SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

Memoir of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Baronet. With Selections from his Corm.

spoodence. Edited by his Son, Charles Buxton, Esq Murray,

TRAVELS,

Notes of a Two-years Residence In Italy. By Hamilton Geale, Esq., Barrister-at. - Law Orr and Co.; APOlculum, Dubly.

FOWELL BUXTON.

TER two great Parliamentary leaders of the Anti-Slavery crusade were unquestionably Wilberforce and Fowell Buxton ; and each was admirably *suited to the respective occasions and times. The influential connexions of Wilberforce, his early fashion and gayety, his power of popular ad- dress, his pleasantry and nuctuous adaptability, all united to procure an audience to a new theme, and enabled the question to worm a way in the less sentimental days of sixty years since, which it might not have forced. When ignorant enthusiasm and costless cant established a power, which, however exaggerated it may have, been by trouble-avoiding, statesmen, is yet strange to look back upon, Wilberforce was scarcely equal to the altered condition of the cause. His amiableness of disposition, his wish to please, his training and feelings as an urbane gentleman, coupled perhaps with advancing years, rather told against him. He wanted the Quakerlike in- flexibility, the sticking pertinacity, and the sturdy adherence to his sense of right, which distinguished Buxton ; as he was also deficient in the business habits, strength of application, and power of work that cha- racterized his successor. In the final suppression of the slave-trade, Bomilly and some others perhaps had as much to do as Wilberforce. Buxton alone (so far as any single man in such cases can stand alone) assns entitled to the credit of having forced the Whig Ministry to ex- tinguish slavery.

There is not much that is remarkable in the events of Thomas Fowell Buxton's career ; his life is interesting chiefly as an illustration of the in- fluence of connexion andlorce of character. He was by birth a country gentleman, entitled to a fortune, that appears to have been diminished by a lawsuit and some speculations in which his mother embarked in an en- deavour to increase it. Young Buxton had by nature a strong con- stitution, a lofty stature, great hardihood and energy ; and being brought up by his widowed mother on a peculiar principle of freedom to a cer- tain point, (for when she commanded she was implicitly obeyed,) he rather neglected his education, devoted himself to horses and field-sports, and bade fair to turn out a squire of the old school. A visit he paid to Earl- ham, the residence of the Gurneys, in his sixteenth year, directed his character and indeed his career. The example of that well-ordered- family, the studious industry and accomplishments of its younger members, and perhaps the influence of one of the Miss Gurneys, whom he married when he came of age, stimulated his ambition. He applied himself with perti- nacious industry to his studies ; and, though behind every pupil of the tutor who prepared him for Dublin University, he stuck so closely to his work during the first vacation, that at its close he was up to them all. In his four-years residence at Trinity, he carried off every honour.; and made so great an impression, that on his leaving college, in 1807, it was proposed to put him in nomination to represent the University in Parliament ; and his friends thought he would have succeeded. But his approaching marriage and diminished means induced him. to decline the expensive honour.

Mr. Banbury, of the house of Truman and Co. the porter-brewers, was an uncle of Powell Buxton ; and as some lucrative pursuit was desirable, he offered his nephew a situation in the brewery, with the prospect of a partnership. The firm seems to have fallen into that routine and sluggish condition to which time brings all establishments; and young Buxton was just.the man for the occasion. He was sometimes at work from four in the morning till twelve at night; when; three years later, he became a partner, the entire reconstruction of the concern devolved upon him ; and he exhibited his mild inflexibility in the course of his task.

"For two or three years he was occupied from morning till night in pro- secuting step by atep his plans of reform: a single example may indicate with what spirit he grappled with the difficulties that beset him mall sides.

"One of the principal clerks was an honest man, and a valuable servant; but he was wedded to the old system, and viewed with great antipathy the new part- ner's proposed innovations. At length, on one occasion, he went so far as to • thwart Mr. Buxton's plans. The latter took no notice of this at the time, except desiring him to attend in the counting-house at six o'clock the next morning. Mr. Buxton met him there at the appointed hour; and, without any expostulation, or a single angry word, desired him to produce his books, as he meant for the fu- ture to undertake the charge of them himself, iu addition to his other duties. Amazed at this unexpected decision, the clerk yielded entirely; he promised com- plete submission fur the future; he made his wife intercede for him; and Ms. Buxton, who valued his character and services, was at length induced to restore him to hit place. They afterwards became very good friends, and the salutary effect of the changes introduced by Mr. Buxton was at length admitted by his leading opponent; nor, except in one instance, did he ever contend against them again. On that occasion, Mr. Buxton merely sent him a message `that he had better meet him in the counting-house at six o'clock the next. morning, The bookkeeper's opposition was heard of ne more.” Buxton became a partner in 1811 ; and shortly afterwards was converted to vital religion, by his attendance at " Wheeler Chapel, Spitalfielth.” This religious connexion and his alliance with the Gurneys naturally introduced him to religious and philanthropic objects ; to forward which, ,he both acted in committees and spoke publicly. He particularly dis- tinguished himself on the occasion of the great distress in Spitalfields in 1816; and his Mansionhouse speech, not got up from secondhand generalities, but the pith of what he had actually seen in perambulating the district, produced a great effect. In 1817 he published his book upon Prison Discipline; which, like his speech, was the result of actual and extensive observation, undertaken in consequence of his connexion with the Prison Discipline Society ; and this volume kept him before the public eye with increased reputation. In the following year he entered Parliament, with i4Le:diadnatehlijects of Criminal Law, Prison Discipline, „ fiegro Slavery ; ...I...a, L.- ...6 unu latibn.y bs-nu the Whigs, he devoted himself. How well he succeeded in those matters may be read in the debates of the time, by those who do not remember them. The secret of his success was labour. There was no cramming for the occasion, no resting in vague generalities, no assertion that some- thing should be done "satisfactorily” without showing what that some- thing was. He devoted days and if need were nights to the examination of the subject, till he had accumulated all the facts relating to it. He then rejected all that was not indispensable to a plain common-sense business view ; but he held his accumulations as a reserve if challenged. This, however, was rarely the case as regarded facts : the largeness and soundness of his conclusions, either upon a partial view of facts or the misconception of a principle, is a different question. " Free labour is cheaper than slave labour" is a rule which he failed to illustrate. The West India proprietors can speak as to positive wages, and colonial im- ports into Great Britain as to the falling-off in produce with the greater cost.

SUGAR. Coarse. Rug.

1881. Slave labour 4,103,800 ... 20,030,802 ... 7,844,157

1841. Free labour 2,148,218 ... 9,927.689 .- 2,770,160 1845. Ditto 2,857,703 ... 6,355,970 ... 3,955,076*

Mr. Buxton's industry and painstaking in collecting his materials, with a straightforward homely force of style, vividly presenting the image of things and his own thoughts, gave him so much power in the House of Commons and with the Anti-Slavery party, that in 1821 Wilberforce formally appointed him his successor. Henceforth his life was public, till the failure of the Niger Expedition aggravated the effects of a paralytic attack, and of premature old age, both induced by overwork; rendered him incapable of any exertion ; and brought him to the grave at the age of fifty-eight. He was born in 1786, and died in 1845.

The details of Sir Fowell Buxton's private and public life, with full

illustrations and anecdotes of his personal character, will be found in this volume by his son. It also contains many extracts from his papers and correspondence possessing a biographical character ; or full of shrewd re- marks on life ; or observations and sketches of the public men his con- temporaries. The great feature of the book in our opinion, however, is the story of the manner in which Buxton, backed by the Anti-Slavery party, forced emancipation of the Negroes from the unwilling Whigs in office. It is quite a study of " how to squeeze a squeezable Ministry "; and infinitely lowers their character both for capacity and honesty. Whatever may be thought of the rashness, recklessness, and philosophical ignorance of the Anti-Slavery people, they had at least a definite object ; and they pursued it prepared for one worst result—" Perish the Sugar Colonies, so that slavery be abolished." A little of human weakness might mingle with their motives : it is pleasant to indulge the sentiment of humanity at the cost of somebody else ; the titillating excitement of discus- sing distant woes is an excuse to idleness and selfishness for neglecting the unutterable miseries of poverty and prostitution at their own doors ; and perhaps the pride of little men might be gratified by consorting on any terms with the " quality." Still, the main motive of the Anti-Slavery party was humanity : their religion was moved by an extreme interpretation of Chris- tian duty, their feelings by exceptional if not perverted facts. The Whig Ministers had not these excuses. They had evidently, out of office, taken up the subject as a means of speechifying and opposing the Go- vernment. They had no more philosophical knowledge of the question than the Friends of Africa ; of the facts, even in the onesided and limited view, they knew less ; and beyond cramming, and putting that cramming into the form of orations, they appear never to have given the subject a thought. When they succeeded to office, they seem to have had no plan whatever; but would gladly have tided on, with Canning's old re- solutions and circular,t to be carried in Canning's way,—that is,. by the Colonial Legislatures, not by the Imperial Parliament. When Buxton privately drove them from this, they talked of a boon to such colonies as would adopt the resolutions, by fiscal regulations in favour of their pro- duce. Nothing short of "the extinction of slavery " would satisfy Tho- mas Fowell Buxton, and the party out of doors that backed him; so the poor Whigs were driven from point to point—from a wish for mere de- bating without division, and from a postponement of the question to some " more convenient season," to the ever-changeful schemes before the public, beginning with the loan of fifteen millions, to be redeemed by the Negroes, to the twenty millions to be given by poor John Bull. In all this they were unwilling actors ; resisting from fear, not from knowledge, and yielding from weakness, not conviction. Accompanying measures of regulation appear to have been left unattempted from the same causes. The universal law against "vagrants and sturdy beggars," which pre- vails in most civilized countries, was left unapplied where it was most wanted; for the Anti-Slavery party were threatening that it would not have a revival of slavery by means of a vagrancy law.

The end was not reached without public firmness and personal pain on the part of Buxton. In May 1832, for example, during the height of the Reform struggle, he persisted in bringing on his resohrtions for the extinction of slavery, in opposition to the wishes of the Ministry and his own Parliamentary friends, who ran the chance of offending Ministers or their constituents let them vote how they would. Miss Buxton, who acted as her father's amanuensis, gives an account of the whole affair, interesting for its facts as a contribution to the secret history of the Abolition, curious as a display of official and Parliamentary proceedings

* Statisacal Companion, page 92. t There were no fewer than twelve propositions in Canning's circular, but the most important principles were-1. to secure the rights of property and marriage to the slave; 2. compulsory manumission at a valuation; 3. regulation of punish- ments and of labour; 4. non-separation of families by sale " or otherwise." A sort of Education Bill was also suggested for the Blacks in 1823, though we can- not get one for England in 1848. Bat the fact is, Canning humbugged like the rest The "otherwise" was impracticable and absurd. Negroes tre uently con- Nuglielissilor might be dragged from his family to death itself? f • Reviewed in the Spectator for 1839, page 231. sub Mat, Situ nut vi ...awn Lis Use as a gu.de tu emerge° WILL

the management of public questions,—unless, indeed, they are opposed by a statesman of full knowledge and firm will, for the opposition to Buxton was bad in its plan and feeble in its conduct. After the affair, Miss Buxton thus sends home the news to friends in the country.

" The debate has at length actuslly takenplace; and great cause have we to be satisfied with the result, now that we are safe on the other side of it. It is diffi- cult exactly to recall the feelings and opinions of the preceding days; it was, how- ever, the usual course,—every possible assault from friend and foe, to maks my father put off his motion, and when that was found hopeless, to induce him to soften it down, or not to divide the House. Dr. Lusbington was of opinion that it would endanger the cause to persevere; and difference of opinion with him is worse than anything to my father. The Government were also most pressing, and the terms they offered extremely tempting. On Tuesday morning, my father and Dr. Lusbington were a long time with Lord Althorp and Lord Howick ; both of whom used every argument and almost every entreaty. I believe he did not reply much at the time, but was cruelly beset, and acutely alive to the pain of re- fusing them, and, as they said, of embarrassing all their measures, and giving their enemies a handle at this tottering moment. They said, betides, that the public were so occupied with Reform, that it was only wasting the strength of the cause: nobody would listen, and the effect would be wholly lost; whereas if he would wait a little they would all go with him—their hearts were in fact with him, and all would be smooth if he would have a little reason and patience.

• . • •

"Thursday morning, May 24th, came. My father and I went out on horse- back directly after breakfast; and &memorable ride we had. He began by saying that be had stood so far, but that divide he could not. He said I could not con- ceive the pain of it; that almost numberless ties and interests were concerned; that his friends would be driven to vote against him, and thus their seats would be en- dangered. But then his-mind turned to the sufferings of the missionanes and of the slaves; and. he said, after all, he must weigh the real amount of suffering, and not think only of that which came under his sight; and that if he were in the West Indies, he should feel that the advocate in England ought to go straight on and despise those considerations. In short, by degrees, his mind was made up. When we got near the House, every minute we met somebody or other, who just hastily rode up to as. 'Come on tonight?" Yes." Positively? " Po- sitively ! '—and with a blank countenance the inquirer turned his horse's head and rode away. I do not know how many times this occurred. In. St. James's Park we met Mr. Spring Bice, whom he told, to my great satisfaction, that he positively would divide. Next Sir Augustus Dalrymple came up to us, and, after the usual queries, said, ' Well, I tell you frankly I mean to make an attack upon you. to- night. On what point?' 'Yon said some time ago that the planters were opposed to religious instruction." I did, and will maintain it' We came home, and dined at three. It is difficult to recall, and perhaps impossible to convey to you the interest and excitement of the moment. Catherine Hoare, and I, and the little boys, went down with him. We were in the ventilator by four o'clock; our placesvere therefore good. For a long time we missed my father, and found afterwards he had been sent for by-Lord Althorp. for a further discussion; in which, however,.he did not yield."

Routine business comes on ; then some speaking; and then' Lord' AI- thorp, instead of " the previous question,' moves an amendment.

" Then came the trial: they (privately) besought my father to give way,. and not to press them to a division. ' They hated',' they said, dividing against him, when their hearts were all for him: it was merely a nominal difference—why should he split hairs? he was sure to be beaten—where was the use of bringing them all into difficulty, and making them vote against him?' He told us that he thought he had a hundred applications of this kind, in the course of the evening: in short,.nearly every friend he had in the House came to him, and by all con- siderations of reason and friendship besought him to give way. Mr. Evans was almost the only person who took the other side. I watched my father with in- describable anxiety, seeing the Members, one after the other, come and sit down by him, and judging but too well' from their gestures what their errand was. One of them went to him four times and at last seat up a note to him with these words, 'Immoveable as ever?' To my-unele Hoare, who was tinder the gallery, they went repeatedly; but with no success, for he would only send him a message to persevere. My uncle described to me one gentleman, not a Member, who was near him, under the gallery, as having been in a high agitation all the evening, exclaiming, "Oh, he won't stand Oh, he'll yield! rd give a hundred pounds, I'd give a thousand pounds, to have him divide! Noble! noble! What a noble fellow he is!'—according to the various changes in the aspect of things. Among others, Mr. II— came across to try his eloquence: Now don't be so ob- stinate; just put in this one word,' interest'; it makes no real difference, and then all will be easy. Yon will only alienate the Government. * • • Now,' said he, just tell Lord Althorp you have consented: My father replied, 1 don't think I exaggerate when I say, I would rather your head were off,and mine.too; I am sure I had rather your's were!' What a trial it was. He said afterwards, that he could nom we it to nothing but a continual tooth-drawing, the whale evening. At length he rose to reply; and very touchingly alluded to the effort he had to make, bat said he was bound in conscience to do it, and that he would divide the House. Accordingly the question was put The Speaker said, 'I think the Noes have it.' Never shall I forget the tone in which his solitary voice replied, No, Sir.' The Noes must go forth,' said the Speaker; and all the House ap- peared to troop out. Those within were counted, and amounted to 90. This was a minority far beyond our expectations, and from 50 upwards my heart beat higher at every number. I went round to the other side of the ventilator to see them coming in. How my heart fell, as they reached 88, 89, 90, 91, and the string still not at an end; and it went on to 136. So Lord Althorp'a amendment was carried. At two o'clock in the morning it was over, and for the first time my fa- ther came up to us in the ventilator. I soon saw that it was almost too sore a sub- ject to touch upon; he was so wounded at having vexed all his friends. Mr. would not speak to him after it was over, so angry was he; and for days after, when my father came home, he used to mention, with real pain, somebody or other 1 who would not return his bow. On Friday, Dr. Lushington came here and cheer- ed him, saying, Well, that minority was a great victory': and this does seem to be the case."

In the subsequent case of cancelling the indentures of the Black. ap- prentices, Buxton was rather opposed to the enthusiasm of Exeter Hail; but admitted it was right when successful. And then he should have died. Thus far his life had been happy, and advancing in success. As soon as he attained his great end, he began to illustrate the "votique peracti." It was found that the labours of nearly fifty years and the enthusiasm of myriads had increased the mortality and aggravated the sufferings of the Negro- race; as he showed clearly enough in his book entitled The African Slave-Trade The failure of his Niger expe- dition to destroy slavery and civilize Africa by means of a model-farm or two, was a heavier blow, and, in his weakened state, was the proximate cause of his death. He never recovered the shock, or rather perhaps the fleeted themselves with women on other estates, and a proprietor mig t have two discredit, which that disaster and concurrent circumstances brought upon Emeerties. Why should Negro families not be separated to work, when an the party and the cause. People who were indifferent to a sugar colony, ••••..- ' ,shy the the mature irmen and the mrcutuataneses Area, social aad territorial condition cannot be suddenly changed by an act of Parliament, easily understood pestilence and death, and perhaps were still more sensible te a rise in prices consequent upon a colonial production diminished by one half. The split at Exeter Hall, from the interested motives of trade or party, on the Timber, Sugar, and Corn Budget of the Whigs, further hurt the credit of the philanthropists. The expulsion of the " Free-trade Ministers" and the advent of Peel caused a break-up of parties; and a generation arose " which knew not Joseph." Fowell Buxton died pre- maturely in point of years, but not as regarded comfort. Had he lived in health and vigour, it would only have been to see the overthrow of his hopes and the diminution of his consequence. Other and fresher fashions had thrust the fashion of philanthropy from its stool. There would be no more Cabinet dinners at the brewery of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, and Co. [Pp. 264-268 ; capitally described by Gurney of Norwich, and Buxton himself.] The power of interrupting a Cabinet discussion with remonstrance, and when the porter refused to take it in, having a Duke offer to deliver it, [page 308,] was gone. There would be no more ne- gotiations with Government, where the brewer could dictate his terms; no more Ministerial and Cabinet discuSsions on pamphleteering projects; the delightful meetings at Exeter Hall to do honour to Buxton, with the Prince Consort in the chair, and the two great leaders of Parliament uniting in a display, were at end. " Othello's occupation's gone"; and, unluckily, it seems as if the whole of our Sugar Colonies would go with it. The confirmation of Negro slavery in countries where it exists, the increase of the slave-trade and the aggravation of its horrors, have cer- tainly been brought about.

Notwithstanding the length of this notice, we have left untouched very many points of the volume : so full of character, energy, and industry, was Buxton himself; so extensive his correspondence, so solid his remarks, and so continually was be engaged in realizing by writing his thoughts or observations. Some of his outpourings or prayers might have been omitted ; but they are not so numerous as to be tedious, and they mark the man. Numerous letters during a Continental tour under- taken on account of the health of his wife, with a few other topics, are perhaps hardly biographical ; but they form interesting reading, from their reality, fulness of facts, and the skill of Buxton as a narrator. The following dinner autobiography of a kindred but a more grovelling and sordid genius—the great Jew Rothschild—is of this character. The worldly shrewdness of the conduct and remarks is strangely mingled with an Oriental simplicity, superstition, and self-satisfaction, all capi- tally marked by Buxton.

" To Miss Buxton.

"Devonshire Street, February 14, 1834.

"We yesterday dined at Ham House, to meet the Rothschilds ; and very amus- ing it was. He (Rothschild) told us his life and adventures. He was the third son of the banker at Franktort. There was not,' he said, room enough for us all in that city. I dealt in English goods. One great trader came there, who had the market to himself: he was quite the great man, and did us a favour if he sold us goods. Somehow I offended him, and he refused to show me his patterns. This was on a Tuesday; I said to my father, "I will go to England." I could speak nothing but German. On the Thursday I started. The nearer I got to England, the cheaper goods were. As soon as I got to Manchester, I laid out all my money, things were so cheap; and I made good profit. I soon found that there were three profits—the raw material, the dyeing, and the manufacturing. I said to the manufacturer' "I will supply you with material and dye, and you supply me with manufactured goods." So I of three profits instead of one, and I could sell goods cheaper than anybody. In a short time I made my 20,0001. into 60,0001. My success all turned on one maxim. I said, I can do what another man can; and so I am a match for the man with the patterns, and for all the rest of them! Another advantage I had. I was an off-hand man. I made a bargain at once. When rwas settled in London, the East India Company, had 800,0R0 pounds of gold:to tell. I went to the sale, and bought it all. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of his bills at a dis- count. The Government sent far me, and said they must have it. When they bad of it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal I undertook all that, and I sent it through France; and that was the best business I ever did.' "Another maxim, on which he seemed to place great reliance, was, never to have anything to do with an unlucky place or an unlucky man. ' I have seen,' said he, many clever men, very, clever men, who had not shoei to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well; but fate is against them: they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?' By aid of these maxims he has acquired three millions of money. hope,' said , that your children are not too fond of money and business, to the exclusion of more important things. I am sure you would not wish that?' Rothschild—' I am sure I should wish that I wish them to give mind, and soul, and heart, and body, and everything to business; that is the way to be happy. It requires a great deal of boldness,-and a great deal of caution, to make a great fortune; and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. If I were to listen to all the projects proposed to me, I should ruin myself very soon. Stick to one business, young man,' said he to Edward; stick to your brewery, and you may be the great brewer of London. Be a brewer, and a banker, and a merchant, and a manufacturer, and you will soon be in the Gazette. One of my neighbours is a very ill-tempered man; he tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine, close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first grant, grunt, squeak, squeak; but this does me no harm. I am always in good humour. Sometimes, to amuse myself, I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks it is A mistake, and for fear I should find it out, off he runs as hard as he can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes, it is very amusing.'"