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The Life of William Roscoe
Chapter XX. 1827-1831
William Roscoe to the Marquis de Lafayette, [1830]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol I. Contents
Chapter I. 1753-1781
Chapter II. 1781-1787
Chapter III. 1787-1792
Chapter IV. 1788-1796
Chapter V. 1795
Chapter VI. 1796-1799
Chapter VII. 1799-1805
Chapter IX. 1806-1807
Chapter X. 1808
Chapter XI. 1809-1810
Vol II. Contents
Chapter XII. 1811-1812
Chapter XIII. 1812-1815
Chapter XIV. 1816
Chapter XV. 1817-1818
Chapter XVI. 1819
Chapter XVII. 1820-1823
Chapter XVIII. 1824
Chapter XIX. 1825-1827
Chapter XX. 1827-1831
Chapter XXI.
Appendix
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“I have just had the pleasure of receiving your obliging favour of the 18th May last, introducing to my acquaintance the Rev. Dr. Kirkland and his highly accomplished lady, with whom I have just spent a very pleasant hour in my library, and have been much gratified with the accounts they have given me of their travels on the Continent. But, my dear Sir, I can speak on no other subject till I have returned my earnest thanks to God, and congratulated you on the wonderful events which have taken place in France since your letter was written, and in which you have yourself acted so noble a part—an incident on which I may truly say, ‘Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace.’ This, indeed, is the first time in my life, although I am now fast approaching the eightieth year of my age, when I have seen the triumph of liberty complete, and a foundation laid for the perpetual extirpation of slavery and oppression from every part of the civilised world.

“On occasions of this kind the chief difficulty is to prevent the great objects so happily accomplished from being defeated by too violent a re-
388LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE.
action. Well do I remember how deeply I lamented the overthrow of all my hopes in the early part of the former revolution, when the most precious blood of France was poured out on the scaffold; and now my chief object of anxiety is that the French nation may finish, with magnanimity and humanity, the glorious work it has so well begun. I allude to the situation of the wretched individuals who have been the cause of all this commotion, and who are deeply stained with the blood of their fellow citizens, but to whose criminal yet fortunate temerity it is owing, that France is free. Will she require their blood in return? I hope not. I should be sorry to see the same unsparing maxims acted upon by a free government, as have, in all ages, characterised despotic monarchies, to whom the ultima linea rerum is always at hand. But it is time that Europe should change its maxims, and that an example should be given which should not derogate from the character that France has already obtained, and show that a better era is opened upon society. What! I may perhaps be asked, would you suffer these traitors to their country to go unpunished? By no means. But I would punish them in a manner more consistent with the character of a great nation, which has nothing to fear, than by depriving them of life. Let them be made to feel their folly and their guilt,
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and not only let their estates and property be confiscated, but let them be for ever banished from the pleasant land of France. At the same time, condemn not the innocent with the guilty; but follow up the mercy shown to the late monarch of France, by making a suitable provision for the innocent and unhappy relatives of the offending parties. Thus would the ends of justice be answered, and an example be set to the world which would be the admiration of all future ages, and confirm the character of France, by an act of lenity consistent with the greatness she has already exhibited, and the security she feels in the union of her people.

“An attack of paralysis, which I experienced upwards of two years ago, has prevented my joining my friends and fellow townsmen at a public meeting a few days since, to celebrate the late glorious event in France, and to subscribe towards the sufferings of the heroes who have bled in her cause, when your name was referred to in a manner which the occasion required. All the world acknowledges that you have confirmed, in your later years, those principles of liberty to which you were so generously and so early devoted in youth. I will send you one of our Liverpool Journals, by which you will see what occurred. I am truly happy to say that such meetings are taking place in all the large towns of the kingdom.

390 LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE.

“It is not unknown to my friends here that I have the honour of corresponding with you; in consequence of which some of them, who form a society here, under the name of the Antislavery Society, of which I have been president many years, met together yesterday, and have to-day favoured me with a copy of a resolution adopted by them, which they have desired I would send to you; which I now do in compliance with their wish. It is expressed in the following terms:—


“‘Resolution passed unanimously by the Liverpool Anti-slavery Society, William Roscoe, President. In his absence, James Cropper, Esq., in the Chair.

“‘That the president be respectfully requested to write to General La Fayette, soliciting his powerful influence with the French government to enforce the laws against the slave trade, and to bring forward others, if those already existing are not sufficient to abolish this dreadful blot on humanity.’


“I presume you have heard that the legislators of Pennsylvania, after having erected two immense penitentiaries, intended to contain convicts to be punished by solitary confinement, both by day and night, without being permitted to labour, have thought proper, on the recom-
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mendation of three commissioners from their own body, to change their plan, and to allow them to work during the day at some useful and productive employment.

“I will take an early opportunity of sending you a description of one of these penitentiaries, with a copy of the Report alluded to, which you possibly may not yet have seen; and I am glad to be able to add, that the system of productive labour for criminals is now the general practice of all the United States of North America.”