smugglers, to make the profits of one successful voyage cover the loss and expenses of three; and if that precious little humbug, Mr. Wilberforce, had been content to regulate instead of abolishing the trade, there might have been something to be said for him.”
“But,” said Edward, “don’t you see that it would have been impossible by any regulations to bring such a trade within the pale of humanity, because any restrictions, proportioning the numbers of the slaves to the tonnage of the ships, would have so raised the price of legally imported slaves, as to make the profits upon smuggling a sufficient temptation to practise it with as much if not more disregard to the waste of life.”
“I can’t see,” said Mr. Hogshead, “what right Mr. Wilberforce had to trouble his head about the matter, with Ireland and the press-gang under his nose.”
“It’s rather hard upon Mr. Wilberforce, too,” said Edward, “or indeed upon any man, to condemn him for doing anything because he could not do everything. What he has achieved has cost him the labour of his whole life; and looked at seriously and in all its remote and probable consequences, a most glorious achievement it is.”
Page 117. “I really thought,” said Edward, “that it was the sincere wish of his Netherland Majesty to suppress this frightful traffic, from the laws that he has passed for that apparent purpose and the public expressions of his ministers.”
“Pshaw,” said Colonel Vansonmer, “all that, you know, is merely to humbug the British Government; his Netherland Majesty’s ministers are obliged ostensibly to comply with whatever directions my Lord Londonderry is pleased to send them.”
Page 118. "So, Mr. Bentinck,” said Monsieur Derague, “you are in correspondence with the British Commissioners here, I find, to help us in the discharge of our duty.”
“I could not be aware,” said Bentinck, “that my furnishing those gentlemen with information of a case, which I understood to be their special duty to attend to, would be disagreeable to your Excellency.”
“Their duty,” said his Excellency, “only extends to the adjudication, in conjunction with his Netherland Majesty’s commissioners, of slave-vessels found trading under Dutch or British colours, and brought before them by a British cruiser; but it is not easy to confine them to their duty. They have, of course, to affect a confidence in the earnestness of the wishes of our Government to extinguish this traffic corresponding with that of their own, or rather of the English fanatics whom their Government is reluctantly compelled to humour. They are unceasingly tormenting me with complaints of the continuance of slave importations (to which I reply, Produce me conclusive evidence, gentlemen). One of them, the other day, wished to advertise a reward for information, but I told him that it did not belong to his functions, and refused him permission to do so. He then wished me to advertise one myself, as the governors of the English colonies are in the habit of doing — which also I assured him our Dutch laws would not allow.”
The tale, with its epilogue and notes, was a tremendous exposure of life and society in these plantations; and the author’s ingenuity, warmth, and humour made the book a success. The appendix was more serious and statistical, and raised a flame in the colony. Formal complaints were made to the two European Governments, the book (though anonymous) being unmistakably by Mr. Lefroy. The Government of the Netherlands complained to the British Cabinet; and the author was censured as one who had written a libel, or who at least had come into imprudent collision with the colonial officials. It was even solicited that he should be recalled. The Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister. Mr. Lefroy repeatedly requested His Grace’s permission to retire at the end of the eighth year of his term, as Lord Castlereagh had arranged. It is not known what the Duke wrote; but the practical decision, as events proved, was that Mr. Lefroy was to consider himself recalled, but was to continue to reside and to act at Surinam until the whole term of ten years was completed. About this time he wrote a letter to Charles Edward Lefroy, the young head of the family, dated Paramaribo, Surinam, Easter Sunday, April 15, 1827, in which he says:—
“You have now a name of unblemished reputation for four generations to support. . . . In a Protestant kingdom no ancestry can or ought to be more honourable than a Huguenot ancestry. Your grandfather was a model of social excellence, uniting the scrupulous uncompromising integrity and truth of your great-grandfather. I have met with no one in my intercourse with the world who would bear any comparison with the impression I retain of his uniform dignity and consistency of deportment in every relation of life. He used to ascribe all his impressions of Christianity to your grandmother; but he was always a man of honour, and in his carriage and manners a perfect gentleman, almost a courtier. He exemplified, I think, what Dr Johnson calls the highest perfect of humanity, the character of a truly Christian gentleman. Your father (I had almost said) was born a saint, and passed from his cradle to his grave without one single vicious action, if not without a single vicious propensity.”
His vein of humour appears at the close of the above letter. He writes, “As for myself, I never had any real goodness much less sanctity in me; but I would still
