University College standing to it in the ordinary relation of a college to a university, and having affiliated with it a variety of similar institutions, especially the colleges of the Dissenters for the literary and theological education of their future ministers, who were, previously to the foundation of this tolerant University, excluded from all opportunity of being tested by the University ordeal, and distinguished by its credentials of scholarship.

In these congenial and concurrent efforts in the cause of education-elementary and advanced-Brougham and his helpers had to encounter an amount of opposition that we in these days, enjoying the benefits that these men secured for us, find a great difficulty in appreciating. Especially was it among statesmen and public men that opposition was offered, or, at least, indifference was shown. The Tories jeered, and the Whigs, with a few notable exceptions, gave no help. Nor were the clergy less apathetic. Indeed, we have not discovered the name of a single clergyman associated with Brougham and his fellowlabourers in any one of the three enterprises which we have just recorded. All the more honour is due to the small but earnest and resolute band of men who, in the intervals of engrossing labours of a nature at once more profitable and more seductive, worked with faith, and despite reproach, to lay the foundations of that fabric of national knowledge which has now advanced so high, and which owes the strong vitality which effects its steady augmentation to the initiatory and derided efforts of such as Brougham, at a time when the majority of English gentlemen at once feared the education of the people, and laughed at the enthusiasts who believed it possible.

CHAPTER X.

THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE.

A.D. 1823-1830.

Buxton's Motion for Gradual Abolition-Negro Revolts and Outrages by the Whites-Excitement in England-Brougham's Speech on the case of the Missionary Smith-The Doom of Slavery Fixed— Progress of the Movement-Elected Member for KnaresboroughGreat Speech by Brougham at the close of the last Parliament of George IV.

THE successful agents in the abolition of the Slave Trade had declared that they had no intention of agitating against slavery, as it existed in our colonial possessions. But it was not long until their hearts were stirred to seek the destruction of the lesser but infamous remaining iniquity. Granville Sharp and Romilly were dead, but Clarkson and Wilberforce remained. The latter was now an old man, and entrusted to Mr. Fowell Buxton the duty of finishing the struggle, as the Parliamentary leader of the Abolitionists. Than Brougham, Buxton had no more zealous coadjutor.

In 1823 Mr. Buxton moved "that the state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and of the Christian religion, and that it ought to be abolished gradually throughout the British colonies, with as much expedition as may be found consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned." The very extreme moderation of this

proposal was seized upon by Canning, who replied to Buxton, as its weak point. With quick sagacity he pounced upon the "gradualism" of the course proposed, as a thing perfectly impossible. "You must either abolish at once," said he, “or, if not prepared to go that length, wait until the circumstances of the case will permit instant emancipation." The strength of the Abolitionist party, and the tenor of Canning's own argument, equally rendered it impossible that he should meet Buxton's motion with a direct negative. He proposed resolutions, declaring the advisability of immediately ameliorating the condition of the slaves, so as to fit them for freedom at the earliest period when it could be safely bestowed. Even this was a mighty concession, and proved that the good cause was progressing towards victory. When the tidings that the Government had officially so expressed themselves reached the West Indies, a tremendous outcry arose. The planters and their Houses of Assembly declared that the English Ministry had become unmitigated Abolitionists. Nor was this alarm allayed when the next mail brought to the governors of all the islands a circular from Downing Street, prohibiting the flogging of women, and the use of the lash in the field. Jamaica waxed furious, and seriously talked of declaring her independence; but cooled down, and the planters resolved to carry out the injunctions of the circular in their own way. Still, in all the West Indian isles a feeling of exasperation grew and prevailed; and it soon found vent in outrages that did more than all other causes put together to increase the numbers and the zeal of those who, in England, were bent upon abolition.

A missionary to the negroes in Barbadoes, named Shrewsbury, wrote home that the lowest class of whites in the island were ignorant and depraved. His com

munication was printed in the annual report of the Society of which he was an agent. The meaner mob of colonists resolved to punish him for his truthful witnessbearing. They assailed him in his pulpit, and next day levelled his chapel to the ground. Mr. Shrewsbury was compelled to fly the island for his life. In rejoinder to a proclamation issued by the Governor against the rioters, they produced a placard threatening whoever gave information against them, and declared that they would expel from the island any missionaries who came to preach the Gospel to the negroes.

In Barbadoes, a preacher of Christianity, by the influence he exercised over his negro converts, saved the white population from massacre. The Governor and other officials in that island had insolently omitted to give any publicity to the circular from England, although the courts of justice prepared to act in conformity with its injunctions. The planters talked incautiously and angrily, in the hearing of their house-slaves, about the interference of the home Government. The house-slaves communicated to the field hands what they had heard; the latter believed, from the attempts made to withhold the news, that emancipation, or some lesser boon, had been ordained, and that the planters were illegally denying them their freedom. They were further irritated by an ordinance which prohibited their attendance at their places of worship, unless they received a pass from their masters. They rose in rebellion-but rebelled after a most peaceful fashion. Not a drop of blood was shed.

All

they did was to release some of their brethren who had been imprisoned on suspicion by the panic-stricken officials, refuse to work, imprison some whites, and put others in the stocks. They were overpowered on the day after their outbreak, martial law was proclaimed, and its terrors lasted for five months. Two hundred of the negroes were killed and wounded, many of them were lashed with a thousand stripes, and forty-seven were hanged. Not even by this savage retribution was the fury of the colonists slaked. A missionary, named Smith, was put upon his trial before a court-martial. The Anglican clergyman of the island testified that "nothing but those religious impressions which, under Providence, Mr. Smith has been instrumental in fixingnothing but those principles of the Gospel of Peace which he has been proclaiming-could have prevented a dreadful effusion of blood here, and saved the lives of those very persons who are now (I shudder to write it) seeking his."

Smith was charged with having stirred up the revolt of the negroes and concealed their intentions, and of having refused to serve in the militia, although his plea of ill-health had been in proper form accepted. He was confined for two months in a loathsome and insalubrious dungeon, ere he was brought up for trial. On the evidence of three negroes, suborned and terrified witnesses, who afterwards recanted all that they had testified, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. This sentence could not be carried out without the sanction of the English Government. Immediately upon the receipt of the sentence the Ministers sent out an order rescinding it, but decreed Mr. Smith's banishment from the island