LITERARY REGISTER. American Slavery and Colour. By WILLIAM CHAMBERS. London: W. and R. Chambers. 1 Vol. 8vo. Pp. 216. MR. CHAMBERS has written this book in order to give in this country a calm view of the history of American slavery, which may be read and may be useful in the States. Mr. Chambers has long been known among us as a faithful friend of civil liberty. He is acquainted personally with the condition of the United States. He may be correctly described as an enthusiast, but not as a fanatic, on this or on any other topic. He is, of course, an abolitionist, but one of those men who would rather advise and counsel, than scold the States out of their great difficulty. This country would exhibit many more men of that class than can muster courage to state their opinions; while the free people of the States. in a large majority, either resist the invasion of new northern or western territories by slavery, or support it as a laudable and necessary system, We admit the magnitude of the mess wherein our trans-Atlantic friends are sinking. The population of the United States, in 1780, was 3,929,872, and of the slaves, 697,897, or seventeen and three fourths per cent.; while, in 1850, the population was 23,121,876, and of the slaves, 3,204,313, or rather over thirteen and three fourths per cent., so that the free population had increased faster than the slaves on this general view; but the statistics require closer examination, and the population of the slave states in 1800 was 2,621,300, of the slaves, 893,041; while, in 1850, the total population was 9,664,576, and of the slaves, 3,204,313. The number of freemen in the slave lands was, at the beginning of the century, 1,728,252, and the number at the completion of the first half of the century was 6,460,263. The slaves had thus increased more rapidly than their superiors in colour, property, aud rank; for while the latter are not multiplied by three and three-fourths, the former are multiplied by almost four. The progress has been nearly equal, but in favour of the negro race. The United States cannot, however, expect an emigration for the next fifty equal to the last fifty years. Africa at its southern end, Australia particularly, and New Zealand, attract emigrants to the far south. Canada competes successfully for those who go west. The East absorbs annually increasing numbers of the energetic, the more enterprising class of emigrants, especially among the young. The United States cannot expect, therefore, to draw the same proportion of British emigrants in the future who have gone there in past years, and the bondsmen may increase faster than the free, especially if the African slavetrade be revived, or the outcasts of the white population, whom the trade impoverishes, be enslaved, as the slaveowners modestly propose. Taking the slaves old and young as they stand, their pecuniary value, at present, is estimated at £256,029,140, and the figures do not seem to be exaggerated. The price is more than twelve times the money paid for our West Indian slaves. The number in 1850 was a little more than four times the negro population of the West Indies at the date of the Emancipation Act. The United States have greater difficulties now than we experienced twenty-seven years ago. Their slaves are mixed up with a free population of greater numbers and strength. The slaves of the West Indian Islands formed the majority of the people, and the owners or their representatives were a governing, but not comparatively a numerous class. The money required for the States to emancipate their negroes upon the preceding va luation would be one-third of our national debt. They could obtain it with ease, and have a large discount; but the statements of this dispassionate work confirm our fear that no party in the States wish to accomplish this national heroism in money. The volume contains some interesting statements regarding the free coloured inhabitants of the Union, who form nearly two per cent. of the whole population : Despite the various restrictions on emancipation and the settlement of free negroes, there have grown up throughout the slave States a certain number of free persons of colour -some black, others as nearly as light in the complexion as whites. In Louisiana, in particular, free persons of colour own large possessions, though labouring under social disabilities. The number of free coloured persons in the whole of the slave States in 1850, amounted to 228,128. In the free States, at the same period, there were 196,016 free persons of colour; the total number in the Union being 424,144. The free coloured population are, however, exposed to the most painful inflictions. They are not free. In some States they can only hold property under the guardianship of a white man. In other States-such as Virginia-it is a penal offence to teach the children of free coloured per sons to read. Their evidence is never taken in a court of justice against a white man. They are nominally free, but both in the Northern and the Southern States, they are an enslaved race. Mr. Chambers, in the following extract from page 19 of his volume, concedes partially the truth of a remark that slavery in the United States is chargeable to the British Government or people :- At the opening of the revolutionary war, there were slaves in all the revolted colonies; even in Massachusetts, the land of the "Pilgrim Fathers," there were slaves, and sales of slaves, too, though it is proper to add that Massachusetts was the first to set the example of passing an act for general emancipation. England, of course, must be charged with the crime of ITERARY REGISTER. having introduced, in the first instance, the Africans as an article of merchandise into the plantations, against the repeatedly expressed wishes of the settlers, and of having fostered slavery till it took its root as a social usage. Lawyers might now speculate upon the question-whether, at the period of the revolutionary troubles, slaves could be legally held in the colonies? A short time previously it had been decided by courts of justice, that a slave landing in England became free; and as the common law extended over all parts of the realm, it is demonstrable that the maintenance of slavery in distant dependencies, was, to say the least of it, open to challenge. The question was not, however, tried; and, as is well known, a vigorous slave trade was carried on for many years afterwards with the West Indies and other possessions, much to the profit of Liverpool and Bristol, and apparently to the satisfaction or indifference of all, except the few individuals who deigned to feel an interest in the unhappy objects of ruthless deportation— which individuals, as is usual in such cases, were set down as visionaries, crack-brained enthusiasts, who had no proper regard for national greatness. The attempt to implicate us in the guilt of United States slavery, on this ground, is an erroneous proceeding. We might be as well blamed for the existence of the republicans of the States; and at a subsequent page, and in the appendixin the latter place, while referring to "Who is to blame?" by Mr. John Graham, published five years ago-Mr. Chambers does us justice. The colonists were never bound to accept or buy the slaves imported by the Government, even if the Government did import any other slaves except those miserable felons who were condemned to a penal residence in districts that once served the purpose for which Australia is now too moral. 253 -was not pursued in our insular colonies. Families were not divided, and the geography of the islands, which are not of great magnitude, shows they could not be far separated. The children, if we correctly remember-but it is now a long while since we were done with all that--followed the condition of the father, instead of, as in the United States, the mother; and thus a planter had no opportunity of selling his own progeny. When the United States adopt the regulations that ruled British slavery in our flowery isles, they will have progressed in the right road. Mr. Chambers on the first page of this useful book, warns the States against the coming of “white slavery," and on the last against a war of revolution, which must also come, if first there come not a revolution of peace. The Currency Laws and the Bank Charter Act. By HAMER STANSFELD, Esq. Sewed, pp. 90. The slavery of the United States is apparently high rate of interest common for some time past, the most terrible in existence. We copy from page 117 : In Brazil, as was the law in the British West Indies, slaves are humanely entitled to certain holidays, which are at their own disposal, by which arrangement they are enabled to cultivate small patches of land, and accumulate wherewith to buy their freedom. In the United States the slaves can legally claim no holidays, though a week at Christmas is usually granted, and, in most quarters, they are allowed to be at rest on Sunday. This denial of the power of labouring to buy themselves from their owners forms a feature in American slavery which distinguishes it from aught in ancient or modern times. The slavery of Russia is liberty itself in comparison. The negroes of our West India islands were slaves, but they were never so completely and cruelly enslaved as their kinsmen are now, and have been, by our kinsmen in the United States. Their emancipation must always have been a question of time from the day that it became any kind of question with our Statesmen. They were neither debarred from chapel nor school. The Bible was not diluted for their use into catechisms to be learned only by rote from our missionaries. Even slavery itself loosed its bonds on one day in each seven. A portion, or the whole of Saturday, was also saved to them. The cultivation or growth of human beings-what we might call the grazing trade in slaves * London: Smith, Elder, and Co. was caused by the expenditure of money in the Russian war. Without either assenting to or dissenting from this statement, we can add, that every penny invested in foreign securities must have a similar result. We might be as well at war still as making railways for half the powers of Europe, so far as money is concerned. The teachers of currency laws and systems, as a general rule, run into something else. A plain subject is thus inextricably wrapped up in foreign substances. The following extract from Mr. DunCan's pamphlet explains our meaning: : The process of Government in this nefarious fraud, unparalleled in the annals of crime, was this. During the war they contracted permanent loans, the lenders receiving, on an average £60 in three per cent. stock, the Government binding themselves not to pay it off until that stock reached £100. This alone may be deemed an ample bonus, even had it been paid to a foreign enemy, for it wears all the character of a 66 ransom." But their generosity or injustice went further. These loans were contracted in paper, not in gold, and the paper was depreciated 33 per cent., for £60 in paper was only equal to £40 in bullion. As the ounce of gold at present prices is coined into four pounds sterling, minus a small fraction, £40 represents ten ounces of gold. That was what the fundholders had; and by the resumption of cash payments they became entitled to receive 25 ounces of gold for those 10 ounces. Two subjects are involved in this extract. The resumption of specie payment, and the value of Government Stock during the war. The latter seems to have been 60, in the currency of the time, at 3 per cent. If the Government had We copy a paragraph on the exchanges : This section of our inquiries affords a convenient opportunity for speaking of the Balance of Trade, and the doctrine of the Foreign Exchanges, on both of which subjects much deplorable ignorance has been spoken and printed. Our ancestors, in common with the people of other countries, imagined that gold and silver alone constituted wealth. Hence the export of those commodities were rigidly prohibited under severe penalties. Neighbouring nations adopted the same error, so that there was a constant struggle to obtain, and hold permanent possession of what were, and still stupidly are, called the precious metals, for in point of usefulness, and as agents of civilisation and social happiness, gold and silver are dross compared with coal and iron. The gradual decline of Spain, which at one time commanded all the gold and silver of South America, and the industrial rise of Holland, which possessed neither in any large amount, were practical proofs of the current mistake, and induced reflecting men to examine into the verities of a doctrine transmitted by their ancestors. The result was that the old law was repealed, and the free export of raw bullion was permitted, though that of coin was still prohibited. Then arose the dogma of the "Balance of Trade," which was based upon the supposition that the excess of exports over imports was always to be paid to the exporting country in the two metals, or in one of them; from which it was inferred that the annual wealth of a nation, derived from foreign trade, was increased by the excess of its exports over its imports. The annual wealth of a nation, we presume, means, in the last line but two of this paragraph, its annual profits, and while cash on hand belong ing to the nation would no more show its annual profit or loss than a balance at a banker's would show a trader's profit or loss, yet, in conjunction with stock it would have that result. Moreover, as in this country we can only obtain representative money over a fixed quantity upon bullion in hand, therefore we are interested in keeping bullion in hand, merely as the means of permitting us to use our own. This is one fault of the currency laws of which we want the end. The following description of the power of papermoney is correct, and shows the motive power that we idly waste : : Paper money broke the power of Napoleon at Leipsic. According to the historian Alison, by a decree on the 30th September, 1813, from Peterswaldau, in Germany, the allied sovereigns issued paper notes, guaranteed by Russia, Prussia, and England, which soon passed as cash from Kamschatka to the Rhine, and produced the currency, which brought the war to a successful issue. Here was an evidence of the manner in which a paper circulation, based on a proper security, supports credit and supplies the want of specie at the decisive moment. Whereas, according to the present system, the paper would of necessity have been contracted, when the specie became scarce; credit would have been ruined at the critical period; and the vast armament of the allies would have been dissolved for the want of funds for their support. Paper-money enabled Frederick the Great to raise Prussia, exhausted by wars, from a state of prostration to wealth and power. That monarch issued land mortgage notes, called pfenbriefe, bearing interest, but unconvertible so long as the interest was paid. With these monetary instruments he forced or fostered Prussian agriculture, and caused it to grow in strength, and riches beyond any country in the world, ex- Paper-money built every town and village in Scotland; constructed all its docks, harbours, roads, factories-opened out all its mines, and reclaimed the whole of its soil from its primitive barrenness. The Scotch note is not only current in all the Scotch marts of trade, but penetrates into the remotest glens of the Highlands. It is received where the sovereign is rejected. Peel's Act of 1845 now compels the banks of Scotland to hold gold, when the note circulation exceeds £3,000,000; the gold is deposited in the cellars, and rarely unpacked from the barrels in which it is transmitted from the London mint. There is no demand for it, and the shop. keepers shun it, lest it should be short of weight or counterfeit. They have faith in their own paper-a faith based on one hundred and fifty years' experience. The monetary panics that have so often shaken the commercial establishments of England to their centres, have passed innocuously over North Britain. Mr. Duncan has attained a high character in this class of discussions, and we hope for his work that large circulation which should also be secured for Mr. Stansfelds, who describes, in the subjoined now common operation, and its paragraph, a results : India and China will only take silver in payment of the balance due to them; both empires have a silver standard, and gold, from its greater supply having fallen relatively to silver, India dare not pay her troops in a depreciated currency; and China, being in a state of rebellion, prefers silver to goods, as being more easily concealed. The balance will probably be, in round numbers, from £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 a-year, due from the west to the east, as we must take into the account the amount paid through London for the United States, and other countries. Gold we have, but it is silver we want, and we can only obtain it by forcing countries possessing a silver currency to convert them into gold. This transmutation has been going on and continues, and was predicted three years ago in a letter I published and addressed to Mr. Gladstone, of which I append an extract. The countries with silver currencies cannot help themselves; they find they are carried along by a current they cannot resist a higher price in the east will draw it from the west, make what laws they will, and so long as the convertibility of their silver currency into gold continues, and until completed, or the east can be tempted to take more goods from the west, the drain will absorb not only our Australian supplies, but press on our own resources of gold; and as the rate of discount depends mainly on the amount of the Bank reserve, the commercial community must look rather to an increase than a diminution of pressure in the money market, unless our restrictive laws be repealed. And, let them never forget, that in drawing from our own gold reserves, we are contracting our circulating medium, depreciating prices, disturbing every pecuniary engagement, and LITERARY REGISTER. draining the life blood of the commercial community upon which their existence depends. Notwithstanding all these statements, if the balance of trade be in our favour, the stock of bullion should increase, and probably would increase at present, except for foreign investments. The Russian Government are again putting out a feeler, to introduce their system of national railways to the capitalists of Europe, and, by way of offering a bait, have made a more liberal concession to the shareholders of the Riga and Dunaberg Railway than they had originally granted. Thirteen millions and a half of pounds sterling, the amount offered to England, seems to be too large for British capitalists to take, even with the plethora of money! So it would appear that, for the present, this scheme is impracticable. M. Mirès, after having paid two or three instalments of the Spanish loan, finds that silver is not so easily obtainable in the northern cities of Eu rope, as it is for better customers who have gold to exchange for it instead of promises, and therefore puts in his claim upon the purses of the English. The tempting offer of about eight per cent. interest seems to meet with recipients no more eager for investment than do the Russian railways. It is a very old saying as to the inviolability of Spanish honour; were there any doubt as to the fact of its existence, the disbeliever might form an acquaintance with steel too intimate to be pleasant. The fact, however, is not only uncontradicted but acknowledged. Some years since, the Spanish Government raised a loan, a certain portion of which was to be periodically redeemed, the bonds for that portion cancelled, and deposited in the Treasury at Madrid. All this was performed selon les regles, except that, instead of paying off the ballotted documents at par, a certain amount was purchased at the then heavy depreciation, but still the floating debt was lessened. Queen Christina, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the Government acting on behalf of Queen Isabella, found itself straitened for want of money, nothing uncommon then, nor indeed since. A decree was accordingly issued, making a due parade of the sanctity of Spanish faith, and commanding the great. est economy to be observed, in order that the sav ings in the several departments might be appropriated to the foreign creditors. Prices rose, and then Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer Mendizabel disentombed from the treasury vaults about a cartload of cancelled bonds, which were privately disposed of in Amsterdam, Paris, London,-and in fact wherever purchasers for them could be found. What became of the proceeds it would be difficult to conjecture. These two competitors, Russia and Spain, will serve to introduce an answer returned by Lord Palmerston, somewhere nearly twenty years since, to a deputation, who modestly requested that war might be declared against two or three countries, who had failed to pay their arrears of interest. "If gentlemen," said he, "you will lend your 255 capital to enrich other countries, to the impoverish ment of your own, for the purpose of obtaining a high rate of interest, you must bear the risk. It would be too bad to call upon the nation at large to pay the expense of war, and perhaps embroil the whole of Europe, to enforce the payment of your debts; you should have looked to your security." At the instance of his lordship, however, the British minister at Madrid did obtain something for the claimants. The Dean of Richmond," the first vessel from Chicago direct to England, is to be followed by several others this season. By the same route the produce of Canada may be brought here at once without employing the circuitous route of New York, thus making the land near the lakes, rivers, or railroads, far more valuable in itself, and be. neficial to the immigrant. In India the East India Company have guaranteed an interest upon twenty millions sterling for the formation of railroads, and are raising considerable loans in money for public works of general utility. With the assistance of the legis lature, similar operations are taking place in Canada, and when some four years since the home Government issued four per cent. Canadian debentures, there was so active a competition for them, that six times the amount would have been readily absorbed at a premium of three per cent. To resuscitate the West India Islands, the Government have also undertaken to indemnify the shareholders in forming tramroads. Australia seems to be independent in itself, and to be far outstripping the parent country in developing its resources. And yet, with the increasing requirements for capital at home on remunerative rates, and upon certain and equally safe interest for investments as are the funds, foreign speculators persist in offering their various schemes, in the chance of entangling ignorant cupidity. The Monetary System of Great Britain, By JAMES MILLER. 2nd Edition. Pp. 40. Edinburgh : Murray and Gib. THIS is a calm and concise view of the working of the currency laws, with arguments for a change in their nature. Having in another sheet inserted an article on the subject, important though it be, we can only here commend the arguments used by Mr. Miller for reform, especially as from the Scotch view of the question. His pamphlet contains some notices of articles in favour of bullionism, which appeared in the Scotsman, and were ascribed to Mr. George Combe. They are more curious as being, according to Mr. Miller, almost the only, if not the only, arguments for bullionism that have appeared in the Scotch press. We are astonished that the party who seek justice to Scotland do not make the currency laws one of their chief grievances, which they are, however, whether they will or not. The author denies that there existed any ground for interference with the banks of issue in Scotland, because, he says, that while from 1797 to 1844 very nearly five hundred commissions of bankruptcy had been issued against country banks inn Egland and Wales, during the same period in Scotland, only six banks had suspended paymeut, and from these failures only partial and local inconvenience had been experienced. The state of the banks, when the late Sir Robert Peel determined to stereotype them, is thus briefly described :— In 1845, when Sir R. Peel forced on Scotland his obnoxious Bank Restriction Act, there were eighteen banks of issue, all, it may be said, of accredited good management, and enjoying the entire confidence of the community, with a paid up and well employed capital of £11,230,000, principally owned by Scotchmen, and holding deposited money belonging also principally to Scotchmen, to the amount of thirty millions sterling. For the five years immediately following the Union, the average yearly revenue of Scotland was £122,825. In 1845 it had risen to £5,557,908, paid into the British Exchequer. In 1727 the Excise duties amounted to £51,758. In 1845 they had risen to £2,294,175. In 1727 the Customs were £57,928. In 1845 they amounted to £1,909,767. At the Union the population of Scotland was 1,100,000. In 1851 it had increased to 2,888,742. In 1748, the estimated rental, or annual value of real property in Scotland, amounted to 822,8571. It had risen, according to the real property assessments for property and income tax, 1848-1849, to 10,715,385.; and it was ascertnined by the recent Lands Valuation Act to be 11,700,9341. in 1855. We must not, however, ascribe all this progress to banking, yet nobody acquainted with the country doubts that it had a share in our national prosperity. Mr. Miller's remedy is one which has been often proposed in our Magazine, namely to take ample security for the payment of issues, and then leave the bankers to provide how and when they please for the fulfilment of their promises, to pay in gold when it is demanded. The pamphlet deserves to be well circulated at the present time. Alessandro Gavazzi. A Biography, by J. W. KING. travels. Mr. King has all the qualifications of Boswell as Johnson's biographer, for writing the history of Gavazzi. He is an ardent friend of his hero, and has visited with him all the principal places in which the Barnabite mouk has told in England the oppression that he suffered in Italy, and the wrongs of that his own fair land. Calm and sedate criticism may befit well the biographer of Julius Caesar, or his rival Pompey the Great in these times, but if the biography of a living man be well written, the author deeply hates or greatly loves his subject. Enthusiasm for the man, and information respecting him, are Mr. King's qualifications for narrating Gavazzi's life; and as the volume is cheap, the admirers of the Italian will read it for themselves; while, as it is good, they will meet no loss in securing this pleasure. A conversation between two remarkable men, is all therefore that we shall quote from the book : Now comes the important point, the most important of all-important to the Reformer, and to his mission. Im. mediately these first sermons in the little chapel are adver tised, Gavazzi gets the first taste of the Papal Inquisition in England. And therefore, not too fast, ex-Chaplain General, not too fast. Remember that you are still (1850) a subject of Rome, and of the Pope. Before you put on the habiliments of a gentleman open that missive which the postman has just handed in. For with that comes the tug of war. We shall see what you will do with it. Dr. Wiseman, Bishop of Melipotamus, and not yet mock Archbishop of Westminster, presents his delegated commands to Father Gavazzi, which prohibit him from opening his mouth in the chapel at Soho, or elsewhere. This letter must be answered There are not many links in the personally, and at once. old gall-chain remaining. There will be less before noon. And so ex-Chaplain General, now in English costume, post away to the diplomatic office in Golden-square. G.: Why, am I not to preach, how, when, and where I please in England ? W.: You must have a spiritual license from the Pope. W.: You are excommunicated! W. Fighting against the Pope. G.: I did not fight against the Pope, but against Frenchmen! Then I am excommunicated, also, for assisting the wounded and dying upon the field of battle? W.: No. Not for the last. G.: Then not for the first! W.: I will ask a special pardon of the Pope for you. W.: I shall not grant you permission to preach. And the defiant monk leaves his gauntlet on the floor of THE writer of this sketch of a very wonderful the Golden-square cabinet, and walks forth Alessandro Gaman has been the companion of Gavazzi's English | vazzi, orator and patriot. |