Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T04:59:01.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Queen's Letter of 1865 and British Policy towards Emancipation and Indentured Labour in the West Indies, 1830–1865

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Bruce Knox
Bruce Knox
Affiliation:
Monash University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Modern historians of the Jamaica rebellion of October 1865 have attached much causal importance to a document of 14 June the same year, known as ‘the Queen's Letter’. This was the official response to a petition in which ‘certain poor people’ of St Ann's parish in the island had naively asked their sovereign for ‘a quantity of land’ and other means of relief from distress. Drafted by Henry Taylor, clerk and senior clerk in the West India department, of the colonial office since the mid-1820s, and approved by permanent under-secretary Sir Frederic Rogers and secretary of state Edward Cardwell, it has acquired an unmitigatedly bad reputation. It is not merely that it was naturally based on the knowledge that no imperial funds or other competence existed or could exist for relieving the consequences even of admittedly bad seasons in colonies (or at home), but rather that it thrust austere advice upon the suffering petitioners. Any labouring population, it stated, whether in Jamaica or England, could provide against adversity only by ‘industry and prudence’: above all, by undertaking – what was understood to be notoriously lacking amongst creoles – regular work for wages. Even the most sympathetic critics have considered this to be ‘harsh’ and ‘callous’. One writes that it reflected the sentiments of an imperial bureaucracy whose expectations had been influenced by the remarkable changes in English society, whose attitudes were governed by evangelical propriety, and whose notions of progress were inextricably tied to productivity, trade figures, accumulating property, and the refinements which these entailed.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 345 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Green, W A, British slave emancipation (Oxford, 1976), p. 402Google Scholar; Burn, W. L., The British West Indies (London 1961), p. 137Google Scholar. See also Semmel, B., The Governor Eyre controversy (London, 1962), ppp 43 fGoogle Scholar. Dutton, G, The hero as murderer. The life of Edward John Eyre (London and Melbourne, 1967), pp. 250 fGoogle Scholar. Petition, and Queen's, Reply are in Part. Papers. 1866, LI, 646, 649Google Scholar. Cf. petition from Glasgow unemployed, Oct. 1858, P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice, London], C[olonial] O[ffice] 201/503, fo 343, and comments and replies, C.O. 201/503, fos. 224–30, and C.O. 60/6, fos. 26–9.

2 Green, British emancipation.

3 The best and most recent treatment of the subject, with excellent bibliographies, is Green, British emancipation, and idem, ‘Emancipation to indenture' a question of imperial morality’, Journal of British Studies, XXII (1983), 98–112. ProfessorGreen, also has a chapter, ‘The West Indies and indentured labour migration – the Jamaican experience’, in Saunders, Kay (ed.), Indentured labour in the British Empire 1834–1920 (London and Canberra, 1984)Google Scholar, the editor's introduction to this book offers the suggestion that Herman Merivale (for whom see below) was ‘a precursor to dependency theorists’. See also Tinker, H., A new system of slavery (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Eltis, D., ‘Free and coerced transatlantic migrations: some comparisons’, American Historical Review, LXXXVIII (1983), 251–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 MacDonagh, Oliver, ‘The nineteenth-century revolution in government a reappraisal’, Historical Journal, 1 (1958), 52–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This, and other important articles on the same theme, are usefully collected in Stansky, P. (ed.), The Victorian revolution. Government and society in Victoria's Britain (New York, 1973)Google Scholar. See also Roberts, David, Victorian origins of the welfare state (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. See also n. 153 below. MacDonagh, O., A pattern of government growth 1800 60 (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

5 Green, , British emancipation, p. 187Google Scholar.

6 Minute, 11 Mar. 1858, C.O. 323/85, fos. 348–9. Merivale, Herman, who did not share Taylor's opinions in all respects, excluded the Colonial Office, not entirely from uncertainty, but from ‘partizanship’, in the formation of opinions on ‘the enfranchised commonalty’ in the Indies, W.: Lectures on colonization and colonies… in 1839, 1840 & 1841 (new edn. Oxford, 1861Google Scholar; repr. 1928), pp. 329–32 and (1861) 336–7. For the ‘two’ Machiavelhs (not usually acknowledged in Taylor's day) see, for example, the introduction by Crick, Bernard to the Penguin, Classics edition of the Discourses (1970)Google Scholar, and Raab, Felix, The English face of Machiavelli, 1500–1700 (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

7 The autobiography of Henry Taylor (London, 1886), 1, 122 3Google Scholar, Murray, D J, The West Indies and the development of colonial government (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar, Reckford, M, ‘The colonial office and the abolition of slavery’, Historical Journal, XIV (1971), 723 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Cabinet paper by Taylor, , 24 10 1838, Autobiography, 1, 255Google Scholar

9 Minute by Taylor, 26 Mar 1858, C O 323/85, fos 348–9

10 Ibid Crick (ed), Discourses, 1, 1, p 102 (using the translation by Leshe J Walker, 2 vols London, 1950 'Since men work either of necessity or by choice, and since there is found to be greater virtue where choice has less to say to it, the question arises whether it would not be better to choose a barren place in which to build cities so that men would have to be industrious and less given to idleness, and so would be more united

11 See discussion of virtu in Crick, , pp 57–60Google Scholar, with references For further elucidation of Machiavelli see Parel, Anthony (ed), The political calculus Essays on Machiavelli's philosophy (Toronto, 1972)Google Scholar, esp Harvev J Mansfield, Jr, ‘Necessity in the beginning of cities’

12 See below, n 107

13 Crick, (ed), Discourse 1, 1, pp 102–3Google Scholar

14 Minutes, 23 Apr. 1858, C.O. 260/91, on Hincks to Labouchere, 22 Mar. 1858 (no fo. no.) and 26 Mar. 1858, C.O. 323/85, fos. 348–9.

15 Green, , British emancipation, pp. 116–17Google Scholar; Taylor, , Autobiography, 1, 127–8Google Scholar; Grey, Earl, The colonial policy of Lord John Russell's administration (London, 1853), 1, 55–6Google Scholar.

16 Cabinet paper, 24 Oct. 1838, Autobiography, 1, 255; cf. Green, , ‘Emancipation to indenture’, p. 100Google Scholar. Taylor's perception of creating a new society ought not to be confused with the similar, but less pregnant, notion expressed by Harris, Lord, governor of British Guiana, in 1848: Morrell, W. P., British colonial policy in the age of Peel and Russell (Oxford, 1930Google Scholar, repr. London, 1966), p. 242.

17 W. Wordsworth, ‘Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room’, quoted Taylor, , ‘Essay on Mr Wordsworth's sonnets’, Taylor, H., Works (London, 1878), v, 58Google Scholar.

18 Cabinet paper, 1838, as in n. 8, above.

19 Merivale, , Lectures, p. 330Google Scholar.

20 Taylor, H., The statesman, ed. Parkinson, C. Northcote (New York, 1958), p. 106Google Scholar.

21 Minute, 26 Mar 1858, as in n 9, above

22 Ibid

23 Rogers, law report, 21 Jan 1858, with minute by Taylor, 28 Jan, C O 323/85, fos 237 9, and it was held that the unrepresented classes could invoke the protection of the secretary of state (C O 318/220, fos 146–56) Stanley also expressed suspicion of planter-dominated assemblies minute 24 Apr 1858 on Hincks (encl Eyre of St Vincent) to Labouchere, 22 Mar 1858, C O 260/91 no fo no )

24 Minute by Taylor, 28 Jan 1858, C O 323/85, fo 237

25 Minute of 26 Mar 1858, as in n 9 above

26 Rogers, law report, 21 Jan 1858, C O 323/85, fos 237–9

27 Idem, 1 May 1858, fos. 279–82.

28 See, for example, MacDonagh, O., Early Victorian government (London, 1977), chp. 1Google Scholar.

29 Tinker, , A new system of slavery, p. 38Google Scholar.

30 Ibid. passim.

31 Merivale, , Lectures, p. 430Google Scholar. For the details and preliminaries to Indian immigration see Green, ‘Emancipation to indenture’.

32 Ibid. esp. p. 101; Tyrell, A., ‘The “Moral Radical Party” and the Anglo-Jamaican campaign for the abolition of the Negro apprenticeship system’, English Historical Review, XCIX 1984), 481–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Temperley, H., British anti-slavery, 1833–1870 (London, 1972), chps. 2 and 6Google Scholar.

33 Merivale, , Lectures, pp. 332Google Scholar.

34 Ibid. pp. 318–23.

35 Morrell, , British colonial policy, pp. 160–1Google Scholar. Confusion of the two Stanleys is not uncommon: e.g. Tinker, , A new system of slavery, p. 97Google Scholar.

36 Merivale, , Lectures, p. 331Google Scholar.

37 Ibid.; colonial land and emigration commission to Merivale, 15 Mar. 1858, C.O. 313/219, fos. 153–84 (hereafter referred to as ‘CLEC, Mar. 1858’), par. 27.

38 Wodehouse to Bishop Wilberforce, 31 July 1858, CO. 111/320 (no fo. no.).

39 The unavailability of ‘funds’ and the indispensable willingness of colonies to pay for emigrants (as for almost anything else) out of their own resources, applied more generally: see, for example, above, II. 1.

40 MacDonagh, A pattern of government growth.

41 Minute by Elliot, 27 Apr. 1858, CO. 318/219, fos. 227–9.

42 On the position an d functions of the CLEC see Hitchens, F., The colonial land and emigration Commission (Philadelphia, 1931)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See, for example, the first of MacDonagh's critics, Parns, H, ‘The nineteenth-century revolution in government a reappraisal reappraised’, Historical Journal, III (1960), 17–37Google Scholar

44 Stanley to Darling (draft), 16 Apr 1858, C O 137/336, fos 155–8, desp printed P P 1859 (sess 2), XX, 280–4

45 Menvale, , Lectures, app VI (1861) to lect XIGoogle Scholar

46 He had visited the islands, and had spoken in parliament of the harmful effect of the abolition of sugar duties Stanley, E H, Claims and resources of the West Indian colonies A letter to W E Gladstone (London, 1850)Google Scholar, and Farther facts connected vnth the West Indies (London, 1851)Google Scholar, H of C 31 May 1850, 3 Hansard cxi, cols 559–65, see also Vincent, J A (ed), Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party (London, 1978), pp 19, 352Google Scholar

47 CLEC Mar 1858 (see above, n 37), published PP, 1859 (sess 2), XXI, 55–64, a useful supplement is a Memorandum on W I Immigration, 18 Feb 1859, by Murdoch, T W C, PP 1859 (sess 2), XX, 499–502Google Scholar

48 C O 318/219, fo 184 For ‘Gov Hincks’ see below

49 Minute by Stanley, 2 Apr 1858, C O 323/86, fo 166, minute by Taylor, 9 Apr 1858, in margin of draft Stanley to Darling, 16 Apr, C O 137/336, fo 154 For current negotiations with. France leading to the latter's recruitment of coolies in British India, see Cell, J W, British colomal administration in the mid-nineteenth century the policy making process (New Haven, 1970), ch p VIIIGoogle Scholar

60 Minute, 29 Apr 1858, C O 318/219, fos 229–31

51 The problem was extensively investigated by the CLEC and the government of India Murdoch to Merivale, 11 Aug 1858, C O 318/220, fos 72–86, report by Dr F J Mouat, inspector of jails and general dispensaries in Bengal, with appendixes, enclosed in I O to C O, 9 Dec 1858, C 0 318/218, fos 193 281, and P P 1859 (sess 2), XX, 426–47, statement by Bulwer Lytton, H of C 3 Mar 1859, 3 Hansard CLII, col 1229 See also Tinker, , A new system of slavery, pp 141 fGoogle Scholar, and cf Eltis, ‘Transatlantic migrations’, 270–9

52 Memo by Stanley, [9?] Mar 1858, papers of the 15th earl of Derby, Liverpool City Libraries, box 9/2, fos 401–3, collection of papers, incl Stanley to Wodehouse, 1 Apr 1858, C O 318/219, fos 112 34 An earlier such ‘experiment’ provides some indication of the delicate balance of public opinion on the subject, SirBownng, John, governor of Hong Kong, was an obstacle to it, for it was believed that he thought ‘that more popularity is to be gained by opposing than by promoting emigration’ Lord Clarendon to Labouchere, H, 10 12 1856, Bodleian LibraryGoogle Scholar (Rhodes House), Labouchere MSS, fos 131 120

53 See below

54 Minute by Stanley, 7 Mar 1858, C O 96/44, fo 255 The dates are respectively those of the Emancipation Act and the end of Apprenticeship

55 Minute by Merivale, 19 Aug 1858, C 0 6/26, fo 297

55 E g Lytton to Sir J Young, 29 Nov 1858, C 0 136/162, fos 302–16, Lytton to Sir H Ward, 18 Dec 1858, C 0 54/337, fos 100–7 See also his speech in the famous H of C debate on Apprenticeship, 22 May 1838, 3 Hansard XLIII, cols 110–23

57 H of C 3 Mar 1859, 3 Hansard CLII, col 1232

58 Minute 3 Jan 1859, on L A Chamerovzow (A S S secretary) to Lytton, 31 Dec 1858, C O 318/218 fos 356 7

59 Minute 22 Jan 1859, C O 318/224 fo 44 The A S S's style of argument was by no means I universally unacceptable see, The West Indies as they were and are', Edinburgh Review, CIX (04 1859), 421 60Google Scholar, and Slavery and the slave states', North British Review, XXVII (11 1857), 435–64Google Scholar Cf The opium cant, Saturday Review, 18 Sept 1858, and ‘What has become of the slaves?’ (a well balanced article looking for an inquiry m which A S S veterans would participate), ibidto July 1858

60 Minute 3 Jan 1859, C 0 318/218, fo 358 Cf similar irritation with David Urquhart's ‘Foreign Affairs Committee’ minute by Merivale, 4 Sept 1858, C O 6/26, fos 317–18

61 H of L 16, 22 Mar, 13 Apr 1858, 3 Hansard CLI, cols 227–9, 445–6 946, 8 Feb 1859, ibid CLII, cols 170–2 A memo on Brougham s 1858 remarks, by Rogers, is in C O 323/86, fos 167 73, on the 1859 debate, see minute by Menvale, 9 Feb, C O 318/222, fos 50–9 Voluminous petitions against the revised Act, from the Aberdeen Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, and others, are in C O 318/223

62 H of C debate, 3 Mar 1859, 3 Hansard CLII, cols 1219–37 Lord Derby, however, had prepared Lytton for the worst ‘Whether you give the Committee or not, you must hold very decided language as to upholding the system of Coolie and Chinese immigration If you can resist the Committee so much the better If not, be very careful as to its composition’ (Derby to Lytton, 22 Feb 1859, papers of the 14th earl of Derby, the Queen's College, Oxford, box 187/2) (N B The Derby papers have now been placed in the Liverpool City Libraries )

63 Minutes on H of C address notice, 26 Mar 1858, C 0 129/71

64 Wilberforce to Carnarvon, 5 June, Carnarvon to Wilberforce, 7 June 1858, B[ritish] L[ibrary] Add. MSS 60839; H. of L. discussion, 25 June 1858, 3 Hansard CLI, cols. 374–6

65 Minute by Stanley, 23 Mar. 1858, C.O. 167/408, fo. 537.

66 CLEC to Merivale (on Lord Napier's reports of American opinion), 14 Apr. 1858, C.O. 318/221, fos. 44–50; F.O. to C.O. (encl. reports from Consul-General Bowring), 14 Apr. 1858, C.O. 129/70 (no fo. no.); F.O. to C.O., 29, 30 Apr. 1858 (encl. reports from Lord Elgin, plenipotentiary in China), C.O. 318/218, fos. 28–44. See also Elgin, to Elgin, Lady, 5 03 1858, Walrond, T. (ed.), The Letters and journals of James, eighth earl of Elgin (London, 1872), p. 226Google Scholar.

67 Minutes by Carnarvon, 27 Apr., Stanley, 29 Apr., 1858, on F.O. to C.O., 17 Apr., C.O. 318/221, fos. 186–91. Cf. Taylor (17 Apr. 1858, C.O. 318/218, fo. 70): ‘[S]lavery existing in the same field is a worm at the root of free labour, & our regulations will only secure the freedom of labour in free countries’. Carnarvon's minute included the agonized remark: ‘We are exposed – and not altogether unjustly – to the charge of sanctioning for our own purposes that which is tantamount to a slave trade in fact, whilst we interfere with other nations who carry it on – not less guiltily but more humanely – in name.’ For British government opinion on slavery in Cuba, and the unsuccessful endeavours by the Spanish captain-general to suppress the slave trade, see F.O. memo., June 1858, Carnarvon papers, P.R.O., 30/6/133, fos. 134–7; and see also Eltis, , ‘Transatlantic migrations’, 165–6, and n. 82, belowGoogle Scholar.

68 Minute by Elliot, 16 Apr. 1858, C.O. 318/221, fos. 50–1.

69 CLEC to Merivale, 14 Apr., to June 1858, C.O. 318/221, fos. 44–50, 59–63; board of trade to C.O., 24 June 1858, with minutes, C.O. 129/70 (no fo. no.).

70 The Admiralty view is contained in various letters of 1856–7, in C.O. 129/60. See also CLEC to Merivale, 3 Feb. (with minute by Elliot), 8 Mar. 1858, C.O. 129/70.

71 Hardinge, A. H., Life of Carnarvon (Oxford, 1925), I, 121–2Google Scholar, contains Carnarvon's account of the origin and introduction of the bill, and seems to say that there was no cabinet discussion. I have been unable to find (in the 14th Derby papers) any evidence of communication between Malmesbury and Derby (or between Stanley or Lytton and Derby) about it.

72 H. of L. 25 June 1858 (speeches by Wilberforce, Carnarvon, Brougham), 3 Hansard CLI, cols. 374–6; 6 July, ibid. cols. 121–2.

73 Hardinge, ibid.; Carnarvon correspondence with W. S. Lindsay and others, B.L. Add. MSS 60782.

74 Minute, 9 Mar. 1858, on CLEC letter, C.O. 129/70 (no fo. no.).

75 See above, n. 37, H. of C. 3 Mar. 1859, 3 Hansard CLII, cols. 1226–32.

76 These are printed in P.P. 1859 (sess. 2), XXI, 2–5, 31–7; they are, however, accurately and sufficiently summarized in CLEC, Mar. 1858. See also Hincks, to Lytton, , 10 07 1858, P.P. 1859 (sess. 2), 41–9Google Scholar.

77 CLEC, Mar. 1858, pars. 5–9. In his private letters to Labouchere preserved in the Bodleian Library (Rhodes House) Hincks only touched on the immigration question; but he left no doubt that ‘liberal treatment’ of the Creoles had political rather than social implications: see esp. Hincks to Labouchere, 27 Mar. 1856, MSS W. Ind. s. 36, fos. 18–20.

78 Merivale, , Lectures, app. VI (1861) to lect. XIGoogle Scholar; minute on Hincks to Labouchere, 22 Aug. 1857, summarized by Carnarvon, Carnarvon papers, P.R.O., 30/6/133, fos. 143–4.

79 CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 27.

80 Ibid. par. 22.

81 Ibid. par. 23.

82 Encl. in F.O. to C.O., 20 Mar. 1858, CO. 318/221, fos. 127–9. Disallowing the Jamaica Immigration Act, Stanley wrote that it had been ‘invariably and firmly maintained by preceding governments’ that colonial laws must ‘guarantee the entire personal freedom of the immigrant’ within the terms of the indenture: see above, n. 44. The provisions of the system were outlined by Murdoch for the Spanish Minister in London, 4 Dec. 1858, C.O. 318/220, fos. 340–8.

83 For recent argument to this effect see Bartrip, P. W. J., ‘State intervention in mid-nineteenth- century Britain: fact or fiction’, Journal of British Studies, XXIII (autumn 1983), 63–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Perkin, H., The origins of modern English society, 1780–1880 (London, 1969), ch. vIII, esp. pp. 319–39Google Scholar.

84 See above, n. 61.

85 CLEC to Merivale, 15 Dec. 1858, C.O. 318/220, fos. 361–78.

86 CLEC, memo, for Stanley, 3 Apr. 1858, C.O. 323/86, fos. 167–73.

87 CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 21 (referring to evidence from 1851).

88 Ibid. par. 18.

89 See above, n. 75.

90 Minute, 15 Jan. 1859, C.O. 201/512, fo. 21.

91 See above, n. 78.

92 CLEC, Mar 1858, pars 11–17

93 Stanley to Darling, 16 Apr 1858, C O 137/336, fos 155–8 H M G would wish to ‘be enabled to point to the British colonies as proving without one material exception, that the voluntary labour of a free population, whether indigenous as in Barbadoes, or immigrant as in Mauritius, can compete successfully, in open market, with that which is enforced upon the slave’ On lands of high and low density, and the consequences for Creole industnal behaviour, see Menvale, , Lectures, pp 315–17Google Scholar, Eltis, , ‘Transatlantic migrations’, 267Google Scholar, Green, , British emancipation, p 201, CLEC, Mar 1858, pars 40, 43Google Scholar

94 21 June 1858, 3 Hansard CLI, col 75 (emphasis added) Cf minute by Carnarvon, , 2 08 1858, C O 318/218, fos 48–9 ‘When the excess of population in China, the low wages, the famine & diseases which sweep them off by thousands, are taken into account, there can be no doubt that emigration to English Colonies is most beneficial to them as well as to us’Google Scholar

95 CLEC, Mar 1858, par 17 Cf n 94, above This unexpected assertion was made on evidence which did not depend on the recent Mutiny The opinion was repeated by Lytton in his H of C speech of 3 Mar 1859 (above, n 75), without challenge See below for evidence of hostility between colonial and Indian officials

96 Murdoch to Menvale, 15 Dec 1858, C O 318/220, fos 361–78

97 Rogers memo for Stanley, 3 Apr 1858, C O 323/86, fos 167 73

98 CLEC, Mar 1858, par 22

99 Ibid pars 13 15

100 Murdoch to Merivale, 15 Dec. 1858, C.O. 318/220, fos. 361–78; CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 14. In Mauritius, both indigent and prosperous ex-labourers caused local suggestions that they should be forcibly re-patriated: ‘It would be most despotic’, wrote Taylor, c. 19 OCt 1858, C.O. 167/402, fo. 281.

101 CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 24.

102 Murdoch to Merivale, as in n. 100 above.

103 CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 24.

104 Ibid. par. 25. The worldly-wise commissioners went on to say that ‘the disunion between Asiatics and Africans may have political advantages as well as disadvantages in countries which are governed by Europeans’. Carnarvon acknowledged that the risk of'jealousy and ultimate collision' between Creoles and immigrants had to be accepted: minute, 21 June 1858, C.O. 137/337, fo. 233. That blacks were jealous of Indians, and Indians contemptuous of blacks, was a common enough assumption: see Blackwood's Magazine, LXXI (06 1851), 668–84Google Scholar, and Taylor's opinion of suggestions that black troops should be employed in India (2 Mar. 1859, C.O. 111/323).

105 Vague prejudice, rather than theories, ought perhaps to be given more weight in this period: cf. Bolt, C., Victorian attitudes to race (London, 1969)Google Scholar, and Lorimer, D. A., Colour, class and the Victorians (Leicester, 1978)Google Scholar.

106 Works, V, 53–122.

107 Carlyle, T., ‘Occasional discourse on the Nigger question’ (1849), English and other critical essays, Everyman edn (London, 1915, 1967), pp. 303–33Google Scholar. ‘Otio’ can mean ‘leisure’ as well as ‘idleness’, and Mill in ‘The Negro question’, wrote (Fraser's Magazine, 41, Jan. 1850, 28): ‘In opposition to the “gospel of work”, I would assert the gospel of leisure, and maintain that human beings cannot rise to the finer attributes of their nature compatibly with a life filled with labour.’ Cf. Taylor's interpretation of Wordsworth's ‘The excursion’, books 8 and 9, as recognizing that mechanical labour, normally of great moral and political value, became more than questionable ‘when it is carried so far as to suppress the activity of the understanding and render the mind callous and insensible’ (Wordsworth's Sonnets', Works, V, 87–8).

108 Merivale, , Lectures, p. 340 (1861)Google Scholar.

109 Murdoch to Merivale, as in n. 100 above.

110 The Caxtons (1849), part IV, chp. 11.

111 Minutes by Lytton, 5, 14 Aug. 1858, C.O. 267/260 (no fo. no.); idem, 19 Oct. 1858, C.O. 96/44, fos. 384–5; Lytton to Carnarvon, c. 4 Feb. 1859, B.L. Add. MSS 60780. See also Governor Charles Darling's distinction between recent African immigrants and ‘respectable Creoles’ in riots at Savannah la Mar, Jamaica, Mar. 1859, C.O. 137/344, fos. 221–56.

112 Minute by Carnarvon, 28 Aug. 1858, C.O. 48/389, fos. 552–3; minutes of Elliot and Carnarvon, 20 Oct. 1858, C.O. 179/50, fo. 621.

113 Minute, 21 June 1858, on Jamaican suggestion (public meeting of coloured citizens in Kingston) to revive this scheme, C.O. 137/337, fos. 223–33.

114 Merivale, , Lectures, p. 340; CLEC, Mar. 1858, pars. 38–9Google Scholar.

115 Rogers memo., 3 Apr. 1858, C.O. 323/86, fos. 167–73; CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 33.

116 CLEC, Mar. 1858, par. 33.

117 Ibid. pars. 38–9.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid. par. 5.

120 Ibid. par. 31.

121 Ibid. par. 26.

121 Ibid. par. 33.

122 Ibid. par. 29.

124 Ibid. par. 28.

125 Ibid.

126 Ibid pars 27, 31 Minute by Cox, c 19 Aug 1859, C O 318/223, fos 205–6

127 The 1854 Canada-US Reciprocity Treaty is an illustration For 1858–9 see C O 42/614, fos 42–54; C.O 60/2, fos 228–48, C.O 217/225, fos 40–56 (a strong indication that the political colour of a government could make a difference in such a matter)

128 Taylor, , Autobiography, 1, 89–95Google Scholar

129 Works, V, XII, preface (1849)

130 Ibid pp XVI–XVII

131 Carnarvon papers, P.R.O. 30/6/132, fos. 242–3.

132 Knox, B. A., ‘The British government and the Governor Eyre controversy’, Historical Journal, XIX 1976), 877–900CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

133 Taylor, , Autobiography, 1, 124–9Google Scholar; Taylor to Carnarvon, 21 Oct. 1866, Carnarvon papers, P.R.O. 30/6/157, fos. 432–6.

134 Cf. Bolt, p. 90.

135 Confidential print, 24 03 1856, ‘State of the West Indies in 1855’, by , H. T., C.O. 881/I/xiGoogle Scholar.

136 Ibid. p. 15.

137 Ibid.

138 Ibid. p. 16.

139 Ibid. p. 17.

140 Ibid. pp. 17–18.

141 Confidential print, 07 1862, ‘State of the West Indies in 1862’, by , H.T., C.O. 881/I/xiiGoogle Scholar.

142 Halévy, E., The growth of philosophical radicalism (London, 1928, 1972), p. 510Google Scholar.

143 Ibid. pp. 510–11.

144 Stokes, Eric, The English utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar.

145 Ibid. p. 321, for a hint in this direction.

146 The difficulty arose over the question of how to allow Indian emigrants whose ‘industrial St service’ had ended, to commute their return passages for cash. The East India Company and the board of control showed clearly that they would not trust a colonial officer to ensure that immigrants were not coerced one way of the other C O opinion was vehemently against allowing an imperium in imperio, which would be the result of consenting to an India government officer exercising authority in a colony, independently of the governor and secretary of state Extensive correspondence is in C O 318/218, 219, and see Elliot's minute as in n 41, above

147 See Preface to The statesman, Parkinson, edn, p 24Google Scholar

148 ‘Wordsworth's Sonnets’ Works, v, 59 60 The remark is denved from the passage of the Discourses quoted in this essay

149 Preface to The statesman, ibid

150 works, V, Preface, XIX

151 Knox, ‘British government and Gov Eyre’

152 ‘Crime considered in a letter to the Right Honourable W E Gladstone’ (1868, revised and extended 1877), Works, v, 177 247

153 Cf Dunklev, P, ‘Emigration and the state, 1803 1842 the nineteenth-century revolution in government reconsidered’, Historical Journal, XXIII (1980), 353–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar The author urges that ‘individual initiative and imagination remained fundamental to administrative evolution in the early nineteenth century’ (p 379) He also quotes (p 378) Sir James Stephen as appearing to lament 1836) that there would be no political support for ‘the most perfect scheme of Colonial policy wh Locke or Bentham could have devised’ He is incorrect, however, in implying that Stephen s friend and colleague, Taylor, because of his association, was a Benthamite (ibid) See Autobiography, 1, 89 ‘with all my admiration for my Benthamite friends, I was far from adopting their opinions’