THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

conditions in India for the benefit of the indigenous population, the prosperity of British
business, and the emancipation of the slave. Improving labor conditions would provide
opportunities for expanded agricultural development in India, which would increase
Indian supplies of cotton for British mills and in turn would increase Indian demand for
British manufactures. As one lecturer noted, “If every man in India could afford to
purchase a dress a year, Britain would send $50 million worth of goods to India.” 105
Reform in India would also affirm Britain’s moral standing, particularly in
relationship to the United States. Lecturers noted the hypocrisy of slavery in the midst of
American democracy. Cotton for British mills, one lecturer noted, came almost “wholly
from the United States of America, which still allowed their land of freed, (O, mockery of
the name of freedom!) to pander to the cause of Slavery: dimming the lustre of their flag
of stars, and making it too often the harbinger of darkness instead of light.” 106 The BIS,
Elizabeth Pease told Maria Weston Chapman, is “doing your work for you & aim at the
very object you are seeking to accomplish.” 107 Chapman congratulated Pease on the
organization of the BIS: “I see at a glance what its effect must be on American slavery, &
cast my whole spirit across the Atlantic, towards you in England.” 108 Angelina Grimké
105 Speeches, Delivered at a Public Meeting, for the Formation of a British India Society, 14.
106 Ibid., 44.
107 Elizabeth Pease to Maria Weston Chapman, July 11, 1839, BAA, 72-73.
108 Maria Weston Chapman to Elizabeth Pease, August 20, 1839, BAA 81-82
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