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Title: YORKSHIRE SLAVERY Author: Richard Oastler Date: 1830 Language: en Topics: child rights, wage slavery Source: Cecil Driver, Tory Radical The Life Of Richard Oastler (Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 42-44. Retrieved on April 2, 2021 from https://archive.org/stream/toryradicaltheli009087mbp/toryradicaltheli009087mbp_djvu.txt
YORKSHIRE SLAVERY
To the Editors of the Leeds Mercury
‘It is the pride of Britain that a slave cannot exist on her soil; and
if I read the genius of her constitution aright, I find that slavery is
most abhorrent to it—that the air which Britons breathe is free—the
ground on which they tread is sacred to liberty.’ Rev. R. W. Hamilton's
Speech at the Meeting held in the Cloth-hall Yard, September 22d,
1830.
Gentlemen,—No heart responded with truer accents to the sounds
of liberty which were heard in the Leeds Cloth-hall Yard, on the 22d
instant, than did mine, and from none could more sincere and earnest
prayers arise to the throne of Heaven, that hereafter slavery might
only be known to Britain in the pages of her history. One shade alone
obscured my pleasure, arising not from any difference in principle, but
from the want of application of the general principle, to the whole
empire. The pious and able champions of negro liberty and colonial
rights should, if I mistake not, have gone farther than they did; or
perhaps, to speak more correctly, before they had travelled so far as
the West Indies, should, at least for a few moments, have sojourned in
our own immediate neighborhood, and have directed the attention of
the meeting to scenes of misery, acts of oppression, and victims of
slavery, even on the threshold of our homes.
Let truth speak out, appalling as the statement may appear. The
fact is true. Thousands of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects,
both male and female, the miserable inhabitants of a Yorkshire town,
(Yorkshire now represented in Parliament by the giant of anti-slavery
principles) are this very moment existing in a state of slavery, more
[begin p. 43]
horrid than are the victims of that hellish system 'colonial slavery.'
These innocent creatures drawl out, unpitied, their short but miserable
existence, in a place famed for its profession of religious zeal, whose
inhabitants are ever foremost in professing 'temperance' and 'refor-
mation,’ and are striving to outrun their neighbors in missionary
exertions, and would fain send the Bible to the farthest corner of the
globe—aye, in the very place where the anti-slavery fever rages most
furiously, her apparent charity is not more admired on earth, than her
real cruelty is abhorred in Heaven. The very streets which receive the
droppings of an 'Anti-Slavery Society' are every morning wet by the
tears of innocent victims at the accursed shrine of avarice, who are
compelled (not by the cart-whip of the negro slave-driver) but by
the dread of the equally appalling thong or strap of the over-looker,
to hasten, half -dressed, but not half-fed, to those magazines of
British
infantile slavery—the worsted mills in the town and neighborhood of
Bradford!!!
Would that I had Brougham's eloquence, that I might rouse the
hearts of the nation, and make every Briton swear, 'These innocents
shall be free!'
Thousands of little children, both male and female, but principally
female, from seven to fourteen years of age, are daily compelled to
labour from six o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening, with
only—Britons, blush while you read it!—with only thirty minutes
allowed for eating and recreation. Poor infants! ye are indeed
sacrificed
at the shrine of avarice, without even the solace of the negro slave;
ye are no more than he is, free agents; ye are compelled to work as
long as the necessity of your needy parents may require, or the cold-
blooded avarice of your worse than barbarian masters may demand!
Ye live in the boasted land of freedom, and feel and mourn that ye are
slaves, and slaves without the only comfort which the negro has. He
knows it is his sordid, mercenary master's interest that he should live,
be strong and healthy. Not so with you. Ye are doomed to labour from
morning to night for one who cares not how soon your weak and
tender frames are stretched to breaking! You are not mercifully valued
at so much per head; this would assure you at least (even with the
worst and most cruel masters) of the mercy shown to their own
labouring beasts. No, no! your soft and delicate limbs are tired and
fagged, and jaded, at only so much per week, and when your joints
can act no longer, your emaciated frames are cast aside, the boards
on which you lately toiled and wasted life away, are instantly sup-
plied with other victims, who in this boasted land o liberty are
<sc>hired</sc>—not sold—as slaves and daily forced to hear that they are
free.
[begin p. 44]
Oh! Duncombe!* Thou hatest slavery—I know thou dost resolve that
'Yorkshire children shall no more be slaves!' And Morpeth! who justly
gloriest in the Christian faith—Oh, Morpeth! listen to the cries and
count the tears of these poor babes, and let St. Stephen's hear
thee swear 'they shall no longer groan in slavery!' And Bethell, too!
who swears eternal hatred to the name of slave, whene'er thy manly
voice is heard in Britain's senate, assert the rights and liberty of
Yorkshire youths. And Brougham! thou who art the chosen champion
of liberty in every clime! oh bend thy giant's mind, and listen to the
sorrowing accents of these poor Yorkshire little ones, and note their
tears; then let thy voice rehearse their woes, and touch the chord thou
only holdest—the chord that sounds above the silvery notes in praise
of heavenly liberty, and down descending at thy will, groans in the
horrid caverns of the deep in muttering sounds of misery accursed to
hellish bondage; and as thou sound'st these notes, let Yorkshire hear
thee swear, 'Her children shall be free!' Yes, all ye four protectors of
our rights, chosen by freemen to destroy oppression's rod,
The nation is now most resolutely determined that negroes shall
be free. Let them, however, not forget that Britons have common
rights with Afric's sons.
The blacks may be fairly compared to beasts of burden, kept for
their master's use; the whites, to those which others keep and let for
hire. If I have succeeded in calling the attention of your readers to
the
horrid and abominable system on which the worsted mills in and near
Bradford is conducted, I have done some good. Why should not
children working in them be protected by legislative enactments, as
well as those who work in cotton mills? Christians should feel and act
for those whom Christ so eminently loved, and declared that 'of such
is the Kingdom of Heaven.'—I remain, yours, etc.,
A Briton
Fixby Hall, near Huddersfield, Sept. 29, 1830.
Members of Parliament