Texas, its claims to be recognised as an independent power by Great Britain : examined in a series of letters Page: 26 of 58
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24
measures of relief, " iut order to pleserve them from ineritable
'uin." Thus, almost from year to year, the Home Government
and the House of Commons, were informed of the distress of the
planters, of the transfer of properties, of the abandonment of
estates, of execution sales, and the extensive ruin and beggary
resulting therefrom, notwithstanding loans of money from the
Government, protecting duties, and bounties on exported sugar,
which gave the planters the monopoly of the home market,
and put immense sums of money into their pockets on all the
sugars exported to foreign States.
In December 1831,Viscount GODERICII, then Colonial Secretary,
adverting to " the existence of severe commercial distress among
all classes of society connected with the West Indies," said, "It
is obvious that the great and permanent source of that distress,
which almost every page of the history of the West Indies records,
is to be found in the institution of slavery. It is in vain to look
for long-continued prosperity in any country in which the people
are not dependent on their own voluntary labour for support, in
which labour is not prompted by legitimate motives, and does not
earn its natural reward." And again, '" I cannot but regard the
systen, itself as the perenlrial spring of those distresses of which,
not at present merely, but during the whole 'of the last fifty years,
the complaints have been so frequent and so just." When will the
advocates of slavery learn wisdom? When will they learn this
great truth, that the natural course of tile moral government of
tlhe world is framed with a singular aptitude to disappoint the designs
of those, whose object it is to enrich themselves by the rigorous
exaction of the uncompensated labour of their fellow-creatures ?
But, perhaps, the writer in the Colonial Gazette will favourtthe
public with his proofs from " all ages and countries," in support
of his theory. For my own part, I must confess my ignorance
of such proofs beinig in existence. He may prove, indeed, that
slavery has existed in forms, more or less modified by the genius
and institutions of the people, among whom it has been found; but
this is not the question : The point to be decided is, whether slavery
enriches the land, and renders it so costly, that it cannot sustain
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Scoble, John. Texas, its claims to be recognised as an independent power by Great Britain : examined in a series of letters, book, 1839; London. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6108/m1/26/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.