England to overthrow their own government! I have said, and I boldly
reiterate the assertion, that slavery exists in every part of the
British dominions, in a form far worse than negro slavery in the
United States! And I am able to corroborate the truth of the remark,
by a volume of the most reliable testimony; and much of that might be
drawn from the admissions of English Journals, and English statesmen.
I will quote a few more English authorities, and dismiss the subject.
The British Asiatic Journal says, "the whole of Hindostan, with the
adjacent possessions, is one magnificent plantation, peopled by more
than one hundred millions of slaves, belonging to a company of
gentlemen in England, whose power is far more unlimited than any
Southern planter over his slaves in the United States." And the same
authority tells us, "that in Malabar, the islands of Ceylon, St.
Helena and other places, the English government is a notorious
slave-factor--a regular jobber in the purchase and sale of slaves; and
that this system is carried on and perpetuated by the purses and
bayonet of the English government." Dr. Bowering affirms of the
British subjects in India, "that the entire population of that empire
_are_ subjected to the most degrading servitude--a deeper degradation
than any produced by American slavery." The same writer declares "that
a regular system of kidnapping is carried on by the English." The Duke
of Wellington remarked in the House of Lords, that "slavery does exist
in India--domestic slavery in particular." Sir Robert Peel made the
charge and offered the evidence, "that British merchants are even now
deeply and extensively engaged in the slave trade;" and that the
English government was, at the time he spoke, "engaged in a new system
of English negro slavery, by the forcible capture of negroes in
Africa, &c." We are told by the London Times of Feb. 20, 1853, "that
British slavery is ten thousand times worse than negro slavery of the
United States," and that the condition of those, whom he denominated