ABSTRACT

Radicals found themselves called upon to defend both the slaves and the tax-payers from over-generous concessions at their expense to the powerfully-protected “colonial interest.” By 1838, indeed, there was destined to be accumulated so vast an indictment of the system, that Radicals and Abolitionists engaged in a great agitation to bring it to an end immediately, instead of allowing it to run its appointed course. Though in the particular instance many of the Parliamentary Radicals felt no hesitation in assisting the work of suspending a piece of colonial self-government, a group led by Grote and Hume felt differently. The affairs of the two Canadas had, meanwhile, been playing a large part in British political controversies, and Radicals, as the declared friends of the widest colonial liberties, had been engaged in a long struggle on their behalf against both Whigs and Tories. Meanwhile Radicals and philanthropists had been even more profoundly stirred by accounts which had arrived from Borneo.