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communication with the sea, in order to receive rum, powder, or muskets, on easy terms, have accordingly moved down in large numbers, carrying fire and devastation with them. Eight villages have been destroyed: the peaceable in habitants who did not perish in the ferocious attacks, have been made slaves; and such as were fit for market were bartered and sold to the European villain who commands the vessel, who styles himself, sometimes Monsieur Jonquille, at other times Don Jonquillo." This person, it is added, has, within eighteen months, by means of this nefarious association of the French flag with Spanish interests, shipped off five cargoes from the same spot.

Portugal. During the year 1822 thirteen Portuguese slave-ships, having on board upwards of 1700 slaves, were condemned at Sierra Leone, for trading in slaves north of the Line. Some of the cases involved perjuries without end, and atrocities of the most outrageous and revolting kind, and implicated in the guilt attending them Portuguese functionaries on the coast of Africa of the very highest class; and all of the cases afforded proofs of the most reprehensible disregard, on the part of the Brazilian authorities to the stipulations of the treaties with this country. These public officers appear to have concurred with the contrabandists, in giving fictitious names to places north of the Line, borrowed from places south of the line, for the purpose of deceiving the British cruizers and the Mixed Commission Courts. In the case of one vessel, the Conde de Villa Flor, taken with 172 slaves on board, it was fully proved, "that the governor of Bissao was himself an interested participator in the illegal embarkation of slaves, a certain number of the slaves being his property; some of them being entered in the memoranda. as shipped and received from his official residence, as if all decency was cast off from the government of CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

the settlement." Such is the strong, but most appropriate, language of the Judge of the mixed Commission Court. The examinations in this case develop the most complicated tissue of fraudulent expedients for defeating the ends of justice. This vessel had already made several very successful and gainful voyages under the shelter of these ingenious expedients.

The Directors mention also the following case:-The Portuguese schooner-boat, San Jose Xalaca, belonging to a lady of Prince's Island, the daughter of Gomez, formerly the governor and still a member of the governing Junta of that island, though only of the burden of seven tons, was sent to

Calabar for slaves. Thirty slaves were purchased, and, having been put on board the boat, it made sale for Prince's Island. But the voyage proved tedious; provisions began to fail, and the allowance of food was reduced to one yam daily for two slaves. At last the provisions and water wholly failed. Ten slaves perished; and the whole must have shared their fate, had not the vessel got back to Calabar, after having been six weeks at sea. The surviving slaves were in the most deplorable state of emaciation and wretchedness. Nor was this to be wondered at; for, besides their privations, they were manacled together, and cooped up in a vessel of only seven tons burthen; having no shelter but what could be afforded by the space between the water casks and the deck, a space of seven inches!

Our Government made use of these and other circumstances, to press upon Portugal, with an earnestness that does the highest credit to its zeal in this cause, the necessity of a more vigorous enforcement of her own laws, and of her treaties with this country; but apparently with little effect.

On the separation of Brazil from the mother country, Mr. Canning lost no time in representing to the Portuguese government, that there

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could now remain no pretence for refusing entirely to abolish the Slave Trade. To this application, however, the most peremptory negative was given; and a threat was even held out, that, if Great Britain should proceed on this principle, Portugal would at once consider all her treaties with Great Britain as null and void.

It appears that in the year 1822, 28,246 slaves were imported into Rio de Janeiro alone, from the coast of Africa. The number embarked had been 31,240,-3,484 having died on the passage. In one vessel, containing 492 slaves, 194 had died; in another, containing 631, 213 had died; in a third, containing 418, 215 had died, &c. &c. The number imported into Bahia, in the same year, was upwards of 8000.

France. The largest chapter in this calamitous detail is devoted to France. The remonstrances to that power had been frequently and argently, but unavailingly, renewed by Sir Charles Stuart, our late minister at Paris. On the 7th of April 1822, he thus addressed the Count de Villele A succession of fresh outrages renders it again my duty to observe to your Excellency, that the pledge given to his Britannic Majesty by the king of France, for the effectual abolition of the Slave Trade, remains unredeemed. The official advices received by his Britannic Majesty's Government from Sierra Leone, prove that this detestable traffic still exists in full activity on the African coast, cover ed and protected by the flag of France." Sir Charles Stuart, after adding various specific proofs on different parts of the coast,re marks: There seems, indeed, to be scarcely a spot on that coast, which does not shew traces of the Slave Trade, with all its attendant horrors; for, the arrival of a slave ship in many of the rivers on the Windward Coast being the signal for war between the natives, the hamlets of the weaker party are burnt, and the miserable survivors carried and

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sold to the slave traders. It is clearly ascertained, by inquiries made on the spot, and on the adjacent coast, by his Majesty's cruizers, that the number of slave cargoes taken out of the river Bonny, in the preceding year, amounted actually to one hundred and ninety; and a similar return from the Calabar, for the like period, made a total, for that river alone,of one hundred and sixty-two."

Similar remonstrances were subsequently made; and, in particular, the remarkable fact was pointed out to the French government, that, notwithstanding all the professioris that had been made of a desire to repress the Slave Trade, the Commodore Mauduit Du Plessis, commanding the French/naval force on the coast of Africa, had declared that he had no instructions from his superiors which authorized him to seize any French vessels, though manifestly intended for the Slave Trade, which had not slaves actually on board. The replies of the French minister to these remonstrances are any thing but satisfactory. No one, however, can doubt for a moment, that it is completely in the power of the French government to put an end to the Slave Trade if it pleases; but while the penalties attached to it are merely pecuniary, no degree of vigilancel on the part of public functionaries can prevent its being carried on, so long as the profits will pay for insurance. If a daw were passed, as has been already often, though most unavailingly, remarked, inflicting a disgraceful punishment as the brand, or the galleys on all who are in any way concerned in othed traffic, and if adequate rewards were given to in formers and seizors, there is little doubt that in France, as in England, its suppression would be to a great degree effected Notwithstanding this disgraceful apathy of the French government, the Directors mention with the most dively satisfaction, that the subject begins to excitê an interest in France. About two

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years before this Report was drawn up, a Committee was instituted in Paris for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, consisting of many distinguished individuals. Their proceedings have been marked by an enlightened zeal and they have been employed in diffusing such information as was likely to awaken a more extensive feeling in favour of the African cause. In addition to this, they had offered a prize of one thousand francs for the best work on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, considered particularly as it regards the interests of France. The Royal Institution of France, also, had offered a prize for the best poem on the subject of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. N

Sweden. An instance of a vessel found trading under the Swedish flag on the African coast, led to a correspondence with the Swedish government, which had produced a most satisfactory ordinance against the traffic in slaves.

Having given such information as the limits of their Report, would admit of, respecting the state of the Slave Trade under the different flags of France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States, the Directors next advert to some additional facts and observations.⠀

Sir Robert Mends, in a letter to the Admiralty, dated the 26th June 1822, makes the following important observations:" The facts which have come to my knowledge, in my opinion go far to establish this point, that the Slave Trade will never be suppressed till the right of search be freely admitted, and every ship found with slaves on board, or evidently engaged in slaving, be liable to condemnation to such ship of war as may seize her." While the Slave Trade lasts, as a man can readily convert the person of another into cash, with much less trouble than he could raise the hundredth part of the value by labour," "it gives rise to every sort of dissipation and licentiousness, leading the mind of the more active of the natives away from the less productive and slower pursuits of agriculture and commerce." But," wherever the traffic in slaves has been checked, the natives appear to have shewn a fair and reasonable desire of culti vating the natural productions of their country. Our resident officers and merchants agree in asserting, that these would be raised to any extent for which a market could be found. I presume this is as much as could be expected from any people in a state of nature."

The United States. The various negociations which this Government had entered into with the Government of the United States, terminated in a treaty, by which the high contracting parties mutually bound themselves to treat slavetrading by any of their subjects, under any flag, or in any part of the world, as piracy. It is a most gratifying circumstance, as Mr. Canning well observed, "that the two greatest maritime nations in the world should so far compromise their maritime pride, as to act to gether for the accomplishment of such a purpose; especially as the realization of this arrangement would I am informed, it is almost improbably not be the termination of its benefits. It would be felt, in all future discussions respecting the Slave Trade, that the united remonstrance of such powers would thus receive no small force, in bringing others to a common under standing with them, in support of a virtuous and beneficent confederacy for the universal Abolition of the Slave Trade."1 Y* ..6

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possible to credit the extent to which the Slave Trade has been carried on in the Bonny; there having actually sailed from that river, between the months of July and November last year, 126 slavevessels, eighty-six of which were French, and the others Spaniards. An immense number have already sailed this year; and I find many more are expected, and have ascer

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tained, from good authority, that they will generally be under the French flag". Within a very short period, the ships of war on this coast have boarded forty-five vessels engaged in the Slave Trade; of which, sixteen were captured, having on board 2,481 slaves. These care facts substantiated by unquesstionable proofs.

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"Their lordships being already acquainted with the desperate attack made by the French and Spanish slave-ships in the river Bonny, in last April, on the boats of this ship and the Myrmidon, which ended in the capture of the whole of those ships; I feel it incumbent on me to mention a combination said to be entered into, by the officers and crews of the whole of those vessels, by which they bound themselves to put to death every English officer or man belonging to the navy who might fall into their hands on the coast of Africa. This was in perfect unison with all and every thing which the slave dealing has engendered. Of a similar nature was the agreement between the Spanish captains and their seamen ; the

fectly competent to the subject. Nor let it be supposed, that any description of it has been too animated; it is impossible it could be

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It is necessary to visit a slaveship, to know what the trade is. "Wherever this baneful trade exists, the civil arts of life recede, commerce disappears, and man becomes doubly ferocious. It is scarcely to be believed, that an attempt was made to blow up a vessel, with upwards of 300 slaves on board, almost all of them in irons, by her crew hanging a lighted match over the magazine, when they abandoned her in their boats, and the Iphigenia took possession of her. Were this a solitary instance of the feeling which it elicits, it ought of itself to induce every European government to take effecsual measures for its suppression ; but, while succeeding years bring forward a repetition of similar deeds, varied alone in form and guilt, hypocrisy itself scarcely dares to couple the name of Christian with that of its protectors.

In bringing this report to a close, it would afford me much real

atter binding whation, were I enabled, from

themselves blindly to obey every what I have seen and heard on the order, of whatever nature it might coast of Africa, to hold out to their be, and, in case of the vessel being lordships any idea of the Slave, staken, not to receive any wages. Trade appearing to diminish: the Such is the depravity to which this reverse is, I believe the fact; for it Slave Trade debases the mind and is seen with fearless impudence the character of the desperate ban- establishing itself throughout imditti engaged in it. These outlaws mense territories, in open defiance and robbers assume any flag, as of every restraint, particularly by best suits their purpose at the time; the subjects of France, Spain, and and would equally trample on the Portugal, whose ships engaged in Lilly that protects them, as on the it are numerous beyond belief; Crucifix which they impiously carry and many of the former, if not the in their bosoms. greater part, commanded by officers of the navy, who delight in appearing in their naval uniforms when visited by the English. oficiadue To To the testimony, therefore, of those officers who have preceded me in this command, Tam compelled to add my own, that the traffic in slaves has not decreased; nor do

“It is needless, sir, to swell this report with repeated instances of the cruelty and savage feeling to which this trade gives rise, in every shape of cool premeditated murder and shameless atrocity which avarice and a total disregard for the victim's of it can suggest, as it best suits interested purposes. This has been Jaid before the world by writers per

see how it can, whilst it is supported by European protection, in

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Slave Code of the Cape of Good Hope. The accounts received during the last year," of the state and progress of Sierra Leone, are very satisfactory. The trades of the colony appears to increase, particularly with the interior. Crime has diminished; cultivation has extended; substantial erections have been multiplied; churches have either been built or are building, in every village; religious institutions have increased; the blessings of education have been more widely diffused; and the influence of Christianity appears to prevail more and more among the inhabitants. In Columbia the great work of emancipating the slaves in that state was proceeding rapidly to its consummation. Slavery cannot endure, at the utmost, beyond the existing generation. The children born since 1818 are all born free; and, besides the effect of various other causes, which have been actively operating there to produce emancipation, the tax which was raised for that specific purpose has already effected the redemption of many adults. "

ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

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THE First Report of this Society read at a general meeting of its friends on the 25th of June, 1824, details the proceedings of the institution from the period of its formation, in January 1823, to that time. Many of the leading particulars having already appeared in our pages, we shall not give a regular abstract of the Report, but shall content ourselves with a few passages, strongly recommending to our readers a careful perusal of the whole. The speeches delivered at the public meeting, and which are subjoined to the Report, eminently deserve attention; and some of them, in addition to the important facts and arguments with which they abound, are marked by an eloquence worthy of the momentous subject to which they refer. In allusion to the contumacious

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spirit evinced by the colonies in reference to the wishes and suggestions of his Majesty's Government, the Committee remark:→→

"It was no more than might have been expected, that while a chance remained of dissuading or deterring the Government from perseverance in its purposes of reform, the proprietors of slaves filling offices in the colonies would not be sparing of their objections, nor the White population in general of their clamours and alarms. And even if governors or public bodies, acting in the colonies, were perfectly well disposed to carry those reforms into effect, they would still find that the delegation of legislative power on topics so delicate, was a burden hard to be sustained. An imperative order would relieve them from embarrassment ;

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