other name, it is hardly necessary to add, in express terms, that they never were actually transmitted to any individual. The epistolary form was felt convenient for treating the subjects easily ,

INTRODUCTION.

. and it kept up in the writer's mind a certain sort of interest connected with the imagina tion of addressing sometimes one, .sometimes another, of his old West India friends. 47, Great Marlborough-Street, Dec. 1817. THE WEST INDIES.

Letter I. On The Interference Of The British Public In Colonial Affairs

October, 1816. There has been so much discussion of late on subjects relating to the colonies, that I can not resist taking up my pen to throw together a few thoughts which have suggested themselves to me in consequence of what has been said and written by the opposite parties. Seven and twenty years ago, on the other side of the At lantic, I believe you and others reckoned me one of the reformers, but I am not aware that I have ever been deemed a dangerous innovator. I regret that the animosity which has always more or less united itself with every contro- I! versy on colonial subjects has in the present day increased to a very unhappy degree. On the West Indian side of the question, it kindled strongly on the first proposal ofa registry bill; and it has increased in heat ever since. I par ticularly regret when I see gentlemen of respec tability on that side renewing and keeping alive this irritation by every possible means, however extraneous, and even forgetting themselves so far as to descend to the publication of personal abuse.

The only property which in early life I suc ceeded to, was a patrimony in the West Indies ; my feelings and wishes are strongly interested in the colonies; when I think of them, I always think of certain individual friends whom I highly esteem, and whose benefit I should earnestly wish to see secured and promoted. I cannot but lament therefore when I see substantial interests sacrificed, as I think, to temper, to prejudice, and to the momentary object of pushing an argument against an adversary. Let it be remembered, that whatever warmth the opponents of West Indians may betray in the contest, and whatever mistakes it may lead them to commit, even if these were to end in the total ruin of their cause, the consequences do not affect them personally. This, you know, is a favourite argument urged against them : — " These men have neither property nor families in the West Indies ; whereas we their antagonists are involved both in fortune and life in the consequences of every reform and every change."

The statement, I may remark, is generally in tended to imply, that not so much as a hearing ought to be granted except to one side of the question : were it only meant to enforce the necessity of allowing the most ample hearing to the colonial side, nothing could be fairer or more incontrovertible. But there is another inference of which West India gentlemen would do well to attend to the importance. Since their all is at stake, let them exercise great wisdom ; since they proclaim so strong a sentiment, let them act like men who believe what they say. Let nothing entice them, no not the powerful influence of a keen debate, to lose sight for a moment of such deep and momen tous concerns, such all-important interests. Whatever their antagonists do, let them contib nually remember how entirely their part must be that of the wisest caution, the coolest con duct, the most deliberate forethought.

One capital mistake perhaps may be fatal to them. They themselves cease not to tell the world that the possessions they are defending are construct ed of the most inflammable materials, and that a single spark arriving, by either accident or de sign, from the hand of friend or foe, is enough to reduce the whole to ashes. Surely, in such circumstances, it is mere childishness to say, " I am exposed to a sharp fire, and therefore whatever be the consequence, I will make my enemy feel I can fire as sharply as he :" — the answer is, " You may one day return from a successful adventure of this sort, at once to en-. joy your triumph and to contemplate your ruin." I confess I tremble when I see the imprudence which is manifested by some ofthe West Indian champions. Because they think a powerful mean of creating a popular interest in their favour will be to rouse an apprehension in this country of all the slaves in the colonies getting suddenly free, they do not hesitate to make this dangerous topic prominent in all their discussions ; not only imputing motives to the con duct, and interpretations to the language of their adversaries, such as the latter disclaim, but sometimes saying things which the most rash and ignorant advocate for emancipation would hardly, I should think, venture to utter.

The editors of West Indian newspapers, often, in no less zeal and anger, copy the accusations, and these are read by the free black and coloured people of the colonies ! Is this wise ? Is an argument which is obtained at such hazard a desirable acquisition to a cause ? It were even well if this feverish feeling were confined to the few individuals who give it vent before the public ; but their wish to spread it generally has certainly had a lamentable degree of success among our brother colonists, many of whom in deed were too much pre-disposed to its recep tion. I hardly meet an old West Indian acquaintance who can talk with tolerable temper of the abolitionists. Surely this is not a spirit adapted to a grave occasion like the present, or an important question, such as that of a general registry of slaves. — It is utterly inconsistent with the wisdom and deliberation, with which mankind have generally thought that matters of legislation ought to be treated ; and it is not more unworthy of the subjects in debate, than it is of some of the respectable individuals who seem at present carried away by its impetus.

Nor does it produce any solid conviction in the public mind. Indeed the result tends sooner or later to the opposite direction. It may be proved, from innumerable instances in the history of this country, that even when a triumph in a controversy is gained, if it has been accomplished by mere clamour, it is generally short-lived : the question, whatever it may be, is again brought under review, and the decision probably reversed, under circumstances of accumulated offence and mortification to the party first victorious. This leads me to what I humbly think the West India body have not duly considered in the present question. I think they have not yet made use of sufficient time nor sufficient coolness of mind to examine whether the views they have taken of their interest are likely to he permanently promoted, supposing every point now in dispute were now carried against the abolitionists.

The ground which it appears evident the West Indian leaders have taken and are deter mined to maintain if they can, is that the people of this country shall not be permitted to inter fere in colonial affairs. Their language is, that it is necessary to resist being dictated to in the matter of registry, otherwise the interference will become extended to every matter, and ceaseless in all future time. I do not mean to enter at all upon the parti cular question of the registry, but to face rather the wider and larger subject of interference in general, in the view in which colonists regard it as an object of apprehension. Registry, they say, is only a branch, it is not the tree ; and we must have the tree cut down and rooted out. — I agree with their definition, but I confess I differ very much from them as to both the pro priety and the probable success of their design.

I readily concede that undue interference is a possible thing, and would be a thing so wrong that there would be good reason, whenever it should occur, to remonstrate strongly against it. What is, and what is not, undue interference, eomes then to be a natural question ; and I admit that it is no wonder if West Indians are anxious to see it brought to a settlement. Indeed, I not only admit, but assert, that it is now be come of the most momentous consequence to every man who possesses property in the plan tations, that the mother country and the colonies shall come to some reasonable understanding on this matter. Yet it is quite plain to me that the case does not admit of an e.xact line being drawn in theory. It is of importance that West Indians shall be convinced of this impossibility. What •then is the understanding that may be arrived at ?

The only possible understanding in a case which must of necessity be a matter, not of theory but of practice, seems to be, that good sense, moderation, and feelings of attachment shall be the guides on both sides. One thing further, however, is very evident : any man who considers the relative situations of the two parties, will clearly perceive, that as the first step towards any amicable line being drawn at all, the colonies must not be too tenacious in their ideas, or too lofty in their language. If the West India body wish to free themselves from the action of enquiry and discussion, and the control of public opinion, a disposition which, as I have already hinted, has been betrayed, and indeed avowed by some of their champions — the expectation is, in my humble opinion, utterly hopeless : and it is not the defeat of registry bills, the overturn of philan thropic institutions, nor the levelling of public and private characters with the dust, — were even all these things triumphantly accomplished, — which will attain the end proposed.

I would ask any temperate and enlightened man whose travels and pursuits have not been confined to the West Indies, whether in the present state of the world, such an expectation can be ration ally cherished by one single reflecting mind. — It is impossible. The interference of this country in colonial matters will continue. Op position will only increase it, and it will extend, too, to all her foreign settlements equally. Ac cordingly, our brethren in the West ought to remember, that it does not limit its operations to their affairs. Our Eastern dominions have felt the stretch of its arm, and measures have been adopted with regard to India, contrary to much Indian opinion, and powerful Indian remonstrance, because the people of Britain would have it so. The truth is, the mother country seems to have become struck with a review of her own conduct ; and sensible that while she continued during more than two centuries planting colonies in all parts of tbe globe, she thought too little respecting the condition of the numberless subjects she thus adopted, — reflected too slightly on her duties towards them, and enquired too seldom into the proceedings of those of her sons who went to superintend them.

This, you know, is a circumstance strongly urged against the abolitionists. " Britain," it is said, " was the original actor in the British slave trade. Britain made slavery the law of her western colonies : and, in short, if it had not been for the British parliament, not a single colonial abuse could ever have got into existence." The reproach cannot be averted ; but can it be turned into an argument by our colonial brethren?— Yes, strange to say, some of them plead, that if the conduct of England was wrong, she has no title now to alter it ; for this reason, — that she continued it so long. What is the reply ? — No ; it is too much that her neglect lasted for a period which can only be looked back to with remorse and awe : it must now be atoned for ; wisely and prudently no doubt, but with determination and perseverance.

Posterity will judge of the comparative soundness of the two arguments. But meanwhile, I am thoroughly convinced that on the minds of the people of this country, the feeling I have just described has taken too firm and too general a hold to be ever eradicated. There has been awakened a spirit of investigation into colonial affairs, altogether unknown to our fathers. It will never be laid to sleep : to suppose that it will, is dotingly to foster an idea, contradicted not only by every proba bilitv, but by every thing that we actually see. It sometimes appears as if West Indian writers really flattered themselves, that the continuance of the system of interference depends on the lives of a few individuals. Let any man look at the state of the House of Commons, and the rising generation of public men, and say whether this is not a most delusive idea.

Let him observe the diffusion of knowledge among the lower orders in Britain; the ardour in promoting it evinced by those in middle life; and the action of that wonderful machine, new to the whole world, the Bible Society (is the mention of the name Methodistical? — a wise man will always look at a fact) : and let him say if these are the days in which any one topic interesting to any of our species, and especially relating to numerous tribes peculiarly united to us, shall be locked up from discussion. He must pro nounce the thought to be miserable infatuation. I rejoice to think so, and to feel confident that when the present race of opponents shall cease to exist on both sides of every contest, new parliaments and societies, new orators and writers, will make it known and felt in the farthest corners of the earth, that when the sons of Britain leave her shores, they do not leave her eye ; and that while she will continue anxious to promote their pecuniary welfare, she will also now exercise over them every other duty of a parent.

You will think my subject warms me. I own it does, and I appeal to you whether you do not feel warmed too. The glory and prosperity of our country have i-isen with the exercise of her moral principles; nor can we surely wish them to rise otherwise. In that glory and prosperity all her colonies have shared, and none have taken a warmer interest in them than the colonies of the West. Nor do any of her subjects stand up more strongly for their birthrights as Britons than West Indians do ; they cannot, therefore, refuse to pay the price of the noble aad valuable possession. Their wisdom as well as duty is to acknowledge cheerfully the parental relation in which their country stands to them. I talk not of the power of the privy council at home, over governors and legislatures abroad : I enter not into the question ofthe authority of the laws of the imperial parliament over colonial laws : I speak of the control of the public opinion of this country; — the sovereignty of British feelings AND BRITISH MODES OF THINKING OVer the feelings, ideas, and habits which are acquired by colonists.

This control must be submitted to, if there is to be any health or soundness in our colonial system— any security in West India property — any cordial union between Britain and her foreign settlements. If it is LETTERS O.V heartily submitted to, and the submission is honestly acted upon — if our brethren abroad really and practically manifest a desire to transplant British principles into their system, not of laws merely, but of habits and daily actions, and to foster the growth of those principles as much as their circumstances can possibly allow : — then the people of this country, who are a sensible people, will make all due allowance for a state of society so different from their own. They will fully admit their own disadvantage, not indeed in judging of great and general questions (for here the disadvantage, as we shall by and by see, lies on the opposite side), but in directing local details.

If they see reasonable amelioration, they will not be impatient under its gradual advance. Peace, therefore, and security will prevail, and West Indian estates may descend to future generations even with a tranquillity hitherto unknown. But the hopes of the nation on this subject must not be felt troublesome, nor their continued watchfulness treated as impertinent. If the high language is persisted in, which, I deeply regret, I hear sometimes used against all interference and all enquiry whatever ; or if ameliorating laws and regulations are published to serve as a blind, or at least to become ne glected and useless, rather than to be honestly enforced, surely it is not to be expected that such conduct will be submitted to. The contention will continue, till the black and coloured tribes, in whose hearing it goes on, will probably think themselves entitled, from being the sub jects, to become the principal conductors of it : and then, alas, too certainly those fatal scenes must follow, the horrors of which have been often painted in such glowing colours by West Indians.

Letter II. On The Capability Of The British Public To Judge Of

COLONIAL AFFAIRS. If any of our old West Indian friends should see the lines I have written, I am prepared to expect in their faces, some rising symptoms of disapprobation. Perhaps, however, if they proceed far enough with me, their displeasure may, at times at least, diminish :■ — I cannot tell, for I sat down not to consider the sentiments of any man on either side, but to deliver my own. At present I must take a little further latitude, though at the risk of giving further offence. I have stated, that in expecting success to the great and leading plan of resisting the in vestigation of the mother country into colonial concerns, our brethren appear to me to be deceiving themselves with false hopes ; that the delusion indeed is not only gross but so im portant that if persisted in it must end fatally.

I have now to make some remarks on the reason which they assign for adopting such a plan ; this reason is that the people of this country are not capable of forming a sound judgment on subjects which it is argued lie beyond their sphere. Here I think there is an equal mistake, and one which I think it is equally necessary for colonists to abandon. — I am aware that many of them will be even more unwilling to give up this point than the other. Having in my first letter, therefore, expressed my conviction that the mother country will, I have now to state my humble opinion that she can judge of colonial affairs. I need hardly observe that I do not allude to those matters of detail which are purely of a local and physical nature. These have in fact little to do with our subject. Soil and climate, and their productions, differ in different coun tries, and no man in Britain pretends to offer an opinion on the proper mode or season for planting c suo-ar, cotton, or coffee.

But there are things in which the laws of nature are universal, especially those matters, transcending all others in importance, which relate to the minds of human beings. It is in regard to the various inhabitants of distant climes that the people of this country think they can form some judgment. White men, black men, and coloured men, are subject in similar circumstances, whether of bondage or of. freedom, to similar impulses, propensities, and aversions ; similar hopes, fears, and wishes, in all parts of the world. To forget or reject this obvious principle, is an error fallen into by some persons who spend their lives on a West India plantation. They tell us that nobody but colonists can speak about colonies, as if a magic circle were drawn round those islands, detaching them from the rest of the globe.

They consider the past history and universal experience of mankind, antient and modern, as of no use in judging of them, their neighbours, and dependants ; as if all these were inhabitants of a different planet, of which the people of Europe can form no ideas. Who are the men who thus think and speak? It is impossible not to ask the question, although the decision of the point in debate does not depend upon the answer. Various are the histories of individuals among them. We may trace one history not uncommon. A youth, of perhaps the age of sixteen or seventeen, English, Scotch, or Irish, having rather bare prospects in his own country, and having heard of West Indians coming home rich, is seized with a desire of pushing his fortune in the colonies. He is fitted out by the industry of his parents, and leaves the parish where he was born and bred, for the nearest sea-port town, where he can take shipping for his destined plantation.