of the year. In each case the vessel was entered as many times as she made voyages. Therefore, an entry of 700 tons from Belgium, by a ship making seven voyages in the course of the year, gives, in reality, but the employment of 100 tons, and six or seven men; whereas, a vessel from the East Indies employs 700 tons during the year, and 50 seamen, Upon this principle, he had dissected the whole of the returns made to Parliament, and the result was, as regarded the West India trade, that instead of there being 2,367,322 tons of British shipping employed in the foreign trade, the whole did not exceed 1,324,780 tons, of which the West India trade composed one-sixth part, and which undoubtedly was a most important consideration. What ever political economists might say, no one attending this meeting would deny that such a difference in viewing the returns was of importance to this country. In the time of war it the foreign trade the country had to look for seamen. It was the foreign trade and long voyages which alone made perfect seamen." Thus, it is a sixth part of the whole foreign trade which is at stake in the West Indies: another sixth is at stake in Canada: in other words, one-third of the whole foreign trade is involved in the intercourse with these two colonies alone. And it is the whole of this immense branch of our wealth and strength which Ministers have brought into jeopardy, first by their absurd proposal to ruin the staple trade to Canada by the timber duties; then by their rash and despotic acts in regard to the West 'India colonies. "That this house is anxious for the accomplishment of this purpose at the earliest period that shall be compatible with the well-being of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property " Such were the principles on which Parliament proceeded, such the faith to which they were pledged in the most liberal days of Lord Liverpool's administration. Contrast this with the despotic act of our Whig rulers, forcing an Order in Council at once on the Crown Colonies, and leaving to starvation and ruin all those possessed of a local legislature, who would not adopt this Royal Proclamation as equivalent to an act of Parliament! Mr Warrington truly stated what every one who recollects the occasion, or will turn to the Parliamentary debates, will find to be strictly true. "Mr Canning at the same time declared, that the legislature and the government would be ever accessible to fair argument, and would never close their ear upon strong facts, feeling convinced that it was almost impossible for the British Parlia ment to legislate satisfactorily for the economy of colonies, so different in the moral and physical relations of their inhabitants as the West Indies from those of the mother country. And yet, in the teeth of these resolutions, and of the explicit comment which accompanied them, ministers had issued several orders in council, each more contradictory and unconstitutional than the other, and only agreeing in being directly opposed to resolutions which had received the solemn sanction of Parliament. Each Order in Council was a censure upon the preceding, and afforded strong grounds for questioning the policy of the last issued, and for doubting whether it would not shortly be superseded by one if possible more uncall"That it is expedient to adopt effectual and decisive measures for melioratinged for and mischievous. He said the condition of the slave population in his Majesty's Colonies. or Canning, in 1823, un to legislate for the West India Colonies, his Resolutions were as follows, which breathe the cautious spirit of a British statesman. "That through a determined and persevering, but at the same time judicious and temperate, enforcement of such measures, this house looks to a progressive improvement in the character of slave population, such as may prepare them for a participation in those civil rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects. those Orders in Council were unconstitutional, being directly opposed to the resolutions of 1823, to which Parliament, in the name of the nation, had pledged itself. He would add, that they were cruelly mischievous in their tendency." (Hear.) Earl St Vincent, with a spirit worthy of the name, immortal in British fame, which he bore, put the matter in the true light. "He would 1 entreat those who had any interest in the West Indian Colonies to consider one moment the general calamity that would ensue, if any property of any description whatever, which had been consecrated by the laws, should be invaded and broken 9 down. (Hear.) If colonial property were thus to be sacrificed, what property would be safe? (Applause.) If one species of property were to be invaded, on account of some peculiar shade of distinction, who could say where such invasion would stop? (Hear.) If, upon the doctrine of original rights, or abstract principles, West India property, consecrated by law, was to be invaded, every man might approach them with the same argument. In adverting to these Orders in Council, I am led to a resolution of Parliament in the year 1823, and I must say, that those who were parties to that resolution, and to the decision of the House of Commons in 1823 respecting the slave management, ought not to be parties to the Order in Council of 1831. We were living in times of great colonial distress we were living in times when great colonial agitation was on foot when it would have been policy and wisdom to have conciliated rather than to have inflamed.. But what has been the effect of the Orders in Council of 1821, bearing on the face of them irritation towards the colonies and injustice to the proprietors? (Hear.) To dictate to the Colonial Assemblies, not from Parliament, but from the Council, is unjust and illegal, and to state what appears to me very extraordinary, to say the least of it, is that they shall say to these legislatures, We have certain benefits to confer on those islands, and if you do not agree to what we dictate, you shall not receive the benefits, even in the distressed and sinking condition of your interests,' But to say on one side, this is the reward of your nonobedience, and we will sink the Co . lonies if you do not do so; and on the other, here is the premium on your sycophancy, is the height of injustice. Can you sink the Colonies without sinking also the interests of the mother country? It was saying, if you don't follow this advice, we will punish the mother country through the medium of the colonies." The point at issue between the colonies and the mother country is very clear, and as simple as that for which John Hampden contended with Charles I. The colonies say, "we are overwhelmed with a tax of 100 per cent on our produce; threatened with insurrection among our negroes; devoured by mortgages which the prodigious fall in the value of our produce has rendered overwhelming; we have done every thing consistent with our own existence for the amelioration of our slave population, but the injudicious interference of government, and the Orders in Council recently issued, threaten us with instant destruction, and will ruin both the slaves and ourselves, and are directly contrary to the faith of Parliament, solemnly pledged in 1823; and all this we offer to prove at the bar of the House of Commons."-The government reply, "We know your distresses; we are aware of your dangers; but we will not allow you to prove your allegations; and unless you adopt our regulations, framed on this side of the Atlantic, and give to a royal proclamation the force of law, we will allow you to sink in the ocean of perdition." This is the justice and equal measure of a Whig administration. Unless the investigation demanded by the West India proprietors is granted by Parliament, there is an end of the fair rule of British justice; and if relief is much longer delayed, there will speedily ensue, as the righteous retribution of Providence, the dismemberment and fall of the British empire, on lept THE JEWESS OF THE CAVE. A POEM IN FOUR PARTS. D& is botestni odt: 2497 fiul se 29780 e'di89C Had he those faces unremembered seen, bolt 961 adT Midst fiery dust he braved the strokes of heat.lat bak panel airsultord 19d bsaaid di baeid ode arideinië J But, lo! he goes into yon grove: the tombs E But let us down; thou waiting, from the wood visi sikt od bal! So is the sacred blood of Israe he sentiwod mit evod A L With Cyrus high in favour, me Glad were your servant if you him would task, 154 10 How came you midst these Elamites to bepryd hels9H Jeid ematmom ¿base O! my God! the same. PART II. THE CONFESSION. LIKE one, the purpose of whose life was o'er, Since found that brother, with an altered eye, Joy should be his for those young watchers dear. "Fair grew the child-your mother-in this cave. To her a name I, deemed her father, gave. Till to a noble hunter of our race She went a wife from out this dwelling-place. “Wild wax'd my life: O'er seas and lands away, I bore my penance many a weary day; Long periods dwelling on the cold-ribbed piles Surviving oft the shipwrecked miseries Of ghastly sailors on benighted seas; Still building up, oh! never making less The vast proportions of my wretchedness! Back driven, I sought our prophets; changed my name, (Remorse had altered well my face and frame,) So shall I not be known, if known my sin; And thus my new career did I begin : I learned the visions of Ezekiel's soul; To me he gave each prophet's written scroll. For I was tired of peace. of men In madness” hour o I felt or feigned the prophet's awful power. |