POETRY.
From the New York Tribune.
SONG OF THE AMERICAN EAGLE.
by a Lady of Vermont.
I build my nest on the mountain's crest,
Where the wild winds rock my eaglets to rest;
Where the lightnings flash, and the thunders crash,
And the roaring torrents foam and dash;
For my spirit free henceforth shall be,
A type of the sons of Liberty.
Aloft I fly, from my eyrie high,
Through the vaulted dome of the azure sky;
On a sunbeam bright take my airy flight,
And float in a flood of liquid light;
For I love to play in the noontide ray,
And bask in a blaze from the throne of Day.
Away I spring with a tireless wing,
On a feathery cloud I poise and swing;
I dart down the steep where the lightnings leap,
And the clear blue canopy swiftly sweep;
For dear to me is the revelry
Of a free and fearless Liberty.
I love the land where the mountains stand,
Like the watchtowers high of a patriot band;
For I may not bide, in my glory and pride,
Though the land be never so fair and wide,
Where Luxury reigns o'er voluptuous plains,
And fetters the freeborn soul in chains.
Then give to me in my flights to see
The land of the pilgrims ever free;
And I ne'er will rove from the haunts I love,
But watch, from my sentinel track above,
Your banner free over land and sea,
And exult in your glorious destiny.
Oh, guard ye well the land where I dwell,
Lest to future times the tale I tell,
When slow expires in smoldering fires
The goodly heritage of your sires,
How Freedom's light rose clear and bright
From fair Columbia's beacon-height,
Till ye quenched the flame in a starless night.
Then will I tear from your pennon fair
The stars ye set in triumph there!
My olive-branch on the blast I'll launch,
The fluttering stripes from the flag-staff wrench!
And away I'll flee, for I scorn to see
A craven race in the land of the free.
Brandon, Vermont, Jan. 1844.
From the Philadelphia Saturday Courier.
MEMORY OF CLARKSON.
Lines Occasioned by the Death of the Great and Good Thomas Clarkson.
Clarkson! revered in every clime
Where Mercy lifts her voice sublime,
Immortal honors—guiltless fame—
Deep in our hearts have set thy name.
The patriot's wreath, though bright, must fade;
The diadem, by mortals made,
Grows dim and pale, beside that crown
Which circles thy unsought renown.
Thy simple majesty of mind,
Thy lofty purpose, well defined,
Shall stand before that searching eye
Which every motive can descry.
A foreign shore, the stranger's land,
The pathless waste, the burning sand,
Witnessed alike thy steady aim
A nation's sorrows to proclaim.
To break the fetters of the slave
Thy great resolve had aimed to save,
And change them to that golden chain,
By Heaven designed, from Heaven which came:
The links composed, since time began,
Of boundless love to erring man,
Though dimmed awhile and blended here
With strange alloy of guilt and fear.
Illustrious hero, great and good,
No trophies, stained with human blood,
Above thy honored dust shall wave,
To mock thy pure, unblemished grave.
Friend of my race, farewell! farewell!
Affection weeps to hear thy knell;
Thy requiem shall be fondly sung,
In distant land and foreign tongue.
And when thou standest at "the gate,"
Where countless myriads trembling wait,
Thine be the great reward to win—
"My faithful servant, enter in!"
THE MECHANIC.
I am Nature's own nobleman, happy and free,
A peer of the realm might well envy me;
For the land of the eagle has given me birth,
And my sons are all freemen that meet round my hearth.
Your cities now rising with beauty and might,
Whose palace-like towers are fair to the sight,
My hands helped to build them, my strength lent its aid,
And by the sweat of my brow your proud cities are made.
The ship that sweeps proudly o'er the far-spreading sea,
Has been timbered and fashioned by the labor of me,
And the pure massive marble that strikes on the view,
Is chiselled and formed by the artisan too.
The smith, as he hums o'er his anvil a glee,
He toils not for happiness or power—not he;
He dreads not lost office, he seeks none to gain—
And the smith is a king in his own proud domain.
The bravest of men from mechanics have sprung,
And the sweetest of lays mechanics have sung,
And the proudest of hearts mechanics should wear,
When conscious of right in their bosoms they bear.
From the Ladies' Repository.
ELOQUENCE.
It welleth up from brimming founts,
Deep hidden in the soul—
And with a strong resistless power,
Its chainless waters roll.
It gushes on in words of fire;
It scorches with its breath;
And as the heart is pure or dark,
Its words are life or death.
It peals in thunders loud and deep,
That make the mountains quake;
The mighty despot on his throne,
Doth feel its pillars shake.
In Justice' great and outraged name,
The giant voice doth crave
Redress for earth's down-trodden ones,
And freedom for the slave.
SONG OF THE SEASON.
by Eliza Cook.
Look out, look out, there are shadows about;
The forest is donning its doublet of brown,
The willow tree sways with a gloomier flout,
Like a beautiful face with a gathering frown.
'Tis true we all know that summer must go,—
That the swallow will never stay long in our eaves;
Yet we'd rather be watching the wild rose blow,
Than be counting the colours of Autumn leaves.
Look high, look high, there's the lace-winged fly,
Thinking he's king of a fairy realm,
As he swings with delight on the gossamer tie
That is linked 'mid the boughs of the sun-tipp'd elm.
Alas, poor thing, the first rustle will bring
The pillars to dust, when your pleasure-clue weave,
And many a spirit, like thine, will bring,
To hopes that depend upon Autumn leaves.
Look low, look low, the night-gusts blow,
And the restless forms in hectic red,
Come whirling and spouting wherever we go,
Lighter in dancing, as nearer the dead!
Oh, who has not seen rare hearts, that have been
Painted and puling, in garb that deceives
Dashing gaily along in their fluttering sheen
With Despair at the core, like Autumn leaves.
Look on, look on, morn breaketh upon
The hedge-row boughs, in their withering hue;
The distant orchard is sallow and wan,
But the apple and nut gleam richly through.
Oh, well will it be, if our life, like the tree,
Shall be found, when old Time of green beauty bereaves,
With the fruit of good works for the Planter to see,
Shining out in Truth's harvest, through Autumn leaves.
Merrily pours, as it sings and soars,
The west wind over the lands and seas,
Till it plays in the forest and moans and roars,
Seeming no longer a mirthful breeze.
So music is blest, till it meeteth a breast
That is probed by the strain, while memory grieves
To think it was sung by a loved one at rest,—
Then it comes like the sweet wind in Autumn leaves.
Not in an hour are leaf and flower
Strickened in freshness, and swept to decay;
By gentle approaches, the frost and the shower
Make ready the sap vines for falling away.
And so is man made to as peacefully fade,
By the tear that he sheds and the sigh that he heaves,
For he's loosened from earth by each trial-cloud's shade,
Till he's willing to go, as the Autumn leaves.
Look back, look back, and you'll find the track
Of human hearts, strewn thickly o'er
With joy's dead leaves, all dry and black,
And every year still flinging more.
But the soil is fed, where the branches are shed,
For the furrow to bring forth fuller sheaves,
And so is our trust in the Future spread
In the gloom of Mortality's Autumn leaves.
SPEECH OF GEORGE THOMPSON.
(Continued from first page.)
twos and threes over the vast surface of the country, and set about teaching 100,000,000 of natives how to grow a plant which their forefathers had cultivated in perfection for 3,000 years. Two of these Americans, Messrs. Mercer and Howley, found their way to the great cotton growing district of the southern Mahratta country. Now, mark the success of their mission! On the 28th of January last, 1847, the Governor in Council of Bombay addressed a circular to the several mercantile houses of that presidency, giving to the English and native gentlemen composing this large and respectable body, a detail of the government measures connected with introducing an improved system of cultivating and cleaning cotton in the southern Mahratta country, in the hope that the mercantile community would come forward and freely purchase a product, the improved quality of which would, doubtless, command a high price in the London and China markets. The governor then proceeds to detail the nature of the government measures and their results.
"They were commenced," he says "in 1843, under the superintendence of Mr. Mercer, an American cotton planter of great experience, energy and zeal, who began his farming operations at a village in the collectorate of Dharwar. In 1844, Mr. Howley was sent to the same district, and undertook the management of an experimental farm at another village." I will now quote the exact words of the governor in council of Bombay. "In 1845–46, Mr. Mercer represented to the government, that the experimental farms were only a useless expense to government; that the American system of cultivation was not adapted to India; that the natives of India were, from their knowledge of the climate and capabilities of the soil, able to cultivate better and much more economically than any European, and requested that the farms might be abolished." Such is the testimony of Mr. Mercer, as quoted by the governor in council, of Bombay. Let me now request your attention to the testimony of the British collector of revenue in the same district, who had overlooked the operations of the two American planters, and was also intimately acquainted with the agricultural habits and skill of the people, as well as with the extent and capacity of the soil. I will again give the precise words of the government circular: "The acting collector of Dharwar states, that the New Orleans cotton has been cultivated to such an extent throughout the collectorate, that its qualities are well understood by the ryots, (the native farmers,) and there will be no further necessity of government planting on its own account. There is at present sufficient seed to plant it to any extent, provided the sale of the produce is guaranteed to them." Such is the solution of the problem which the Directors of the East India Company undertook, in 1839, to solve, by sending an expedition, consisting of a captain of native infantry and ten American cotton planters to India, to introduce an improved system of cultivation, an expedition which I find, by a statement of revenue and expenditure, recently laid befare Parliament, has cost the natives of India £12,026—a sum placed under the head of "Expenses in view to the improvement of the cultivation of the cotton in India." The solution is, the natives of India are able to cultivate cotton better than any European. (Loud applause.)
"The evidence, therefore," says Mr. Brown, "on the two following points, is complete and unanswerable:—First, the printed evidence of the directors shows, that, throughout a period of nearly seventy years, from 1781 to 1836, the company held dominion over provinces in India, capable of yielding cotton in any quantity demanded by England or by the world. Second, the evidence of American planters, accidentally promulgated in India in 1847, eleven years later, proves that the natives have always had the agricultural knowledge, the skill, and the experience, to produce that cotton better and cheaper than the Americans. Yet the natives have not produced it (for our use;) on the contrary, the official evidence is clear and conclusive to the fact that, in the face of a demand which has more than centupled, the supply from India has regularly declined. The causes of this admitted decay must, therefore, be sought elsewhere than in the sterility of the soil, or the incapacity of the people." Let us, then, occupy a few moments in attempting to trace out and understand some of these causes, for it is only after a correct conception of their nature and effect that we can wisely seek to remove them, and prepare ourselves for an enlightened and determined contest with the confederacy which has originated and upheld them. I will endeavor to make this part of the subject as plain and popular as its peculiar character will admit of.
Did time permit, it would be easy to demonstrate that from the commencement of the manufacture of cotton goods in this country, the raw material might have been supplied from India, in most abundant quantities, and sold in the Liverpool market, at twopence halfpenny per pound, yielding a remunerating profit to all parties concerned. Had there, at an early period, been, I will not say encouragement, afforded to the native growers of cotton, but mere fair play, and an absence of oppression and direct obstacles, there would have been at the present time a supply sent to this country of the most abundant kind, and of a quality greatly superior to that of the insignificant amount which is obtained from India. "And what price," you may inquire, "would have satisfied the grower?" I will answer that question from authority. Mr. Robert Ricards was a member of the Council of Bombay from the year 1806 to 1811, having previously spent twenty years of his official life in various parts of western India. In 1812, that gentleman addressed a letter to the Court of Directors, in the course of which he revealed (from the company's own records,) the details of a deliberate system practised by the government of Bombay, by which the native cotton growers were deprived of one-half of their whole crop as a land-tax, and were openly plundered of the other half by the company's servants, who put their own price upon it. (Shame.) In this letter Mr. Ricards demonstrates that, while the cotton growers were under the rule of the Mahomedans, who set the example of taking half the crop, they could cultivate to profit the best description of article, while cotton was selling on the spot at rather more than 2d. per pound. Deducting half, therefore, for the land-tax, the 1d. and a fraction represented the natural price at which the best commodity could be grown. In the pamphlet before me there is also the proof furnished, in the shape of a reference to actual transactions in Bombay, in 1789, when the price of Surat cotton was rather more than 2d. per lb.; being just the same price as it was in Bombay, in 1846, nearly sixty years after. Had the grower, therefore, not to yield up to the government one-half his entire crop, he would be satisfied, as he is now virtually, with 1d., or rather more, per lb.
It is, therefore, evident, that but for the existence and chartered monopoly of the East India Company, which took the whole of the crop at its own price, and returned to the grower the proceeds of only one-half, the price at which the best Surat cotton would have freely sold in London and Liverpool, in the years 1786 to 1789, (leaving a large profit to the importer,) would have been 2 l-2d. per lb. The prices at which the East India Company sold their cotton in London, in the years 1785 to 1791, were from 11d. to 1s. 1d. per lb. Of the several kind of United States' cotton, it is that called "Upland" which compares with and is valued against Surat. In 1846, the year of the short crop, the average price paid in London and Liverpool for the three kinds of American Upland, was 5 l-2d. per lb. It is unnecessary, after a simple enumeration of these recorded facts, to say why the production of cotton in the United States dates from the year 1785, or to prove at greater length than they prove, that it was the Directors of the East India Company who in truth and in reality sowed the fields of America broadcast with the seeds, and transferred the immemorial growth of India to take permanent and gigantic root on the shores of the Atlantic. Mr. Ricards in the letter to which I have referred, also states that the freight on the Company's ships amounted, at the time he wrote to £53 6s. per ton of fifty cubic feet, and £30 a ton on the extra ships, making a freight of 7 l-2d. and 4d. respectively upon every pound of cotton imported. Even down to the year 1829, the chartered freight of the company's ships was £l9 5s. per ton, equal to a charge of more than 2d. per lb. I have quoted the testimony of one member of council at Bombay; let me refer to another, Mr. Francis Warden, now a director, who, in 1832, gave evidence before a select parliamentary committee, that the money tax imposed on every candy of Surat cotton of the value of £8, was £5 16s., leaving to the grower £2 4s. for his share, or £1 2s. less than was left him by the rapacious Mussulmans. (Shame.) This tax was levied before the cotton was suffered to be removed from the field on which it was grown; for which purpose deep pits were dug, and the cotton buried in them under clods of earth, and there kept in charge of the revenue officers, until the money demanded was raised. When released and removed to the grower's hut, in its unseeded state, for the purpose of being deprived of the seed by the women and children of his family, then was an annual tax levied upon every native gin; then an annual tax upon every bow, the implement required to rid it of dry leaves and dirt; then a tax upon the loom employed in weaving it; and if required for distant consumption, whether home or foreign, a transit duty. (Shame.)
What has been said in no way completely describes the wretched condition of the native cotton grower. It must not be supposed that he obtains the difference between the price of the cotton and the money-tax levied by the government. It must never be forgotten, in order correctly to appreciate the weight of the burden laid upon him, that he is compelled to pay his land-tax before he is suffered to have possession of his own cotton, and that the only security he has to offer, in order to obtain the money from the village money-lender and cotton-trader, is the crop buried in the pits, unweighed, unseeded, uncleaned, and altogether unmerchantable. The result is that one halfpenny a pound is all that is finally realised by this unhappy subject of the British government in India. "In Guzerat," says General Briggs, taking for the basis of his calculation the evidence given before Parliament, "746 pounds of clean cotton may be raised on seven acres of land, giving 106 pounds per acre. This cotton, estimated at 2 l-2d. per pound, which is forty per cent. more than its value at Dharwar, will sell for £1 1s., from which, if we deduct 16s., we have scarcely more than twenty-five per cent. of the whole produce, to pay the expenses of cultivation, and for the return of interest on capital; while the government receives seventy-five per cent. of the whole produce as the tax. The merchants of England, it is clear, cannot look to India for cotton, while such imposts prevail." Such is the testimony of an East India officer, who has made the land-tax and its effects upon cotton-growing his study for many years. (Cheers.)
Let me now ask you to go with me to Bengal, and see how the matter stands there. Among the journals published in India, there is no one more conspicuous for the caution with which all its statements are put forth, and its reluctance to bring charges against the government, than the Friend of India, edited by John Marshman, Esq., of Serampore. From a number of that journal dated the 11th of March last, I make the following extract:—"The deficiency in the cotton crop of America, and the rise in the price of that staple of our home manufactures, has naturally turned the attention of the public to the cultivation of cotton in India, where the plant was indigenous in the days or Cæsar. Our manufacturers look to the boundless fields of India in the hope of obtaining a supply for their looms; but unfortunately they look in vain. In Bundlekund (a large division of the Allahahad province to the South of the Jumna) the supply has fallen from sixty lacks (600,000,000 lbs) to ten (or 100,000,000 lbs.) At Bombay, the cultivation has been gradually dwindling, and there is every reason to apprehend that it will shortly become extinct. The export of cotton from Bombay to China, which formerly gave employment to so large a portion of the agricultural population, and its shipping, has been gradually contracted; and unless some adequate remedy can he supplied in time, this branch of trade must shortly close altogether." (Hear, hear.) The Friend of India then goes on to give a specimen of the process by which the cultivation and export of cotton, so essential at once to the prosperity both of India and of England, is deliberately annihilated by those who administer the revenue system under the East India Company. Names, dates and official documents are quoted. "The fiscal history of the province of British Bundlekund, which is the great cotton district on this side of India, most clearly demonstrates the impolicy of over assessment. We have now before us a valuable report of the settlement of Zillah Humeerpore, by Mr. Allen and Mr. Muir, of the civil service, which supplies us with facts of the utmost value, and gives information that may he turned to the best account at the present moment. It teaches us the most important lessons. It shows how the prosperity of a district may he blighted, and half a million of its inhabitants reduced to absolute destitution, in the shortest period of time. It tells us how a single collector may ruin, not only the condition but the prospects of a district, depopulate its villages, and convert its smiling fields into barren wastes.
Our rule commenced there in 1806, and for the first ten years our fiscal administration was just and equitable.
"The forbearance and happy arrangements of government appear to have had their full effect in developing the resources of the country." The Zemindars (the land owners) were in a flourishing condition; their tenantry satisfied and happy, and the district which had formerly been a scene of uninterrupted devastation, or predatory incursions, presented a picture of industry and contentment. In the year 1816, a year ever memorable in the annals of that unfortunate province, Mr. Scott Waring, the collector, took charge of it, and formed a new settlement of the rent (government tax.) In the western districts he raised the assessment thirty, and in the eastern districts, no less than forty-six per cent! The result of this oppressive exaction in the eastern division soon became apparent in the ruin of the Zemindars, the destitution of the poor ryots (the cultivators,) and the desolation of the province. Of the total number of villages, amounting to 621, only 139 were preserved by the original landholders. Of 137 villages brought to sale during this period, assessed at two lakhs and thirty thousand rupees (£23,000) no less than sixty-one were purchased by government, because there were no bidders at all; while the remaining seventy-six, which were sold to other parties, realized only thirty-nine thousand rupees (£3,900) or about four months' rent! Every man of substance who agreed to take the villages, on the recusancy of the Zemindars, became a beggar. Such was the result in the eastern district, of Mr. Waring's exertions at the revenue screw. In the western districts, the proprietors of 178 villages threw up their lands rather than agree to his exhorbitant demands. "It would be useless to recount," says Mr. Muir, "the sickening detail of absconding Zemindars, who, according to Mr. Waring, fled only because the real value of their estates was beginning to come to light, or of desolated villages, whose lands it was said were thrown out of cultivation merely to produce a decrease of assessment. No one who has not toiled through the details of each village can conceive the extent of alienation of property or the misery attendant on the depopulation of villages, the ruin of estates, and the disruption of society which have prevailed in this unhappy country.
Misfortunes seldom come single. After Mr. Waring, whose name is never mentioned in Bundlekund without a malediction, and is ordinarily used like that of an ogre, by mothers to frighten disobedient children, came Mr. W. H. Valpy, who entered into his views with increased ardor and gave another hearty turn to the revenue screw. Then came the gradual discontinuance of the company's advances for cotton, which had formerly exceeded the revenue of the province, and finally the calamitous seasons of 1830, 1834, and 1838. The hand of man had been succeeded by visitations of Providence, and the country was reduced to the lowest state of desolation, when the new settlement, which had given such just renown to the name of Robert Mertins Bird, was undertaken and completed. But it is easier to ruin than to revive a province. Five years of over assessment had produced that prostration of agricultural resources, which twenty years of moderation could not restore. The settlement officers, in every instance, made large reductions in rent, in the hope of reviving the prosperity of the ruined district; and in reference to the more immediate object of this article, reduced the rent-tax of the soil on which the cotton is raised, to a sum varying from eight annas to one rupee a bigah—that is on an average, to about one third of the assessment, which the Englishman describes as prevailing in the Broach. But it is found impossible now to realize the same amount of revenue which was obtained so freely before the calamitous advent of Mr. Waring. It is to be hoped therefore that the lesson thus taught us, that over assessment invariably defeats its own object, and destroys the prospects of the exchequer for a long period of time, will not be lost on us.
To the Committee now said to be sitting at Bombay, we particularly recommend the following from Muir's report:
"Had we been contented with the revenue of 1815,and been solicitous only to equalize it, the district would, without doubt, have continued to flourish; extent of cultivation would have kept pace with the increase of capital and inhabitants, and the concomitant advantages of trade and commerce would have added to the riches of the country, and to its strength for withstanding the attacks of famine. Our income, if not directly increased, certainly would not have fallen off, and would thus have been, at the least, twenty per cent. greater that the impoverished land, denuded in many quarters of its population, can now possibly yield." Let me afford you one more glance into the reasons why the natives of India, under the East India Company's rule, do not cultivate produce for this country. Mr. Thomas Williamson, late revenue commissioner at Bombay, in a letter dated 1846, addressed to Lord Wharncliffe, as Chairman of the Great India Peninsular Railway Company, tells his lordship, that besides the land which produces cotton at present, there is a vast extent of waste land capable of producing the article, and that a very slight degree of encouragement would be sufficient to attract cultivators supplied with such scanty means as are there sufficient for tillage, and that they would greedily accept the terms which would be deemed hard by the enterprising farmers in England. Well, this same Mr. Williamson, when superintending these very districts, granted to the natives leases of waste land, free from tax for a few years, for the express purpose of cultivating upon it cotton and the Mauritius sugar-cane. The last, to attain perfection, requires to be manured and irrigated and consequently demands a considerable preliminary outlay. The natives joyfully accepted the leases, and set to work with the utmost alacrity and industry. What did the Directors of the East India Company do on hearing of this wise and prudent measure? The official gazette shall answer for them:
Bombay Government Gazette,
20th June, 1838.
"The Honorable the Court of Directors, having been pleased to disapprove of the notifications of the 24th February and 1st August, 1835, and of the 1st and 17th November, 1836, issued under authority of Government, by the Revenue Commissioner, granting certain exemptions from assessment (land-tax) to land cultivated with cotton and the Mauritius sugar cane, and to direct that such notifications be immediately recalled; the Right Honorable the Governor is pleased hereby to cancel the said notifications from this date." (Loud expressions of indignation.)
In conformity with this peremptory order, leases of waste land, granted nearby four years before by the authority of the Governor and Council of Bombay, and upon the faith of which the lessees had borrowed and spent their all, were cancelled at a moment's warning, the lessess were turned out of possession without the smallest compensation of the least redress, and most of them, as well as the persons who had advanced money to them on the security of the government leases, ruined for the remainder of their lives. This was done in 1838, and in 1840 the directors of the East India Company sent to the United States for ten American planters for the purpose of teaching these beggared and ruined natives how to grow cotton.
Let me now show you what the pecuniary result of this system has been as respects the prices paid for cotton by the manufacturers of this country. It has been before observed that the average price of the three kinds of American Uplands in the markets of the United Kingdom during the dear year of 1846 was 5 l-2d. per pound. The evidence adduced proves undeniably that, from the year 1785 down to the present time, the grower of Surat cotton would have been satisfied on the spot with the price of 1d. per pound, if freed from the company's preliminary land-tax of 1 l-2d. per pound, and liberated from all interference of the revenue officers. "My own knowledge," says Mr. Brown, "but especially my late father's personal and practical experience through more than half a century, lead me to affirm that a price of 1d. to 1 l-2d. per pound, paid to the native growers, free from tax, would have been remuneration sufficient to have secured from them the production of any quantity of cotton which the wants of England have required during the last sixty years. All the enquiries I have made lead me to the conviction that the same price would have paid the grower in every province in India, where the company found cotton to be a staple culture. Adding 1d. per pound for transport and the profit of the importer, a price of 2 l-2d. to 3d. per pound is the natural price at which, but for the tax and the interference of the company, good East India cotton would have been laid down in London and Liverpool. What the profit of the English manufactures would have been by having the command of the staple at this medium price, they themselves best know. But taking the price paid by the manufacturers for every description of United States cotton in the year 1846 at no more than the average price paid for "Uplands," namely, 5 l-2d. per lb. it is clear that they paid to the American 2 l-2d. per lb. more than the natural price of cotton, if the growth and the trade in India had been, as in the United States, perfectly free. Upon the total quantity received from the United States, this sum amounts to £5,236,252.—This was the excess of price they paid last year. But this year, owing to the short crop in the United States, the consequent rise in every market, the scarcity of food throughout Europe, and the demand for tonnage in the United States for the purpose of shipping every pound of spare food to where food was at famine prices,—in consequence of these concurrent visitations, it is computed by the Economist that the manufacturers will have to pay from four to five millions sterling more to the Americans for the short supply of the present year, than for the more abundant one of last. Their American cotton account for the two years will therefore stand thus:—
| 1846.—Ordinary enchanced price paid above natural price of East India cotton | £5,236,252 | |
| 1847.—Dittoditto | 5,236,252 | |
| Extraordinary enhanced price over 1846, | 4,500,000 | |
| Excess of price paid in two years to the United States tor cotton, | £14,972,504. | |
Do the losses of the manufacturers end even at this point? It would be a very superficial examination of the subject which should lead to any such conclusion. This sacrifice is only the beginning of what they have to suffer. In consequence of the high price of food everywhere, and the absorption of the national capital as well as of the profits and wages of individuals in the purchase of dear food, the price of manufactured goods, instead of keeping pace with the rise in the price of cotton, has sunk much below this level, from the falling off of the usual demand at home and abroad. Manufacturers are compelled to hold and lock up their capital, or to sell at a loss in order to keep their mills working half time. The United States' merchant, gorged with English gold exported to pay for his corn and cotton, keeps aloof until manufactured goods have still further sunk to the point at which it is more profitable to him to import goods than to receive gold. He then enters the market, and it is by means of his purchases, made at the lowest point of depression, that the drain of gold is stopped; or, in other words, it is by the sacrifice of the accumulated industry and hard-earned property of the manufacturers that the exchanges are ultimately restored, the derangement of commerce remedied, and the nation's calamity arrested. It is manifest, therefore, that it would be better for the manufacturers to ask the East India Company to accept five millions, subscribed amongst themselves, and in return suffer the natives of India to grow cotton, free of land-tax, for the people of this country, than to carry on their operations under the existing system. Five millions so given in 1845 would have saved nearly fifteen. Mr. Brown eloquently concludes his remarks on this subject by inquiring:—"What has created and produced the cotton of the United States? What, at the same time, has cleared its wastes, attracted its immigrants, sextupled its population, peopled its towns, founded its manufactures, built its ships, created its navy, fed its trade, furnished its revenue, found scope for all its energies, and last, though, unhappily, not the least, perpetuated, with the foreign slave-trade, its own domestic slavery? It is not more abundant land than England has possessed in India, nor a more fertile soil, nor a more genial climate, nor cheaper labor, nor more millions of peaceable, industrious subjects; nor is it any decline in the native vigor and persevering enterprise of Englishmen, when left unfettered and un-domineered over, to exert their free scope in guiding and governing men and subduing nature, under the spirit and the ægis of their parent laws and institutions. Since it is undeniably not one of these superior advantages, which is the cause of the striking and different results exhibited by men of the same race, during the same period of time, in India and in the United States, I trust it is impossible that the reason of Englishmen, or the piety of the nation, will suffer the curse of barrenness with which India has been fatally stricken, or the poverty in which its people are steeped, to be longer laid, by the deception of speech and the studied concealment of facts, to the account of the will of Providence and the ordinances of God."
I have now endeavored to show the bearing of this question upon England and upon India, and to point out some of the causes of the non-importation of cotton from India. It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the anti-slavery view of the subject, for you must be before-hand with me. I will, however, venture to ask your attention to the views entertained by certain parties. What say the Southern Americans, speaking through the press of New Orleans? "By the blessing of heaven, the Southern planter is enabled to raise the noblest weed that was ever given for the comfort of the human family—a weed, destined to make a new era in modern commerce, if those who raise it have spirit and virtue enough to scorn and defy the banking and speculative quacks of the day. I have no idea that the slave-holding race could maintain their liberty or independence for five years without cotton. It is that which gives us our energy, our enterprise, our intelligence! and commands the respect of foreign powers. The Egyptian may look with devotion to his Nile, as the source of the power and wealth of Egypt; the pilgrim and inhabitant of the Holy Land may bathe in the sacred Jordon, and take comfort from the belief that he has washed away his sins—the Hindoo may worship the Lotus, under an idea that Vishnu created Brahma from its unfolded flowers; but a genuine slave-holder in South Carolina will ever look with reverence to the cotton plant, as the source of his power and his liberty. All the parchments upon earth could never protect him from the grasping avarice and financial fury of modern society. If he expects to preserve the peculiar institutions of his country, and transmit them to posterity, he must teach his children to hold the cotton plant in one hand, and the sword in the other, ever ready to defend it." What say the abolitionists of the United States?—"Cotton is now the great anti-abolition influence of this country. In whatever shape opposition to the cause of emancipation manifests itself—whether in the Church or State—in a mercantile or ecclesiastical association—it may be traced directly back to the cotton-bale. Were English and French manufacturers supplied with Indian or Egyptian cotton, the demand for slaves from Virginia and Maryland would cease—the growers of men and women for the cotton planting region would find no market for their human staple—and as a consequence, slavery would be unprofitable, and, as another consequence, Virginia statesmen would begin to believe with Thomas Jefferson, 'that all men are created equal;' the Virginia divines would very soon discover that slavery is incompatible with genuine Presbyterianism, whether of the old or new school. Slavery now lies entrenched behind its cotton bags—like General Jackson at New Orleans; and the efforts of the British or even American abolitionists to dislodge it by moral suasion, we fear will prove as ineffectual as those of General Packenham, to force the cotton barricades of the American camp, on the 8th January, 1815. We call then upon the abolitionists of Great Britain, to urge their government to foster and promote, to the extent of its power, the cultivation of cotton in the Indies. By so doing they will promote the interest of their own country—they will confer an incalculable benefit upon ours—they will lift the crushed millions of India from their degradation—and strike off the chains from three millions of American slaves. We confess that one of our main reliances, under God, for the bloodless termination of American slavery, is the increase of cotton cultivation in the peninsula of British India."
What were the words of the venerable Clarkson, written down to be delivered at the opening of the World's Convention for the abolition of slavery, held in 1840. "How, then," he says, "can you get at these (American planters) so as to influence their conduct. There is but one way; you must endeavor to make them feel their guilt in its consequences. You must endeavor by all justifiable means to affect their temporal interests. You must endeavor among other things, to have the produce of free tropical labor brought into the markets of Europe, and undersell them there, and if you can do this, your victory is sure. Now, that this is possible, that this may be done, there is no question. The East India Company alone can do it of themselves, and they can do it by means that are perfectly moral and pacific, according to your own principles, namely: by the cultivation of the earth and by the employment of free labor. They may, if they please, not only have the high honor of abolishing slavery and the slave trade, but the advantage of increasing their revenue beyond all calculation; for, in the first place, they have land in their possession twenty times more than equal to the supply of all Europe with tropical produce; in the second place, they can procure, not tens of thousands, but tens of millions of free laborers to work; in the third, what is of the greatest consequence in this case, the price of labor with these is only from a penny to three-halfpence per day. What slavery can stand against these prices? And here I would observe, that this is not a visionary or fanciful statement. Look at the American newspapers: look at the American pamphlets which have come out upon this subject; look at the opinion of the celebrated Judge Jay on this subject also; all, all, confess, and the planters, too, confess—but the latter with fear and trembling—that if the East India Company should resolve upon the cultivation of tropical products in India, and carry it to the extent to which they would be capable of carrying them—it is all over with American slavery."
At the risk of wearying you, I have laid my views before you at considerable length, and you may now perceive the nature of the objects to which I desire to devote myself (loud cheers.) Is it not a glorious goal after which I am reaching? (cheers.) Long, long have I looked to India with emotions which God alone has penetrated. The study of that country, in the history of its people, the capacity of its soil, its subjugation by England, and its future destinies, has been the passion of the last eight years of my life. Long, long ago I made a vow that I would live for that benefit of that country (loud cheers.) Have I your permission to redeem that vow? (long continued cheers.) But, let me tell you, I did not make that vow until I clearly perceived that he who labored for the good of India, was at the same time the truest and wisest friend of his own country, and the most efficient promoter of the extinction of slavery and the slave-trade (cheers.) Have I not shown you that "justice to India" is "prosperity to England" and "freedom to the slave?" (applause.) This was the motto I chose for a small newspaper I started on the 1st of January, 1841. It is my motto still. Will you adopt it? (cheers.) Well then, as I told you at the time I was a candidate for your suffrages, I shall be ever ready, by an honest vote, to support every good and sound measure, without reference to party; and I shall have no objection to speak a word on a subject I understand, unless, as is often the case, it should be superior wisdom to remain silent (cheers.) The question I have brought before you this evening, however, is that to which I wish you to grant me permission to devote myself; and that you might to some extent have an enlightened opinion respecting its merits, its magnitude, and its importance; I have delivered the address now brought to a close. Let me then ask you if you participate in my views regarding the vital importance of this question to the interest and happiness both of the people of this country and of India? (loud cheers.) Have I your sanction to give myself to the advocacy of this question? (renewed cheers.) Will you support me while I am humbly and honestly engaged in calling the attention of the country and the legislature to it? (great applause.) Will you allow me henceforth to say, that as far as you are concerned, my constituents are co-laborers with me on the question? (loud cheers, which lasted for a considerable time.) Enough. We understand one another. You have encouraged me on the threshold of this great work. In making the claims of India henceforth the peculiar object of my labors in parliament and throughout England, I shall have the firmest persuasion that I am acting in conformity with the best interests of my native country and the just rights of our conquered fellow subjects, and of the enslaved throughout the world. I shall now submit the following resolution. I think I have sustained every clause of it, save that which refers to the natives of India as customers for our manufactures; but it must be self-evident that it we improve the condition of 150,000,000 of men, we must of necessity increase their wants, and consequently open a vast market for our own manufactured products. In another address I will abundantly demonstrate this. With these remarks I shall read the resolution, which I do not doubt, from the manner in which you have responded to what has been said, will receive your cordial approval (loud cheers.)
"1. That it has been demonstated to this meeting, that India, a vast British possession, peopled by millions of peaceable, intelligent, and civilized British subjects has been gifted by nature with the capacity of producing every tropical raw commodity, which the capital and industry of England require for the constant and profitable employment of her population, or for the supply of any of their other wants.
"That it has been further demonstrated, that England, although the mistress of such a possession as British India, is rendered year by year more dependent for the supply of raw cotton, winch is the staple of her principal manufacture, and one of the main supports of the public revenue, upon the United States of America, a foreign country; and that England is also dependent upon the same country for the supply of the tobacco demanded by her population—both the cotton and the tobacco of the United States being the produce of slave labor.
"That consequently, the domestic peace and prosperity of this country; and the stability of a large portion of the public revenue, are made dependent,—First, upon the vicissitudes of the seasons, to which the cotton and tobacco plants, in common with all other productions of any other country, are liable;—Secondly, upon the maintenance of amicable relations between this country and the United States, and between the United States and other countries;—Thirdly, Upon the continuance of the submission of the numerous, increasing, and oppressed slave population of the United States of America.
"That this exclusive, unnecessary, and unnatural dependence—perpetuating as it does the slavery of millions of men—is the source, to a great extent, as is now experienced, of existing calamities, and manifestly pregnant with future evils to the best interests of England.
"That the free agricultural population of British India would be the natural customers of this country, in the exact measure that they would, if permitted, become the producers of commodities for the wants of England: that it has been clearly shown, that these intelligent and deserving British subjects are rendered incapable of becoming the nation's customers and producers, and of competing with the produce of the slave-states, by reason of the burthens imposed upon their soil and industry, and by the impediment of unwise restrictions placed upon their home and external trade:—
"Therefore. Resolved,—That it is the duty of the people of England, for the sake alike of England, of India, and of the enslaved throughout the world, to require from the Legislature the immediate removal of all imports which depress the agricutural energies and impede the commerce of the native population, and also the institution of a strict and impartial inquiry, in India, into the condition of the natives, and into the conduct and the acts arising out of the peculiar government ruling over them, which affect their well-being and retard they prosperity."
Lafayette on Slavery—The opinion of this great man, whom every American reveres and honors, on the subject of slavery, has but recently been made known to the world. The great philanthropist, Clarkson, says of him, that "his amiable nature was specially aroused on this subject." To Clarkson, Lafayette said expressly, "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding A LAND OF SLAVERY."—Cleveland Democrat.
