The Government
always leaned towards the planter, and the most flimsy excuses were
constantly given for preferring to the effectual measures propounded by
the Abolitionists, the most flimsy of expedients, useless for any one
purpose, save that of making pretences and gaining time.
At length came the great case of the missionary Smith's persecution,
trial, and untimely death, when all the forms of judicature had been
prostituted, all the rules of law broken, all the principles of justice
outraged, by men assuming to sit in judgment as a court of criminal
jurisprudence; and though assisted by legal functionaries, exhibiting
such a spectacle of daring violation of the most received and best known
canons of procedure, as no civilized community ever before were called
upon to endure. This subject was immediately brought before Parliament
by Mr. Brougham, and his motion of censure, which might have been an
impeachment of the governor and the court of Demerara, was powerfully
supported by Mr. Wilberforce, the amiable, eloquent, and venerable
leader of the party, Mr. Denman, Mr. Williams, and Dr. Lushington, but
rejected by a majority of the Commons, whom Mr. Canning led, in a speech
little worthy of his former exertions against the Slave Trade, and far
from being creditable either to his judgment or to his principles.
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