The Senator Silveira da Motta has, during the present year, in the Brazilian Senate, described this coasting traffic in slaves as "in reality a disguised slave-trade.”

The "Brazilian agent," however, who has for so long a time been misleading the Daily News and other English journals, and has latterly been writing in the Daily News as the "Friend to both Countries," asserted, in one of his letters, that this coasting slave-traffic is nothing but a transportation of labour, "made in obedience to economical laws," and further, "a great mitigation of the evil of slavery in Brazil, an advantage to the slaves removed, and a gain to humanity." One of his proofs of this is an alleged superior civilization of the southern Provinces, to which the slaves are taken :

"In the north, society is comparatively ill-organized, civilization is more backward, society is less sympathetic, the eye and supervision of the government are more distant: it is in the south that the immense progress and prosperity of Brazil are most evident; that the greatest advance in government and society has been made; that European habits and manners are more general; that humanity is more cared for; that public opinion has most influence; and that the ill-treatment of slaves is less probable."

A curious illustration of the state of manners and civilization in one of the southern Provinces to which many of these slaves are carried,--the Province of Minas Geraes,reached England almost contemporaneously with the above statement. The following account of a Brazilian gentleman's employing a slave to horsewhip a young man who had given him offence, and of the slave's doing execution

with his whip not only on the young man, but also on his aged mother, who came out on hearing her son's cries, was published in the Jornal do Commercio of Rio of July 30. The lady who was thus ill-treated is well known to me. She is by birth English, of a good English family, and the widow of a Brazilian diplomatist, Senhor Cerqueira de Lima. This scandal occurred in the civilized town of Juiz da Fora, the terminus of a splendid road which has lately been constructed at a great expense from Petropolis, from which it is about ten hours distant. It is in the Province of Minas Geraes, not far from the bordering Province of Rio de Janeiro. In that Province a large quantity of English capital is embarked in mines, and there are English Mining Companies employing a considerable number of slaves:

"A most indescribable fact has lately occurred in the town of Juiz da Fora. There resides there Major Luiz Pinto Coelho da Cunha, whose son Julio, from fourteen to sixteen years old, made it his constant practice to insult with the most opprobrious names a young man, Emilio de Cerqueira Lima, and his mother, Senhora Dona Henriqueta Cerqueira de Lima, to whom was entrusted the education of the daughters of the principal persons of the place. Emilio complained to the father, Major Cunha, in the presence of several persons. But this was of no use, for the next day the son repeated his insults. Emilio Cerqueira de Lima, enraged, gave Julio Cunha two or three taps with a thin cane, which did not hurt him in the least, as several witnesses assert. Julio went immediately to his father's house and came out with a whip, and at the door, in the presence of his mother and sisters, told Emilio that the next day he would have him punished with that whip. Francisco Alves da Cunha Horta, married to the boy's

sister, declared that if he were the father, he would send two slaves to horsewhip Emilio. Two days after Emilio was barbarously flogged by the black man Romao, a slave of Francisco Horta, between one and two in the afternoon, in the principal street; and not only this, but the slave acted in the same way with Emilio's mother, who came out on hearing, her son's cries. This proceeding was witnessed by some of the chief persons of the place, who did not, however, interfere, fearing that they might also be victims, as was indeed Dr. Nunes Lima, who cried out to the black to let his victims go. It is sad to have to record a fact which should have been possible only in a savage land."

I cite this simply as an illustration of the social habits of the higher class, in connexion with slavery, in one of the southern Provinces of Brazil, whose superior civilization has been vaunted by the "Brazilian agent."

"

has

* I have not entered on the large and interesting question of the social, moral, and economical influences of slavery in Brazil. They are, and must be, the same as in all other countries where the "institution" existed. There are good masters, and there are naturally many bad ones and much cruelty. Some incidental notices of the effects of slavery may be found in the despatches of Sir James Hudson and other British Ministers, in the series of Slave-trade Correspondence, Class B. There is no recent English work of value or authority on Brazil, treating this subject. The accounts of slavery in the work of Dr. Walsh, who accompanied Lord Strangford to Brazil as Chaplain, "Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829, are still worthy of perusal. For more modern accounts I must refer the reader to French publications; the valuable articles of M. Elisée Reclus, "Le Brésil et la Colonisation," in the Revue des Deux Mondes of June 15th and July 15th, 1862, the not less valuable and interesting articles of M. A. d'Assier, "Le Brésil et la Société Brésilienne," in the Revue des Deux Mondes of June 1st and 15th and July 1st, 1863, the chapter on "Slaves in Brazil" in M. Dabadie's "A Travers l'Amérique du Sud," (Paris, 1859,) and the work of M. Expilly, Brésil tel qu'il est," (Paris, 2d edition, 1863).

"Le

Lord Brougham, in one of his celebrated speeches, lately reprinted in the collected edition of his works, Speech on Negro Slavery, July 13th, 1830, laid down two infallible tests of misery; decreasing or stationary population, and prevalence of crime. The slavery of three millions among

the Brazilian population of seven millions and a half, may be judged by both these tests. I quote a part of Lord Brougham's speech:-" The two tests or criteria of happiness among any people which I will now resort to are the progress of population and the amount of crime. These, but the first especially, are of all others the most safely to be relied on. Wherever we see the number of men stationary, much more when we perceive them decreasing, we may rest assured that there is some fundamental vice in the community, that makes head against the most irresistible of all the impulses of our physical constitution. There cannot be a more appalling picture presented to the reflecting mind than that of a people decreasing in numbers. To him who can look beyond the abstract number, whose eye is not confined to the mere tables and returns of population, but ranges over the miseries of which such a diminution is the infallible symptom, it offers a view of all the forms of wretchedness, suffering in every shape, privations in unlimited measure, whatever is most contrary to the nature of human beings, most alien to their habits, most adverse to their happiness and comfort,—all beginning in slavery, the state most unnatural to man; consummated through various channels in his degradation, and leading to one common end,-the grave. Show me but the simple fact that the people in any country are regularly decreasing, so as in half a century to be extinct; and I want no other evidence that their lot is of the bitterest wretchedness; nor will any other facts convince me that their general condition can be favourable or mild." In one of my latest despatches to Lord Russell, February 26th, 1863, I related, as the result of my inquiries during two years and a hálf, the opinion that "the slave population is decreasing, though not very considerably." I added, "The mortality among the children of slaves is very great; and Brazilian proprietors do not appear to have given nearly so much attention as might have been expected, from obvious motives of self-interest, to marriages among slaves, or the care of mothers or children. There are no statistics as to the slave population, and the Government does not seem to care to have them." A most remarkable, and I believe unexaggerated, brief account of the "Social and Religious State of Brazil," may be read in "The Work of the Christian Church at Home and Abroad," No. 2, for April, 1863, published by A. Strahan and Co. Ludgate Hill, and to be bought for sixpence.

CHAPTER IX.

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH BRAZIL.

LORD PALMERSTON CHARGED WITH SPITE ΤΟ BRAZIL NEWSPAPERS IN EUROPE SUBSIDIZED BY BRAZIL-SECRET-SERVICE EXPENDITURE OF £30,000 A YEAR-MR. CANNING'S POLICY-THE TREATY OF COMMERCE OF 1827-FIFTEEN PER CENT. MAXIMUM OF BRAZILIAN DUTIES ON ENGLISH IMPORTS-CONSULAR ADMINISTRATION OF ENGLISH INTESTATE SUCCESSIONS-SIR HUGH CAIRNS AND BRITISH CLAIMANTSEXCUSES FOR BRAZIL BY BRAZILIAN ADVOCATES-BRAZIL OBJECTS TO TREATIES OF COMMERCE WITH SUPERIOR NATIONS-HIGH IMPORT DUTIES AND SMUGGLING-CORRUPTION IN BRAZILIAN CUSTOM-HOUSES -MR. OSBORNE'S INFORMATION ABOUT BRAZIL.

EVERY member of Parliament who takes a different view of Brazilian affairs from Lord Palmerston and his colleagues, has been continually trumpeted by the " Brazilian agent," in his letters in the Daily News, as an “impartial public man." Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell are biassed; Lord Malmesbury, Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, Sir Hugh Cairns, and Mr. Osborne are "impartial public men." I do not know why members of the Opposition, hoping to be Ministers, should be more "impartial" than those who are charged with the responsibilities of government. Lord Palmerston is at any rate much better informed about Brazil than gentlemen out of office, who have more or less allowed themselves to be informed by the impartial "Brazilian agent," who, under the title of "Friend to