A Review of Uncle Toms Cabin | Page 9

quote a few more English authorities, and dismiss the subject. The British Asiatic Journal says, "the whole of Hindostan, with the adjacent possessions, is one magnificent plantation, peopled by more than one hundred millions of slaves, belonging to a company of gentlemen in England, whose power is far more unlimited than any Southern planter over his slaves in the United States." And the same authority tells us, "that in Malabar, the islands of Ceylon, St. Helena and other places, the English government is a notorious slave-factor--a regular jobber in the purchase and sale of slaves; and that this system is carried on and perpetuated by the purses and bayonet of the English government." Dr. Bowering affirms of the British subjects in India, "that the entire population of that empire are subjected to the most degrading servitude--a deeper degradation than any produced by American slavery." The same writer declares "that a regular system of kidnapping is carried on by the English." The Duke of Wellington remarked in the House of Lords, that "slavery does exist in India--domestic slavery in particular." Sir Robert Peel made the charge and offered the evidence, "that British merchants are even now deeply and extensively engaged in the slave trade;" and that the English government was, at the time he spoke, "engaged in a new system of English negro slavery, by the forcible capture of negroes in Africa, &c." We are told by the London Times of Feb. 20, 1853, "that British slavery is ten thousand times worse than negro slavery of the United States," and that the condition of those, whom he denominated British slaves, "is a scandal and a reproach, not only to the government, but to the owners of every description of property in England." This is strong language, and the reader will please recollect, that it is the testimony of a leading English Journal, so late as February, 1853.
Here is an array of English testimony that cannot fail to convince every one that slavery exists to the present moment in the English dominions, in a form far more aggravated than African slavery in the United States. How is it then, that she has been, and is to the present time, making ceaseless and untiring efforts to exaggerate the sufferings and the disabilities of the African race in our midst, while there is so much suffering and oppression among her own subjects? Is it not an, extraordinary circumstance, that a nation who has expended so much blood and treasure in invading the rights of others--a nation that to the present hour tolerates and legalizes slavery in its worst possible forms--or rather, in every possible form; should affect so much solicitude about its extinction in a foreign government? In view of all these facts, is it not a humiliating circumstance; or rather, is it not an outrageous insult to the American people, that Madam Stowe, after having basely caricatured, slandered and misrepresented her own country, to flatter and please the English people, and their Northern allies in the United States; should with her ill-gotten gains fly across the ocean, to join the slanderers, denunciators and libelers of our beloved country? The world can't produce another instance of such insulting, arrogant, bare-faced knavery and hypocrisy! A thousand reflections force themselves on my mind, and had I a voice as seven-fold thunder, and could I congregate around me in one solid phalanx, every man, woman and child, on the North American portion of this continent; I would warn them of their danger. I would direct their attention to the history of nations wrecked, torn to pieces, and almost obliterated from the face of the earth by internal feuds and dissentions--by envy, jealousy and hatred; and that not unfrequently instigated by foreign powers. I would point to the catalogue of crimes--the commotions, the dissentions, the tumults, the strife--the envy, the jealousy, the hatred--the wars, the butcheries and bloodsheds, that have been incited by visionary, bigoted, fanatical religionists. I would inculcate the fear and love of God; the love of our country, and the love of our neighbor as paramount virtues; and meekness, gentleness and patience, as Christian graces of the first importance; and resignation to the will of God, and obedience and submission to civil authorities, as the duty of all good citizens. And to the ladies I would say, return home ladies, and love your husbands, nurse your babies, attend to your household affairs; and recollect, that nothing adorns your sex so much, as the ornament of a meek, a quiet spirit. I would also advise you to read your Bibles and other good books, and never again to read or write another novel. And, dear ladies, if you have hitherto worn either bloomers or breeches, lay them aside. I must return from this digression to the