THE NORTH STAR.
| FREDERICK DOUGLASS, M. R. DELANY, |
Editors. | RIGHT IS OF NO SEX—TRUTH IS OF NO COLOR—GOD IS THE FATHER OF US ALL, AND ALL WE ARE BRETHREN. | WILLIAM C. NELL, Publisher. JOHN DICK, Printer. |
| VOL I. NO. II. | ROCHESTER, N. Y., FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1848. | WHOLE NO. |
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THE NORTH STAR.
ROCHESTER, JANUARY 7, 1848.
From the London Mercury.
The meeting being organized, Francis Carnac Brown, Esq., chairman, addressed the assembly as follows:—Ladies and gentlemen, in thanking you for the honor you have just conferred upon me, in electing me to preside over this very large meeting, it is necessary that I should address to you a few words explaining the reason why I have consented to take upon myself this office, seeing that I am altogether a stranger, not only to this present audience, but to this part of London. I will make my observations as brief as I possibly can, in order that I may not be the means of detaining you from hearing a gentleman whom I am perfectly aware you are all most anxious to listen to, and who has come to this meeting for the express purpose of bringing the important subject which we shall have to discuss to-night, under the consideration of this meeting. I will, therefore, merely observe to you, that my connection with your honorable member, Mr. George Thompson, does not date from yesterday (hear, hear.) It is now about eight years since I returned from India, and met that gentleman, who had not long before landed upon the shores of this country, upon his arrival from a visit to the U. States of America, where as you well know, he had devoted a considerable portion of his time and energies to the abolition of slavery in that land. Brought together by a community of sentiment, we met, and from time to time until the present a close and continued intimacy has subsisted between us. We have acted together upon many occasions for the promotion of questions relating to India, and at length a period has arrived when it appears to the best friends of India, that the powerful advocacy of your member may be used with the very best effect, for the purpose of introducing to the public and the Legislature, subjects of the greatest importance to our vast empire in the East, and of so far enlightening public opinion upon this question, that you, and all men, may have an opportunity of seeing and of knowing that, in bringing before your notice the condition of India, we are at the same time calling your attention to a subject of the deepest and most vital interest to yourselves. When Mr. George Thompson shall have concluded his address to-night, I have not the slightest doubt that there will not be one person in this assembly, who will leave the room without being impressed with the conviction of the truth of the statement I have made, namely—that there is no individual present, whose interest, directly or indirectly, in not most essentially concerned in the fate of that country, which is to be the topic of the present lecture. With these prefatory remarks, I now beg leave to introduce to you, your own member, Mr. George Thompson. (Cheers.)
George Thomson Esq., M. P., rose, and was enthusiastically greeted. He said: I have sought this opportunity that I may lay before you my views on a question of paramount importance to the interests of this country and of the empire at large. You have done me the honor to elect me as one of your representatives in the Parliament of England, and I consider, therefore, that it is my duty to put you in possession of my opinions on a subject which will occupy the chief portion of my attention in the Legislature, and which I intend to agitate, as I have time and strength, both indoors and out, until it is appreciated, as I think it ought to be, by the people generally. (Cheers.) I do not doubt, that when I have concluded, you will share my convictions respecting the vital importance of the question I am about to discuss, and that you will not only cheerfully consent to my devoting myself to its advocacy, but be ready also to lend me your best co-operation. (Cheers.) I therefore ask your candid and serious attention. I ask that you will weigh deliberately, the facts, the statistics, and the arguments I shall adduce, and that you will vote for nothing, the propriety and truth of which I do not fully and most satisfactorily establish. (Cheers.)
The topic on which I have to address you this evening is, "Free Trade with India, in relation to the condition and prospects of this country." This text might seem to limit the discussion to matters connected with India and England, and to the results accruing to those countries exclusively from an extension of their commercial intercourse. The subject, however, as I think I shall be able to demonstrate, embraces another result, namely—the achievement of the overthrow of slavery and the slave trade—an effect following upon the attainment of the former object. A few words about slavery will bring me naturally to the subject which has been announced, and enable you to trace out for yourselves the inevitable effect of which I have spoken. In the United States of America, a country boasting its declaration of independence, its doctrines of equality, its free political institutions, its love of universal liberty, its educated and enlightened population, its numerous ecclesiastical bodies untrammelled by state connection, its efforts for the diffusion of the Scriptures, and its many and powerful organizations for promulgating the faith of the gospel throughout the world,—every sixth man, woman and child is a slave. (Shame!) Sixteen millions of free men have banded themselves together to hold in hopeless bondage three millions of their fellow creatures! (Hear!)
A similar number of slaves are found in the empire of Brazil. Spain holds another million in her colonies. France and Holland participate in the crime of their colonies. We turn to Africa. Notwithstanding the abolition of the slave trade with Africa, by England and the United States, simultaneously, in the year 1808, a thousand human beings are, every day, either slaughtered in their own villages, or die on their way from the interior to the coast, or, expiring in the middle passage, are thrown into the deep; or living to reach the port, are sold in the slave market, to be worked to death on the coffee and sugar plantations of Cuba and Brazil. The statistics of this system inform us that from eight to nine millions are in bondage, and that Africa is robbed of a thousand of her children every day! Such are slavery and the slave trade, as carried on by nominally Christian nations, in Europe and America, at the present time. (Cries of shame, and great sensation.) The object of this address is not to characterize slavery, or to dwell upon its peculiar features in the various countries where it exists, but to point out the remedy as a consequence flowing from a certain measure. Let me nevertheless observe, that I do not underrate the value and necessity of the measures hitherto employed in the cause of abolition; still less do I desire to see them discontinued. They are all, save those which imply force, useful, and partially efficacious. But, besides the antidotes, which are of a purely moral and religious character, there is a remedy at hand, at once simple, direct, easy, peaceful, omnipotent, and infallible—a remedy capable of immediate application,—a remedy possessed by England, and by no other—a remedy which, if resorted to, will be found unattended by aught that is exceptionable—a remedy fraught with blessings far beyond even the extinction of slavery and the slave trade.—(Cheers.)
This remedy is no discovery of yesterday. For eight or nine years there have been a few persons in this country who, having taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the facts relating to the history, condition, and resources of the vast empire which Great Britain has obtained in the East, have been convinced that it was eminently practicable, by one and the same peaceful process, to achieve a greater triumph in the cause of freedom and humanity, and confer more extensive and permanent blessings, of a temporal nature, on the world, than were ever before placed within the limits of human power and human accomplishment. They are still convinced that England possesses within herself, aided by the resources of her matchless Asiatic Empire, the means of utterly abolishing the African slave trade; of giving freedom to every slave in the islands and on the continent of America; of raising from depression and ruin, millions of her conquered Hindoo subjects; and of augmenting indefinitely her home manufacturing, trading, and maritime prosperity. (Cheers.) It has been my privilege to be intimately associated with those who have cherished this conviction—I have long shared that conviction with them—and in my humble efforts to impart it to others, I have been aided by the knowledge, experience, and generous co-operation of those to whom I have referred. The accuracy of the facts long since put forth on this subject has been tested; and so far from those facts having been either shaken or overthrown, they have been confirmed and illustrated by the most striking events; so that what were once the convictions of a few are becoming the convictions of multitudes; indeed, of all intelligent minds with the patience and candor to enter upon an impartial inquiry on the subject. (Loud cheers.)
A single glance at the origin of negro slavery will suggest the remedy which ought to be applied. The slavery and the slave trade of the western world began in a desire to obtain by forced labor the products of the earth. The Spaniards enslaved the Mexicans, that they might work them in mines, and enrich themselves with the precious ores which they extracted. A similar motive led to the enslavement, and brought about the extermination of the Caribs of the West India Islands. The introduction of the sugar cane, and the demand for its produce, led to the trade in slaves with Africa; and the enslavement of seven millions of Africans and their descendants, at the present time, and all the existing horrors and atrocities of the African slave trade, are founded upon the desire to realise the profits which are obtainable by the growth and and sale of five articles—sugar, coffee, cotton, rice and tobacco. Were the demand for these to cease, the nourishment and vitality of these systems would cease, and they would perish from the earth. Abundant means exist for the elucidation of the topic now under discussion, but the materials to which I shall resort will be drawn chiefly from a pamphlet just given to the world, by a gentleman in every way qualified to furnish the necessary information. I shall make free use both of the facts he has collected, and the language he has employed; assured that he will be gratified if, by any means, I can render his production subservient to the end I have in view. The pamphlet to which I refer is entitled, "Free Trade and the Cotton Question with reference to India—By Francis Carnac Brown, Esq., of Tellicherry,"—our present chairman. (Cheers.) Mr. Brown is connected by birth with the soil of India, and is the proprietor of a large estate on the coast of Malabar. I entertain the utmost respect for his judgment, and have the fullest reliance on his veracity. The pamphlet I have named, and from which I am about very largely to quote, does not so much deal in opinions as in evidence—evidence drawn from the highest and most unexceptionable sources. The authorities cited are,—Documents connected with the Records of the East India Company; Minutes and Letters of Members of Council; Reports drawn up by Members of the Indian Government; Reports published by the Directors of the East India Company; and Official Returns of Exports and Imports. This pamphlet is addressed to her Majesty's Minister for Indian Affairs, and is intended for the instruction and guidance of the manufacturers of England, the statesmen and legislators of this great empire, and the true friends of British India and the civilization of the world. It is one of the most important documents ever published, and will, I trust, secure its author the gratitude of the nation. I know the only reward he seeks is the happiness and prosperity of mankind. (Loud cheers.)
Seventy years ago, the colonies of America struck a decisive blow for political freedom and national independence. After a bloody struggle, they achieved their object; they saw the last of the king's troops quit their shores; and, under a general government of their own, and a constitution adopted in a Congress of the States, became the "United States of America." The early settlers in Virginia had introduced negro slaves for the cultivation of their plantations, and before the Declaration of Independence slavery had extended itself over the whole of the colonies. On the separation of the States from the mother country, the Northern and Eastern republics gave liberty to their slaves. The constitution adopted by the States gave no power to the federal government to abolish slavery; and the Southern States still continued to maintain the system. The principal exports of these States were tobacco and rice. So great, however, was the difficulty, as early as 1784, of finding remunerative employment far the small number of slaves that were then there, that the masters, to save themselves from ruin, deliberated upon the propriety of setting all the slaves they possessed at liberty. (Hear! hear!) How stood matters in England at this period? Prior to the existence of the East India Company, the clothing of the people of England had been chiefly woolen, and the manufacturers of the North of England enjoyed the chief part of the trade. Great was the outcry when the cloths, the muslins, the silks, and the nankeens of India and China came into competition with the home manufactures of Lancashire. At length, however, the manufacture of cotton goods sprung up; the East India Company supplied the raw material. Had England existed as a manufacturing nation 2,000 years before, and had the means of reaching India been known, and the riches and capacity of the country understood, raw cotton in any quantity might have been obtained from a soil and a people where cotton had been grown and manufactured for 3,000 years, and whose clothe have been the wonder of the world and the boast of the people by whom they were fabricated. Now behold the revivifying effect of this new branch of English manufacture upon the system of slavery in the United States of America. (Hear.)
The East India Company were masters of the resources of a country which is the natural home of the cotton plant. For reasons which I shall not now particularize, they had not brought to this island a supply sufficient to meet the growing demand. An experiment had been made on the shores of South Carolina to cultivate a few cotton trees from seeds introduced from one of the West India Islands. On the 20th of January, 1785, a single bag of this cotton was landed on the wharf at Liverpool. That was a fatal day for the cause of human liberty. The sample was approved, and orders were given to send all of the same quality that could be raised. Time, however, was wanting; and, therefore, in 1786, the total export of cotton from the United States of America was only 900 pounds. In England, ingenuity, and capital and enterprise were embarked in the manufacture of cotton goods; and in America similar qualities were soon engaged to turn the labor of the slaves to profitable account, and to develop the resources of a territory illimitable in its extent. The race thus commenced has continued down to the present hour. In 1760 Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny; Arkwright soon after introduced the spinning-frame; Crompton, in 1799, combined the two, and called it the mule. In 1785, the year I am now speaking of, Watt brought the steam engine to that perfect state for acting which made it profitable. Cartwright afterwards invented the power-loom. Sixty years only have elapsed since this career on the part of these two great countries began. At home, contemporaneously with the ever increasing consumption of cotton goods by our own people, the export of cotton goods has advanced, until it has exceeded the mighty value of £25,000,000 sterling per annum; being almost half the amount of the entire exports of the United Kingdom. Not less than £70,000,000 of British capital is invested in the cotton trade of this country; more than two millions of our population depend on this trade for employment; and, consequently, for the means of subsistence. (Hear!) "The truth is," says the able editor of the Economist, "that there is nothing, except food itself, which is of such material consequence to the well being of this country, as an abundant supply of cotton; forming, as it does, the basis of so large a portion of our commerce, and of the employment of our workpeople." (Hear! hear!) "On the supply of raw cotton," says the Times, "does it absolutely depend whether the population of Lancashire shall or shall not be reduced to the state of the population of Cork. The cotton plantations of New Orleans feed the inhabitants of Manchester, as directly as the potato fields of Mayo or Galway feed or starve the peasants of Connaught." Thus, in sixty years, has this single branch of British manufactures become of vital national importance. It is interwoven with all that relates to the employment of our population, of our capital, and of our shipping; and all that relates to our credit, or solvency, and our domestic peace, contentment, and security. Its rapid growth is wonderful; its magnitude is stupendous; and its connection with all that is precious and important in the country is so close and inseparable that the boldest and most far-seeing minds in the community cannot contemplate any serious vicissitude befalling it without the utmost alarm and terror. (Hear! hear!) It was to supply England with the raw material for this branch of her manufactures that the planters of America, in 1786, turned their attention and energies to cotton cultivation. A new era commenced. All thoughts of giving emancipation to the slave ceased; for they became suddenly valuable as human beasts of burden on the plantation, or as stock to raise, by natural increase, the thousands of their kind required to cultivate this new article of produce. (Hear!) There was a rush from the worn-out and profitless soils of the older states to the new and virgin soils beyond. The vast valley of the Mississippi, and the extensive peninsula of Florida, presented a boundless field for enterprise, and the profitable employment of slave labor; and thither those who scrupled not to amass riches by violence and slavery betook themselves. Washington became the emporium of the domestic slave trade, and New Orleans the slave market of the South. The demand for cotton wool in England closed the gates of mercy on the bondmen of America; it quenched the hopes of the friends of humanity; it inflamed the love of Mammon in the breasts of the trans-Atlantic slave-holders, and offered them a tempting premium to pursue their guilty traffic, in the sure hope of a rich reward.
In 1785, America exported from her shores a single bag of cotton wool. In 1843, that same country sent across the sea, from her slave-tilled plantations, during the first nine months of that year, seven hundred end ninety-two millions of pounds weight! In 1785, America held within her borders 600,000 slaves, and these, as we have seen, had become unprofitable, and were, therefore, standing on the threshhold of freedom. In 1840, America contained 2,487,213 slaves, and they were valued by an American statesman, Henry Clay, himself entitled to be regarded as a fit judge in the matter, being born a southern man and a slave-holder and breeder, at 120,000,000 of dollars! In 1785, a single bag of cotton was exported from America. In 1841 the total exports from the shores of that country amounted in value to $106,382,722, of which her exported cotton amounted to $54,390,331, being $77,940 in excess of all her other exports put together. In 1790, the shipping of the United States was set down as 487,377 tons, and in 1844, at 1,280,095 tons!
While driving this profitable trade in the staple articles of our manufactures, the United States have been comparatively inattentive to the growth of other kinds of tropical produce; and have, therefore, greatly enriched their slave-holding neighbors, by becoming customers for the articles raised on their plantations. Her own prosperity, built on the foundation I have pointed out, has enabled her to be a large consumer of foreign produce of slave growth. Hence we find her importing, during 1846, 12,000,000 of pounds weight of slave-grown coffee, and nearly 60,000 tons of slave-grown sugar. Her cotton has largely assisted her to do this; and through our consumption of this slave-grown article of America, we have been feeding to fatness the slaveholders of Cuba and Brazil, and thus supplying to them their only stimulus to the continuance of their slave trade with Africa. "While, therefore," says Mr. Brown, "we have been lavishing millions of money, and sacrificing thousands of valuable lives, since the peace of 1814, to suppress slavery in Africa, our manufactures have, year by year, been supplying a larger and larger sum to the United States, by which the demand for slaves was sure to be kept up and encouraged in Cuba and Brazil. This is the explanation, why one cargo in four, instead of one in three, now repays the Brazilian slavers. (Cheers.)
The cotton manufacture of England, viewed through the medium of the facts now stated, stands out as the prime inciting cause of untold and unutterable misery and crime. The arm that contributes to the wealth, the strength, and the greatness of our native land, deals death and destruction on a continent on one side of the ocean, and sustains and perpetuates colossal systems of slavery on the other. Whilst spending thousands annually to shield the coast of Africa from the visits of the slave trader, we are furnishing millions to the slaveholders of America. While laying units on the altar of freedom we are heaping ingots on the altar of slavery. While assembled together to express our sympathy with the slave, and our abhorrence of the system which has reduced him to what he is—a marketable chattel in the eye of the law—we are at the same time, as a nation, supplying the only effectual proof of the system. We are holding in our own hands the key which has shot the bolt upon him in his prison-house; nay, our persons are arrayed in the very fabrics which have been woven from the fruits of the earth, which he is kept a slave to fill by his unpaid labor, and to moisten with his unpitied tears! (Great cheers.) That such a state of things is inconsistent with the revealed law of God, we know. That it is not required by the law of nature, or the circumstances of man's condition here, we must admit—or, the principle must be conceded, that the law of God is at war with the ordinations of nature, and that the Deity himself is answerable for the origin and continuance of the atrocious systems which the voice of nature condemns as inhuman and unjust. (Loud cheers.) That the doctrines of political economy are inconsistent either with the precepts of revelation, the laws of nature, or the rights and happiness of any portion of the human race, we do not believe. We hold them to be based on equal justice, and their practice the carrying out of the rules which God and nature have manifestly prescribed. (Cheers.) We believe, too, that all the inventions of genius, all the aids of machinery, all the love of adventure and enterprise implanted in the breast of man, are compatible in their fullest exercise and application with the happiness of the human race. Nay, more, that wisely directed and controlled by a sense of justice, and an observance of the rights common to all, they are calculated and designed largely to augment the sum of human felicity, and to advance man in his progress to the highest attainable condition in civilization and power. (Great applause.)
Let me now proceed to show the foundations on which we rest this belief. As if in anticipation of the present circumstances of this country, and the future destinies of the world, God has made provision in nature—in the varying climates of the globe, and the habits and positions of the different races of mankind, for the useful application of all the creations of mechanical skill, for the largest conceivable augmentation of commerce, and for the gratification and reward of all honorable adventure and enterprise. (Cheers.) Slavery is no less at war with the material interests of nations, the principles of free-trade, and the teachings of political economy, than with the rights and happiness of its victims. A return to these immutable laws is the road to the abolition of slavery. England is in a position to set the bright example. There is hope for the slave if England will be wise. England possesses a lever powerful enough to overthrow the bloodstained fabric which has been reared, not less by a violation of the laws of nature and political economy, than by an outrage on the inalienable rights of humanity, and the abrogation of the statutes of the Almighty. That I may at once prove this, I will carry you for a few momenta to the "Gorgeous East," and land you on the shores of British India—a country
"Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks and amber beds;
Whose mountains, pregnant with the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's paradise." (Loud cheers.)
Geographically, India is that large, distinct, and peculiar portion of the earth, stretching over twenty-eight degrees of latitude, and twenty-four degrees of longitude, and enclosed on all sides by the sea, by the stupendous range of the Himmaylayas, and by two of the greatest rivers in the world, the Indus and Burrampooter—boundaries which divide it from countries and races altogether separate and different. Politically, India is that country which, throughout the length and breadth of these, its natural limits, is more under paramount British dominion than any English country; for, throughout its extent, the will and the word of its British rulers are, in point of fact, law. Socially, India is a population of two hundred millions of men, the vast majority of whom have for ages been indissolubly knit together by a common religion and common traditions,—by common laws, and common civil and municipal institutions,—by common castes, rites, observances, and manners; and who, although apparently dissociated by the obstacles of languages, locally differing, are, nevertheless, united in hourly and daily intercourse, both among themselves and with their English rulers, by the medium of a common language, adopted with common consent by all, and prevailing from Cape Comorin to the Himmaylayas. No other country in the world, of the same extent, exhibits a natural connection capable of being made so close and intimate throughout all its parts, or so powerful in its aggregation, as this; for its area would readily sustain a population of 300,000,000 of men; and no people of equal number offer a more complete identity of social leanings and material interests, whereon to found, build up, and consolidate this connection.
Such is British India, an empire extending over 1,200,000 square miles! Anxious as I am to state nothing on my own authority, I will not describe the impressions which my own mind received while travelling round its entire coast—while entering its ports—while gazing on its fruit-clad hills—or journeying through its luxuriant plains—or examining its endless diversified productions,—but borrow from the work of Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, the briefest summary I have ever met with of the natural riches this granary of the world. "Whole plains," Mr. Elphinstone says, "are covered with cotton, tobacco, and poppies; roses are grown for attar and rosewater; the sugar-cane, though requiring sedulous care in its culture, and rich and well watered spots for its growth, is abundant. Large tracts are given up to indigo, while many more brilliant dyes are among the produce of the fields; and silk, flax, mustard, sessamun, palma christi, and other plants yielding an ample supply of oil, both for culinary and other purposes; besides wheat, barley, the panicum italicum, and innumerable other descriptions of grain, for which Englishmen have no name; and many kinds of pulse, and roots, and vegetables, and fruits, and spices, combine to make the earth redolent with beauty, and Hindostan foremost among the regions of the globe, as the choice store-house of nature." (Cheers.) Such is the country over which the sway of Great Britain universally extends; whose boundless riches are at our command; where the sceptre of Victoria has swallowed up the sceptres of fifty princes. (Hear! hear! and cheers.) Let me proceed to show you how far this magnificent realm, thus subject, through all the millions of its population, and all its diversified regions of fertility and beauty, to the absolute dominion of this island, is able to supply the articles now procured from those doleful abodes of slavery, where every wind that blows gathers up the sighs of bleeding, broken hearts;—
"Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind,
Nor words a language, nor even men mankind."
Scenes of desolation and slaughter—
"Where the vultures and vampyres of Mammon resort,
Where Columbia exultingly drains
Her life blood from Africa's veins;
Where the image of God is accounted as base
As the image of Cæsar set up in its place."
Those mis-named, free, republican, Christian States,
"Whose fustian flag of freedom waves,
In mockery o'er a land of slaves."
(Tremendous cheering.)
The limits necessarily prescribed to an address like the present, will not permit me to go into details upon more than one branch of the subject; and I shall therefore confine myself on this occasion to the article of cotton wool. Eleven years ago, the directors of the East India Company published a volume of reports on the culture and manufacture of cotton wool, raw silk, and indigo in India. In that volume is a letter addressed by the directors themselves to the Board of Control, in which they state that "The cotton plant is indigenous throughout the peninsula of India, from the extreme south to the foot of the Himmaylaya mountains." This assertion of the directors is abundantly supported by the contents of their bulky volume, which is filled by the reports supplied to them by the different collectors of revenue throughout India. "These documents show conclusively," says Mr. Brown, "that not only is cotton an article of immemorial domestic cultivation in every one of the provinces, but that the progress of the East India Company has been marked by the successive acquisition of every province, and the virtual supremacy obtained over every native state south of the Sutledge, which was peculiarly favored for its growth and production of cotton. Continuing this career of acquisition, the last year, the year 1846, saw annexed to the company's rule the province of the Jullindar Doab—the fertile province north of the river Sutledge, which there produces the finest cotton. The same year saw the real extension of the British frontier carried to Attock and Cashmeer. Every acre of land, therefore, in India, capable of growing cotton, within the vast geographical limits assigned to the plant in 1828 (when the directors wrote their letter to the Indian board,) is, in 1847, subject to British control. These limits embrace a country, for the most part cultivated and civilized, of not less extent than the whole of Europe south of the river Niemen, peopled by at least 150,000,000 of intelligent and industrious men. To doubt the capacity of this country to produce cotton in adequate quantities for the wants of England, is to doubt the territorial capacity of three-fourths of all Europe to produce cabbages for its consumption, if cabbages and not cotton were the produce required for the use of its population and the working of its mills."
So much for the natural capacity of the soil of India. A word now in reference to the ability of the natives to turn these natural advantages to account. Let us now look at the capacity of the natives. (Hear!) "The next doubt," says the same intelligent author, "which has been started, and in England most industriously circulated, until it also has become an article of belief, is the doubt whether the natives of India possess the requisite knowledge and manual skill to grow cotton as well as the slaves of the United States. The proofs to dispel and destroy this doubt can no longer be sought for in the manufactures of India. God has willed that their soil shall endure; but their manufactures, the work of their hands, once unrivaled, are fast passing away. The muslins of Dacca, that beautiful manufacture that was to Bengal what the manufacture of steam engines is to England, absolutely unsurpassed, has, within living memory, become utterly extinct." (Hear!) A remarkable confirmation of the truth of this affecting statement has recently reached this country. In a Bengal newspaper, called the Friend of India, dated August 19th, there is a notice of a work just then published, entitled the "Commercial Annual for the year ending April, 1847," containing a view of the trade of Bengal. This volume informs the world that the past commercial year in that part of India has been rendered memorable, as the year in which the export of Indian piece goods to England has entirely ceased. Not one single yard has been sent to this country for sale. Fifty years ago, as stated by Mr. Brown, the city of Dacca was celebrated for its almost magical fabrics, and thousands of looms were busily employed in the manufacture of cotton cloth for the English markets; and the export of piece goods from the port of Calcutta alone, amounted to more than two millions sterling. Now, that vast and profitable trade has become entirely extinct; not a single yard of cloth is exported to this country—the grass grows in the once stirring and thriving streets of Dacca, and the jungle is fast invading its suburb! In the year 1846–47, instead of exporting, as at the beginning of the century, two millions of pounds worth of native goods, Bengal imported £3,134,986 worth of English yarns, twist, and cloths, manufactured from American cotton-wool. In this single fact, the demonstration is complete and incontrovertible, that England has, within half a century, succeeded in building up the system of negro slavery in America, (which was rapidly decaying) and in annihilating the manufactures of Bengal, once flourishing and profitable.
Alas, for the Hindoo and the African! I am far from bringing any charge against the manufacturers as a class. They are the greatest benefactors of this country, and would gladly have obtained their raw cotton from India. The guilty parties are those whose blind, oppressive, and infatuated policy has prevented the natives of India from sending cotton to England, and thereby becoming customers, not to the extent of three millions, but twenty, if our surplus had reached that amount. (Loud cheers.) Notwithstanding the official announcement of the extinction of Indian manufactures for purposes of export, the proof of the ability of the natives of India to produce the cotton of commerce, as good as when their fabrics clothed the world, has been recently obtained in a manner so complete, satisfactory, and conclusive, as must henceforth banish every doubt on the subject. In consequence of the plan laid by the late bank of the United States, to monopolize the crop of American cotton, in the year 1838–39, the cotton manufacturers of Lancashire, roused by the attempt, sent a deputation of their body to London, to remonstrate with the directors of the East India Company, upon the small supply of indifferent cotton received from India. The directors, solicitous to lull the alarm and calm the expostulations of all the remonstrants, devised a novel expedient, and diverted attention by means of it from India to America. They forthwith dispatched one of their officers, a captain of Native Infantry, to the United States, where he engaged ten cotton planters, and in 1840, proceeded with them to India. There they were distributed in
(Continued on fourth page.)
