and to increase the means of annoying the colonies, the situation which James Stephen, Jun., now fills, was, it is believed, found necessary, was, it is supposed, created. Formerly, and in those days when Great Britain held many more colonies than she now holds, the duty of Mr Stephen's office was performed, and the peace which every colony enjoyed, shewed that the duty was well performed by the customary government law offi cers, at an expense not exceeding L.400 per annum. Then, and during the time that Mr Goulbourne held the office of Under Secretary for the Colonies, the law adviser of the Colonial-office was very properly only permitted to come to that office when he was officially sent for, in order to give his opinion upon such colonial papers as might be submitted to him. But things are altogether changed. Mr Stephen is planted in the Colonial office with apartments, a salary of L.2000 per annum, and with three or four clerks of his own choosing, to assist him, and all paid by this country; while, instead of enjoying peace and security as formerly, we find every colony under the British crown, from east to west, and from line to pole, involved in turmoil and trouble, discontent increasing, and ruin threatening to overwhelm them. For this state of things, every one of them blame Mr Stephen, Jun. They believe, because, my Lord Duke, they feel from acts, from his correspondence, and his intimate connexion with the hostile and influential party, arrayed in this country against them, that he and that party have, in reality, long been Colonial Secretary; and the fact is not to be disguised nor contravened, that in his hands, not the hands of their own legislature, or in the hands of his Majesty's representatives resident with them, the inhabitants of every British colony conceive their liberties, their properties, and their characters, to be placed. They may now be, and I hope that they are wrong, in believing this; but what has taken place, has most unquestionably given them too much reason to believe that their destinies were committed to his hands, and without disparaging his abilities, it is necessary to remark, that never were such mighty interests, my Lord Duke, which, taken together, surpass in importance the treasures of the Roman empire int its proudest days, never were such great and important interests, commercial and political, committed to such injudicious hands. I have no wish, my Lord Duke, to embarass, to oppose, or to give of fence to his Majesty's government, or to any individual member thereof; but as a British subject, interested in, and anxious to see the prosperity of Great Britain, and the prosperity of all her possessions; and feeling as one of those individuals connected with our colonies must feel, whose cha racters and whose actions are daily and unjustly held up to accusation and reproach, and who perceive their property not merely rendered unproductive, but threatened with extinc tion, from the effects of a rash, prejudiced, and influential party in this country, it cannot be deemed either contemptuous or imprudent to en quire, if it is true, that when an eminent solicitor in London, a short time ago, carried some accounts in a West India cause, by order of the Court of Chancery, to an anti-colonial master, to adjust them, that he tossed them from the table to the floor of his apartment, declaring, with indignation, that he would not look at them, until he was satisfied that the religious instruction of the slaves had been properly attended to! Further, it may not be deemed irrelevant to ask, if it is true, that Mr Stephen, Jun., acts for the Under Secretaries of State, when they are absent? and even when they are present, if he does not try to assume the direction of many questions? If it is true, that he interferes with every thing that is colonial, whether it relates to the colonies or their affairs, as connected with the commercial or political interests of the country? If it is true, that every colonial paper or dispatch is referred to him, and which reference makes him, in the double capacity in which he stands, (law adviser or clerk to the Privy Council, and law adviser at the Colonial-office,) auditor of his own opinions, given as law clerk to the Board of Trade? If it is true, that the Crown Lawyers at present, and for some time past, have been heard to declare, that they receive from every government office clear and distinct information transmitted to them, regarding cases on which they are called to wgive their opinion, except those cases which come from the Colonial-office, which appear involved in such ambiguity, that they find it difficult to give an opinion upon them? If it is true, that Mr Stephen, by the way in which he touches off every subject, and by the advice which he has given, has agitated Canada, and endangered the separation of our North American colonies, ("his evidence," says a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, for September last, page 335, “has EXCITED UNIVERSAL DISGUST AND INDIGNATION in the two Provinces,") and sown dissension in every colony which communicates with the office where he is? If it is true, that ever since he has been in the office he holds, that every bill which has been passed by the legislature of every island in the West Indies, has been cavilled at, (by whom, I say not,) in the spirit of metaphysical jugglers, who conceive every person but themselves deficient of honour and sincerity? If it is true, that not only Mr Stephen, but Mr Macauley, have been seen ranging through the office, almost at pleasure, the latter generally on the eve of any parliamentary debate on colonial subjects, till even inferior. clerks trembled to be held as the responsible keepers of colonial papers? And if it be true, that the cause of the deep discontent which spreads in every colony, springs from a belief, that the questions here asked can only be answered in the affirmative; and if things are in this state, then can any thing be more dangerous and reprehensible? Who, my Lord Duke, was it that gave, or who, I ask, was it that dared to give to Dr Lushington, amongst papers connected with the case of Lecesne and Escoffery, the secret and most confidential letter from the Colonial Secretary, Earl Bathurst, to the Governors of the West India Colonies, which, when the discovery was made, that it had escaped from the Colonial-office, made Mr Horton tremble, and induced him to threaten Dr Lushington with his personal resentment, if he ventured to use it, or to disclose it in any manner? Did your Grace, moreover, never hear of a dispute betwixt Mr Stephen and an honourable gentleman in the Colonial-office, named PENN, who had, I believe, the chief charge of all the correspondence of the office? Is it true, that, indignant and alarmed at the liberties which he saw Mr Ste-phen taking with public colonial documents, he remonstrated with MrHorton upon the subject?—that the correspondence grew warm?—that it was referred to Earl Bathurst?that the result was, that either MrHorton or Mr Penn must leave the office? Mr Penn certainly retired with his pension, and with the agency of Ceylon, worth L.1200 a-year, and previously held by Mr Huskis son. Mr Stephen certainly was about that time forbidden the office, except when officially sent for. He took an office for about twelve months, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Whitehall; but not long ago, he is found re-seated in the Colonial Office with greater power than ever! The power which this gentleman assumes, or is permitted to assume, is certainly both dangerous and reprehensible. The unconstitutional letters, which in Earl Bathurst's name accompanied the rash resolutions of the House of Commons in 1823, to the different West India colonies,letters so unconstitutional, that his Majesty's government, as I am informed, afterwards thanked the Duke of Manchester for the sound discretion which he exercised, in withholding them from the legislature of Jamaica, were, it is well understood, the production of the jaundiced pen of Mr Stephen. The captious, special pleading, tortuous letter, which bore Mr Huskisson's signature, and which at a later period did so much mischief in the same island, emanated from the same head. In Mr Stephen's handwriting, the letter, with corrections and interlineations, was, as I am informed, brought to and placed upon the right honourable Secretary's table. Important papers, connected with an important. Eastern and distant colony, were not long ago requested to be submitted to the Under Secretary, an excellent and honourable man, previous to a meeting to consider the case. The papers (not papers such as Mr Stephen liked) were carried to the Colonial-office, by the gentleman who had the charge of the subject to which they related, and by him, in the absence of the Under Secretary, placed in the hands of the proper clerk. The day of meeting came. The Under Secretary was not prepared to discuss the question, having never seen the papers, and which he complained had never been sent! The clerk to whom they had been given was called. He at once stated he had received them, and that he had given them to Mr Stephen. That gentleman was applied to. He had forgot ever having received or seen such papers. After much delay and rummaging, they were however found. It is but lately, as I have been informed, that Mr Stephen submitted a colonial case to the Attorney-General for his opinion. The opinion was given, and returned. It did not please Mr Stephen. He sent it back, accompanied with some remarks of his own, for the further consideration of the Attorney-General. The latter, indignant at this proceeding, returned the case, with this laconic reply," The Attorney-General of England sees no reason to alter his opinion." Is this the way that colonial business of the first importance is to be transacted? Since last I had the honour to address you, the charge of being an hired advocate has been renewed by two government organs, characters of "unsunned snow," the Times and the London Courier. With regard to the former, I observe that Mr O'Connell, in his Letter" to the people of the county of Waterford," (and your Grace will admit that O'Connell is not an incompetent judge in such matters,) says, that this Journal can be "hired," and that in its labours "it affords an instance of the most wretched venality;" and if it is of this stamp, it may have heard of, or may know, that British Journal which received L.1500 of the Catholic rent, in order to revile the brother of your Sovereign. With regard to the second paper, I have to observe, that I war not with the dead; and if the living are wise, they will cease to resort to such miserable weapons as were in an evil hour some months ago resorted to, in order to answer my refutation of their statements. Moreover, while the Courier daily informs the world that it supports Government, and quietly receives in return exclusive intelligence which its contemporaries must pay high to receive from other sources, even when they can so obtain it, the conductors of the Courier ought to be the last persons who stand forward to accuse any one of working for gain, and consequently, in their mode of reasoning, not to be credited in any thing which they may advance. Dismissing, however, the less conspicuous parties, I proceed to bring before your Grace the more notable calumniators, who, through the columns which I allude to, and other mischievous columns, resort--for want of information, facts, and truth, on colonial subjects—to similar accusations. Let us see what pay they or their friends receive for their labours and active hostility carried on against the West India Colonies. James Stephen, senior, Master in Chancery, Mr Sergeant Stephen, one of the Common Law Commissioners, Mr Geo. Stephen, Solicitor and Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society, and other African pickings, Salaries. L.3500 2000 800 uncertain Mr John Stephen, brother to James, one of the Judges in the Supreme Court in New South Wales, 2000 Mr Alfred Stephen, lately acting Attorney-General in New South Wales, 1000 Mr John Stephen, junior, one of the Commissioners of Crown Lands in New South Wales, 800 Mr Stephen, Clerk to Supreme Court in New South Wales, Francis Forbes, Chief Justice of Supreme Court in New South Wales, a relative of Mr Stephen's, 500 3000 Colonel Arthur, Governor of Van Diemen's Land, appointed by interference of Mr Wilberforce, say 4000 L.17,600 VOL. XXVII, NO. CLXII. R This is tolerably well for one family, and only one of their protegés. Let us come to another family, the Leviathan of the band, who do not deal by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands. Mr ZACHARY MACAULEY, as Parliamentary returns shew us, is the factotum of every thing in Sierra Leone, and on the coast of Africa. The expenditure in and upon that establishment is admitted in a Parliamentary paper, published last year for the use of the Finance Committee, to exceed six millions sterling; and if the sum had been dou bled, it would not have exceeded the truth. The commissions and the agencies for such sums may be estimated by those who dabble in the enormous national debt of Great Bri tain, but cannot be calculated accurately by individuals who are not accustomed to consider this or similar things. Mr Macauley is also "navy prize agent" for the African coast, and has his commission of 5 per cent on all sums paid as bounties for the capture of slaves. According to Parliamentary Paper, No. 399 of 1827 this country has paid, down to 1826, the enormous sum of L.484,344,'68.8d. sterling, for that purpose; and the Finance Accounts shew us, that upwards of L.70,000 more have been paid since that period, besides the enormous sums which yet remain to be paid! The commissions on these at 5 per cent are easily calculated, but to these remain to be added the commissions derived from the proceeds of the sale of ships captured in the African slave trade, which are exceedingly great, but which no Parliamentary return that I have ever seen enables me even to approximate. Besides all these good things to himself, we find Mr Macauley's son, J. B. MACAULEY, one of the commissioners for bankruptcy in England, with an income, as I have heard, of L.1400 a-year! No wonder, my Lord Duke, that all these individuals join in the cry against the West India Colonies, and turn up their eyes with contempt, and their noses with disdain, at the trifling remuneration which they could obtain in that quarter, while they can reach power, crowned with such emoluments, by constituting and supporting Englishmen and Englishwomen as slaves, and PROPERTY IN BSOLUTE RIGHT, in New South Wales, and the most abject, and helpless, and degrading of all slavery, under the mask of liberty, on the western coast of Africa. In that quarter fortunes are readily made out of John Bull's gullibility. BLUS. Before concluding, it is necessary to turn to the impudent remarks of the black-hearted writer in the Westminster Review. This "blustering" bully, speaking in the name of the people of England, (what presumtion!) dares to denounce the British subjects in the West Indies as TERING PAUPERS," whom England supports on a " Pauper's list." The real" Pauper's list" of England, my Lord Duke, is, in one description or other, now become a lengthened and an awful roll; but let your Grace look at and into the periods of distress and calamity, which have of late years so frequently pressed heavily upon the people of Great Britain, and say when, and where, and how often, any one connected with the West Indies, their property and their commerce, at home or abroad, either applied to the hand of British charity for relief, or required it? I dare this "blustering" writer to contradict me, when I state, that on every occasion when distress visited the population of Great Britain, or the population of any other part of the British Empire, the West Indian proprietors, and all those connected with the West India trade, were always amongst the foremost and the most liberal contributors to afford relief. Besides this personal charity, it is notorious to every one, the writer of the article alluded to alone excepted, try of the value and importance of that so jealous was the mother counthese colonies (we shall presently see what these are) to her most in the last four years, compelled them valuable interests, that she, till withto send all their produce to her shores, and to take every article of supply though they could frequently have which they required from herself, alwhere, and a better price for the forgot most of the latter cheaper elsemer in the markets of foreign countries. The appellation of "paupers," ly misapplied by this advocate of therefore, my Lord Duke, is grievousdisgraced the European Press, or tyranny, the most savage that ever European Legislation. "The West Indians," says this au dacious libeller," have sometimes this wicked anti-British writer despises, and loads with such venomous abuse- these very colonies-nay, even a small proportion of them, was then the utmost height of his ambition, and to gain which he continued for ten years to sweep Europe, from the mountains of Andalusia to the banks of the Moskwa, with despotism, oppression, injustice, and all the terrors of war! His declaration, my Lord Duke, made at a still later period-at the moment when he was about to proceed to his fatal Russian campaign, is even still more remarkable, and ought to be remembered, if not by every European, at least by every British statesman. Then he declared, that he held, and would continue to hold against the remonstrances of Russia, all the Prussian fortresses from the Elbe to the Niemen, as an equivalent to compel the restoration of the Tropical Colonies which during the war Great Britain had captured from France, from Spain, and from Holland, when he came to make peace with this country. He did not even require one of those which are technically known as British Colonies; but if any portion of these so much despised possessions had been offered to him, it is obvious that the war from 1803 downwards, might have been avoided; and this being the case, it is also obvious, that either Bonaparte, or the writer in the Westminster Review, must be set down as an arrant blockhead. In order to shew from figures, and from facts, whether Bonaparte, or the bravo who apes him in the Westminster Review, was the wisest statesman and the ablest politician, an abstract of the whole Colonial trade of Great Britain, for a very long period, drawn up from the particular and the official returns, as these were copied from the Journals of the House of Commons, is here placed before your Grace and the public. Look at it, my Lord Duke, and let the country look at it, as politicians and as merchants, and then say if such advantages are to be thrown away or endangered; or if the immense interests which are connected with these possessions, ought to be left exposed to the rude attacks of prejudice, of error, and of ignorance; or committed to these anti-British hands, who want to a-sume the arbitrary control or dist sal of them. |