So, here I am, reading A Respectable Trade, my second Philippa Gregory book (I skipped the Boleyn books and went for some re-issued non-Royalty-based historical fiction from the ‘90s), and I came across the following passage, spoken by a plantation owner in the 1780s:

“When I hear men preaching that the trade in slaves should stop I wonder how they would have me run my plantation? How else can sugar be grown?

Josiah nodded and signed to Brown to pour more wine. “It’s ignorance,” He said. “And fashion. It’ll pass. It’s a few young clergymen and a couple members of parliament trying to make their career. Methodists and radicals! It will blow over. It’s nothing more than a few grubby radicals stirring up bad feelings and signing petitions. The leaders of the country know the profits the Trade brings, and the like to take sugar in their tea. They won’t be driven by the mob.

“ . . . I don’t think that a handful of clergymen and some ignorant working men can stand against them. There’s not one member of the House of Parliament that does not have an investment to protect. They will hardly vote themselves out of business.”

When I read that, I couldn’t help but think of the dire warning the Conservative government handed down last month about the folly of trying to adhere to the Kyoto Accord. The thought gave me some hope, even as the ramifications sank in: the slave trade and subsequent colonization of Africa devastated an entire continent, which to this day still suffers from the brutality of those actions; but at the same time, they stopped the trade, something that must have cost the conspirators dearly.

So maybe, eventually, public outrage will force the government into action and we will get serious about the environment. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take more than 300 years to heal the scars left by this one.