SPEECH, &c.* MR. SPEAKER,-Even if I had not been loudly called upon, and directly challenged by the Honourable Gentleman †, -even if his accusations, now repeated The Rev. John Smith, an Independent minister, had been sent out to Demerara in the year 1816 by the London Missionary Society. The exemplary discharge of his sacred functions on the eastern shore of that colony for six years, amid difficulties which are said to have distinguished Demerara even among all her sister slave colonies, had so far impaired his health, that he was, by medical advice, on the point of leaving the country for a more salubrious climate, when, in the month of August, 1823, a partial insurrection of the negroes in his neighbourhood proved the means of putting a period alike to his labours and his life. The rising was not of an extensive or organised character, and was, in fact, suppressed immediately, with little loss of life or property. Its suppression was, however, immediately followed by the establishment of martial law, and the arrest of Mr. Smith as privy beforehand to the plot. As the evidence in support of this charge had necessarily to be extracted for the most part from prisoners trembling for their own lives, incurable suspicion would seem to attach to the whole of it; though candour must admit, on a careful consideration of the whole circumstances, including the sensitive feelings and ardent temperament of the accused, that it was not impossible that he had been made the involuntary depositary of the confidence of his flock. It was not till he had been in prison for nearly two months that Mr. Smith, on the 14th of October, was brought to trial before a court-martial. After proceedings abounding in irregularities, which lasted for six weeks, he was found guilty, and sentenced to death, but was recommended to the mercy of the Crown. He died in prison on the 6th of February following, awaiting the result. Sir James Mackintosh had presented, at an earlier period of the session, the appeal of the London Missionary Society on behalf of his memory and his widow. The present speech was delivered in support of Mr. Brougham's motion for an Address to the Crown on the subject. ED. † Mr. Wilmot Horton, who conducted the defence of the authorities at Demerara. · .ED. after full consideration, did not make it my duty to vindicate the Petition which I had the honour to present from unjust reproach, I own that I should have been anxious to address the House on this occasion; not to strengthen a case already invincible, but to bear my solemn testimony against the most unjust and cruel abuse of power, under a false pretence of law, that has in our times dishonoured any portion of the British empire. I am sorry that the Honourable Gentleman, after so long an interval for reflection, should have this night repeated those charges against the London Missionary Society, which when he first made them I thought rash, and which I am now entitled to treat as utterly groundless. I should regret to be detained by them for a moment, from the great question of humanity and justice before us, if I did not feel that they excite a prejudice against the case of Mr. Smith, and that the short discussion sufficient to put them aside, leads directly to the vindication of the memory of that oppressed man. - The Honourable Gentleman calls the London Missionary Society 'bad philosophers,'-by which, I presume, he means bad reasoners, because they ascribe the insurrection partly "to the long and inexplicable delay of the government of Demerara in promulgating the instructions favourable to the slave population;" and because he, adopting one of the arguments of that speech by which the deputy-judge-advocate disgraced his office, contends that a partial revolt cannot have arisen from a general cause of discontent,-a position belied by the whole course of history, and which is founded upon the absurd assumption, that one part of a people, from circumstances sometimes easy, sometimes very hard to be discovered, may not be more provoked than others by grievances common to all. So inconsistent, indeed, is the defence of the rulers of Demerara with itself, that in another part of the case they represent a project for an universal insurrection as having been formed, and ascribe its being, in fact, confined to the east coast, to unaccountable accidents. Paris, the ringleader, in what is called his 'confession,' (to be found in the Demerara Papers, No. II., p. 21.) says, "The whole colony was to have risen on Monday; and I cannot account for the reasons why only the east coast rose at the time appointed." So that, according to this part of their own evidence, they must abandon their argument, and own the discontent to have been as general as the grievance. Another argument against the Society's Petition, is transplanted from the same nursery of weeds. It is said, that cruelty cannot have contributed to this insurrection, because the leaders of the revolt were persons little likely to have been cruelly used, being among the most trusted of the slaves. Those who employ so gross a fallacy, must be content to be called worse reasoners than the London Missionary Society. It is, indeed, one of the usual common-places in all cases of discontent and tumult; but it is one of the most futile. The moving cause of most insurrections, and in the opinion of two great men (Sully and Burke) of all, is the distress of the great body of insurgents; but the ringleaders are generally, and almost necessarily, individuals who, being more highly endowed or more happily situated, are raised above the distress which is suffered by those of whom they take the command. But the Honourable Gentleman's principal charge against the Petition, is the allegation contained in it, "that the life of no white man was voluntarily taken away by the slaves." When I heard the confidence. with which a confutation of this averment was announced, I own I trembled for the accuracy of the Petition. But what was my astonishment, when I heard the attempt at confutation made! In the Demerara Papers, No. II., there is an elaborate narrative of an attack on the house of Mrs. Walrand, by the insurgents, made by that lady, or for her a caution in statements which the subsequent parts of these proceedings prove to be necessary in Demerara. The Honourable Gentleman has read the narrative, to show that two lives were unhappily lost in this skirmish; and this he seriously quotes as proving the inaccuracy of the Petition. Does he believe, can he hope to persuade the House, that the Petitioners meant to say, that there was an insurrection without fighting, or skirmishes without death? The attack and defence of houses and posts are a necessary part of all revolts; and deaths are the natural consequences of that, as well as of every species of warfare. The revolt in this case was, doubtless, an offence; the attack on the house was a part of that offence: the defence was brave and praiseworthy. The loss of lives is deeply to be deplored; but it was inseparable from all such unhappy scenes: it could not be the voluntary killing,' intended to be denied in the Petition. The Governor of Demerara, in a despatch to Lord Bathurst, makes the same statement with the Petition:-"I have not," he says, "heard of one white who was deliberately murdered:" yet he was perfectly aware of the fact which has been so triumphantly displayed to the House. "At plantation Nabaclis, where the whites were on their guard, two out of three were killed in the defence of their habitations." The defence was legitimate, and the deaths lamentable: but, as the Governor distinguishes them from murder, so do the Society. They deny that there was any killing in cold blood. They did not mean to deny,-any more than to affirm-(for the Papers which mention the fact were printed since their Petition was drawn up), that there was killing in battle, when each party were openly struggling to destroy their antagonists and to preserve themselves. The Society only denies that this insurrection was dishonoured by those murders of the unoffending or of the vanquished, which too frequently attend the revolts of slaves. The Governor of Demerara agrees with them; the whole facts of the case support them; and the quotation of the Honourable Gentleman leaves their denial untouched. The revolt was absolutely unstained by excess. The killing of whites, even in action, was so small as not to appear |