418

THE WHIGS IN '39.

1839 witnessed the voluntary termination by the colonial legislature of the system of apprenticeship which had been introduced as a kind of transition from Negro slavery to absolute freedom. In Jamaica, however, the Home Government had been compelled to apply

And wonder what with such a crew

A pilot e'er should find to do;
To hold what people are content
To fancy is the government,
And touch extremely little of it
Except the credit and the profit;

When Follett pauses, (a) Sugden poses, (b)
To bid gay Stanley (c) count the noses,

And leave the Cabinet's defence

To Bulwer's wit and Blewitt's sense;

To hear demands of explanation

On India, Belgium, trade, taxation,
And answer that perhaps they'll try

To give an answer by and by ;

To save the Church, and save the Crown,

By letting others pull them down;

To promise, pause, prepare, postpone,

And end by letting things alone;

In short, to earn the people's pay

By doing nothing every day;

These tasks, these joys, the Fates assign

The well-placed Whigs in Thirty-nine."

(a) Sir William Follett, one of the most brilliant of English lawyers, whose career was unfortunately terminated by a premature death.

(b) Sir Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. Leonards, and Lord Chancellor.

(c) The late Lord Stanley of Alderley, then Secretary to the Treasury and Government "Whip."-"The traditions of the lobby," says Mr. Trevelyan,“ still point to his tenure of office as the culminating epoch in the art of Parliamentary management."

PEEL ON THE FAMAICA BILL.

419

some pressure to the House of Assembly; and the House, in return, refused to pass the laws which were necessary for the proper administration of the Colony. Such being the case, Lord Melbourne resolved on proposing to Parliament a suspension of the constitution of Jamaica for five years, during which period the affairs of the island were to be administered by a provisional government. But the Bill introduced for this purpose encountered the opposition not only of Sir Robert Peel and his followers, but of Mr. Hume and several Radical members, who saw in it a violation of Liberal principles. Sir Robert Peel's speech was very effective. He regretted, he said, that some compromise had not been made with the Jamaica legislature, so as to obviate the necessity of a Suspension Bill, which could be justifiable, if justifiable at all, only in the most extreme cases. For what was its object? Nothing less than the entire abrogation for a time of the constitution and liberties of Jamaica; whose four hundred thousand white inhabitants were to be ruled by a despotic governor and council, responsible only to the Home Government; a governor and a governor and council, to whom, amongst other inordinate and enormous powers, was to be given the right of taxing the community to an extent of little less than half a million yearly! Could no measure of efficiency be devised short of the concession of powers such as these, for the control of a community accustomed to self-government, and with all the feelings of the population now constituting the United States of North America'? He then contrasted the language which the Ministry had used respect

420

แ

PEEL ON THE FAMAICA BILL.

ing the Jamaica House of Assembly a few weeks before, with that which had fallen from them in the present debate; the compliments which the Governor had quite recently paid to the Assembly, with the tyrannical harshness of the enactment now proposed; adding,

Why, the preamble of the Bill ought to run thus: 'Whereas compliments have been paid by the Governor to the House of Assembly; and whereas those compliments were never intended; and whereas, therefore, they ought not to be pleaded as obstacles to the passing of this Bill.' Let them have this inserted, in order that posterity, looking at their compliments and their acts, might say, that never were enactments so inconsistent with-so contradictory to-declarations and assurances !"

After enlarging upon the effect which the proposed measure could not but exercise on the southern states of the great American Republic, and the proof it afforded that free institutions were apparently incompatible with Negro emancipation, Sir Robert remarked that he did not present himself as the advocate of the Assembly. He would not recall any of the expressions in which he had condemned their conduct. He regretted deeply the very injudicious course they had adopted. It would have been infinitely better if they had performed their duties, and cordially co-operated in furthering the grand experiment which the people of England were entitled to see fulfilled. He repeated, he was not the Assembly's advocate. He blamed their language; he censured their acts. But the question before them was, did that language and those acts justify the House in

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421

suspending the constitution of Jamaica? He foresaw the time when they would wish they had attended to his suggestion. He desired them to pause; to remonstrate; to see what could be effected by Time, that great assuager of human passions as well as human woes; that, in short, they would give the House of Assembly leisure to reflect upon their conduct, and to become aware of its impropriety. If they made but one overture for adjustment and failed, he would promise them his cordial support to carry any measure the exigency of the case might then require.

After commenting on the singular position in which the House would stand if it now called upon the Lords to support it in crushing the privileges of a popular Assembly, when only on the 22nd of April it had resisted, as a breach of its privileges, an inquiry instituted by the Upper Chamber into the conduct of the Irish Government, Sir Robert Peel said, in conclusion:-"Is the House, I ask, prepared to take this course? If it is, it will place itself in a most strange position, which may eventually jeopardize some of its own dearest privileges. And let me add that if you are prone to take amiss all intemperance every violent expression-every act of indiscretion in a popular Assembly; if you have no fraternal sympathy with other representative bodies; if you are ready to pluck out the mote that is in your brother's eye, heedless of the beam that is in your own; I still will hope that the example which you are about to set may never, under any future circumstances, be pleaded in derogation of your own privileges, and that you may

422

DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.

yourselves escape a fate which would not be unjust;for remember, with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again!"

That Sir Robert Peel was right in principle we entertain no doubt, and such was the opinion of a formidable minority in the House of Commons, the Ministry carrying the second reading of their Bill by five votes only (294 to 289). Such a victory was as bad as a defeat; and the Government placed their resignations in the hands of the Queen; on the evening of Tuesday, May the 7th, announcing that they held office only until their successors were appointed. They alleged as their reasons for retiring, that the Jamaica Assembly would believe itself countenanced in contumacy by the British Parliament; and that the authority of the Crown would be so greatly weakened in that and other colonies, that Ministers could not undertake to govern them. On Wednesday, the Queen sought the advice of the Duke of Wellington, who being of opinion that the Prime Minister should sit in the House of Commons, recommended her to send for Sir Robert Peel. She acted on this advice; but her first words to Sir Robert, clearly as they showed the truthfulness of her character, just as clearly showed that she had not yet acquired that grasp of true constitutional principles which has since marked her actions. She plainly intimated that she was much grieved to part with her late Ministers, whose conduct she entirely approved. However, Sir Robert undertook to form a new Administration, and everything went smoothly until his attention was directed to the compo