The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861

There was truth here, as well as wit, showing not only Mr. Buxton's absorption in the cause which he had espoused, but his inspiring influence on other minds. His indomitable energy was always sure to grow stronger after defeat, and the strength of his own belief in the justice of his cause of itself increased the faith of its friends.

In the onward course of events the violence of the West Indians assumed different phases, and one of the most memorable of these had respect to the religious teachers of the slaves. They had been sent out by various bodies of Christians in England, commencing nearly a hundred years before these anti-slavery efforts. The object of the missionary was a definite one, to christianize the negroes. He knew well, before engaging in his work, that those who might come under his instruction were slaves, and because they were slaves the call was all the louder upon his compassion. Yet his path of duty lay wide enough from any attempt to render the objects of his Christian efforts other than they were in their civil relations. Such were the instructions which the missionaries were accustomed to receive, on leaving England for a residence among the Colonists. Nor was there ever, from the beginning to the ending of this stirring chapter in the history of Slavery, reason to believe that these instructions had been disobeyed. Their labors had in some instances been encouraged by the planters, and their influence acknowledged to be a valuable aid in the management of the negroes. But in these days of excitement and insubordination the missionaries were accused of encouraging disobedience in the slaves. When outbreaks occurred, the guilt was laid to the charge of the Christian teachers. Upon a mere suspicion, without a shadow of evidence, they were seized and thrown into prison. One of the most melancholy instances of this was that of the Rev. J. Smith, who was sentenced to be hanged, but died in prison, through hardships endured, before the day of execution arrived. He was only one of several who suffered at the hands of the West Indians the grossest injustice. The case of Mr. Shrewsbury was at one time brought before the House. Mr. Canning made reference to him as "a gentleman in whose conduct there did not appear to be the slightest ground of blame or suspicion." He was a Wesleyan missionary at Barbadoes, and, having fallen under suspicion, was also condemned to die. Among other charges, he was accused of having corresponded with Mr. Buxton. Said the latter, in an address to the House,—"I never wrote to him a single letter, nor did I know that such a man existed, till I happened to take up a newspaper, and there read, with some astonishment, that he was going to be hanged for corresponding with me!"

If Englishmen and Christian ministers were condemned to death on such allegations, adduced at mock trials, it is not strange that negroes sometimes lost their lives on similar grounds. After a rising among these people, several having been executed, the evidence of the guilt of a certain portion was reviewed in the House of Commons. The witness was asked whether he had found guns among the insurgents. He replied, "No; but he was shown a place where guns had been"! Had he found bayonets? "No; but he was shown a basket where bayonets had been"! Unfortunately, the victims of this species of evidence were already hung when the review of the trial took place.

This last incident brings us to another feature of those times, the actual insurrections which took place among the slaves. Passing by the lesser excitements of Barbadoes and Demerara, we come to the great rising in Jamaica in 1832. A servile war is generally represented as displaying at every point its banners of flame, plashing its feet meanwhile in the blood of women and children. But the great insurrection of 1832, which, as it spread, included fifty thousand negroes in its train, was in the beginning simply a refusal to work.

Fiercely discussed by the masters, emancipation began to be spoken of among the slaves. Necessarily they must know something about it; but, in their distorted and erroneous impressions, they believed that "the Great King of England" had set them free, and the masters were wilfully withholding the boon.

There was one, a negro slave, whose dark glittering eye fascinated his fellows, and whose wondrous powers of speech drew them, despite themselves, into the conspiracy. But he planned no murders, designed no house-burnings; to those who, under solemn pledge of secrecy, joined him, he propounded a single idea. It was this. If we, the negroes, who are as five to one, compared to the white men, refuse to work any more until freedom is given, we shall have it. There will be some resistance, and a few of us will be killed; but that we must expect. This, in substance, was the ground taken by Sharpe, who, as a slave, had always been a favorite both with his master and others. This was the commencement of the great insurrection. Its leader had not counted upon the excitable spirit of the slaves when once aroused. Holding as sacred the property of his master, he believed his followers would do the same, until the light of burning barns and out-houses revealed the mischief which had begun to work. Yet, in the sanguinary struggle which followed, it is to be remembered that the excesses which were committed, the wanton waste of life, were on the part of the white residents, who meted out vengeance with an unsparing hand,—not on the part of the negroes.

One effect of this uprising of the slaves was, in England, to deepen the impression of the evils of the system under which they were held. If the mere discussion of Slavery were fraught with such terrible consequences, how could safety ever consist with the thing itself? By discussion they had but exercised their own rights as Englishmen. Of what use to them was Magna Charta, if they must seal their lips in silence when a public abuse required to be corrected, a gigantic wrong to be righted? Must they give up the ocean and the land to the dominion of the slave-owner and slave-trader, hushing the word of remonstrance, lest it should lead to war and bloodshed? No; they would not do this. The thing itself which had caused these commotions must perish.

Here was a decided gain for the friends of the slave in Parliament. Mr. Buxton, in alluding to the fearful aspect of the times, asks the pertinent question, "How is the Government prepared to act in case of a general insurrection among the slaves?" We give the closing paragraphs of his speech at this crisis.

"I will refer the House to the sentiments of Mr. Jefferson, the President of the United States. Mr. Jefferson was himself a slave-owner, and full of the prejudices of slave-owners; yet he left this memorable memorial to his country: 'I do, indeed, tremble for my country when I remember that God is just, and that His justice may not sleep forever. A revolution is among possible events; the Almighty has no attribute which would side with us in such a struggle.'

"This is the point which weighs most heavily with me. The Almighty has no attribute that will side with us in such a struggle. A war with an overwhelming physical force, a war with a climate fatal to the European constitution, a war in which the heart of the people of England would lean toward the enemy: it is hazarding all these terrible evils; but all are light and trivial, compared with the conviction I feel that in such a warfare it is not possible to ask nor can we expect the countenance of Heaven."

While events tended to bring the whole system of Slavery into odium, the leaders of the Abolition party were themselves changing their ground. They had begun with the hope of mitigating the hardships of the slave's lot,—to place him upon the line of progression, and so ultimately to fit him for freedom. But they had found themselves occupying a false position. Slowly they came to the conclusion that for the slave little could be accomplished in the way of improvement, so long as he remained a slave. The complete extinction of the system was now the object aimed at. At a crowded Anti-Slavery meeting held in May, 1830, Mr. Wilberforce presided. The first resolution, moved by Mr. Buxton, was this,—"That no proper or practicable means be left unattempted for effecting, at the earliest period, the entire abolition of Slavery throughout the British dominions." At a meeting held in Edinburgh similar language was used by Lord Jeffrey. Said Dr. Andrew Thomson, one of the most influential of the Scottish clergy,—"We ought to tell the legislature, plainly and strongly, that no man has a right to property in man,—that there are eight hundred thousand individuals sighing in bondage, under the intolerable evils of West Indian Slavery, who have as good a right to be free as we ourselves have,—that they ought to be free, and that they must be made free!"

Another element at this time wrought in favor of the Abolitionists. Of the missionaries who had suffered persecution in the Colonies, numbers had returned to England. These religious teachers, while plying their vocation in the West Indies, had acted in obedience to the instructions received from the societies which employed them. Necessarily, while in a slave country, they had been silent upon the subject of Slavery. But in truth they liked the institution as little as Mr. Buxton himself. Once in England, the seal of silence melted from their lips. Everywhere in public and in private they made known the evils and cruelties of Slavery. Some of these persons had been examined by Parliamentary committees, and being acquitted of every suspicion of mis-statement, their testimony received this additional sanction. The tale of wrong which they revealed was not told in vain. Each returned missionary exerted an influence upon the religious body which he represented. The aggregate of this influence was great.

If, in the latter stages of the Emancipation effort, the backwardness of the Administration was an evil omen, making final success a difficult achievement, this was balanced by reform in Parliament. At the recent elections, anti-slavery sentiments in the candidate were in some quarters requisite to success. A story is told of a gentleman who had spent some time canvassing and found abundant evidence of this. At an obscure village he had been hailed with the question, whether he was trying to get into the Lords or Commons. "But," added the simple questioners, "whichever you do get into, you must vote for the poor slaves."

To the aid of the Emancipation leaders there came now a new element, a power so strong that it required no small share of skill to hold it in, that it might work no evil in contributing to the desired end.

Since the commencement of efforts for the slave a considerable period had passed. These efforts extended, in fact, over nearly half a century. During that time, pamphlet after pamphlet and volume after volume had set forth the evils and abominations of Slavery, forcing the subject upon the public attention. The leaven had worked slowly, and for a portion of the time in comparative silence; but the work was done. The British people were aroused. The great heart of the nation was beating in response to the appeals for justice and right which were made in their ears. The world can scarce furnish a parallel to this spectacle of moral sublimity. It was the voice of a people, calling, in tones that must be heard, for justice and freedom,—and that not for themselves, but for a distant, a defenceless race.

The publication of a circular inviting Anti-Slavery delegates to London, a movement made by the leaders of the cause, in its results took the most enthusiastic by surprise. More than three hundred appeared in answer to the call. Mr. Buxton met them in Exeter Hall. With a rampant freedom of opinion, there was little prospect of harmony of action being attained, however desirable it might be. Through the influence of Mr. Buxton and his coadjutors, these men of conflicting theories were brought into such a degree of harmonious action that an address was drawn up embodying their sentiments and laid before Lord Althorp, at that time the head of the Administration. The strong outside pressure of the nation at large upon the Government was evident. The strength of the Emancipationists in Parliament, also, had been carefully estimated, and success could no longer be doubted.

The fourteenth of May, 1833, witnessed an animated debate in the House. While the advocates of Emancipation desired for the negro unconditional freedom, they found the measure fettered by the proposal of Mr. Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, that he be placed for a number of years in a state of apprenticeship. Twelve years of this restricted freedom was, by the influence of Mr. Buxton, reduced to seven, and the sum of twenty millions of pounds sterling being granted to the slave-owners, the bill for the abolition of Negro Slavery passed the House of Commons. With some delay it went through the Upper House, and on the 28th of August, receiving the royal assent, it became a law. The apprenticeship system was but short-lived, its evil-working leading to its abolition in its fourth year.

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It has been often said, with how much of truth it is not our purpose here to inquire, that in this country the mention of the evils of Slavery is and must be fraught with most evil consequences. Yet the agitation of this subject, whether for good or evil, in the United States, is intimately connected with the whole movement in England. In the earlier stages of the measures directed against the trade, a hearty response was awakened here; nor could the subsequent act of emancipation fail to produce an impression everywhere, and most of all among ourselves. United to the English nation by strong affinities, one with them in language and literature, yet cleaving still to the institution which England had so energetically striven to destroy, could it be otherwise than that such a movement on her part should awaken an eager interest among us? Could such an event as the release from slavery of eight hundred thousand negroes in the British Colonies pass by unnoticed? To suppose this is preposterous. It is not too much to say, that the effect of British emancipation was, at the time it took place, to give in certain portions of the United States an increased degree of life to the anti-slavery sentiment. No words could have been uttered, which, reaching the shores of America, would have been half so emphatic as this one act of the British nation. Among the causes which have nourished and strengthened the anti-slavery sentiment among us this, has its place. Verily, if England gave us the poison, she has not been slow to proffer to us the antidote.

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Concerning the actual fruits of Emancipation, it may be asked, What have they been? The world looked on inquiringly as to how the enfranchised negroes would demean themselves. One fact has never been disputed. This momentous change in the social state of near a million of people took place without a single act of violence on the part of the liberated slaves. Neither did the measure carry violence in its train. So far the act was successful. But that all which the friends of Emancipation hoped for has been attained, no one will assert. When, however, we hear of the financial ruin of the Islands, as a consequence of that measure, it may be well to inquire into their condition previous to its taking place. That the West India Colonies were trembling on the brink of ruin at the close of the last century is evident from their repeated petitions to the mother country to take some measures to save them from utter bankruptcy. This can hardly be laid to the extinction of Slavery, for both Slavery and the Slave-Trade were at that time in the height of successful operation.

Again, if the West Indian negro is not to-day all that might be wished, or even all that, under the influence of freedom, he had been expected to become, there may possibly be a complication of causes which has prevented his elevation. He has been allowed instruction, indeed, to some extent; the continued labors of those who contended for his freedom have secured to him the schoolmaster and the missionary. But this is not enough. Has he been taught the use of improved methods of agriculture, the application of machinery to the production of required results? Has he been encouraged to works of skill, to manufacturing arts even of the ruder kind? Has he not rather been subjected to the same policy which, before the Revolution, discountenanced manufactures among ourselves, and has caused the fabrics of the East Indies to be disused, and the factories of Ireland to stand still?

These questions need not be pursued. Yet, amid the conflicting voices of the evil days upon which we are fallen, now and then we hear lifted up a plea for Emancipation, an entreaty for the removal of the accursed thing which has plunged the happiest nation upon earth into the direst of calamities.

Of the causes which have affected the success of Emancipation in the case before us, it may be remarked, that, so far as their action has been pernicious, they would operate among ourselves less than in any colony of Great Britain, abundantly less than in the West Indies. The greater variety of employments with which the Maryland or Kentucky negro is familiar, his more frequent proficiency in mechanical pursuits, combined with other circumstances, render him decidedly a more eligible subject for freedom than the negro of Jamaica.

The changes which may issue in this country from the present commotions it were vain to predict. It may not, however, be unwise, in considering, as we have done, an achievement nobly conceived and generously accomplished, to examine carefully into the causes which may have rendered it otherwise than completely successful in its results.

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UNION AND LIBERTY

  Flag of the heroes who left us their glory,    Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame,  Blazoned in song and illumined in story,    Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame!            Up with our banner bright,            Sprinkled with starry light,      Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,            While through the sounding sky            Loud rings the Nation's cry,—      UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!  Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation,    Pride of her children, and honored afar,  Let the wide beams of thy full constellation    Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!            Up with our banner bright, etc.  Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee,    Bearing the standard of Liberty's van?  Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee,    Striving with men for the birthright of man!            Up with our banner bright, etc.  Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted,    Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw,  Then, with the arms of thy millions united,    Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law!        Up with our banner bright, etc.  Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us,    Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun!  Thou, hast united us: who shall divide us?    Keep us, O, keep us, the MANY IN ONE!        Up with our banner bright,        Sprinkled with starry light,     Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,        While through the sounding sky        Loud rings the Nation's cry,—     UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!* * * * *

HOW TO ROUGH IT

"Life has few things better than this," said Dr. Johnson, on feeling himself settled in a coach, and rolling along the road. We cannot agree with the great man. Times have changed since the Doctor and Mr. Boswell travelled for pleasure; and we much prefer an expedition to Moosehead, or a tramp in the Adirondack, to being boxed up in a four-wheeled ark and made "comfortable," according to the Doctor's idea of felicity.

Francis Galton, Explorer, and Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, we thank you sincerely for teaching us how to travel! Few persons know the important secrets of how to walk, how to run, how to ride, how to cook, how to defend, how to ford rivers, how to make rafts, how to fish, how to hunt, in short, how to do the essential things that every traveller, soldier, sportsman, emigrant, and missionary should be conversant with. The world is full of deserts, prairies, bushes, jungles, swamps, rivers, and oceans. How to "get round" the dangers of the land and the sea in the best possible way, how to shift and contrive so as to come out all right, are secrets well worth knowing, and Mr. Galton has found the key. In this brief article we shall frequently avail ourselves of the information he imparts, confident that in these war-days his wise directions are better than fine gold to a man who is obliged to rough it over the world, no matter where his feet may wander, his horse may travel, or his boat may sail.

Wherewithal shall a man be clothed? We begin at the beginning with flannel always. Experience has taught us that flannel next the skin is indispensable for health to a traveller, and the sick- and dead-lists always include largely the names of those who neglect this material. Cotton stands Number Two on the list, and linen nowhere. Only last summer jolly Tom Bowers got his quietus for the season by getting hot and wet and cold in one of his splendid Paris linen shirts, and now he wears calico ones whenever he wishes to "appear proper" at Nahant or Newport.

"The hotter the ground the thicker your socks," was the advice of an old traveller who once went a thirty-days' tramp at our side through the Alp country in summer. We have seen many a city bumpkin start for a White-Mountain walk in the thinnest of cotton foot-coverings, but we never knew one to try them a second time.

Stout shoes are preferable to boots always, and a wise traveller never omits to grease well his leather before and during his journey. Don't forget to put a pair of old slippers into your knapsack. After a hard day's toil, they are like magic, under foot. Let us remind the traveller whose feet are tender at starting that a capital remedy for blistered feet is to rub them at night with spirits mixed with tallow dropped from a candle. An old friend of ours thought it a good plan to soap the inside of the stocking before setting out, and we have seen him break a raw egg into his shoes before putting them on, saying it softened the leather and made him "all right" for the day.

Touching coat, waistcoat, and trousers, there can be but one choice. Coarse tweed does the best business on a small capital. Cheap and strong, we have always found it the most "paying" article in our travelling-wardrobe. Avoid that tailor-hem so common at the bottom of your pantaloons which retains water and does no good to anybody. Waistcoats would be counted as superfluous, were it not for the convenience of the pockets they carry. Take along an old dressing-gown, if you want solid comfort in camp or elsewhere after sunset.

Gordon Cumming recommends a wide-awake hat, and he is good authority on that head. A man "clothed in his right mind" is a noble object; but six persons out of every ten who start on a journey wear the wrong apparel. The writer of these pages has seen four individuals at once standing up to their middles in a trout-stream, all adorned with black silk tiles, newly imported from the Rue St. Honoré. It was a sight to make Daniel Boone and Izaak Walton smile in their celestial abodes.

A light water-proof outside-coat and a thick pea-jacket are a proper span for a roving trip. Don't forget that a couple of good blankets also go a long way toward a traveller's paradise.

We will not presume that an immortal being at this stage of the nineteenth century would make the mistake, when he had occasion to tuck up his shirt-sleeves, of turning them outwards, so that every five minutes they would be tumbling down with a crash of anathemas from the wearer. The supposition that any sane son of Adam would tuck up his sleeves inside out involves a suspicion, to say the least, that his wits had been overrated by doting relatives.

"Grease and dirt are the savage's wearing-apparel," says the Swedish proverb. No comment is necessary in speaking with a Christian on this point, for cold water is one of civilization's closest allies. Avoid the bath, and the genius of disease and crime stalks in. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," remember.

In packing your knapsack, keep in mind that sixteen or twenty pounds are weight enough, till, by practice, you can get pluck and energy into your back to increase that amount.