1949) CORRESPONDENCE 111

of that year, all of which may be consulted in the British Museum. Almost all record in detail the king's speech on the scaffold and his subsequent dialogue with the executioner : not one mentions that the request for pardon was so much as made, much less refused. On the other hand, The Perfect Weekly Account for 31 January/ 7 February affirms that " when the Deputies of that grim Serjeant death appeared with a terrifying disguise the King with a pleasant countenance said he freely forgave them " (my italics). This rings true of the man who had just commanded his children to forgive their father's enemies, and was now to declare that he had forgiven all the world. If Charles learned the lesson of generosity late, he learned it, in a hard school, very thoroughly: his chanty at the end impressed contemporaries perhaps even more than his fortitude.

Whence then arose the fable of the king's vindictiveness, so unfortunately perpetuated and disseminated in 1949 ? On 25 June, 1649, a few days after the death of the common hangman Richard Brandon (who almost certainly did not behead Charles I), two pamphlets appeared, respectively entitled The Confession of Richard Brandon and The Last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon. In the first (p. 6) we read : " That his Majesties denying to forgive him, when he fell down upon his knees unto him, hath very much troubled his conscience " ; in the second (p. 8) : " That his Majestie told him when he ask'd him forgiveness ; That he could not forgive any subject that came to murder him ". Mr. Muddiman discusses the character and objects of these two tracts (pp. 168-70). The impqtant point to notice here is that the Confession is a pseudo- Royalist satire, the Last W i l l a genuine one: their contents are almost entirely fictitious ; therefore to cite as evidence the " facts " recorded in them, as has been done in modern times, is im- permissible. Further, in 1660, during the trials of the Regicides, one Gittens asserted that he had seen William Hulet kneel to ask the king's forgiveness ; but Gittens was not a reliable witness, and in any case he did not say that the forgiveness was denied.

11. THE HUMANITARIANS AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY Mr. G. R. Mellor, of 3, Chambers Gardens, London, N.2, writes :-

Certain sections of Ca9italism and Slavery, a book which, according to your last issue, '' challenges the ' humanitarian ' interpretation of the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery", provide an interesting study in historiography. Coupland's contention that behind the legal judgment in the Somersett case lay the moral judgment is, according to Mr. Williams, " merely poetic sentimen- tality translated into modern history " (p. 45). Presumably, Mansfield himself was guilty of similar " poetic sentimentality " when he spoke of the state of slavery being so odious, that nothing could be suffered to support it, but positive law (Howell, xx, 82). Again, on the notorious Zong case, " the idea that the captain and

112 HISTORY [PEB. I JUNE

crew should be prosecuted for mass homicide never entered into the head of any humanitarian ” (p. 46). But Coupland notes that Granville Sharp fastened on the case and appealed for the initiation of a trial for murder (British A&i-SEavery Movemen$, p. 60). Concerning Pitt’s role, I‘ it was not difficult to see the political motives behind Pitt’s cloak of humanitarianism ” (pp. 146-7). The thesis is propounded that Pitt first supported abolition because restricting the supply of slaves to Santo Doming0 would help to eliminate the most formidable competitor of the British West Indies, and that, after the island was ruined by the insurrection consequent on the French Revolution, his interest kt abolition became perfunctory. In view of the continued opposition of the West Indian interest to the abolition movement from its inception, one must conclude that the plan was a “ top secret” pleasant surprise for the West Indians, and one must marvel at the brilliant detection of the “cloak of humanitarianism”! In 1845, the future Lord Macaulay delivered a speech in the Commons which was “ a masterpiece of clarity and lucidity, befitting a great historian. It had one defect : it was pro-slavery and not anti- slavery ’’ (p, 193). This summing-up illustrates the slippery slope from standing dialectic on its head to standing a fact on its head, for it would be difficult to find a more scathing denunciation of the slave trade and of slavery than that uttered by Macaulay during the speech (Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, lxxvii, col. 1294). The reader is also informed that Wellington called the suppression of the slave trade “ criminal-‘ a breach of the law of nations-a breach of treaties ’ ” (p. 175). Wellington’s obseadation (P.D., 3 S., 1, 383) was on a Bill. which became the Act 2 & 3 Vict. c. 73, authorising the capture and the adjudication of Portu- guese slave vessels in the admiralty courts in the same way as if such vessels and their cargoes were the property of British subjects. Lastly, the statements that “ the decisive forces in the period of history we have discussed are the developing economic forces ” (p..210), and that the importance of the humanitarians “ has been seriously misunderstood and grossly exaggerated by men who have sacrificed scholarship to sentimentality and, like the scholastics of old, placed faith before reason d evidence ” (p. 178) hardzy justify the author’s claim that his book is “ not an essay in ideas or interpretation ” (p. vii).

111. THE TEACHING OF LATIN-AMERICAN HISTORY AT CAMBRIDGE Mr. J. H. Parry, M.A., Ph.D., of Clare College, Cambridge, writes :-

May I venture to draw your attention to a small mis-statement in “ Notes and News ”, History, No. 117/118 7 After your very kind reference to my appointment here to lecture on the history and affairs of Latin America, you go on to say : ‘‘ Mr. Parry’s teaching responsibilities will be primarily to students reading for