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Capitalism and Slavery: A Critique

Author(s): Roger T. AnsteySource: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Aug., 1968), pp. 307-320Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Economic History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2592438

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CapitalismndSlavery: Critique1BY ROGER T. ANSTEY

HE unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England againstslavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectlyvirtuous pages comprised in the history of nations. 2Whilst the mass of Englishmen probably continue to believe that Wilberforceand his Evangelical brethren secured the abolition of the slave trade and slaveryin a manner wholly creditable to themselves and only a little less to their country,it would also seem that, at the scholarly level, the dictum of Lecky was only aslightly extreme form of the view commonly held until about the midway pointof the present century. Prof. Coupland, in particular, had in the inter-war yearssubstantially endorsed Lecky.3 Admittedly the West Indian writer, C. L. R.James, had argued in I938 that Pitt's humanitarianism in the I 790's was, at best,subordinate to a global strategy aimed at breaking the monopoly of the conti-nental market enjoyed by San Domingo sugar, and replacing it with Britishsugar.4 But this was an incidental theme in a work of Marxist historical interpre-tation, and it is doubtful if this minor strand attracted much attention.When in I944 Dr Eric Williams launched a frontal attack on the traditionalview, it was the first major onslaught to be made in the English-speaking world.For the author of Capitalismand Slavery5 he perspectives of men like Coupland,C. M. MacInnes,6 and F. J. Klingberg7 were all wrong. The role of the humani-tarians, the key figures in what amounted to a parade of virtue, had been seri-ously misunderstood and grossly exaggerated by men who have sacrificed scholar-ship to sentimentality and, like the scholastics of old, placed faith before reasonand evidence .8 Positively, and in Williams's own words, Capitalismand Slaverywas strictly an economic study of the role of Negro slavery and the slave tradein providing the capital which financed the Industrial Revolution in Englandand of mature industrial capitalism in destroying the slave system .9The immediate formal reception of the book was muted, doubtless because ofthe distractions of war time: no more than summary reviews appear to have beenpublished. But in the following years the book came to gain considerable favouramongst historians, and also amongst many English-speaking West African in-tellectuals who saw it as a bed-rock statement of Afro-European relations beforethe colonial period. In the former case a sympathy with the growing cause of

1 An earlier form of this article was read at a seminar on the slave trade organized by the EdinburghCentre of African Studies in June I 965.2 W. E. H. Lecky, A Historyof EuropeanMorals, 6th edn (i884), II, I53.3 R. Coupland, TheBritishAnti-SlaveryMovementI 933), p. 25.I See also his WilberforceOxford, I923) .4 C. L. R. James, The Black acobins: Toussaint 'Ouverturend theSan DomingoRevolutionI 938; and rev.edn, New York, I963), pp. 5I-4. References are to this revised edition.5 First published at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press.6 Englandand Slavery I 934).7 The Anti-SlaveryMovementn England(New Haven and London, I926).8 Eric Williams, Capitalism nd Slavery reissued New York, I96I), p. I78. Other reissues in I964 andI966. All references in this article are to the I96I edn.9 Ibid. p. vii.

307

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308 ROGER T. ANSTEYcolonial independence and a decline in imperial sentiment, in the latter an under-standable predisposition to seek historical as well as other bases for anti-colonial-ism, together with a bitter memory of the slave trade and all its works, wereperhaps in some part responsible.'

Capitalismand Slavery has certainly aroused some criticism. The late G. R.Mellor's British Imperial Trusteeship,I783-I8502 was specifically inspired by aconcern to refute Eric Williams. Mellor's work has real merits but only limitedvalue as a critique of Williams, for whilst Mellor convincingly points to caseswhere Williams misused or distorted evidence, this is done in an incidental way.It would seem, also, that Mellor's whole approach combined with certain in-felicities of style to present the image of a stalwart traditionalist fighting a rear-guard action against a brilliant, younger critic. A number of illuminating criticalinsights into Capitalism and Slaveryare also to be found in the late Prof. W. L.Burn's The British West Indies,3but it was not the function of that book for theseinsights to be developed into a critique.It may therefore be useful to offer some comments on a book whose continuinginfluence is suggested by the appearance of no less than three reissues betweeni96i and I966. These comments do not pretend to be comprehensive and do notbear on the earlier part of the book where the role of the slave trade and slavery,and of mercantilism, in the British economy up to the closing years of the eight-eenth century is considered. The part of Williams's thesis which will here be con-sidered is, broadly, the second half of his book, where he argues that Britain'schanging attitude to slavery and the slave trade was essentially a function of herchanging economic situation and interest. We shall look, in particular, at theauthor's interpretation of Pitt's conduct, of the abolition of the British slave tradein i807, and of Palmerston and the suppression of the foreign slave trade.

Williams argues that from the time of the American War of Independence on-wards the traditional role and privileged position of the British West Indies inthe supply of tropical produce, and especially sugar, was being increasingly ques-tioned in Britain. The British islands could not compete on the European marketwith the French Caribbean islands, especially the extremely fertile San Domingo,and it became clearer every year that the natural links of the expanding Britisheconomy were with countries outside the system of imperial protection. Pittsought to reverse the loss of the European market to San Domingo by an inter-national abolition of the slave trade which would ruin the still expanding foreignWest Indian sugar islands, leave relatively unharmed the largely saturatedBritish islands, and pave the way for the recapture of the European market byBritish East Indian sugar. When the San Domingo planters, out of fear ofJacobin-ism, white and black, offered the island to Britain, Pitt's zeal for abolition neces-sarily dried up and the abolitionists could avail nothing. During the Napoleonic

1 Some words in C. G. Woodson's review of Capitalismand Slavery n the Journalof Negro History,xxx(I945), 93-5, may be significant in this connexion. This work should make a strong appeal to thosewho now array themselves against the British Empire because of its present policy of grabbing all of theuniverse which it can find any excuse for taking over.

I95I I95I.

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 309Wars there was overproduction of British sugar in relation to available markets,whilst the post-war years saw the growth of other, rival, low-cost producers-notably Brazil, Cuba, and Mauritius-and of free-trade convictions to whichfiscal discrimination against foreign sugar was an affront. At the same time manyof the traditional supporters of the old system of imperial protection were desert-ing the West Indian interest. As a result overproduction in i807 demandedabolition; overproduction in i833 demanded emancipation. ' The equalizationof the Sugar Duties in I846 (by which protection for British sugar was to be pro-gressively removed) was another manifestation of essentially the same response,and by encouraging the slave trade to Brazil and Cuba, and the extension of theirslave-labour sugar estates, made the basic economic motives starkly clear. Theslave trade was abolished in i807, slavery in i833, the sugar preference in I846.The three events are inseparable. 2 Wholly coherent with the compulsive de-mands of free trade was the failure to take decisive action against the foreigntransatlantic slave trade-Palmerston, allegedly the foremost crusader, being allgush and little action. Williams does not disregard humanitarianism completely.That would be a grave historical error and to ignore one of the greatest propa-ganda movements of all time. The humanitarians were the spearhead of the on-slaught which destroyed the West Indian system and freed the Negro. But theirimportance has been seriously misunderstood and grossly exaggerated. 3

Williams's argument is to an extent persuasive. It is difficult not to think thatthe radical change in the position of the British West Indies in the later eighteenthcentury did not affect English attitudes to the slave trade and slavery, whilstsome of the figures Williams quotes are significant. For example, he shows thatbetween i8I5 and I833 the West Indies became relatively less important as amart for British exports4 and that British sugar imports from Brazil, Cuba, andMauritius increased considerably whilst British Caribbean production remainedstationary.5 Again, as Williams rightly asserts, by I807 the slave trade had becomemuch less important to Liverpool, the British port most engaged in it.6Of great interest is the way in which Williams relates the equalization of theSugar Duties to the abolitionist movement. Few writers before Williams had seenany possible connexion between the two, and, when a connexion was seen, equal-ization tended simply to be dismissed as unfortunate but incidental. The con-nexion is important. In the parliamentary-and other-debates on the proposalto reduce the preference on imperial, i.e. what had become free-grown, sugar(I84I) and progressively to equalize the duties on sugar imports (I846), numer-ous warnings were uttered that this would inevitably encourage the Brazilian andCuban slave trades. Yet on the second occasion the Bill passed-whilst the aboli-tionists, Williams argues, were no longer prepared to retain fiscal measuresagainst slave-grown sugar.7

1 Williams, op. cit. p. I52. 2 Ibid. p. I36. 3 Ibid. p. I78. 4 Ibid. p. I32.5 Ibid. pp. I50-I. Nonetheless in i832-3 the British West Indies still furnished about 70 per cent ofBritish sugar imports. This rough estimate is based on the figures which Williams cites (on p. I5 i) and onthe graph of sugar imports from the British West Indies contained in L. J. Ragatz, TheFall of thePlanterClass n theBritishCaribbean,763-I833 (I963 reissue, New York), p. 288. This book first appeared in I 928.6 Williams errs in citing a Commons speech of Lord Howick on ia June i8o6 as authority for thisassertion, since Howick did not speak on that day. However, Howick used a similar argument in aspeech of 23 Feb. I807.-Williams, op. cit. p. I62, and Parliamentary ebates,VIII, 946-56.7 Williams, op. cit. p. i6i.

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3IO ROGER T. ANSTEYWhen one comes to particular applications of the Williams thesis, however,his argument is less persuasive. Consider his analysis of Pitt's actions in regardto the slave trade. Following C. L. R. James,1 Williams argues that Pitt waspersuaded that the traditional West Indian system, with the slave trade which

supported it, was no longer profitable and that it was necessary to break thecontrol of the European sugar market enjoyed by San Domingo. His plan wastwofold:

to recapture the Europeanmarketwith the aid of sugarfrom India, and to securean international abolition of the slave trade which would ruin Saint Domingue[because of its dependence on the continuing import of slaves at a high level].If not international abolition, then British abolition. The French were so depen-dent on Britishslave traders that even a unilateral abolition by England wouldseriouslydislocate the economy of the French colonies.But, continues Williams, the plan failed and for two reasons: the duties imposedon East Indian sugar, since it did not enjoy the preferential rate which WestIndian sugar commanded, made its import on any scale impossible, whilstFrance, Holland, and Spain would not agree to abolition of the slave trade. Atthis point the French Revolution came to the aid of Pitt. Fearful that Revolu-tionary idealism would destroy the slave trade and slavery, the French plantersof San Domingo, in I79I, offered the island to England, and, when Englandwent to war in I 793, Pitt accepted the offer. In the years that followed Britainlost thousands of men and spent thousands of pounds in the vain attempt tocapture Saint Domingue.

This [continues Williams] is of more than academic interest. Pitt could not havehad Saint Domingue and abolition as well. Without its 40,000 slave imports ayear, Saint Domingue might as well have been at the bottom of the sea. The veryacceptance of the island meant logically the end of Pitt's interest in abolition.Naturally he did not say so. He had already committed himself too far in the eyesof the public. He continued to speak in favor of abolition, even while givingevery practical encouragement to the slave trade. But it was not the old Pitt ofI789-I79I, the Pitt of Latin tags, brilliant oratory and infectious humanitarian-ism. The change can be followed in the debates in Parliamentand in Wilberforce'sdiary. In I 792 Wilberforce'sdiary struck the firstominous note: Pitt threw outagainst slave motion on St. Domingo account [i.e. displayed petulance (at adiscussionon abolition) when it was proposed to introduce an abolition Bill thatyear, because of San Domingo]. ThereafterPitt's support of Wilberforce'sannualmotions became nothing short of perfunctory.. . Under Pitt's administration theBritish slave trade alone more than doubled, and Britain conquered two moreSugar colonies, Trinidad and British Guiana. As the abolitionist Stephen wrotewith bitterness: Mr. Pitt, unhappily for himself,his country and mankind, is notzealous enough in the cause of the negroes, to contend for them as decisively as heought, in the cabinet any more than in parliament. 2

To this argument a number of objections can be made. It is an essential partof Williams's argument that Pitt's double-barrelled plan to ruin San Domingoand substitute East Indian for San Domingo sugar on the European market, wasformed some time before the early autumn of I 79I. After that time the devasta-I James, Op. Cit. pp. 53-4, I32-6, I46, I99-20I, 2I4. 2 Williams, op. Cit. pp. I47-9.

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 3IItion and anarchy in San Domingo caused a fall in production such that the en-couragement of East Indian sugar production to replace San Domingo sugar inEurope was frequently and widely urged.' The two situations are quite different,and the distinction is succinctly put by Mellor. Seeing the possibility in I 792of recapturing a market from a competitor already crippled is not the same asscheming before I792 to cripple a competitor by recapturing a market. 2 Thisbeing so, it must be said that Williams gives no convincing evidence that Pittharboured such a scheme for East Indian sugar before the San Domingo rising.The implied suggestion that he did so in I789, as evidenced, Williams claims,by an (unsuccessful) attempt to reduce the East Indian duty, rests on the im-probable attribution of some words of Hawkesbury to I 789.3 What might at firstsight appear to be firmer evidence that Pitt planned to recapture the Europeanmarket before the San Domingo rising is an assertion in Ragatz which Williamscites-namely, that Pitt and Dundas ... strongly favoured attempting thecapture of continental markets with East Indian sugar. 4 But Ragatz makes thisstatement in reporting proposals for the encouragement of East Indian produc-tion in the aftermath of the San Domingo revolt. It is, theoretically, possible thatRagatz was testifying to an attitude held before the rising, but the context rendersthis an unwarrantable conclusion. Moreover, as Mellor has pointed out, theminutes of the West India Committee of Planters and Merchants contain noreference to any proposal to import East Indian sugar until February I 792.5 Nor,in respect of Pitt's motives before the San Domingo rising, does Williams offerany convincing evidence that Pitt's resolve to secure abolition of the slave tradewas subordinate to a determination to ruin San Domingo. In this part of histhesis Williams is simply asserting what C. L. R. James argues on evidence whichsimply will not sustain his conclusions-as reference to the date, or content, orboth, of two of his major sources will show.6The very acceptance of San Domingo, says Williams, meant logically the endof Pitt's interest in abolition , and the first indication Williams gives of Pitt'snew attitude is his display of petulance on St. Domingo account , in the wordsof Wilberforce's diary, in I 792. Williams can only mean to imply that Pitt's atti-tude to abolition was changing because of the prospect of acquiring San Domingofor England. What Williams quite ignores is the clear purport of the section ofthe Life of Wilberforce,rom which Williams takes the diary entry, that the essenceof Pitt's reason for wanting to postpone action on an abolition Bill was, in Wilber-force's words to a correspondent, that

people here are all panic-struck with the transactions in St. Domingo [i.e. theslaughterand disorderwhich had followed the slave rising], and the apprehensionor pretended apprehension of the like in Jamaica and other of our islands. I ampressed on all hands . . . to defer my motion till next year.71 Ragatz, op. cit. pp. 2 10-I2.2 G. R. Mellor, BritishImperialTrusteeship,783-i850, p. 53 (see p. 308 above).3 Williams, op. cit. p. I46 and n. 8I. The date of I 789 is improbable for the discussion, in ministerialcircles, of the question of lowering the East Indian duties to the West Indian level, for East India Com-pany officials assumed until early I79I that East Indian sugar would enjoy the preferential Caribbeanrate.-Ragatz, op. cit. p. 2I0.4 Ibid. p. 2I I. 5 Mellor, op. cit. p. 5I. 6James, op. cit. pp. 53-5.7 R. I. and S. Wilberforce, TheLife of William WilberforceI838), I, 340-5I. For one of the several

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312 ROGER T. ANSTEYThere may be little logic in the prevalence of such reasoning, but an age whichhas seen white backlash as the reaction to Black Power should hardly besurprised at it. For Pitt, as personal friend of Wilberforce, as friend of abolition,and as Prime Minister, it was natural to give tactical advice to Wilberforce. Thereis other and more powerful evidence to support the view that such a calculatingpurpose as Williams ascribes was not in Pitt's mind. In early I792, when Pittmade his little outburst, it was most unlikely that San Domingo would pass intoBritish hands. A group of planters had offered the colony to England in I 79I,but Pitt did not accept the cession until England went to war with France in I 793.How far he was from envisaging war in early I 792 is clear from his famous budgetspeech of February I 792 in which he prophesied the continuance of peace foranother fifteen years.1 Even more direct evidence is the fact that it was after thisoutburst that Pitt made, on 2 April 1792, his great speech in support of Wilber-force's motion for immediate abolition.2Although Williams's claim that from I793 Pitt's support of Wilberforce'sannual motions became nothing short of perfunctory could be shown to be ex-aggerated, it remains true that, when the period from I 79 I onwards is consideredas a whole, Pitt's support of Wilberforce was less than complete. Steven Watsonpoints out, for instance, that, on the very night of his great I 792 Commons speechsupporting immediate abolition, Pitt made no effort to stop Dundas from movinga wrecking amendment.3 But there are more subtle reasons for this equivocationthan Williams will allow. In Watson's words, His advocacy was not insincere,but it was not carried to the point of disrupting his political system. 4 Pitt indeedhad a political system to maintain. Important to the understanding of that systemis that, as Prof. Pares has pointed out, reform measures such as Catholic emanci-pation, parliamentary reform-and abolition-were not in this period measureswhich could be cabinet measures, given the convention that cabinet measureswere restricted to matters of government, as government was then understood .5On open questions, on the other hand, as Prof. Aspinall has shown, there wasno possibility of ministerial agreement-quite apart from the need to secure theking's agreement.6 Add to this the fact that Pitt became overburdened with theindications of the influence of San Domingo events see Hawkesbury's observation in the April I792Commons debate on abolition: He then desired the house to reflect upon the state of St. Domingo.Had not its calamities been imputed by its deputies to the advocates for the abolition? Was ever anyscenes of horror equal to those which had passed there? And should we, when principles of the samesort were lurking in our own islands, expose our fellow subjects to the same miseries?-Reported inThomas Clarkson, TheHistoryof theRise, Progress ndAccomplishmentf theAbolition f theAfricanSlaveTradeby theBritishParliament New York, I836), III, I 73.1 Quoted inJ. Holland Rose, Life of WilliamPitt (I923), pt II, pp. 3I-2.2 Ibid. pp. I35-9; Wilberforce, op. cit. I, 345-6.3J. Steven Watson, 7The eignof GeorgeII (Oxford, I960), p. 30I. 4 Ibid.5 Richard Pares, King GeorgeII andthePoliticians (Oxford, I953), pp. I64-5.

6 A. Aspinall,'The CabinetCouncil, I780-i832', Proceedingsf theBritishAcademy,XXVIII (I952),223-4. See also Clarkson'sobservation: The Lord Chancellor Thurlow ran counter to his wishes almostat the very outset. Lord Liverpool and Mr. Dundas did the same. Thus, to go no further, three of themost powerful members of the cabinet were in direct opposition to him. The abolition, then, amidst thisdifference of opinion, could never become a cabinet measure (Clarkson, op. cit. III, 235). See alsoHolland Rose's assessment in Holland Rose, op. cit. Pt I, pp. 477-8, and D. G. Barnes, George II andWilliamPitt, 1783-I806 (Stanford, I939), pp. 2 I I-I 2. For a valuable recent unpublished monographon Pitt and and abolition see P. C. Lipscomb, WilliamPitt and theAbolitionof the Slave Trade(Ph.D.,UniversityofTexas, I960).

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 3I3cares and infinite responsibilities of a war of national survival, and we have afurther reason why he was prevented from giving the abolitionist cause moreattention and help. Certainly one abolitionist, James Stephen, could, in I797,assert that Pitt was not zealous enough in the cause of the negroes I-a viewquoted, as we have seen, by Williams. But Thomas Clarkson was at least as single-minded as Stephen-that most extreme of Abolitionist writers , as W. L.Mathieson termed him2-in the cause of abolition and is unlikely to have mincedwords had he believed that Pitt avoidably dragged his feet. His verdict was:

But though Mr. Pitt did not carry thisgreat question, he was yet one of the greatestsupportersof it. He fostered it in its infancy. If, in his public situation, he had thenset his face against it, where would have been our hope? He upheld it also in itschildhood, and though in this state of existence it did not gain fromhis protectionall the strength which it was expected it would have acquired, he yet kept it fromfalling, till his successors, n whose administration a greater number of favourablecircumstancesconcurredto give it vigour, brought it to triumphantmaturity.3

IIProhibition of the slave trade to British subjects came, of course, in i807, and tothe immediate causes of this Williams devotes one page. His argument can there-fore be expressed largely in his own words.

The ruin of Saint Domingue did not mean the salvationof the British West Indies.Two new enemies appeared on the scene. Cuba forged ahead to fill the gap left inthe world market by the disappearanceof Saint Domingue. Bonaparte ... gavethe first impetus to beet sugar... Whilst, under the American flag, Cuban andother neutral sugar still found a market in Europe, British West Indian surplusespiled up in England... A parliamentarycommittee set up in I807 discoveredthatthe British West Indian planter was producing at a loss. In i8oo his profit was22 per cent., in i807 nothing. In I797 the planter got i9/6d profit per hundred-weight; in I799, Io/9d; in I803, i8/6d; in I805, I2/-; in i8o6, nothing. Thecommittee attributed the main evil to the unfavorablestate of the foreign market.In I 8o6 the surplusofsugarin England amounted to six thousandtons. Productionhad to be curtailed. To restrictproduction, the slave trade must be abolished. Thesaturated colonies needed only seven thousand slaves a year... That explainsthe support of the abolition bill by so many West Indian planters of the olderislands ...The war and Bonaparte's continental blockade made abolition imperative ifthe older colonies were to survive. Are they not now , asked Prime MinisterGrenville, distressedby the accumulation of produce on their hands, for whichthey cannot find a market; and will it not thereforebe adding to their distress,and leading the planters on to their ruin, if you suffer the continuation of freshimportations? . . . Abolition was the direct result of that distress.4

There is no disputing that, by i807, the West Indian planters were overpro-ducing and making no profit. To argue therefrom that to restrict productionthe slave trade must be abolished is the next step in a logical sequence of argu-ment, but it is the logical sequence only in an imposed pattern, which by nomeans coincides with the actual pattern. First, the most explicit connexion made1 Wilberforce, op. cit. II, 225. 2 W. L. Mathieson, British Slaveryand its Abolition I 926), p. I54n.3 Clarkson, op. cit. III, 235-6. 4 Williams, op. cit. pp. I49-50.

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314 ROGER T. ANSTEYby contemporaries between overproduction and abolition which Williams cites,is one of Grenville's arguments when moving the abolition motion in the Lords.In fact Williams picks out one argument from a speech which included severalarguments in favour of abolition.1 That Grenville should have used the argumentof planter distress, as one amongst many, is far less significant than the fact thatin all the long debates on the i807 Abolition Bill, in both Lords and Commons,only one other speaker commended abolition as a remedy for overproduction.2Nor should it be forgotten that Lord Howick and a number of others were verymuch concerned to strengthen their case by demonstrating that abolition wouldnot harm the West Indies, or that it might positively benefit them. Had the argu-ment from overproduction been in their minds they would hardly have neglectedto use it.3Secondly, it may seem that Williams is citing another contemporary link be-tween overproduction and abolition in relating, as he appears to do, in the sectionquoted above, the conclusions of the i807 parliamentary committee to the deci-sion to abolish the slave trade. If this is to read Williams correctly, then it mustbe pointed out that there is no possible connexion. The Abolition Bill was intro-duced in the Lords on 2 January i807 and the third reading was carried in thatHouse on IO February. In the Commons the decisive division was on the secondreading, and that took place on 23 February-the House did not divide on thethird reading.4 The parliamentary committee referred to, on the other hand, wasnot set up until I2 March i807 and its report was not ordered to be printed until8 August I8o7.5

Ofcourse, the parliamentary committee's finding that the sugar planter's profithad seriously declined since i 8006 is wholly valid evidence of the depressed con-dition of the West Indian planter, but it is significant that neither that committeenor two further committees on West Indian distress which reported in i807 andi8o87 made any reference whatsoever to abolition as a relevant factor. To thisomission one is entitled to attach considerable importance.

1 Parl. Deb. VIII, 659 (5 Feb. I807).2 His argument may have been heard with indifference by his parliamentary colleagues for his speechwas immediately followed by cries of Question .-Ibid. VIII, I050, Mr Jacob.3 The Lords debates are to be found in ibid. VIII, 257-9, 657-72, and 70 I-3, and the Commons debates,including he debate n committee, n ibid. VIII, 7I7-22, 940-3, 945-95, I040-53, and IX, 59-62, 63-6,and I I4-40. It is certainly true that in the advocacy of the I8o6 Bill to prohibit British ships carryingslaves to conquered, ceded, and foreign colonies, sound policy was, to use the Attorney-General'sterms, as much emphasized as the humanity to which it was united . The measure was designed toserve a direct national interest in time of war-the reduction of foreign competition with British Carib-bean sugar-and to be the new ministry's first onslaught on the slave trade. But the limited importanceascribed to the measure is shown by the meagre size of the only Commons vote, that on the third reading-35 in favour, I3 against-whereas on the crucial second-reading vote on the I 807 Bill, there were 283in favour and i6 against. Williams does not, in fact, make use of such support as one of the avowedpurposes of the i806 measure could be made to bring to his case.-Parl. Deb. VI, 597, I025; VIII, 995.4 Ibid. VIII, 257-9, 70I-3, 945-95; IX, I I4-40- 5 Ibid. IX, 85- Ioi and lxxx.6 This is certainly what it did find, but the profit levels which Williams cites for I 787, I 799, I803, I805,and I 8o6 do not, in fact, come from the report but from Hibbert's speech when presenting the West Indiapetition on I2 March, the petition whose sequel was the appointment of the committee.-Report of theCommitteef theHouseof CommonsntheCommercialtateof the WestIndiaColonies.Great Britain, S[essional]P[apers], Commons, i807 (65), III; Parl. Deb. ix, 98, lxxx-lxxxvi.7 Committee n the Distillationof Sugarand Molasses and Relief of SugarGrowers f the WestIndies,FourReports. Great Britain, S.P. Commons, I808 (I78, 278, 300, 3I8), IV; Parl. Deb. xi, lxxxi-cxv; Reportfrom theSugarDistilleryCommittee, .P. Commons, I806-7 (83), II.

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 315No less important an omission-this time on Williams's part-in what is no-thing if it is not an economic interpretation of abolition, is any sustained statisticalbasis. For the economic interpretation to impress, figures for profitability of sugar

over a number of years before i807 are called for. Whatever the difficulties inworking out such figures, some evidence was available when Williams wrote. Inparticular, Ragatz had given figures for the price commanded by West Indianmuscavado sugar on the London market between I760 and I 787, and betweenI792 and i833.1Even if a serious statistical basis had been provided by Williams-and hereone broaches the really fundamental criticism of his approach-he would havemade no more than a prima ace case to be investigated further. Contemporariesdid not make the connexion between overproduction and abolition; and Williamscited only one piece of direct evidence-an excerpt from Grenville's speech-insupport of his contention that abolition resulted from overproduction. Further-more, it is necessary for Williams's case that the allegedly dominant economicfactors be studied at the level of the political process where alone they are trans-posed into legislation, and that that transposition must be shown to have oc-curred. This task he has not seriously attempted, let alone achieved. Still less hashe examined the role of other relevant pressures in the political process, such asthat of the abolitionists. To do so would not be mandatory if Williams had beencontent simply to depict the economic context of abolition-in fact Ragatz hadalready done this-but it is mandatory for one who ventures upon the sort ofoverall judgements which, as we have seen, he does not hesitate to make. Hiscontention concerning the role of the humanitarians and his belief that whatmattered were the developing economic forces 2 are admissible as statements ofmetahistorical conviction: neither is valid conclusion from his work.It is not intended here to look at these other pressures and at the political pro-cess in any detail. But the deficiencies of Williams's whole approach may be thebetter demonstrated by making two simple points. First, there is the fact of thedecisive change in the whole political context of the abolition movement whichresulted from Pitt's death in January i8o6. A ministry succeeded which wasdominated by men who were prepared to carry abolition. Because a dominantmajority of ministers were united at least in this, even though abolition couldstill not be a cabinet measure, there was now little to fear from king and lords,whence had come the strongest opposition. In Pitt's day, despite his own sym-pathies, none of these favourable conditions obtained.3 The second point is thatWilliams's economic interpretation demands some correlation between sugarprofitability and the strength or weakness of the abolitionist vote. After all, noone supposes that there was more than a small hard core of dedicated abolition-ists, and of slave traders , in Parliament. The important thing was the floatingvote. This being so, certain votes, when related to the state of the sugar market,claim immediate significance. In particular, Wilberforce's I796 motion for totalabolition had a majority of 45 on the second reading, and was lost by 74 to 70 on

1 Ragatz, op. cit. graphs on pp. I67, 34I . See also W. L. Burn, The British West ndies,p. 86 (see p. 308,n. 3 above); Report .. on theCommercial tate of the WestIndia Colonies,S.P. Commons, i807 (65), III.2 See above, p. 309, and Williams, op. cit. p. 2I0.3 For a political outline of abolition see Watson, op. cit. pp. 440-I .

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316 ROGER T. ANSTEYthe third reading only by an unlucky chance-many who favoured abolitionwere tempted away to see the first performance in London of a new Italian opera,I diu Gobi.' But how does this relate to the economic context? The answer issimple. As economic men the Members of Parliament were proving themselvesjust not up to scratch, for I796 was in the middle of the sugar boom, a longgolden summer of the British Caribbean islands, which spanned the eight yearsafterthe collapseof San Domingo in I 79I .2

IIIWhen one moves on to an examination of Williams's argument from overpro-duction in relation to the abolition of British colonial slavery in i833, this eco-nomic argument seems, primafacie, much more likely. By this time, it has alreadybeen seen, the more cheaply produced sugar of Brazil, Cuba, and Mauritius wasclaiming an increasing share of the British market whilst, as Williams says, BritishCaribbean sugar had to be subsidized to enable the surplus to be sold on theContinent-in competition with sugar from some of Britain's best customers.3The economic argument for taking a measure which might well be thought likelyto restrict British West Indian production even more would therefore seem astrong one.And yet, even though the economic interpretation, in respect of i833, mayseem persuasive, whereas in respect of i807 it is demonstrably vulnerable, it re-mains unproven. What is quite lacking is any hard evidence that the sort ofeconomic considerations which are alleged to have dominated ministers andMembers of Parliament in fact did so. We are given no indication at all of howthese supposedly compulsive demands were translated into ministerial decisionsand parliamentary votes.The compulsive role of economic considerations in policies affecting the slavetrade and slavery would, at a first view, seem to have much to commend it inrespect of the equalization of the Sugar Duties in i846. There seems little doubtthat the removal of protection from what was now free-grown British Caribbeansugar encouraged the extension of slave-labour plantations in Brazil and Cubaand an increase in the supply thereto of new slaves from Africa. There are none-theless three important reservations which must be entered. The first is thatWilliams's argument that the abolitionists succumbed to the constraints of eco-nomic logic in the matter of the Sugar Duties has been disproved by C. DuncanRice.4 Rice shows that most abolitionists, though commonly free traders in re-spect of everything else, regarded sugar as a special case and campaigned againstlowering the tariff on slave-grown sugar. Secondly, it would be wrong to ignoremid-nineteenth-century conceptions of what was the proper role of governmentin regard to free trade. It can be argued that the sway of free trade ideas wassuch that by the i840's a powerful body of opinion held that it was almost im-moral to resist them. Their harmful consequences, if any, were confined to the

1 R. Coup]and, Wilberforce, p. i8i-2. 2 Ragatz, op. cit. pp. 205n, 286.3 Williams, op. cit. p. 152.4 'The Anti-Slavery Interest and the Sugar Duties, i841-53', in The Transatlantic lave TradefromWestAfrica (Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, n.d. (i965), privately distributed in dupli-cated form), pp. 44-60.

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 3I7short run, or should be countered by other means available to government. Oneshould at any rate consider Palmerston's argument, expressed in i84I when ameasure similar to the equalization measure of I846 was unsuccessfully intro-duced by the Whigs.

I can assure the House, that if we had thought that this measure would give tothe slave trade any encouragement, which we should not be able by other meansamply to counterbalance, we would not have proposed the measure to Parlia-ment, whatever might have been the advantages otherwise to be gained fromit.'

The third reservation is that for two decades before equalization and for someyears after that measure, Britain, in respect of Brazil, a country whose cheapsugar and commercial possibilities allegedly corrupted British virtue, pursued apolicy which attached such importance to ending the Brazilian slave trade as toprejudice British commercial interests. Whereas, writes A. K. Manchester,

in i825 the larger power, to all appearances,was beginning to exercise a virtualprotectorate over its South American ally ... friction that grew more embitteredas time passed arose over the continuance of the slave trade... The smoulderingresentment felt by Brazil overwhat it termed the arbitraryand dominating actionof England broke into open revolt at the expiration of the [slave trade] conven-tion of i826 when Great Britain, determined on the suppression of the traffic atany cost, employed coercion when persuasionfailed.This coercion aroused such universal opposition in Brazil that no cabinet daredenter into a [commercial] treaty with Great Britain. 2Indeed, to broaden the criticism, it is in respect of the long-sustained activityof Britain in general, and Palmerston in particular, against the foreign slave tradethat Williams appears at his most strange. He makes much of the parliamentaryattack, led by William Hutt, on the policy of naval suppression of the foreignslave trade in the later I840'S,3 but quite omits to point out that this attack wasunsuccessful, the policy of naval suppression being confirmed in I850. Williams'sview of Palmerston himself is even odder. In office Palmerston accomplishedlittle. Out of office he goaded the government to greater efforts to accomplishwhat he had failed to do. 4 Such a judgement ignores Greville's important ob-servation that Palmerston associated himself with Russell in threatening resigna-tion to their supporters when, in April i850, there had been a real chance thata number of them might have backed the Hutt motion to end the policy of navalsuppression.5 More than this, Palmerston's whole record of action against theslave trade is ignored. At a simple and straightforward level there was, for ex-ample, his successful unilateral action against Portuguese slavers in I 839 afterprotracted negotiations had been unsuccessful; 6 and, on the diplomatic front, aswell as a number of slave-trade treaties with minor powers, there were such nearsuccesses as the Quintuple treaty of I842 which, if ratified, would have seen the

1 Hansard, 3rd ser. LVII, 648.2 A. K. Manchester, British Pre-eminencen Brazil (Chapel Hill, I933), pp. 252, 297.3 Williams, op. cit. pp. I 72-4. 4 Ibid. p. I 74.5 C. C. F. Greville, The GrevilleMemoirs,ed. Henry Reeve (new impression, I903), VI, 332. Also citedin W. L. Mathieson, GreatBritain and theSlave Trade, 83_-65 (I929), p. Io6.6 Ibid. pp. 21-3.

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3i8 ROGER T. ANSTEYacceptance by the major European powers of the important mutual right ofsearch.'

Williams also quite ignores the point that Palmerston's slave-trade policy wasan integral part of a wider purpose-and one which may possibly be regardedas a more credible inspiration for a long-sustained policy than humanitarian zealalone. To this wider purpose there is abundant testimony in the words of Palmer-ston himself.

My belief is, that if the slave trade could be entirely put down there would be avery great increase of legitimate trade with the coast of Africa; the natives aremuch in want of commodities with which we can furnish them, and they possessvery ample means of paying for them in commodities which we require.2Or again

Our naval officers ... should sweep along the whole African coast from end toend, West and East ... and use such means of persuasionas belong naturally toa strong naval force to persuade the chiefs of any part of the Coast from whenceslave trade is or can be carriedon to sign and conclude ... treaties for Commerceand against slave trade . . .3Nor did the fairly consistent naval and diplomatic action against the slavetrade from I 8 I 5 onwards depend on Palmerston alone. Quite apart from the factthat he only became personally involved in this question in the i 830's, there werealso times when even he was out of office. What must strike any student of the

Foreign Office records relating to Africa for the half-century after i8I5 is thatthe notion that action against the slave trade on both humanitarian and com-mercial grounds was a good and proper concern of policy became the receivedconviction of the office, something which did not require to be argued afresh asone generation of officials succeeded another, as one Foreign Secretary gave placeto his successor. To borrow the terminology of Robinson and Gallagher, thenotion became an important part of the official mind .IV

In sum, and in reference only to that part of his book where he seeks to demon-strate the role of mature capitalism in destroying the slave system, Dr Williamstoo often uses evidence misleadingly, makes too large claims on only partial evi-dence, or ignores evidence. Generally speaking, his argument is persuasive to theextent that it suggests that, with the decline of mercantilism, it was more possibleto take action against slavery and the slave trade, and that future research onthese questions must take account of economic factors. For these reasons students1 Ibid. pp. I3I-2. See also Palmerston's own account of his exertions up to i84I in Hansard, 3rd ser.

LVIII, 649-5 I2 FirstReport from the SelectCommitteen theSlaveTrade.Great Britain, S.P. Commons, I 849 (308), XIX,para. 48.3 F.O. 84/702, Palmerston, Minute, 9 Aug. I846. For elaboration of the fact that Palmerston had anAfrican policy in which commercial and humanitarian considerations were united see K. 0. Dike, Tradeand Politics in theNiger Delta, i8jo-i885 (Oxford, I956), esp. pp. 84-5, 9i-6, I75-6; J. D. Hargreaves,Prelude o thePartitionof WestAfrica (I963), pp. 34-5, 54-6; A. A. Boahen, Britain,theSaharaand the WesternSudan,I788-i86i (Oxford, i964), chs. vi, vii, Ix; Roger Anstey, Britain and the Congo n the NineteenthCentury Oxford, i962), pp. 43-54; R. J. Gavin, 'Palmerston's Policy towards East and West Africa,I830-I865' (Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, I958).

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CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY 319of the subject will always be in his debt. But to assert the predominance of eco-nomic forces when their impingement on the political process, on opinion-form-ing, on decision-making has not been studied is invalid. When the impingementhas been studied it has, at the very least, not been proved. Nor is it admissibleto assert the predominance of those economic forces when no serious attempt hasbeen made to consider the relative importance of the humanitarian impulse.Williams may claim that this subordination of the humanitarian role was de-liberate. But no judgements of relative importance can be made when only oneset of forces has been seriously studied.Suchjudgements can only be ventured when changing economic circumstancesand their possible influence, together with the influence of other pressures, havebeen systematically studied. The vital level of investigation is the political processitself. More especially demanding examination are the impingement of ideas andpressures on parliamentary opinion and the influences and circumstances leadingto ministerial action, including, before i807, the major changes in the politicaleconomy of the Atlantic region, such as the rising proportion of British carriedslaves sent to foreign colonies, the possible influence on British Atlantic policyas a whole of the neutral slave trade, the threat to Britain's economy of theneutral carriage of slave-grown enemy produce. And what, after i 8 I4, was theplace of the policy of suppression, by naval and diplomatic means, in the overallEuropean, American, and African policies of the Foreign Office? What was therelationship of that suppression policy to the shifting economic policies, interests,and assumptions of Britain, and to parliamentary reform? And what sustainedthat policy in face of major attacks, and when the humanitarians were dividedand much weaker than in the first four decades of the century? Until this ap-proach has begun to yield up its fruits, a modified form of the traditional inter-pretation is more convincing than that propounded in CapitalismandSlavery.As of now, then, the most persuasive view, in the present writer's estimation,runs along these lines: the initial impulse for abolition of the slave trade camefrom newly awakened Christian conviction strengthened by the reasonable-ness and philanthropy of the Enlightenment. But, even despite a nation-wideagitation, this humanitarian impulse could not immediately prevail. The shakingof the foundations of the old political order, which began with the attacks on theAmerican war and its conduct by ministers, and from which followed the parlia-mentary-reform movement and a political climate somewhat favourable to otherreforms, was followed by the French Revolution and the revolt in San Domingo.For more than a decade the tendency to identify reform with revolution can onlyhave weakened the chances of carrying abolition-not so much in the Commons,perhaps, as in the Lords, the persistent source of opposition. Only when politicalcircumstances changed radically in i8o6 was a successful onslaught on the slavetrade possible, the new ministry containing several influential men committedto abolition on humanitarian grounds. It probably also weighed with them thatthe United States slave trade was due to end in I 8o8, that of other foreigners onlyPortugal carried on any significant slave trade, that this was therefore a goodmoment to stop British ships supplying foreigners with slaves, and that the pro-hibition of the slave trade to British colonies would only affect the future develop-ment of those newly acquired. Here, perhaps, is a limited sense in which concern

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320 ROGER T. ANSTEYabout overproduction influenced abolition. After i 807, it gradually became clearthat the state of slavery was not going to wither away and abolitionist pressurewas strong enough to bring about emancipation of the slaves in i833.The inspiration of the naval and diplomatic action against the foreign slavetrade was originally the same abolitionist pressure,1 but from the late i830's,with humanitarianism a declining parliamentary force, one must look to a some-what different explanation. It is found both in the particular conviction ofPalmerston that suppression was not only desirable in itself but also a precondi-tion of the development of British commerce with Africa, and in the more generalassumption of the official mind that action against the slave trade was a goodand proper function of policy. Certain clear inconsistencies between the suppres-sion of the slave trade on the one hand and commercial and fiscal goals on theother may be explicable if each sphere of action is seen as having its own criteriaand compulsions. For instance, equalization of the Sugar Duties was imperiouslydemanded by the new economic orthodoxy, and consequences at the level of anincrease in slavery and the slave trade must be checked by methods appropriateto that sphere. No less noteworthy, Britain was commonly prepared, in her rela-tions with foreign powers, to let the demands and logic of suppression dominate-even if this caused a decline in commercial influence over Brazil, even if thePortuguese squirmed at British arrogance, and even if such an attitude was amajor cause of strain in Anglo-American relations. It may be untidy for the lefthand not to know what the right hand is doing, and, in politics, this is notnormally a disposition which attracts the commendation which it receives inScripture. This failure of coherence may, nonetheless, be as frequently met in thepolitical field as it is perhaps infrequently encountered in the eleemosynary.Universityof Kent

1 For a valuable study of early abolitionist pressure see Betty Fladeland, 'Abolitionist Pressures on theConcert of Europe, i8i4-i832', Journalof ModernHistory,xxxviii (Dec. i966), 355-73.