possession of their estates. The Norman built castles, wore coats of mail, bore arms, rode on horse-back, and formed a compact order from the prince to the retainer completely organized for defence-while the Saxons, driven from their mansions, stripped of their arms, and dwelling in exposed huts, were compelled to till for others the land they had once called their own-or were reduced to starvation, or driven to the green forests to find a scanty subsistence on hunting and robbing. The Norman was the master, the Saxon was the slave-a constant apprehension of revolt and revenge filled the mind of the one-while a spirit of hatred and a thirst for retaliation animated the bosom of the other. But society cannot exist on fear. The elements however discordant must be made to harmonize or it will fall to pieces. Out of this relation of master and slave grew that of Baron and Serf-then that of Landlord and Servant-and finally merry England in which all traces of two distinct and hostile people were lost in the common appellation of Englishmen ; even their hostile speech were blended into one glorious English tongue with its Bible, Prayer Book, its Shakespeare and its Milton-with its rich stores of generous and fruitful ideas and principles of human liberty.

Two hundred years ago and for a century afterwards, the continuous act done was the importation of negro slaves into the North American colonies by authority of the British government. On this subject let the Historian speak.

The English continental colonies (says Bancroft vol. 3d, chap. 24.) were always opposed to the African slave trade. Maryland, Virginia, and even Carolina alarmed at the excessive production and consequent low price of their staples, at the heavy debts incurred by the purchase of slaves on credit, and at the dangerous increase of the colored population-each showed an anxious preference for the introduction of white men, and laws, designed to restrict the importation of slaves, are scattered copiously along the records of colonial legislation. The first continental congress which took to itself legislative powers, gave a legal expression of the well formed opinion of the country by resolving that no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen united colonies.

Before America legislated for herself, the interdict of the slave trade was impossible, England was inexorable in maintaining the system, which gained new and stronger supporters by its excess.

We shall not err very much if for the century previous to the

prohibition of the slave trade by the American congress in 1776, we assume the number imported by the English, into the Spanish, French and English West Indies as well as the English continental colonies to have heen collectively nearly three millions, to which are to be added more than a quarter of a million purchased in Africa and thrown into the Atlantic on the passage.

The gross returns to English merchants, for the whole traffic in that number of slaves, may have been not far from four hundred millions of dollars. Yet as at least one-half of the negroes exported from Africa to America were carried on English ships, it should be observed, that this estimate is by far the lowest ever made by any inquirer into these statistics.

In an age when the interests of trade guided legislation, this branch of commerce possessed paramount attraction. Not a statesman exposed its enormities. The public opinion of the age was obedient to materialism. Protestantism itself had, in the triumph of materialism over the

political point of view been the spiritual authority of the church. The same influence exhibited itself in philosophy and letters. Philosophy had gone back to the days of its infancy, founded itself on the doctrines of Aristotle and furnished to the African no protection against oppression. The interpretation of English common law was equally regardless of human freedom. The colonial slave who sailed to the metropolis, found no benefit from touching the soil of England, but returned a slave.

The influence of the manufacturers was still worse. They clamoured for the protection of a trade which opened to them an African market. The party of the slave trade dictated laws to England. A resolve of the Commons in the days of William and Mary proposed to lay open the trade in negroes "for the better supply of the plantations ;" and the statute book of England soon declared the opinion of its king and its parliament, that “the trade is highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom and the colonies." In 1708 a committee of the house of Commons report that "the slave trade is important and ought to be free;" in 1711 a committee once more report that "the plantations ought to be supplied with negroes at reasonable rates," and recommend an increase of the trade. In June 1712, Queen Ann, in her speech to parliament, boasts of her success in securing to Englishmén a new market for slaves in Spanish America. In 1729,

George II. recommended a provision, at the national expense for the African ports; and the recommendation was followed. At last in 1749 to give the highest activity to the trade, every obstruction to private enterprise was removed, and the ports of Africa were laid open to English competition for "the slave trade" -Such are the words of the statutes, "the slave trade is very advantagous to Great Britain." "The British senate," wrote one of its members in February 1750, "have this fortnight been pondering methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes, it has appeared to us that six and forty thousand of those wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone."

In the commonwealth of Virginia, the planters behold with dismay the increase of negroes. A tax is imposed to check their importation-but in 1726 the deputy-governor announces to the general assembly that "the interfering interest of the African company has obtained the repeal of that law."

Long afterwards a Statesman of Virginia, in full view of the course of colonial legislation and English counteracting authority, unbiased by hostility to England, bore true testimony that "the British government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this infernal traffic."

What was the motive for carrying on the inhuman trade-The statute tells us the slave trade is very advantageous to Great Britain. The spirit of commerce had triumphed, and humanity was trodden under foot. The African race may well rejoice in the result, nevertheless, the crime of murder and of men-stealing must forever stain the character of England.

But there was another motive for imposing this burthen on the colonies which aggravates the crime. Let us hear the white man emigrating became a dangerous free man!—it was quite sure that the negroes of that century would never possess republicanism; their presence in the colonies increased dependence. This reasoning was avowed by "a British merchant" in 1745 in a political tract entitled, "The African Slave Trade the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America:" "were it possible for white men to answer the end of negroes in planting," it is there contented, "our colonies would interfere with the manufactures of these kingdoms. In such case indeed we might have just reasen to dread the prosperity of our colonies; but while we can supply them abundantly with negroes we need be under no

such apprehensions. Negro labor will keep our British colonies in a due subserviency to the interests of their mother country; for while our plantations depend only on planting by negroes, our colonies can never prove injurious to British manufactures, never become independent of their kingdom." This policy of England knew no relenting. "My friends and I," wrote Oglethorpe, "settled the colony of Georgia and by charter were established trustees. We determined not to suffer slavery there, but the slave merchants and their adherents not only occassioned us much trouble, but at last got the government to sanction them." South Carolina in 1760, from prudential motives, attempted restrictions, and gained only a rebuke from the English ministry-Great Britain steadily rejected every colonial limitation of the slave trade, instructed the governors on pain of removal, not to give even a temporary assent to such laws; and but a year before the prohibition of the slave trade by the American congress in 1776, the Earl of Dartmouth illustrated the tendency of the colonies and the policy of England, by addressing to a colonial agent those memorable words "We cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage in any degree, a traffic so beneficial to the nation."

Such were the motives for keeping up this nefarious traffic for more than one hundred years-to secure commercial prosperity to England-and to plant in the bosom of the colonies an ignorant and dangerous population who could never rival the manufacturers at home and would ever suppress the spirit of independence in the colonists from a fear of insurrection among their own slaveskind guardian benevolent England! But all those things were overruled by a wise Providence. The human calculations of commercial cupidity, were speedily brought to nought and conclusions, the very reverse of British hopes were evolved from this relation of master and slave-it did kindle a spirit of independence that could not be repressed-and created such a feeling of loyalty in the slave to his master, as made the latter a more formidable enemy, because he felt secure at home while absent in the tented field.

The captivity of Joseph was the salvation of Isreal, but the brethren who sold him into Egypt, were not the less guilty of their brother's blood.

ARTICLE V.

From De Bow's Review.

Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India.

By Dr. J. F. ROYLE of England.

MATERIALS for food and for clothing, both equally necessary for men in a civilized state of society, are yielded in probably equal proportions by the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The flesh of various animals, wool and silk of different kinds being contributed by the former, as the cereal grains, pulses and roots, with flax, hemp and cotton, are yielded by the latter, and form the food and clothing of millions of the human race. Though the first coverings of men may have been formed of skins, the wool of sheep and the hair of goats were early employed for such purposes in Northern Asia and Southern Europe, as silk no doubt was in China. Hemp was cultivated in the north of Europe, and flax in Egypt, while COTTON has, from the earliest periods, been considered to be characteristic of India. Though the uncertain nature of Hindoo chronology prevents us from guessing at the period when it was first employed, there is little doubt that it must have been so from the earliest ages of Hindoo civilization for being indigenous in their country, it could not fail to be noticed by its inhabitants; first, from the brilliancy of its golden inflorescence; and secondly, from the dazzling whiteness of its bursting fruit. This being filled with seeds, enveloped in a material so soft, so white, and so fibre-like as cotton, could hardly fail to be gathered even by the most incurious. On gathering, one would almost involuntarily twist it into a thread, and thus appear to re-discover the patriarchal art of spinning. Other plants have their useful flax-like fibres concealed under bark, or in other vegetable matter: but cotton, on the bursting of the pod, like wool at the birth of the lamb, is at once revealed to view. As this must be separated from its skin, so the other requires only to be pulled off its seed, to be ready for being spun into thread. The father of History, in his account of India, says: "The wild trees in that country bear fleeces in their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence; and the Indians use cloth made from these trees."

Having a thread, the art of weaving would be readily discovered, as that of platting rushes, slender stems and strips of leaves, seems to have been universally practised. But much ingenuity must have been expended before even the most common loom was invented. Weaving was well known to all the civilized nations of antiquity: as, to the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Chinese, and Hindoos. The culture of flax, and the processes of weaving, are represented in the ancient monuments of Egypt; and Joseph was by Pharaok: arrayed in fine linen. The Israelites, on their departure from that country, were acquainted not only with weaving, but with dyeing. The curtains of the Tabernacle were blue, purple, and scarlet. The former art is sometimes stated to have been discovered in Assyria, and its results we see represented in the monuments disinterred by the energy of a Layard, and interpreted by the genius of a Rawlinson. They are