Joseph Marryat

MP (Whig-Liberal / West India interest)

Notes

Spoke little in the HofC but attacked the condition and nature of the enslaved population. See notes on speech of 10 June 1833.

Hansard online gives birth year incorrectly as 1796. Should be 1791.


Elections / Constituences

Sandwich Kent
1826 - 1835 

Parliamentary Notes

Ministerial plan for the abolition of slavery House of Commons 10/06/1833

Connected with the West-Indies, he claimed that he ‘heartily wished for emancipation’. But keeping slaves ‘attached to the soil, and placed under restraint’ was essential. Conditions elsewhere, such as in St. Domingo, show, he claimed, that the general state of the slaves was one of ignorance and drunkenness. He was contemptuous of the moral character of 'the negro' and was doubtful as to whether freedom would raise the labourer:

'. . .whether freedom will have the effect of raising the labourer in the scale of civilization, is a question which I cannot pretend to decide. It is much to be desired certainly; for a more debauched, ignorant, and barbarous race than the present inhabitants of the sugar districts, it is impossible to conceive. They seem to have engrafted the wild passions of the negro upon the cunning and suspicious character of the Indian, and are noted for their ferocity, vindictiveness, and attachment to spirituous liquors. When not at work they are constantly drunk, and as they have little or no sense of religious and moral duties, there is but a slender chance of amendment.'

House of Commons Debates (Hansard), vol 18 cols. 528-31, 10 June 1833