by James Devine
“Sir, I’ve certainly not broken the seal on this pouch,” Bratton said, helping the Secretary open the leather-bound briefcase. “However, I’m reliably told by the ship’s captain that General Jackson was the clear-cut winner, outpolling Mr. Clay by more than a half-million votes.”
“Damned colonials deserve what they get,” Robinson muttered, just loud enough for Bratton to realize he was intended to hear the minister’s disgust. “I don’t suppose William Wirt or the Virginia governor made a difference?” Virginia’s legal legend and that state’s maverick governor, John Floyd, had also run in the plebiscite. (Together they had received a combined popular vote of less than a quarter-million. Jackson, by contrast, had received over 750,000 votes.)
“No, Sir. It was strictly a Jackson landslide, as the Americans would say.”
The Viscount cast a quick sideways look at his aide. “Caught many of their sayings and mannerisms, did you, Mr. Bratton, during your years across the water? How long have you been back home?”
“Minister, I served as an Army liaison officer in Georgetown from 1826-29. After I came home and went on half-pay, I joined the Office. I’ve been working the ‘American’ desk ever since.”
“Then you know a damn sight more about the Americans than most anyone else who’ll be here this morning. Sit tight. Have a cup of tea; you look frozen. We’ll be calling for you soon enough.” Robinson disappeared into the conference room as a dazed Bratton found a peg for his cloak in the outer office and walked over to the fireplace.
It’s going to take more than one cup of good hot English tea to get the chill out of my bones, he thought, as he rubbed his hands over the fire. And more than one to help clear my head. The Secretary, Lord Palmerston, the Duke, and God knows who else in there, want my counsel? Well, Harry old chap, this should be interesting…
___________
The historic meeting ordered by Prime Minister Grey and chaired by Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Minister, began secretly at the War & Colonial Office at 5 a.m. on January 4, 1833. In addition to Viscount Goderich, Henry Brougham, Lord Chancellor; and Lord Durham represented the Government. Home Secretary Lord Melbourne, the consensus choice among the Whigs to replace Lord Grey whenever that ailing old man resigned, was also in attendance. Sir Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, though the leader of the opposition Tories---for the Whigs had regained power in the 1830 election---had been asked to attend for several vital reasons. Not least among them was his relationship with the USBA Governor-General. Though Bratton was still unaware of the fact, another figure had arrived at the Colonial Office in the snowy pre-dawn: John Quincy Adams, the previous USBA G-G and present Massachusetts delegate to the House of Commons. This blue-ribbon committee had been selected by the Prime Minister months earlier to develop and implement a policy that would leave Bratton speechless when he realized its scope and possible consequence some hours later.
“Well, Frederick, what news from the Dominion? Did the electorate make our job a bit easier by refuting Jackson in favor of Mr. Clay?”
The Colonial Secretary looked up from reviewing the report and shook his head in disgust. “No, Mr. Chairman, these results indicate that General Jackson was a runaway winner in the plebiscite, trouncing Mr. Clay by more than half-a-million votes. The other two candidates were non-factors.”
The Duke of Wellington turned amused eyes and hook nose on the lone Committee member eligible to vote in the plebiscite. “Well, Mr. Adams. Your people seem to have permanently lost their taste in selecting leaders, wouldn’t you say?”
Quincy Adams’ long slope of a forehead reddened, but his reply was dryly precise: “As the British electorate, Your Grace, apparently did two years ago?”
The others, including Wellington himself, laughed. The Duke’s controversial term as P.M. had ended when the Reform-minded Whigs swept his party out of Parliamentary power in 1830. “Yes, there is no helping the taste of the electorate. Especially when you widen eligibility to the extent we now have on both sides of the Atlantic. We’ll just have to hope, Mr. Adams, that both electorates regain their senses in due course.”
“Now then, gentlemen,” Lord Palmerston said in a formal, commanding tone. “With the USBA plebiscite results in, we can get down to it. We are all quite aware of the magnitude of the question before us, and its potential implications for the Empire. I’ve asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sit in this morning as his Office has determined the financial cost of the plan we have agreed must be implemented. As we look at the question in the King’s various provinces…and Dominion,” he quickly added, glancing at Mr. Adams, “Earl Spencer will chime in with the appropriate fiscal calculations. Let’s begin with the West Indies, shall we?”
Viscount Goderich shuffled papers set on the table in front of him. “There may be as many as 1,700,000 slaves scattered throughout our West Indies possessions. It is difficult to obtain an accurate count. But certainly, in number they dwarf the white population. If not for the Army and the Royal Marines, we would have had a Haitian situation on our hands a generation ago.”
Emboldened by the war in Europe, and the subsequent drawdown in French troops, Tousaint L’Ouverture had sparked a slave revolt that resulted in Napoleon eventually abandoning France’s portion of Hispaniola in the century’s first decade. The independent Haiti had tottered on the brink of anarchy ever since, but no serious effort had been made by any European power to regain control. This was attributed by some to the stunning valor demonstrated by the blacks the amazing L’Ouverture had trained and led. By others, to the malarial conditions that had so weakened the large army of Dutch, Swiss and Germans Bonaparte had sent to put down the revolt that they had proved no match for the Haitians.
“The slaveholders have no real choice. Either they accept the phased-in compensation plan His Majesty’s government will offer, or we can militarily enforce the emancipation of the Negroes without compensation. The resulting chaos would ruin them financially, of course, so, as I say, they will have no choice other than to accept a buyout.”
“Are we agreed on the terms we’re proposing?” Lord Brougham broke in. Brougham, who among other things had designed the carriage type parked outside the Office, was a leading abolitionist.
Palmerston nodded at Goderich. “Well, Mr. Secretary?”
“A phased-in emancipation over seven years, with the former slaves indentured to their former owners three days per week. During the other four, they are free to toil any land they can obtain for themselves; be paid to work for their former owners or anyone else, or not work. In return, they will be clothed, housed and fed by their former owners until the completion of the seven-year period. Any freemen of course remain free and any child born once the emancipation process begins is also free.
“In return, His Majesty’s government agrees to a phased compensation to the owners of…how much, Chancellor?”
“Twenty million pounds. Paid out over the seven-year period.”
Palmerston looked at the grave faces around the table. “Any other comment, before we move on to The Cape Colony?”
Adams looked both awed---for him---and somber. “Almost two million slaves on those few small islands alone! And the slave trade abolished a generation ago. Thank God for William Wilberforce. Think how many more poor devils would have been dragged across the Ocean if he hadn’t been so committed!”
“And think how much richer those West African chieftains who sold their fellow blacks into slavery would be if not for Wilberforce’s determination…and the vigilance of the British Navy.” Wellington was dry.
William Wilberforce, an early British abolitionist, had campaigned for almost 20 years before Parliament, in 1807, had outlawed the slave trade in the Empire, and therefore, in the Western World. The Royal Navy had enforced the policy ever since. Consequently, virtually all the slaves in the Western Hemisphere were at least second generation, though many, of course, were descended from African tribesmen and women kidnapped or captured during the previou
s 150 or more years. They had then been sold to multinational slave traders and ferried across the Atlantic in nightmarish conditions.
“A pity Wilberforce didn’t complete the job,” Lord Durham said with a sigh. ‘Radical Jack,’ as he was widely known, was also a longtime abolitionist.
“Just doing what he did took two decades and ruined his health,” Lord Melbourne observed. “Besides, His Majesty’s Government wasn’t in any financial position in those days to compensate anyone. The Empire damn near went bankrupt putting Napoleon on St. Helena. Though, if Pitt the Younger had lived, the thing might have been accomplished 15 years ago.”
The brilliant and precocious second son of the Prime Minister who had saved North America for the Empire---P.M. at 24---had supported his lifelong friend, Wilberforce, in his crusade. Pitt, however, was chiefly concerned during his two terms as P.M. with the containment and/or defeat of Bonaparte. Called a ‘genius of evil’ by the French Emperor, Pitt’s policy of financing coalitions against the French was a major financial drain on the Empire. Despite poor health, and against the advice of doctors and family, Pitt had helped forge the Third Coalition against Napoleon when he returned to office in 1805. The glorious British naval victory at Trafalgar that year notwithstanding, the subsequent Coalition land defeats at Ulm and Austerlitz had shattered the exhausted Pitt. He had died even before the slave trade abolition bill passed Parliament. Stripped of his key political connection, Wilberforce had been unable to follow up in convincing Parliament to ban slavery itself. He had remained in Parliament until 1824, when his own declining health forced him into retirement. He was still alive, writing and calling for abolition, at his small estate north of London, in Mill Hill.
“Well, enough ancient history,” said Lord Palmerston gruffly. A silence that lasted almost a minute had descended over the table as the Committee members contemplated the enormity of their mission. “It’s the history we’re gathered here to make now and in the immediate future that we need concentrate on. What about the Cape, Frederick?”
“Well, Mr. Chairman, there’s nowhere near the number of slaves in South Africa that there are in the West Indies. We can’t even approximate as no reliable census has been conducted. However, our Governor-General in Pretoria, Sir Galbraith Lowery-Cole, estimates about 100,000. Those are split between large planters, mainly British, and the small farmers, overwhelmingly Boer. That’s how the descendents of the original Dutch colonizers of Cape Colony style themselves.
“Governor-General Lowery-Cole feels the British plantation owners, who also utilize slaves in the gold, silver and diamond mines, will reluctantly accept emancipation, as long as they are duly financially compensated. His estimate is approximately a half-million pounds. Remember now, these slaves do more than work in the fields and mansions. They carve out precious metals, too.”
“What about the Dutch, Frederick? How will they accept our decision?” Lord Brougham.
“Not well, Henry, according to Sir Galbraith. But that may be a plus for us, nevertheless. You see, the Boers have been threatening to pull up stakes and migrate north---out of British authority---almost since the day we took control of the Cape. If this planned emancipation forces their hand, so much the better for us. We won’t have to pay them and, if they survive further into Africa, why, we send an armed force to take over their new colony whenever it suits us.”
The ensuing laughter around the table wasn’t shared by the British American, who, nonetheless, determined to keep his dismay to himself. Instead, Adams asked the rhetorical question: “Are we doing this for our conscience alone…or to help these poor people? Surely we care as much about the blacks caught in slavery by the Boers as we do about those in the West Indies…or in the British American South!”
It was Wellington who answered, expressing the prevailing view of most of his colleagues and countrymen: “Don’t bombard us with your self-righteousness, Mr. Adams. Your New England got religion after it got economics. Your predecessors decided slavery was a great evil after they realized it was too costly in your climate. You simply couldn’t afford to house, clothe and feed slaves 12 months a year when you could only have them in the fields for half that time… If Massachusetts had the growing season and could produce the tobacco and cotton that comes out of Virginia and the Carolinas, with slaves working 11 or 12 months per year, at least some of your people would be employing overseers to this day.”
Wellington paused momentarily and looked around at the nodding faces of the other committee members. “I’m glad we’re agreed here to proceed in this most Christian---and overdue---endeavor, but don’t tell this Committee that this great crusade is something your region and state have been committed to long before the rest of us.”
Adams, his head now entirely scarlet, stared at the Duke. “Your Grace, we in Massachusetts have traditionally favored freeing the Negroes…going back to 1775!”
Wellington nodded condescendingly. “Yes, Mr. Adams, because your previous generation read its Adam Smith on those dark, snowy nights when it wasn’t plotting treason…”
Lord Palmerston’s facial features had not yet turned the cartoonists’ delight that they would in coming years. Yet his nose and cheeks had become a bright pink. “Gentlemen, we are, hopefully, all on God’s side here. We must demonstrate a unified front in Parliament. No matter our particular partisan position, we must demonstrate that all parties are settled on this course of action.
“I believe a short break may be in order. Then, if we can get back to the business of considering the issue in the British American South…”
___________
Harry Bratton had begun wondering whether he should return to the American Desk. Whatever direction the secret meeting in the conference room had taken, it seemed his counsel wouldn’t be necessary after all. Then the door opened suddenly and Earl Goderich emerged. “We’ve broken for a few moments, Harry. You’ll be called in shortly. Meanwhile, concentrate your thoughts on the sectional issues in the Dominion: political, economic and military. What will likely be the new Congress’ makeup; how deep is Jackson’s support in the North; those sort of things… You’ll be in directly.”
Goderich marched back into the conference room and shut the door as Bratton stared incredulously at his retreating figure. What in hell? Am I to be asked to give a bloody seminar on the Dominion within the next 45 minutes or so? After I’ve been waiting outside all this time when I could have done some preparation? And ‘economic sectionalism?’ What the devil is going on in there? I’d better get back to my desk and get my hands on a few documents….
Lord Durham had taken a visibly upset Quincy Adams aside as the Colonial Secretary reentered the room. The entire Committee, in fact, had broken into small groups of two and three as they quietly sipped tea and munched breakfast biscuits.
“I’m sure there is nothing personal in the Duke’s remarks, Mr. Adams,” ‘Radical Jack’ said in a soothing low voice. “He’s just a blunt old soldier…but…he is committed to our cause. Emancipation, you’ll remember, was first seriously discussed while he was still in Downing Street! And, as we’ve discussed before, his influence over this man Jackson may be key to our success in the USBA.”
Adams nodded slowly. “I’m well aware of those facts, Lord Durham. But to question the sincerity of my people when we have been opposing this barbarity for so long is outrageous…”
The Lord Privy Seal smiled softly. “In the end Mr. Adams, it is unimportant how we all arrived at this juncture. It is only important that we have.”
Lord Palmerston had resumed his place at the head of the conference table. “Now, gentlemen, let’s take up the issue in British America. If you would continue, Lord Goderich…
“Yes, Mr. Chairman. At this time I would like to call in the Office’s resident expert on the USBA. Mr. Harry Bratton has been following events in the Dominion for over four years, immediately preceding which he served as a military liaison officer in Georgetown. So, with the exception of our esteemed fr
iend from Massachusetts,” he nodded at Adams, “he is considerably more learned in USBA affairs than any of the rest of us. He’s waiting outside.”
Bratton was on his feet and moving toward the conference room even before the door fully opened. Only with considerable effort was he able to maintain a stiff upper lip as he recognized the assemblage of distinguished figures at the table. My God, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and…Quincy Adams of Massachusetts? What the bloody hell is going on here?
“Mr. Bratton, if you’ll take a seat behind the Colonial Secretary. I don’t need to remind you that everything that you see and hear this morning remains within the confines of this room for present. Is that understood?”
Palmerston flashed a commanding stare at the younger man, who nodded his head vigorously. “Certainly, My Lord…”
“Now, if you would, Lord Goderich…”
Goderich had risen and was now walking toward a draped easel that had been set up at the far corner of the table. He pulled off the cover to reveal a detailed map of the USBA with the various states marked by different shades of coloring. Picking up a pointer, he addressed the Committee. “These shadings indicate the intensity of the slave population in the USBA, with the shadings growing darker as that population intensifies.
“According to the latest census, published last May, the USBA has a total population, including Quebec and Ontario, of just over 13,500,000. There are 2,009,058 slaves in the USBA, including,” he continued in a flat professorial drone but with eyes bright, “four in the state of Massachusetts. All there, apparently, female…”
A sudden epidemic of coughing seemed to break out simultaneously around the table, though one distinct cackle was discerned coming from the vicinity of the Duke of Wellington. Adams’ face burned scarlet once more.
“However, while Vermont was the only state reporting no slaves at all---though a total of 881 free colored reside there---the great majority are held in the 10 states, the District of Columbia and the two territories below the Mason-Dixon Line. In fact, there are just 6875 slaves in the combined 15 states and the Territory of Michigan that lay above the Line. Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Bratton?”